“Because I hoped you were.” Slowly she unbuttoned her bodice, arousing Freeman, though he was thoroughly confused as to her intent. When she revealed her breasts—he could have wept at their beauty (now recalling a former invitation to gaze at them, but he had arrived too late on the raft)—to his horror he discerned tattooed on the soft and tender flesh a bluish line of distorted numbers.
“Buchenwald,” Isabella said, “when I was a little girl. The Fascists sent us there. The Nazis did it.”
Freeman groaned, incensed at the cruelty, stunned by the desecration.
“I can’t marry you. We are Jews. My past is meaningful to me. I treasure what I suffered for.”
“Jews,” he muttered, “—you? Oh, God, why did you keep this from me too?”
“I did not wish to tell you something you would not welcome. I thought at one time it was possible you were—I hoped but was wrong.”
“Isabella—” he cried brokenly. “Listen, I—I am—”
He groped for her breasts, to clutch, kiss, or suckle them; but she had stepped among the statues, and when he vainly sought her in the veiled mist that had risen from the lake, still calling her name, Freeman embraced only moonlit stone.
1958
Behold the Key
One beautiful late-autumn day in Rome, Carl Schneider, a graduate student in Italian studies at Columbia University, left a real estate agent’s office after a depressing morning of apartment hunting and walked up Via Veneto, disappointed in finding himself so dissatisfied in this city of his dreams. Rome, a city of perpetual surprise, had surprised unhappily. He felt unpleasantly lonely for the first time since he had been married, and found himself desiring the lovely Italian women he passed in the street, especially the few who looked as if they had money. He had been a damn fool, he thought, to come here with so little of it in his pocket.
He had, last spring, been turned down for a Fulbright fellowship and had had no peace with himself until he decided to go to Rome anyway to do his Ph.D. on the Risorgimento from firsthand sources, at the same time enjoying Italy. This plan had for years aroused his happiest expectations. Norma thought he was crazy to want to take off with two kids under six and all their savings—$3,600, most of it earned by her, but Carl argued that people had to do something different with their lives occasionally or they went to pot. He was twenty-eight—his years weighed on him—and she was thirty, and when else could they go if not now? He was confident, since he knew the language, that they could get settled satisfactorily in a short time. Norma had her doubts. It all came to nothing until her mother, a widow, offered to pay their passage across; then Norma said yes, though still with misgiving.
“We’ve read prices are terrible in Rome. How do we know we’ll get along on what we have?”
“You got to take a chance once in a while,” Carl said.
“Up to a point, with two kids,” Norma replied; but she took the chance and they sailed out of season—the sixteenth of October, arriving in Naples on the twenty-sixth and going on at once to Rome, in the hope they would save money if they found an apartment quickly, though Norma wanted to see Capri and Carl would have liked to spend a little time in Pompeii.
In Rome, though Carl had no trouble getting around or making himself understood, they had immediate rough going trying to locate an inexpensive furnished flat. They had figured on a two-bedroom apartment, Carl to work in theirs; or one bedroom and a large maid’s room where the kids would sleep. Although they searched across the city they could locate nothing decent within their means, fifty to fifty-five thousand lire a month, a top of about ninety dollars. Carl turned up some inexpensive places but in hopeless Trastevere sections; elsewhere there was always some other fatal flaw: no heat, missing furniture, sometimes no running water or sanitation.
To make bad worse, during their second week at the dark little pensione where they were staying, the children developed nasty intestinal disorders, little Mike having to be carried to the bathroom ten times one memorable night, and Christine running a temperature of 105; so Norma, who didn’t trust the milk or cleanliness of the pensione, suggested they would be better off in a hotel. When Christine’s fever abated they moved into the Sora Cecilia, a second-class albergo recommended by a Fulbright fellow they had met. It was a four-story building full of high-ceilinged, boxlike rooms. The toilets were in the hall, but the rent was comparatively low. About the only other virtue of the place was that it was near the Piazza Navone, a lovely seventeenth-century square, walled by many magnificently picturesque, wine-colored houses. Within the piazza three fountains played, whose water and sculpture Carl and Norma enjoyed, but which they soon became insensible to during their sad little walks with the kids, as the days passed and they still found themselves homeless.
Carl had in the beginning avoided the real estate agents to save the commission—5 percent of the full year’s rent; but when he gave in and visited their offices they said it was too late to get anything at the price he wanted to pay.
“You should have come in July,” one agent said.
“I’m here now.”
He threw up his hands. “I believe in miracles but who can make them?” Better to pay seventy-five-thousand and so live comfortable like other Americans.
“I can’t afford it, not with heat extra.”
“Then you will sit out the winter in the hotel.”
“I appreciate your concern.” Carl left, embittered.
However, they sometimes called him to witness an occasional “miracle.” One man showed him a pleasant apartment overlooking some prince or other’s formal garden. The rent was sixty thousand, and Carl would have taken it had he not later learned from the tenant next door—he had returned because he distrusted the agent—that the flat was heated electrically, which would cost twenty thousand a month over the sixty thousand rent. Another “miracle” was the offer by this agent’s cousin of a single studio room on the Via Margutta, for forty thousand. And from time to time a lady agent called Norma to tell her about this miraculous place in the Parioli: eight stunning rooms, three bedrooms, double service, American-style kitchen with refrigerator, garage—marvelous for an American family: price, two hundred thousand.
“Please, no more,” Norma said.
“I’ll go mad,” said Carl. He was nervous over the way time was flying, almost a month gone, he having given none of it to his work. And Norma, washing the kids’ things in the hotel sink, in an unheated, cluttered room, was obviously unhappy. Furthermore, the hotel bill last week had come to twenty thousand lire, and it was costing them two thousand more a day to eat badly, even though Norma was cooking the children’s food in their room on a hotplate they had bought.
“Carl, maybe I’d better go to work?”
“I’m tired of your working,” he answered. “You’ll have no fun.”
“What fun am I having? All I’ve seen is the Colosseum.” She then suggested they could rent an unfurnished flat and build their own furniture.
“Where would I get the tools?” he said. “And what about the cost of wood in a country where it’s cheaper to lay down marble floors? And who’ll do my reading for me while I’m building and finishing the stuff?”
“All right,” Norma said. “Forget I said anything.”
“What about taking a seventy-five-thousand place but staying only for five or six months?” Carl said.
“Can you get your research done in five or six months?”
“No.”
“I thought your research was the main reason we came here.” Norma then wished she had never heard of Italy.
“That’s enough of that,” said Carl.
He felt helpless, blamed himself for coming—bringing all this on Norma and the kids. He could not understand why things were going so badly. When he was not blaming himself he was blaming the Italians. They were aloof, evasive, indifferent to his plight. He couldn’t communicate with them in their own language, whatever it was. He couldn’t get them to say what was what, to
awaken their hearts to his needs. He felt his plans, his hopes caving in, and feared disenchantment with Italy unless they soon found an apartment.
At the Porta Pinciana, near the tram, Carl felt himself tapped on the shoulder. A bushy-haired Italian, clutching a worn briefcase, was standing in the sun on the sidewalk. His hair rose in all directions. His eyes were gentle; not sad, but they had been. He wore a clean white shirt, rag of a tie, and a black jacket that had crawled a little up his back. His trousers were of denim, and his porous, sharp-pointed shoes, neatly shined, were summer shoes.
“Excuse me,” he said with an uneasy smile. “I am Vasco Bevilacqua. Weesh you an apotament?”
“How did you guess?” Carl said.
“I follow you,” the Italian answered, making a gesture in the air, “when you leave the agencia. I am myself agencia. I like to help Americans. They are wonderful people.”
“You’re a real estate agent?”
“Eet is just.”
“Parliamo italiano?”
“You spik?” He seemed disappointed. “Ma non è italiano?”
Carl told him he was an American student of Italian history and culture, had studied the language for years.
Bevilacqua then explained that, although he had no regular office, nor, for that matter, a car, he had managed to collect several exclusive listings. He had got these, he said, from friends who knew he was starting a business, and they made it a habit to inform him of apartments recently vacated in their buildings or those of friends, for which service he of course tipped them out of his commissions. The regular agents, he went on, demanded a heartless 5 percent. He requested only 3. He charged less because his expenses, frankly, were low, and also because of his great affection for Americans. He asked Carl how many rooms he was looking for and what he was willing to pay.
Carl hesitated. The man, though pleasant, was no bona fide agent, probably had no license. He had heard about these two-bit operators and was about to say he wasn’t interested but Bevilacqua’s eyes pleaded with him not to say it.
Carl figured he had nothing to lose. Maybe he does have a place I might be interested in. He told the Italian what he was looking for and how much he expected to pay.
Bevilacqua’s face lit up. “In weech zone do you seek?” he asked with emotion.
“Anyplace fairly decent,” Carl said in Italian. “It doesn’t have to be perfect.”
“Not the Parioli?”
“Not the Parioli only. It would depend on the rent.”
Bevilacqua held his briefcase between his knees and fished in his shirt pocket. He drew out a sheet of very thin paper, unfolded it, and read the penciled writing, with wrinkled brows. After a while he thrust the paper back into his pocket and retrieved his briefcase.
“Let me have your telephone number,” he said in Italian. “I will examine my other listings and give you a ring.”
“Listen,” Carl said, “if you’ve got a good place to show me, all right. If not, please don’t waste my time.”
Bevilacqua looked hurt. “I give you my word,” he said, placing his big hand on his chest, “tomorrow you will have your apartment. May my mother give birth to a goat if I fail you.”
He put down in a little book where Carl was staying. “I’ll be over at thirteen sharp to show you some miraculous places,” he said.
“Can’t you make it in the morning?”
Bevilacqua was apologetic. “My hours are now from thirteen to sixteen.” He said he hoped to expand his time later, and Carl guessed he was working his real estate venture during his lunch and siesta time, probably from some underpaid clerk’s job.
He said he would expect him at thirteen sharp.
Bevilacqua, his expression now so serious he seemed to be listening to it, bowed, and walked away in his funny shoes.
He showed up at the hotel at ten to two, wearing a small black fedora, his hair beaten down with pomade whose odor sprang into the lobby. Carl was waiting restlessly near the desk, doubting he would show up, when Bevilacqua came running through the door, clutching his briefcase.
“Ready?” he said breathlessly.
“Since one o’clock,” Carl answered.
“Ah, that’s what comes of not owning your own car,” Bevilacqua explained. “My bus had a flat tire.”
Carl looked at him but his face was deadpan. “Well, let’s get on,” the student said.
“I have three places to show you.” Bevilacqua told him the first address, a two-bedroom apartment at just fifty thousand.
On the bus they clung to straps in a tight crowd, the Italian raising himself on his toes and looking around at every stop to see where they were. Twice he asked Carl the time, and when Carl told him, his lips moved soundlessly. After a time Bevilacqua roused himself, smiled, and remarked, “What do you think of Marilyn Monroe?”
“I haven’t much thought of her,” Carl said.
Bevilacqua looked puzzled. “Don’t you go to the movies?”
“Once in a while.”
The Italian made a short speech on the wonder of American films. “In Italy they always make us look at what we have just lived through.” He fell into silence again. Carl noticed that he was holding in his hand a wooden figurine of a hunchback with a high hat, whose poor gobbo he was rubbing with his thumb, for luck.
“For us both,” Carl hoped. He was still restless, still worried.
But their luck was nil at the first place, an ocher-colored house behind an iron gate.
“Third floor?” Carl asked, after the unhappy realization that he had been here before.
“Exactly. How did you guess?”
“I’ve seen the apartment,” he answered gloomily. He remembered having seen an ad. If that was how Bevilacqua got his listings, they might as well quit now.
“But what’s wrong with it?” the Italian asked, visibly disappointed.
“Bad heating.”
“How is that possible?”
“They have a single gas heater in the living room but nothing in the bedrooms. They were supposed to have steam heat installed in the building in September, but the contract fell through when the price of steam pipe went up. With two kids, I wouldn’t want to spend the winter in a cold flat.”
“Cretins,” muttered Bevilacqua. “The portiere said the heat was perfect.”
He consulted his paper. “I have a place in the Prati district, two fine bedrooms and combined living and dining room. Also an American-type refrigerator in the kitchen.”
“Has the apartment been advertised in the papers?”
“Absolutely no. My cousin called me about this one last night—but the rent is fifty-five thousand.”
“Let’s see it anyway,” Carl said.
It was an old house, formerly a villa, which had been cut up into apartments. Across the street stood a little park with tall, tufted pine trees, just the thing for the kids. Bevilacqua located the portiere, who led them up the stairs, all the while saying how good the flat was. Although Carl discovered at once that there was no hot water in the kitchen sink and it would have to be carried in from the bathroom, the flat made a good impression on him. But then in the master bedroom he noticed that one wall was wet and there was a disagreeable odor in the room.
The portiere quickly explained that a water pipe had burst in the wall, but they would have it fixed in a week.
“It smells like a sewer pipe,” said Carl.
“But they will have it fixed this week,” Bevilacqua said.
“I couldn’t live a week with that smell in the room.”
“You mean you are not interested in the apartment?” the Italian said fretfully.
Carl nodded. Bevilacqua’s face fell. He blew his nose and they left the house. Outside he regained his calm. “You can’t trust your own mother nowadays. I called the portiere this morning and he guaranteed me the house was without a fault.”
“He must have been kidding you.”
“It makes no difference. I have an exceptional place in
mind for you now, but we’ve got to hurry.”
Carl halfheartedly asked where it was.
The Italian looked embarrassed. “In the Parioli, a wonderful section, as you know. Your wife won’t have to look far for friends—there are Americans all over. Also Japanese and Indians, if you have international tastes.”
“The Parioli,” Carl muttered. “How much?”
“Only sixty-five thousand,” Bevilacqua said, staring at the ground.
“Only? Still, it must be a dump at that price.”
“It’s really very nice—new, and with a good-size nuptial bedroom and one small, besides the usual things, including a fine kitchen. You will personally love the magnificent terrace.”
“Have you seen the place?”
“I spoke to the maid and she says the owner is very anxious to rent. They are moving, for business reasons, to Turin next week. The maid is an old friend of mine. She swears the place is perfect.”
Carl considered it. Sixty-five thousand meant close to a hundred and five dollars. “Well,” he said after a while, “let’s have a look at it.”
They caught a tram and found seats together, Bevilacqua impatiently glancing out of the window whenever they stopped. On the way he told Carl about his hard life. He was the eighth of twelve children, only five now alive. Nobody was really ever not hungry, though they ate spaghetti by the bucketful. He had to leave school at ten and go to work. In the war he was wounded twice, once by the Americans advancing, and once by the Germans retreating. His father was killed in an Allied bombardment of Rome, the same that had cracked open his mother’s grave in the Cimitero Verano.
“The British pinpointed their targets,” he said, “but the Americans dropped bombs everywhere. This was the advantage of your great wealth.”
Carl said he was sorry about the bombardments.
“Nevertheless, I like the Americans better,” Bevilacqua went on. “They are more like Italians—open. That’s why I like to help them when they come here. The British are more closed. They talk with tight lips.” He made sounds with tight lips.
The Complete Stories Page 30