At this point I feel the need to do my quick-change act. ‘Perhaps you don’t recognize me. I’m the chief inspector of police and I’m following a criminal. I order you to jump the red light, or tomorrow your licence will be so much waste paper!’
He turns pale, takes off his cloth cap and says, ‘I’m sorry, chief inspector, I didn’t recognize you.’
Then he turns round, puts the car in first and screeches away. A few moments later we are behind our prey.
Rossana smiles at last, and I smile back. She was the right choice: she might sell her body for money, but she’s the only one who’s amused by my acts of idiocy. And at my age you need a woman who makes you think you’re still an agreeable person and not an old sod to be abandoned in an armchair in front of the TV.
The car stops a few blocks from Sveva’s house. She and her companion speak, kiss, then at last she gets out and walks off. I find myself thinking about how, in a few minutes, she will be with Diego and Federico, and what she will do to cover up the deception. I thought I was being good in a way, but maybe I wasn’t; perhaps children have paranormal powers, and the mask we’re still wearing when we come home from work fails to materialize in front of their eyes. So we think we’re shielded, when in fact we’re naked. I see myself in Sveva. I betrayed her mother; she’s betraying her husband.
The taxi driver looks at me. I think he wants to know what we’re doing, but I’m the chief inspector and he’s too respectful of my role to ask any questions.
‘Follow that car,’ I say in the austere voice that one uses when addressing official employees.
Rossana darts me another glance, the umpteenth this evening, and I nod, as if to say that I have the situation under control. The taxi driver is sweating and he’s clearly worried – perhaps he thinks he’s tailing a powerful Camorra boss rather than an old man with a paunch and a vulgar car. In my day they had Fiat 500s, which you had to bend over to drive if you were too tall, whereas now they’re like ocean liners and God only knows what the point of them is. The world is getting smaller every day, and yet we go on producing bigger and bigger things.
But now I’m facing a different set of problems. For example, I’ve spent the last ten minutes wondering why Sveva prefers to spend her precious time in the arms of a dirty old man rather than at home with her husband and Federico. Then I work it out. A woman seeks outside of marriage what she doesn’t find inside it: Diego is a great guy, but he’s too good, like Marino. I’ve already said what I think about good people. It means that the individual we’re following specializes in villainy, and I can’t allow my daughter to fall into the clutches of a perfidious man, however pleasant, confident, cheerful and jovial he might be. She’s already got me for all that.
‘What do you plan to do?’ Rossana whispers.
‘I don’t know.’
I do know, in fact, except I’m no longer quite so sure. What right do I have in the end to make decisions on behalf of my daughter? Haven’t I done the same thing? But the question that’s bouncing around in my brain is a different one: am I actually sure that it’s better to spend your life beside a good but boring man rather than one who’s nice but selfish? Evil can lurk behind even the most affable of faces. Except that I’m involved now, and I need to know something more about the old man who’s taking Sveva to bed. And there I was, worrying about Dante’s sexual proclivities! That chatty artist is a fashion model in comparison.
The SUV stops on the seafront. The man turns on the hazard lights, gets out of the car and goes into a tobacconist’s. When he comes out, he has a cigar in his mouth and a bag full of colourful objects. I lean forward to see more clearly, and realize that they are those little plastic animals that children like so much, including my grandson. Once I bought him a box containing a fence, some pigs, a few dappled cows and some sheep. Federico played with it long enough to build the fence and put the animals inside to graze. A few days later the cheerful little farm lay sadly in a bag along with a thousand other toys that had ceased to fulfil their function, a bit like those cars that rot in the fields beside motorways.
The man gets back into the car and sets off again. I look around. We’re a long way from our restaurant, following a person who, apart from having a relationship with my daughter, must have some grandchildren dotted about the city. Maybe he’s not as bad as all that. Maybe it’s not always right to say that you seek something different outside of marriage. Maybe some people just feel the need to rediscover themselves through a new face, a different perfume, eyes that look at you with curiosity.
‘Fine, just drop us off here!’ I say, surrendering.
The taxi driver sighs with relief, as if he had escaped a serious danger, and gives me yet another free ride, one of the many I’ve had in my life.
‘You’re really something, you know that?’ Rossana observes.
We’ve missed that romantic dinner. I’ve ruined our evening over a fit of teenage jealousy, and now she’s going to tell me to bugger off.
‘And yet I’ve never enjoyed a first date so much in my life!’ she carries on delightedly, to my surprise.
What a woman. Rossana, if I were ten years younger I’d marry you! We hug and find ourselves standing facing one another once again, our mouths only a few inches apart. I come to my senses and move away. I can’t kiss her – not now, not here, when there are people around. If someone called the police over indecent acts in a public place, I wouldn’t be able to deny it.
‘I’m sorry. It’s just that seeing my daughter with a man like that has put my nerves on edge.’
‘Don’t worry, I quite understand,’ she says. ‘As a matter of fact, I don’t know what she sees in that old man.’
‘Thanks for the compliment!’
‘Don’t be stupid. I meant old from her point of view.’
I look around. In front of us there’s a van selling panini. An idea comes to mind.
‘How about I buy you a delicious morsel from that stall over there?’
She turns round and bursts out laughing, then takes my hand and links my fingers with hers. And, incredibly, a shiver darts along my arm and melts away behind my back. I think the last woman with whom I engaged in such intimacy was my wife. My rough, mottled hands are now more used to grabbing a buttock than touching someone else’s palm. Advancing age inexorably devours the little poetry that still flickers in my belly.
I treat her to a hamburger with provolone, and I have a hot dog with sauerkraut – not exactly ideal for a first romantic date. But there hasn’t been very much romance at all this evening, just Rossana lifting up her coat a little before sitting on the low wall along the road. I do the same, then take a long sip from the bottle of ice-cold Peroni and hand it to her. Behind us the still sea reflects the lights of the villas of Posillipo, where people my age dine on silver platters with servants standing behind them. Meanwhile I drink straight from the bottle and if I could I would allow myself a loud burp that would ease the turmoil in my stomach.
‘And yet this evening I worked out that my son is in good hands,’ she says eventually. ‘If Sveva is anything like you, as you say she is, she must be a lion in the courtroom!’
We sit on the wall for an hour, laughing about ourselves and life in general, until she reminds me that it’s late and tomorrow’s a working day. In a context like that, with the sea and the Castel dell’Ovo behind us, the strolling families and Vesuvius spying on us, I had forgotten I was just a bent old man. I’d forgotten that life is like this city: it’s an illusion. All those lights, the smiling people, the market stalls, the carts selling candyfloss, the honking bicycles, the moon reflected in the water and casting its light on Capri in the distance are little in comparison with the silence of the many dirty and forgotten boulevards, the lament of the alleyways that sweat violence, the fearful expressions on the faces of those who haven’t yet worked out how to confront the other face of the city.
We get to our feet and walk towards the taxis. The play is over – it’s time t
o get back to reality – but I’m happy anyway. At the start of the evening I was worried that I would meet a different woman, one I didn’t like, and yet I discovered that there are no other versions of Rossana; she’s always the same, whether in lingerie or in a blouse or a skirt, on a mattress or on a wall. Who knows? She might even win my children over.
I’m already home when I receive a text message. It’s Rossana. After countless attempts, I finally manage to read the text.
It says: Thank you for the loveliest evening. I won’t forget you!
My eyes mist over, so I hurl the phone on the sofa and go to the bathroom. Who’d have thought that at my age I could still be moved by a woman’s words?
As I sit on the toilet, my lips decide to break the silence of the flat: ‘I just wanted to tell you that this evening a woman held my hand and moved me in a way that hasn’t happened for ages. I know, it’s not pretty of me to come and confide in you. But you’re the only one I felt I could tell. Goodnight.’
Then I pull the chain and go to bed.
It’s better that I don’t even mention Sveva.
Chapter Sixteen
There Are Two of Us
The light tells me that the cabin, as always, has stopped on the seventh floor. There must be some kind of cosmic magnetism, a special law of gravity that attracts the lifts to the top floor. I press the button and wait for the old box to come and get me.
A few yards up the road a door closes violently, before someone comes running down the stairs. I lean towards the lift shaft and see him, my crazy neighbour, charging down the stairs like a lunatic. My heart thumps in my chest, because the man isn’t just in a hurry – he’s running away. And if he’s running away it’s because he’s hurt Emma.
I decide to confront him.
As soon as he notices that I am there, he slows down and half closes his eyes. Obviously he hasn’t yet forgotten the lesson that I’ve taught him. A few feet away from me, he freezes and apologizes. I don’t move an inch. My heart is racing, I feel dizzy and a drop of sweat trickles down my forehead. Nonetheless I don’t step back. An army general wouldn’t.
‘Will you let me past?’ he asks.
I study him. He’s sweating, his hair is standing up in crazy tufts and his pupils are dilated.
‘What has happened?’ I manage to ask.
‘What’s supposed to have happened?’ he says.
‘Why are you running?’
‘Why? Aren’t you allowed to run in this block any more?’
In fact, I find it pretty difficult to come up with a sensible answer to that one.
‘Where’s your wife?’ I ask.
He recoils only for a moment, before deciding to attack.
‘And what’s it to you, if you don’t mind me asking?’
I feel the sweat trickling down my vest, and my vision is blurred. This is no longer a simple, innocuous joke – I’m really risking a beating here. And at my age I don’t think I’d get away with a few bruises.
‘It matters in a house where you’re still taking the liberty of abusing her.’
There, I’ve said it.
He looks at me fiercely before losing control. ‘Move your feet, you old tosser!’ And he pushes me aside. A moment later he’s outside.
Luckily the wall supports me, so I don’t collapse on the ground, unlike my shopping bag, whose contents have spilled around the hallway. I swear you’ll pay for that, you bastard! Sure, but how?
I pull down the frame of my glasses, which has slipped up to my temples, then start picking up the goods. The building is full of people coming and going; you can’t call the lift without someone rabbiting on at you about the weather while you cower in a corner. But whenever I need help, there’s never anyone about.
In the end I manage to get home. I go straight to the kitchen, put the bags down on the table, take the two boxes of frozen food and put them in the freezer, then, without even taking my jacket off, I knock at Emma’s door.
She opens up after what seems like a very long time. Her lip is split and she is cradling one of her arms. I look at her in alarm and for a moment my instinct tells me to go after the bastard. Then I realize it would make more sense to stay and look after her – there’s plenty of time to make him pay for it.
‘May I come in?’ I ask.
‘If he comes back he’ll kill you first and then me.’
For the first time her prediction doesn’t even seem all that wild: the man is a dangerous lunatic. I take her by her good wrist and push her into my flat. She doesn’t resist. I turn on the light in the bathroom and clean her wounds with cotton wool and alcohol, then try to move her arm.
Emma cries out with pain.
‘Did he hit you in the stomach as well?’
She just shakes her head. It’s only when she sees my worried look that she adds, ‘No, no, I swear. I was careful to protect it.’
Dear Christ, how can you witness all this without intervening? I don’t think I can.
‘We have to go to the hospital and tell the police the truth. Report that piece of crap!’
‘No, please don’t,’ she says, bursting into tears. ‘Don’t do that to me!’
‘Why? Why don’t you want me to help you? Why are you defending him?’
‘I swear I’ll escape before then. But, please, don’t report him. It would only make things worse…’
‘I don’t get it…’ I whisper.
I call a taxi. When we get there I’ll tell the truth, whatever happens. Even if it means Emma hating me, telling me that her life is her own, I’ll do what needs to be done.
At A & E they make us wait with some other people in a big room with only a few chairs and a lot of patients lying silently on stretchers.
We sit there in complete silence, busy looking around, and then eventually I turn to her and ask, ‘How could you fall in love with a man like that?’
Emma sighs and goes on holding her arm. ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’
‘And why won’t you let me help you?’
‘Cesare, you don’t understand. If we reported him this evening, we’d just have to run for it. You and me!’
No, I don’t understand. And I never will.
‘Why did he hit you this time?’
She turns away.
‘You don’t want to tell me?’
She answers without looking at me. ‘I didn’t want to make love – I was frightened for the child. And he lost it completely!’
I don’t reply. I don’t know what to do.
‘I’m sorry for involving you,’ she whispers after a few moments of silence.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I shouldn’t have gone into your house that evening.’
‘But it was a good idea.’
‘Do you want to know the truth?’ And she looks me straight in the eyes.
I nod.
‘His ex reported him for abuse as well. The trial is ongoing.’
I shake my head and sigh.
She goes on. ‘If I reported him, he’d go straight to jail!’
‘And you don’t want that?’ I ask too loudly.
‘I just want what’s good for me, not what’s bad for him.’
Even her swollen face and clotted blood look beautiful to me. If I were the same age I would challenge the world just to have her and protect her.
‘How can you say such things? He nearly broke your arm!’
A tear slips down her cheek and she immediately wipes it away with her good hand. Life has taught her not to show pain.
‘I don’t want to destroy him. I just want to leave him.’
‘And you don’t care about the others who come after you? Whose lives you might save through your actions?’
She turns and stares at me, her face filled with frustration. ‘Do you think I haven’t thought about that? That I don’t ask forgiveness every night for my lack of courage?’
Her suffering spills into the tears that are now slipping slowly down her fac
e. I don’t know what to reply, and try to fight back the desire to draw her to me.
After a while, her weeping subsides and Emma slumps in her chair with a snort, like an old bus that has reached its destination. Then she stays there, staring into the distance, her lips parted in an attempt to get her breath back. I study her and linger on that flaw that makes her unique, the detail that has drawn me from the start.
‘Did he break that tooth?’ I ask.
She touches the incisor with her tongue. ‘This one?’
‘Yes.’
She smiles – the first time this evening – and says, ‘No, I broke it as a girl. I fell off my bicycle.’
‘I like it,’ I observe.
‘You like it? My broken tooth?’
‘Yes, your broken tooth.’
‘You’re a very strange person,’ she replies, a moment before she’s called.
In the room there’s a doctor sitting behind a desk; beside him a man in a green coat clutching a folder full of papers for him to sign. Emma and I stand there for a while, waiting for a nod. The doctor doesn’t even look at us and goes on endlessly signing the papers. It’s only when he’s finished the last one that the doctor gets to his feet, grabs Emma’s arm, tries to turn it and freezes when she screams. After that he inspects the bruises and scratches along her body.
Then he turns to me. I return his quizzical gaze until he asks, ‘Who are you? Her father?’
‘A friend,’ I reply angelically.
The man starts becoming suspicious and, turning to Emma, continues with his questioning. ‘What has happened to you?’
‘I fell off my bike.’
That bike, again. I wonder if she was telling the truth before or if it’s a standard excuse that she uses on every occasion. The doctor doesn’t seem to believe her either, and yet he doesn’t press the point, instead turning back to me.
‘Is that what happened? The young lady fell?’
Emma stares at me.
Here it is, the moment to tell the truth and send her husband to jail. But her eyes are pleading with me not to speak. I lower my head. I can’t defy her will – I don’t have the right. I say nothing, and the doctor repeats the question.
The Temptation to Be Happy Page 10