William Styron: The Collected Novels: Lie Down in Darkness, Set This House on Fire, The Confessions of Nat Turner, and Sophie's Choice

by Styron, William

  By God, he thought, it was Leopold, after all. The burning sensation—part pain, part hunger—had begun to creep upward into his gorge, causing him to yearn for a belch that would not come; he felt weak and giddy but this feeling, he knew, would pass away as soon as the wine’s blessed anesthesia took hold. He gazed up into Luigi’s dejected face, thinking: Down, Leopold, down. ‘I’m listening, Luigi. Speak.”

  But Luigi, already, had lost touch with D’Annunzio. Suddenly his eyes brightened and he snapped his fingers. “Cass! I just remembered, I have the very thing for you!”

  “Have they invented a plastic stomach?”

  “No, no. No joke. Someone to help you.” He nodded his head toward the shadowy interior of the cafe. “The padrona here. Sig-nora Carotenuto. Early this morning she told me about an aunt of hers. She is an elderly woman of some means who used to live in Sambuco but who now lives in Naples and comes back here from time to time to engage in charitable work with the nuns. Now just by chance there came to the convent last evening while Sig-nora Carotenuto’s aunt was there, an ugly peasant hag from Tra-monti in the most pathetic state imaginable. Please pay attenion, Cass.”

  “I’m spellbound, Luigi.”

  “Now this woman, along with her entire family, is the victim of the most terrible circumstances. Which is to say,” he drawled, savoring a dramatic pause, “which is to say that she and her family have been assaulted by fiendish calamities the likes of which it would take the mind of a Dante to devise. According to Sig-nora Carotenuto, whose aunt was present at the time, the woman was in a terrible way. Claiming to be forty, though in every way she looked twice the age, she came to the door of the convent last night hysterical with grief and desperation. Her eyes were glassy, her lips were streaked with spittle, and upon her cheeks there were crimson flecks of blood. Thinking her possessed of the fits, the sisters took her in and laid her down on a pallet, where, finally coming to her senses, she babbled out the most harrowing tale of woe. The blood, it turned out, came from biting her lips and tongue. You see, she had run the whole five kilometers to town up from the valley of Tramonti.”

  “Why, for the love of God?” Cass said.

  “Patience, my friend. I’m coming to that. What evidently had happened was this, according to the story told by Signora Caro-tenuto’s aunt. The woman’s husband, a tuberculous farmer who owns one sick cow whose milk he sells here in Sambuco—this woman’s husband had the misfortune to fall off the roof of the cowshed which he was repairing and break his leg. Frantic with anxiety, the woman left the children in the care of the eldest daughter and ran, as I have told you, all the way to Sambuco to summon the doctor. Now here comes the distressing part. The doctor—do you know him, Caltroni, a plumpish man with a pince-nez?”

  “Plumpish? Fat, don’t you mean, Luigi? Yes, I know of him. I saw him yesterday, flailing away at a dog.” The image came back, and it lingered troublesome and haunting in his mind as Luigi spoke. “Incompetent, I’d say.”

  “There’s no need to run down Caltroni, Cass. In spite of his background, Dr. Caltroni is no quack. He is a competent physician, poorly recompensed and overburdened by work and by patients who either cannot or will not pay for his services. Which is in line with the story I’m telling you. For this peasant woman came to him and demanded that he come right away and attend to her husband’s leg. He turned her away—”

  “That was a miserable thing to do—”

  “No, not at all. Rightly so, as a matter of fact, because although it was an unfortunate thing to have to do and although I’m sure that Caltroni, who is a true humanist at heart, was saddened by her plight, it nonetheless transpires that for ten years he has been attending to the ills of this wretched family without receiving one lira for his services. There is, after all, a point where one must draw the line.”

  “I don’t follow you, Luigi. Suppose the poor clod was bleeding to death. Where would you draw the line on that?”

  But Luigi was not interested in this ethical caution. “Let me go on. I’m getting to something that might fascinate you. The woman, as I have said, came in desperation to the convent. Now although the sisters there are not members of a nursing order, it happily turned out that one of the nuns, a big burly woman, had training in the care of the sick. Together with the peasant woman, she and Signora Carotenuto’s aunt hurried back to Tra-monti, where they found the peasant as described, writhing in pain on the earth outside his hut and calling upon heaven—according to Signora Carotenuto’s aunt—to end his suffering. And indeed such suffering, she said, had to be witnessed to be adequately expressed. I myself can certainly imagine it, for although I have not been back to that paese since before the war I can remember seeing it as a youth and having indelibly engraved upon my mind its sordidness and corruption. Signora Carotenuto’s aunt apparently was quite undone as she described it. It turns out that not only the father was tubercular but at least two of the children —all of them hacking and wheezing there in one room no larger than your bedroom at the Palazzo d’Affitto. Well, into the windowless place they brought the peasant and laid him down. The nurse-sister set his leg in a splint and there he now lies helpless and no doubt doomed.”

  Interrupting his recital, Luigi sat back, looking sorrowful, though, like a fat cat, contented. Over the square now the sun rose flaming-white and scorching in a clear blue sky. A bustle and stir had commenced in the vicinity. A blue tourist bus halted near the fountain, and down upon its blinking passengers bore Umberto, publicity man for the Bella Vista, weasel-faced, wearing the headpiece of a major general, able to harass and annoy in five languages. On flat heels two skinny American college girls slatted past, breastless and without buttocks and bandy-legged in the sagging costumes of their Wanderjahre; one, Cass heard, was called Bubba, or Barba, or something: each bearing trophy-like a quality of innocence through the sunny, swarming air, they passed out of sight. Saddened and depressed by Luigi’s tale, but also pricked with irritation, Cass turned back to the corporal, saying: “So what do you want me to do, vote Fascista, so this terrible situation will be corrected?”

  “No, Cass, I’m not talking politics now.” He paused. “That was meant as a sly joke, wasn’t it? Well, I’m a tolerant person and I’ll ignore it,” he went on, with some sort of approximation of a humorous wink, “but you might just incidentally reflect that Tramonti, after having been under the control of the Communists, who didn’t do anything, is now in the hands of the Christian-Democrats—the American party, you know—and it is still as miserable as it ever was. Now I’m not saying that the Fascist—”

  “Go on with your story.” God damn Luigi.

  “Well, it’s simply this, Cass. The eldest girl of the family—I think she is about eighteen—just got down on her knees and implored the ladies to find her work. The interesting thing is—and I suppose it’s why Signora Carotenuto’s aunt took special note of it—is that the girl up until about a month ago used to work right here at this cafe. She can cook well, it seems, and do housework, and she is willing to work for next to nothing. Indeed, so cruel is the condition of the family that I would not be surprised if she would work for only the food that she would be allowed to take away. For you it’s a perfect—”

  “Look, Luigi,” Cass said, “all this is very well and good. Let’s say that some miracle happened and I could afford her. Let’s say I just gave her food. For Poppy’s sake—which is to say for the children’s sake and my own sanity—I’d do anything to get somebody who would keep the place habitable for humans. But do you want to add T.B. to the endless list of ulcers and hangovers and colic and head colds that la famiglia Kinsolving—”

  “Ah, I should have explained,” he broke in, “this one—this wench—is free of the disease. I think she had it once, according to Signora Carotenuto, but she worked as a domestic in Amalfi for two years, where the cool air and salubrious climate was for her a complete remission.” He spoke of Amalfi as if it were as remote as Denmark. “It is said that she speaks some English,
too, which for Poppy—It would be a real charity, I think, if you’d—But here, I’ll go get Signora Carotenuto and let you talk to her yourself.” And before Cass could say anything, Luigi had risen from the table, stalking off into the cafe to search for Signora Carotenuto.

  He looked down at the table, amazed to see that in less than half an hour he had consumed a full liter of wine—on an empty stomach at that. He turned toward the waiter with the command, half-spoken, for another mezzo litro. At this instant there passed close by across his vision a depressing, mean tableau which darkened the day like a cloud. For not ten yards away, in clamorous full view of the bright morning, there took place a brutal catastrophe. Here one of that ragged procession of women from the valley had wheezed to a halt; she was of any age at all, pop-eyed with toil, sweating, bent over like a broken limb beneath the everlasting load of fagots. Behind her stood a little girl in tatters, sucking on her thumb. As Cass turned, the woman made a final desperate humping motion with her back but the enormous hummock of wood, badly balanced and off-kilter, came tumbling off her shoulders and fell to the cobblestones with a clatter. Then as he watched, the woman threw up her arms—it was a noiseless gesture, touched not with anger or despair but only inevitability, acceptance of a world in which heavy loads fall and must be forever rehoisted—and with the little girl pushing too, she huffed and puffed the bundle along the ground to a nearby wall. At once there took place something that caused the sweat to roll down beneath his armpits and to stand out in cold droplets on his brow. For now the woman had backed up with her shapeless rear end against the wall; stooped over donkey-like she began to bray hoarse commands to the child, who with skinny arms aquiver, flower-stalk legs trembling with effort, commenced to tug and heave the load onto the woman’s back. The child strained and tugged, the woman arched her back, and for an instant the bundle rolled up and onto her shoulders, awesomely, as if hoisted there by some block and tackle invisible in the heavens. But it went up not quite far enough, it teetered and tottered, the phantom ropes were severed, and the bundle came back down to earth with a mighty crash. The child began to weep. The woman began to stomp about the bundle, muttering and flailing her arms. As if forced, sympathetically, into some rebellion by the sight, Cass’ stomach knotted up in a swift paroxysm of pain. He started to rise from his chair, thought better of it, sat down again. What in Christ’s name could he do or say? Madam, permit me if you will to carry your burden, to whatever remote and heartbreaking destination. He heard a groan pass his lips and turned away: Filippone, the slant-shouldered waiter, came drooping out from beneath the awning. Fixing his eyes on a distant wall, Cass made his mind a blank, conscious only of a greasy thumbprint on one lens of his glasses, through which he read, unthinking, three blurred white faded words: VO-TATE DEMOCRAZIA CRISTIANA. “Un altro mezzo litro” he halfwhispered, not looking up. When, finally forced by the urge to make himself even more distressed, he turned back again, the woman had shouldered her prodigious load. Stooped, misshapen, of another century, she padded bare-soled beneath her tower of wood across the square, trailed by the child with legs like the stems of flowers.

  Far off in the valley toward Scala, grindingly off-key, church bells banged and clattered in remote confusion like celestial pots and pans. Filippone came and went. Cass took a deep gulp of wine, downing in fact half the bottle before removing his nose from its rim, conscious now that in some stale and left-over fashion, he was once again drunk, but exhaustedly, unpleasantly so, and that the day already had begun to gray over with the old apprehensions. His bright brief moment of elation had drained utterly away. Heavy weights seemed to burden him. He sought urgently for something to buoy him up, some merry swirl of color or motion in the near-deserted square, found nothing—fat chinless Saverio, scrounging mindlessly at his uplifted pecker, boldly outlined through his pants. With a whistle Umberto summoned him toward the luggage piled around the bus, and like a baggy animated scarecrow he took off, still tumescent, uttering magical paeans. Now the square lay level and deserted, like a lake becalmed. On a green promontory half a mile across the valley someone laughed, a woman called, “Non fa niente!” in a silvery voice, as clearly as if it had been spoken into his ear. In the hush that followed, he raised his eyes from the piazza toward the sea: there a streak of blazing light reflected from the zenith-ascending sun caught him flush in the eyes, making him for one stupefying instant as blind as a mole. And at this very moment from the belfry high above him a flock of pigeons erupted forth like feathered rockets and filled the unseen air around him with a tumult of wings. Hallucination! His heart was seized by a despairing clumsy terror. Blinded, he heard drumming all around him a multitude of wings; a yellowish taste like that of sulphur rushed up beneath his tongue and in the darkness he thought he heard thunderous footsteps from afar, approaching on the surface of the sea. Once again the woman seemed to be crouched nearby —’Shpinga!” she was croaking to the child, in that all but impenetrable dialect, and the air about his head was sweet with the odor of blossoms he had never smelled before. Instantaneously, with the speed and majesty of light, a cold wind blew through his mind: footsteps, blossoms, birds, terror —all were gone, while in their stead came a familiar clear white space, clear as water, of illimitable repose.

  He caught his head before it had fallen to the table top, and snapped erect with a shudder. He blinked. Somehow in his seizure his spectacles had fallen away from his eyes and dangled down suspended from one ear. Retrieving them with trembling fingers, he adjusted them upon his nose and focused his eyes on the square. Miracle of miracles—as in Paris—hardly five seconds had passed: Saverio, still galloping, had not yet reached the bus; the pigeons in bottle-green and fluttery glide had only at this instant gained the parapet around the fountain. A hand crashed down violently between his shoulder blades. “A-hii!” he cried, in an ecstasy of terror. Bleeding Christ!

  “It is all taken care of, my friend!” said Luigi in a jaunty voice. Cass forced himself to listen, wide-eyed, composed, afraid to reveal his inner condition. Far off on the sea, like some last remnant of his hallucination, he thought he saw waterspouts—a black forest rushing toward the horizon, the sea itself boiling faintly in convulsion. Then all was still. His heart thudded against his breastbone like an overworked pump. “It is all taken care of. Signora Carotenuto has seen the girl today, and she is at this very moment somewhere in town. She is going to send Saverio to hunt for her and bring her to you.”

  “But you—” He found it difficult to speak. “Saverio?”

  “Yes. I myself would wish for a more respectable messenger.” He halted. “Saverio is what you might say—” His voice, rather solemn, trailed off.

  “What?”

  “It is just that Saverio—Nothing. I’ll tell you something about him some day. It is all right.”

  Near the bus now Cass saw the cafe owner—a fat woman with a bun at the back of her neck—talking to the half-wit, gesticulating. After a moment Saverio turned from the woman and hustled up a cobbled street. As he did so, a maroon Cadillac nosed its way into the piazza, a sport-shirted young man at the wheel, a blond girl beside him, the eyes of both shuttered behind dark sun glasses. The car eased past the fountain, the sound of its horn piercing, chromatic, very loud. Like a shoal of minnows, a gang of boys began to wriggle and twist round the car, shouting. The young American, smartly handsome, once more sounded his harmonic, turgid horn. Wonk! The car halted, throbbing with power barely audible, in the middle of the square.

  “One of my countrymen,” Cass murmured, somewhat recovered. “I think I will go to Russia.”

  “Here, Cass, I brought you some mozzarella,” Luigi said, sitting down. “Eat it. You’ve got to eat, my friend. You’re going to kill yourself with this wine.”

  “I think I will go to Russia.”

  “How alike you are, you Americans and the Russians!”

  “Come?”

  “I mean it is true, Cass. Your similarities are much more striking than your differences.
And neither of you seem to be aware of it. There are dozens of them, besides the obvious one of the wish for world power. Your reliance on science and the scientific method. Your puritanism. That is quite true, Cass. Have you never thought that in spite of the emphasis on sex in the United States it merely comes out as the same unhealthy puritanism that exists in Russia?”

  “I don’t know if I have thought of it or not.”

  “And your concentration upon material things. You were talking about art in America. I should hate to be an artist in either country. As for your own, you are free I gather to create as you wish but you have no real public. The people really do not care. In Russia, on the other hand, there is a vast public which cares, but one which the artist is not free to create for. You see, it is all the same thing.” He paused. “But I sympathize with you. I would choose the dictatorship of the Kremlin—if I had to choose—to the dictatorship of the mob. Because there is always the matter of your respective leaders.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Why, it is quite apparent. Your president and the dictator in the Kremlin. They are both peasants. But yours is a cretin, and the other is shrewd. I would always cast my lot with a shrewd man, no matter how ruthless.”

  “You would?”

  “It is just this, Cass. Some day the Russians will have the refrigerators and the bathrooms that you Americans have. But though it is repressed at the moment, the Russians have a fund of spirituality which you Americans have never developed. They will be educated people with refrigerators and bathrooms. You will be ignorant people with refrigerators and bathrooms, and the educated people will triumph. Capito?”