by John Berger
You’re better off without your jacket. The woman touches its leather lying on the parapet. Fine quality!
Jean Ferrero’s shirt is sweat-stained.
I try to keep it full of what he likes, the refrigerator, or of what he used to like, she says. Every day I take something out for him. Sometimes I try to surprise him, it’s a way of getting a smile out of him. Every day I put something back in. It’s like packing for a journey. It’s an art to pack it, for it’s a very small refrigerator, it came from a caravan. The caravan was scrapped. How to keep it full for him, that’s my job.
Three young men in jeans are admiring the bike by the curb.
Bellissima!
Three hundred kilometres an hour!
The clocks exaggerate but she’s lovely.
How much do you think she weighs?
She’s heavy.
Heavy and fast.
Look at her twin headlights.
Abbagliante!
My husband opens the door of the frigo, says the woman, but it’s only to find something to give to the dog. He’s lost his appetite, my husband. For the dog I go to the restaurants. But I’ve never—it’s a question of pride—never offered my man anything they gave me at the backdoor of a restaurant. Only what I’ve prepared with my own hands is good enough for him. It’s a lifelong task. One day he won’t be able to eat any more, not even the tortellini he once liked so such, and they’ll bury him in the cemetery over there, and the refrigerator will be thrown on to a dump.
The barber in Asklipiou Street had the finger of his left hand on top of my skull to keep the head still, and he was shaving with his razor the back of my neck. I lost the old woman’s voice and another came to me.
Five hundred years ago, this voice says, three wise men were arguing, before Nushiran the Just, about the heaviest wave in this deep sea of sorrow which is life. Now I recognise the voice. It belongs to Jari from Alexandria who loves to interrupt. One wise man said it was illness and pain, Jari continues. Another said it was old age and poverty. The third wise man insisted it was approaching death with lack of work. In the end the three of them agreed that the last was probably the worst. Approaching death and lack of work.
He almost never catches anything, says the old woman by the parapet to Jean—almost never. I’ve seen it happen only twice. Do you know what his weakness is? I will tell you. Quaquare di limone! He loves Quaquare.
Jean Ferrero stares into the opaque water of the river which never stops flowing.
The old woman with her angel hand opens her purse and announces: I haven’t enough. I have six thousand which is half what a packet costs! He eats them with his black coffee, after his siesta. Might a box of Quaquare di limone be something we could offer him together, Signore, the two of us?
The signalman searches in the pocket of his leather jacket for some money.
I have learnt to write my name: Ninon. I’m sitting at the kitchen table and I’m writing. The letter N goes like a dog’s tongue, the letter I sprouts like a seed, the letter N goes like I said, O is a bow and N is N. Now I can write my name: NINON.
Jean Ferrero is seated at a café table under the ochre arcades in the Via Po. In front of him is a cappuccino and a glass of ice-cold water. Nothing else in the city sparkles like these glasses of water. He leans back in his chair; he has crossed the mountains. Probably his grandfather once came to Torino to argue a case with a notary. Today the arcades are the colour of old files whose labels have been changed many times. Hearing a laugh, he raises his head. It takes him some time to find the one laughing. It’s a woman’s laugh. Not in the arcade, not at the bar, not by the newspaper kiosk. The laughter sounds as if it comes from a field in the country. Then he spots her. She is standing at a second-storey window on the other side of the street, shaking a tablecloth or a bedcover. A tram passes but he still hears her laughter, and she is still laughing when the tram has gone, a woman no longer young, with heavy arms and short hair. It is impossible to know what she’s laughing at. When she stops laughing, she’ll have to sit down to catch her breath.
Gino’s in love with me. I’m bending down. When I straighten up, my knees will crease and the crease will smile. My middle is a riddle. It starts at the ribs and ends like my dress just above the crease. How beautiful I’m becoming for him.
I smell muted ammonia, damp hair, and lacquer. I hear the whirr of a big hairdryer and the singsong exchange of women speaking in Slovak. Among them, Zdena.
I want a few glints, Zdena says, not everywhere, just where it falls here.
She’s talking to a young woman who is wearing a black T-shirt and white trousers. The girl’s black hair, brushed to the top of her head, is flecked with white as an ermine is flecked with black.
A shade like this? the girl asks with the voice and accent of somebody from the country.
Exactly, no more, says Zdena, closing her eyes, while the young woman pulls plastic gloves over her large hands.
I’m called Linda, says the young woman. It’s the first time you’ve been here, I think?
Yes, the first time.
Since 1991 several new hairdressing salons have started up in Bratislava with a new style which at first shocked everyone except the young. The earlier hairdressers, run by the state, were like untidy kitchens and specialised in permanent waves. The new ones pretend to the chic of car display rooms.
You’re going to a party tonight? asks Linda.
I’m going to a wedding.
Very carefully with her gloved fingers, because it’s the first lock she has combed the white paste on to, Linda arranges the silver foil for it.
A wedding. Lucky you. Tomorrow?
With great concentration she treats the second lock. It is the white paste which smells of ammonia.
Tomorrow?
The day after tomorrow in Italy.
There’s a country I want to go to!
With her separated white locks laid out on silver foil and her eyes shut, Zdena begins to resemble some emblem of the moon.
We don’t need a visa any more, do we? says Linda.
Not for Italy, we don’t.
You must have decided what to wear?
Yes, a dress of my mother’s.
Your mother’s!
She had it made in Vienna before the war. She wore it when she gave concerts.
Just tilt a little to the left … so you’re a musician?
No, I’m not, it was my mother who was a pianist for a little while.
I’d like to hear her play.
I’m afraid she’s dead.
Have you checked for moths? The dress, I mean. We can leave this now.
It’s deep green and gold, with lace, says Zdena.
That kind of dress is coming back today. If I was going to get married, I’d have a dress like yours. If it ever happens, maybe you could lend it to me?
If you like.
We’re about the same size. You look taller because of your shoes. With this job you have to wear sandals, otherwise you don’t last. We have a twelve-hour day. You mean it? You would lend it to me?
Yes.
Not that I have a man in mind, far from it. There, all we have to do now is to wait. You’re right of course, it’s better these days to marry abroad.
Linda leaves Zdena with her eyes closed and a silver aureole around her head.
I look disgusting. What will Gino say? Like an old potato brought out of a cellar in the spring. Foul sweet taste when boiled. Puffy skin. Cold sore on the lip, circles under my eyes. And my hair, what a mess. Maybe I have it tinted? A flicker of emerald. Fuck it. If I pull it out? Pull it out, tug it out like a widow! Aiee! Aiee! Look! Drawn back tight, it’s not bad, is it? Held tight, dog tight, so it’s shiny, with the profile of Nefertiti and the way I hold my head. I need a velvet ribbon, an elastic band will do for now.
Linda comes back and lifts up and examines minutely one of the treated locks. Then she begins to remove the tin foil. We can wash, she says. I have a girl friend f
rom Teplice and she’s been lucky. Like you, she’s found a foreigner, a German from Berlin. A chance in a thousand. Is that comfortable for your neck? Things are bad up there in Teplice, really bad, worse than here. She and several of her mates did the autobahn. You know … for longdistance lorry drivers. Particularly for Germans, they have the money. She’d been doing this since about a month and she falls on this man Wolfram. A chance in a thousand. The same night, he says to her: Come to Berlin. She goes. Is the water too hot? We have to rinse it four times. And there in Berlin he tells her he wants to marry her! Why not? she asks me on the phone, I think Wolfram loves me. A chance in a thousand.
With her strong fingers, Linda is rubbing Zdena’s scalp.
What does your friend from Teplice feel about him? asks Zdena.
Using her nails like a comb, Linda says: What do you feel about your Italian?
It’s not—Zdena stops in mid-sentence—as if the effort to clear up the misunderstanding would be too great. I think I love him, she says.
Of course, says Linda now drying Zdena’s hair briskly with a towel, you’re not the same age and it makes a difference, I mustn’t forget that, but not so much, somewhere it’s the same problem, isn’t it? She starts the dryer and they can’t talk any more.
After the final touches, Zdena examines the effect in the mirror.
It’s really subtle, says Linda, it’s not too gold, I couldn’t have done less.
She holds up a second mirror in the form of a triptych with a golden frame, so that her client can see the sides and back. She touches one curl by the still youthful nape of her client’s neck.
So much better, Zdena says very softly. By this she means: The better I look, the less I will give Ninon to worry about.
And Linda, smiling, replies: I wish you with your Italian all the best in the world, I really do!
Marella told me Dr. Gastaldi hadn’t been too bad when she saw him about a swollen knee. I went to see him because the cold sore on my mouth wouldn’t go away. He gave me some ointment and said he’d like some blood tests to be taken. His desk top had a marquetry picture of camels with the pyramids on it. From one of his waistcoat pockets he took out a magnifying glass to examine my fingernails. You bite them? he asked. I didn’t reply: he could see for himself.
It’ll clear up very soon, Dr. Gastaldi said, pocketing the twenty thousand.
East of Torino, where the road runs on the southern side of the Po, the name RITA has been written on a high brick wall in white paint. Half a kilometre later the same RITA has been written again, this time on the blind end of a house. The third time RITA is on the ground, on the asphalt of a parking lot. Many places are named after people. Following historical convulsions the names get changed. The road with Rita’s name will always be Rita’s road for the one in love with her, the one who went out one night—a little drunk, or a little desperate, as happens if you’re in love with Rita—with a paintbrush, a screwdriver with white on its handle and a pot of white paint.
Dr. Gastaldi holds open the door and asks me to take a seat. Then he sits behind his desk—from where he can see the pyramids and camels the right way up—and, with his glasses on, he fingers some papers as if he was looking for a telephone number. He looks as if he has had a bad night.
I’ve been waiting for you to come for days, he says.
It’s gone, I say.
I’m afraid you must go to hospital for some more tests.
I touch my lip and insist: It’s getting better, Doctor. Forget it.
I’m afraid it’s not just your lip. Dr. Gastaldi is still mumbling into his papers. Then he looks up at me and his eyes behind his glasses are like plums cut in half, and he says: Your blood tests, my dear, were a shock, but I’m obliged to tell you the truth. Do you know what seropositive is? HIV.
I wasn’t born yesterday.
I’m afraid that’s what they show. Have you ever shot up?
Have you ever masturbated, Doctor?
I know it’s a terrible shock.
I don’t understand what you’re saying.
You have been contaminated by the HIV.
It’s a mistake. They must have mixed up the bloods.
I fear it’s very unlikely.
Of course they have! You must do another test. They make mistakes. They’re always making mistakes.
I’m watching the pyramids upside down. Papa, can you hear me? I’m twenty-four and I’m going to die.
When the signalman crosses the Po at San Sebastiano, where the river is already larger than a village is long, he drives slowly with only one hand. There is no vehicle in front of him.
I phone Marella and I ask her to come round. I have to talk. I tell her what’s happened. Christ! she says.
After he has crossed the bridge, the signalman stops, puts both feet down and looks up at the sky, his arms hanging limp.
This morning when I woke up I didn’t remember. For a few seconds. For a few seconds I forgot. I didn’t remember. Dear God.
The signalman grips the grips, revs and taps down into first.
I have a rendezvous with Gino in Verona and I shan’t go. No. Never.
The signalman has disappeared behind a reed bank, driving fast now, as if he has changed his mind about something.
Listen, Marella, this is what Gino writes in a letter which came this morning: I’m wearing the T-shirt with Vialli on it, he writes, because you said he was your favourite footballer. Shall we go to the sea together on Tuesday? I see you all the time, Ninon. I set up shop in the Piazza Marconi and I see you on the far side of the crowd. I’m in Parma and you’re in Modena and I see you four or five times in a day. I recognise your elbow, and the way you slip your arm through the strap of your white bag and the Chinese crumpled silk dress you wear with orangey flames on the left hip. I see you because you’ve got under my skin. Yesterday, Sunday, I sold forty-three Ricci shirts. A good day. About a million and a half profit. A whole summer month like this, I was telling myself, and we’ll go and buy, Ninon and I, air tickets to Paris. I love you.—Gino. I tore up the letter, Marella, and I flushed it down the lavatory. It wouldn’t disappear the first time. The paper floated.
The road passes between two large farms, each with its yard, its gate and its square buildings. Outside the towns, every habitation on this plain is built square so as to resist a little the endless space which dwarfs everything. When the signalman and his bike have passed, the two large farms are silent.
I’m on a trolley, Papa, and they’re wheeling me somewhere down a corridor, two men in white, who are thinking about something else, not about me. Where are you taking me? I ask. To the Endocrinology Unit, one of them says kindly. I don’t understand. It’s a detail, anyway, and on a trolley like this, with wheels which turn in every direction, I’m going to be wheeled out.
In the village of Crescentino a funeral procession winds its way from the church and the signalman is obliged to follow as slowly as the last rank of mourners, men in hats who walk with their heads bowed.
Marella phones. She isn’t weeping any more, so I don’t either. Let’s not call it SIDA, she says, between you and me, just between you and me, let’s call it STELLA.
Nothing hides like flatness. On the plain the signalman is riding across, a man doesn’t know about last night’s violence until he trips over the body.
Marella, I have another letter from Gino: Ninon, it says, Ninon, I understand nothing. You stand me up. You give back the turtle ring. You drop it in my letterbox without a word. You come all the way to Cremona and you don’t see me. I don’t even know when you’ll get this letter. But I’m going to find you and I’m going to love you. One morning, wherever you are, you’ll wake up and you’ll see my Mercedes with VESTITI SCIC written on its sides outside your front door. And that morning, you’d better get back into bed. NINON + GINO = AMORE.
This one I don’t tear up. I reply to him on a postcard which I put in an envelope. On the postcard I tell Gino he must have a test to see whether he’
s seropositive. I say nothing about myself because there’s nothing to be said. It’s obvious. The postcard is of Vialli, scoring.
The signalman is now crossing paddy-fields which extend to the horizon and which shine like a hundred irregular mirrors. On their surface is a green filigrane made of the shoots of the early rice crop. The rice fields were a part of a dream of Cavour’s in which he saw Italy become a rich country. A canal was built for the rice fields. And here, in 1870, the first long, smooth, milky, light Italian rice, which melts in the mouth like no other, was picked and dried and poured into sacks.
I have nothing. All, all, all, all, all I had has been taken.
Nothing moves on the still water. The irregular mirrors reflect the light from the sky. No colours. No clouds. Only the signalman on his bike moves. He is driving very fast.
The gift of giving myself has been taken away. If I offer myself, I offer death. Always, till my dying day. When I walk down the street and the ragazzi look at me, I’m reminded how all the while I’m death. Come close enough to me, once, twice or a hundred times and, supposing I love you, you will die. Not if you use a condom, they say. With a condom there’s latex rubber between you and your death, and latex rubber between you and me. Latex solitude. Latex solitude for ever and ever. Nothing can touch any more.
He crosses the silver water, barely reducing his speed when he corners, moving like mercury, seldom upright, often inclined as though listening to the earth, first on one side and then the other, bending over to listen with pity.
All I had to offer, old as the world, God-given, balm for pain, honey for taste-buds, promise for always, silken welcomes, oh to welcome, to welcome, knees turned on their sides, toes extended—all I had has been taken.
There are no walls, no banks or rocks to throw back the sound of the engine, and so for the signalman the noise of his motor is inaudible. He hears only the noise of rushing air—as in a whorled seashell when one puts it to the ear. The faster he drives the louder the rush. And in this shaking, buffeting slipstream fly the voices.