Train to Budapest

by Dacia Maraini

  ‘Well, tell them we’ll come next week. I’m going and coming back, but I can’t just not go.’

  ‘And who’s paying for this trip?’

  ‘Luca sent me money for my ticket.’

  ‘So it’s serious.’

  ‘I really think it is.’

  ‘But haven’t you always said he’s a man who would rather forget?’

  ‘Well, goodnight Hans. You go back to your daughter in Poznań, and I’ll send you a telegram the minute I’m free to come back. I promise we will go on with our researches together.’

  The man with the gazelles looks at her, discouraged. But he stops insisting. He senses her determination. Will he wait for her? When she sees him turn and move away with his usual swinging step, shoulders slightly rounded, his fine bold neck bent forward, she is seized by apprehension and pain. ‘I’ll be back soon, I promise!’ she shouts at his back. She sees him turn slowly. Even at a distance, she can see his eyes shining with joy. ‘I’m counting on it!’ he calls and disappears round the corner.

  The train is a mobile home that favours more intimate thoughts. Amara has found a window seat. The air is full of that atmosphere of sweaty socks, apples and cigarettes typical of third-class carriages, but in compensation she has the compartment to herself. She is free to shut herself into her corner and bury herself in her book.

  When the future captain climbs the stairs of the navigation office in London he finds himself faced with two women knitting. Conrad doesn’t say it in so many words but describes them as though they were the Fates intent on spinning the thread of life. The captain stops for a moment dumbfounded. What are those two women doing in his path? Is it a presentiment of disaster? But he is a young man and tosses fear aside with a bold gesture. He will accept command of that ship, even if he knows she is old and in poor condition. He will go to Africa. Something tells him it will be a trip to hell, that it will teach him the horror human beings are capable of. But this will not stop him. He will go on to the end. Because this voyage is his destiny. And the reason he has eyes in his head is to watch and observe. To understand? Perhaps not even that. But to watch, certainly, and to bear witness to that horror. Halfway through the chapter she lifts her eyes from the printed words of the book to the window streaming with water. Outside, a dense landscape of trees. The train seems to be entering an unending forest. The branches beyond the wet panes are green with a touch of blue and then of red. Her thoughts go to Emanuele whom she feels she is betraying with this sudden abandonment. Emanuele whom death has transformed into an eternal small boy with a seductive face: a lock of blond hair perpetually falling across his broad brow, a little strong-willed nose, bright brown eyes and a sarcastic, rebellious smile sometimes shot through with pure tenderness. Those the gods love die young. Can she be sure she is not pursuing a ghost? Only ghosts can always stay themselves, always equally lovable and ready to appear at every turn of the eyes. And Luca Spiga, the man of the caresses, the man who though twenty years her senior once enchanted her with his soft, low voice and his abstention from any abrupt, angry or even irritable gesture; why does he now present himself in such a dominant way to her memory? She thought she had forgotten him. And instead, there he is, tender and precise as in the first year they lived together. Only later, only when he was beginning to get bored, did he change into an absent husband. Was that a ghost too? Who is it calling to her from his deathbed, the first Luca or the second?

  Now the forest changes to a cupola or tunnel, with a dark interior. A darkness made up of curious watching eyes. Predatory eyes that penetrate the dim carriage, searching for prey. Eyes with a suspicious look. This is the cold war, this is the cold war. The terrified words of the man with the gazelles. Who should she listen to? For now she will go where the most basic duty takes her: to open the door to anyone who knocks.

  At the border: another long wait. Armed guards taking away people’s passports, two men smoking as they chat in the corridor. Amara can’t distinguish their words but the sound of their voices reminds her of the light rumble of thunder among clouds heavy with rain. Now the train has emerged from its tunnel of trees. It stops at a station sheltered by badly lit roofs. She can hear the piston rhythms of the engine. Memory mixes personal experience with images from films seen with Luca in the little auditorium of the Charlie Chaplin Cineclub at Rifredi. Maybe Jean Cocteau’s Orphée or Carol Reed’s The Third Man. A figure in a long white raincoat is standing stiffly on the pavement watching her as rain falls on him. Then unexpectedly he smiles, takes off his hat and makes her a light bow. Could it be Humphrey Bogart?

  Better to return to Marlow and his Congo River, over which the sails of the ivory-traders lightly float. Why is the young captain so insistent in his search for that Kurz who is believed to know more than any other European about blacks and elephants? Who is it forcing him to follow that unscrupulous man who has put down roots in a world of slaves where each head is worth less than a piece of ivory? Where the darkness grows ever more dense and complex and at the bottom of which nothing can be found except the horror of a heart of darkness? Is Marlow a ghost too? Is it not too early, at twenty-six, for her to be chasing shadows rather than real live people? But her mind sees little difference. In the village square at the centre of her thoughts people who have really existed, imagined people, living people and dead people all walk and talk absolutely naturally. Even if she can tell them apart, she does not want to use a tape measure to establish who belongs on the one side and who on the other, who is worthy of her attention and who not. It is perhaps war, privation, fear, the absolute throw-of-the-dice chance of places and refuges, even of life itself, that have taught her this: to welcome the dead and the living with equal joy. In fact here is little Emanuele who, she now sees, is opening the sliding door of the compartment and, terribly serious, comes to sit facing her on one of the empty seats. He has a book in his hands. He opens it. He buries himself in his reading. He has the same dry, agile body as when he was eleven, the same dark eyes, the same quick, nervous hands. Only his quiff of hair is now grey. A child grown prematurely old.

  ‘Emanuele!’ calls Amara, barely trusting her voice.

  He slowly lifts his head with an interrogative look as if wondering whether he knows her. But the answer seems to be no. He doesn’t recognise her.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asks softly.

  He doesn’t answer. His mind is elsewhere. Anxious to return to his book. But what is he reading? No matter how she stretches her neck, she can’t manage to read the title on the cover. She can just recognise a word or two in German.

  ‘Emanuele!’ she calls again. They are alone in the empty compartment; the last passengers got off at Milan. There’s a more festive atmosphere now. From the corridor she hears the voice of a woman selling panini and pop: ‘Sparkling fizzy drinks!’

  When Amara turns again to look at the seat opposite, the boy Emanuele has vanished. Only the book is still there, open face-down on the seat. Amara picks it up and reads the title: Pinocchio. In a German translation. She wants to laugh. When she and Emanuele used to read together, the books they found in his father’s library were never in German. When can he have changed one language for another? Though that very book in German seems to be there to remind her that a language now divides her from their common past. German, a language she doesn’t know well, has snatched him away from her and projected him into that distant future for which she is fishing among the roots of the past.

  Amara gently replaces the upturned book on the empty seat and goes back to reading about the voyages of Captain Marlow.

  21

  The empty house has a stuffy smell. Amara opens all the windows. Late September, but it’s still hot.

  She decides not to unpack her things but to go straight to the hospital. But to which department? Which ward? She phones Luca’s sister Susanna, known as Suzy, even though they have had no contact for years. Surely urgency will justify her!

  ‘Is it true Luca’s in hospital?’r />
  ‘He is.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Had a minor heart attack. But now he’s better. No chance of that killing him!’ She can hear Suzy laughing at the other end of the line. A strange woman, her sister-in-law. Wild red hair, face puffy with drink, trembling hands. Intelligent, ironic eyes.

  ‘He’s written to say he wants to talk to me before he dies.’

  ‘Dies my foot! He’s in better health than I am.’

  ‘People can die of heart attacks.’

  ‘Not always. He’s had a fright … That’s true enough.’ She laughs again. She likes to seem more cynical than she really is. Though she usually likes to shrug her shoulders at anything in her own life that hasn’t worked out as she would have liked. Three men – one of them Indian – two miscarriages and a sickly son. She once said, ‘I’m a failure, Amara, and I boast about it.’ But who knows what she meant by ‘failure’? And why should she be proud of it? Just to be seen to be brave? Obstinate and fearless? Yet she and Luca both knew how to fascinate others. They were both more loved than loving. Even to the extent of causing a suicide: a twenty-year-old girl who when she felt rejected by the man of the caresses, pulled a plastic bag over her head and tied it tightly round her neck. Both were good at stimulating the senses of others, if unable to carry through any relationship, whether of love or friendship.

  ‘Can you tell me where to find him? Which ward is he on?’

  ‘Cardiology department. Ward 16. You’ll see a gardenia on the wall. Each ward is named for a particular flower. He’s on Gardenia. But it smells of disinfectant.’ She laughs again. Amara can almost see her red curls shaking.

  ‘That’s where I’ll go, then.’

  ‘He’ll probably have nothing to say to you. All he likes is being cuddled. You know him, don’t you.’

  ‘He sent me a desperate letter.’

  ‘His last flame has left him, he’s feeling lonely.’

  ‘What’s that to do with me?’

  ‘You’re still his wife.’

  ‘We split up two years ago.’

  ‘But he still thinks of you as his wife. Perhaps the only woman he can rely on in the midst of all the coming and going of those little flushing devices he’s been having.’

  ‘Flushing devices!?’

  ‘Well, yes, little beach girls, all plunging necklines and make-up. It’s reached a point where real beauties avoid him. He’s getting old, Amara dear. No longer so easy for him to find ladies to deceive.’

  ‘You’re hard on your brother, Suzy.’

  ‘He’s hard on me. Do you think he gave me any help when Vannino was in hospital and seemed to be dying? Or when I had to move house? Do you think he’s ever been there for me when I needed someone to complain to? I know he can’t stand people who grumble, but when your husband leaves you in the lurch with a disabled son and you find yourself on your own with no job at forty, what use is a brother who can’t lend you a helping hand?’

  ‘Listen, I’m off now. I could call you again this evening.’

  ‘Why not come to supper? I’ve made pasta al forno and I’m on my own. Do come, it’ll be nice to see you. Years since we last met. Let me remind you of the address: Via Guelfa 3, remember? Near Piazza di Crocifisso. Will you come?’

  ‘Well, thank you … Actually I’ve only just arrived and haven’t yet …’

  ‘Alone, aren’t you? I didn’t suppose you’d be with a man. Well then. No need to worry about anyone. I’ll expect you at eight-thirty. Anyway, they’ll throw you out of the hospital at seven. Ciao.’

  ‘Shall I bring anything?’

  ‘A bottle of wine, red, ciao.’

  The hospital. Splintery floors, windows that won’t close. Despite the flowers on the doors, an aggressive stench of disinfectant, sick bodies, sour breath and foul air. She recognises the ward from the painted and framed gardenia on the door of Room 16.

  She can make out three beds in the half-light. It’s difficult to tell them apart, but an arm rises from the bed at the far end, near the window. She too lifts a hand. She goes over. The man she had married, Luca Spiga, is stretched on crumpled sheets in pyjamas, with red socks on his feet, hair stuck to his cheeks, eyes swollen and face unshaven. Where’s that beautiful Luca, once so full of seductive caresses? He’s developed a little round stomach, like a craving for pregnancy. His long beard gives him an unkempt and sickly air. But he’s not as pale as she had imagined he would be; two red knobs on his cheeks give him the look of a farm worker who has been hoeing in the sun.

  ‘Well, you look fine.’

  ‘I’ve been near death, Amara. I’ve been waiting for you.’

  ‘What was it you wanted to tell me?’

  ‘I can’t talk here just like that in front of everybody.’

  ‘Whisper in my ear. I’ve come here especially from Vienna.’

  ‘You’ve really come especially to see me?’

  ‘Yes, especially for you.’

  ‘Good lord, what an honour!’

  It’s obvious he has nothing in particular to say, as his sister rightly guessed. All he wanted was attention and a little affection. Taking an iron chair, Amara sits down beside him and prepares herself to be patient. As always, his eyes caress sweetly, like his soft persuasive voice.

  ‘Your sister says you’ve made me come here for nothing.’

  ‘Suzy hates me.’

  ‘Maybe she knows you better than I do.’

  ‘She’s always written me off as a good-for-nothing.’

  ‘How’s work?’

  ‘Going badly. I don’t feel at home in this architectural studio. But I have to work.’

  ‘Can’t you set up on your own?’

  ‘Too much to worry about, too many arguments, I couldn’t face it. Perhaps better to be paid a monthly salary, even a small one, than to spend my Saturdays and Sundays drawing up little plans for horrible apartments to pay the taxman and the rent. I don’t want trouble.’

  ‘You never change. All you want is freedom without responsibility.’

  ‘Have you come here to criticise me?’

  ‘I’ve come because you said it was urgent, that you needed to talk to me.’

  ‘And who says that’s not the truth!?’

  ‘All right. Talk to me when you feel up to it. How are you feeling? I haven’t even asked you that. What bad manners.’

  ‘Not so much bad-mannered as slipping off. There’s something else on your mind. Have you got a man?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘On the contrary, you ought to be sorry I haven’t got a man to travel with me and make love to me.’

  ‘You know what I think, Amara …’ but the sentence stays unfinished. Silence descends between their two tense bodies.

  ‘What did you want to tell me, Luca?’ Amara asks after a long pause during which he takes her hand and squeezes it between his own.

  ‘I wanted to say we should come together again, you and me. You need a man to love and look after. I need a woman …’

  ‘To look after you, I know. Luca, you’re too explicit. You can’t even lie elegantly.’

  ‘You were born to look after people, you were. You’re a failed mother.’

  ‘Failed? I intend to marry again and have at least two children.’

  ‘You never will, Amara, you’re too fond of dreaming. Dreaming and caring for people.’

  ‘Dreaming and caring for people? Wrong. I shall find myself a husband, as I say, and start a family.’

  As she speaks she can feel the warmth of those hands she has loved: large, smooth and tender. She closes her eyes. A moment of reckoning. This man who caresses really does know how to caress. It’s as if he’s pulling her by the arm along a very smooth chute or slide towards an obscure garden of delights. She pulls back her hand with an abrupt gesture that irritates her ex-husband.

  ‘Your hands are as wonderful as ever, but stop trying to seduce me. It won’t work.’

  ‘Are you sure?’r />
  ‘Very sure.’

  ‘Then listen: you shall have complete liberty. I’m not thinking of a typical husband and wife situation, but an agreement between equals. You in your part of the house, I in mine. You can even have lovers; I shan’t say a word. You’ll be free to do whatever you like. In exchange all I ask of you is your company. Just a bit of company. A presence. Eating together and chatting about this and that. To touch your hand, that’s all I ask of you, every now and then maybe to make love; d’you remember we used to be rather good at that, us two? I don’t think it’s too much to ask. What do you say?’

  ‘I’d like to remind you that it was you who told me you’d fallen in love with another woman, even younger than me.’

  ‘I know, I know. But then you went away. We could so easily have gone on living together without making love. But now everything’s different, I’ve discovered how weak I am and how fragile my body is, that I need rest and good company. I’ve had enough of sex. Can you believe that? It nauseates me. I want to dedicate myself to painting, you know I’ve always been a painter.’

  ‘All this because you’ve had a minor heart attack and it’s scared you.’

  ‘Nature has given me a warning. And I want to stop drinking, stop smoking and stop searching for young bodies. My life will change completely, in fact it has already changed, do you believe me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why are you so distrustful?’

  ‘I’ve heard you talk like this before. I’m not saying you don’t mean what you say. But then you forget. The problem is, I don’t love you any more. I’m no longer interested in descending to pacts.’

  ‘I thought you had another man and were hiding that from me. Can you understand that it offends me that you no longer think me worthy of your confidence?’

  ‘The simple fact is I don’t love you. Does that seem so absurd?’

  ‘I may be a megalomaniac but I need to feel the women I’ve loved can never forget me. I shall put it even more strongly: I know you still love me. I’m certain of it or you wouldn’t have hurried so quickly to my side.’