What now?
A couple of filthy words are spinning around in my head as I dial Laura’s phone number. I can’t wait to drop them on her. The phone rings and rings but no one answers. Not even the answering machine clicks on.
I hang up and listen to my own answering machine. The tape winds back with a short whining clatter. Then come the voices.
Beep.
“Bravo, it’s Cindy. I’m finally back. I arrived yesterday. America is nice but by now I feel as if I’m Italian. When can I see you? I have so much to tell you. I bet you do too. I’ve done some accounting and I feel like getting back to work. Give me a call as soon as you hear this message.”
Beep.
“It’s Barbara. Vacation’s over. I’m back in Milan. Do you have anything equally interesting for me? Kisses to you, you fantastic man.”
Beep.
“It’s Laura. Call me.”
“Call me my ass, you stupid bitch.”
The thought escaped me aloud, instinctively, in a hiss. I hear an amused comment in response.
“Is that how you’ll treat me, when I leave a message on your answering machine?”
I turn around and there, standing in front of me, is Carla. She found the clothes I told her about and now she’s completely changed, however casual her clothes might be. It’s another world, another story, another movie.
Another woman.
She’s wearing a pair of jeans and has a pair of light-colored suede campero boots on her feet. A light blue T-shirt and a canvas jacket the same color as her boots. Her wet hair is combed back and her eyes stand out like colorful handkerchiefs lying on the snow.
“I feel like a cowboy. How do I look?”
I stand there speechless, without answering her question. I’m only causing myself pain, but I can’t do anything else. I’m just captivated by the thought of what she’ll look like after a hairdresser, a makeup artist, and a designer have done some work on her. The minute I utter these thoughts in my mind, I realize I’m hopelessly lost.
8
We step out onto the landing and I pull the door shut behind us. As soon as my door closes, the one across the landing clicks and swings open. The figure of Lucio appears between door and doorjamb.
“Winners, placers, and showers.”
Carla is baffled. I smile. It’s the solution to the cryptic clue that I wrote on a slip of paper and slid under Lucio’s door, yesterday.
Forms of luck: horses that come in first, gold mines, or where a losing team is sent after the game (7, 7, 3, 7)
Winners, placers, and showers, in fact. As in “win, place, or show.” A horse that comes in first is a winner, a placer mine is a kind of gold mine, and a losing team is sent to the showers. But a horse that comes in second is a placer, and a horse that comes in third is a shower. I knew that Chico, the young man who takes Lucio to work and back home every day, would find it and read it to him. And that he’d solve it. It wasn’t even all that hard. I decide that at this point it’s incumbent upon me to make introductions.
“Carla, this is my neighbor, Lucio.”
She looks at me, her brow furrowed. I wave a hand in front of my eyes, to let her know that Lucio is blind. He steps out of the door, his dark glasses now completely justified, and takes a step toward us on the landing.
“Lucio, the young lady who’s with me is named Carla.”
He extends his hand.
“Ciao, Carla. I’m afraid you’ll have to shake my hand, otherwise I might wind up looking like I’m playing blind man’s bluff.”
Lucio’s sense of humor is capable of resolving any awkward situation. In fact, the sticky moment passes and Carla shakes his hand. He holds hers longer than necessary.
“Nice skin, Carla. If it’s the same all over your body, your boyfriend is a lucky guy.”
Carla laughs. I can see that Lucio is pleased with his little triumph. I’m happy for him. We’re three people lost in a stormy sea and the landing is our raft. I think that we’re all well aware of the fact, each in his or her own way.
And each of us tries to battle the gales with the few tattered sails available.
Lucio turns toward me, his head just slightly out of alignment. He looks as if he’s hoping to get me into trouble.
“Now I’ve come up with one for you. It’s a bear.”
“Let me have it.”
“Everyone was in debt—that’s permitted (seven). You might want to look at it written down, rather than rely on pronunciation. Though I didn’t, obviously.”
I repeat the puzzle in a low voice, to make sure I know it by heart. If my friend tells me that it’s a bear, I’m pretty sure it won’t be easy to solve. But he didn’t say it was a monster, so it’s not as bad as it could be.
I smack his arm with my hand, in a sign of farewell.
“Ciao, Lucio. I’m afraid we have to go.”
He pretends to take offense and he strikes up a little melodrama.
“Fine, fine. Just leave me here to brood over my grief, without so much as a cryptic clue to solve.”
I start downstairs and toss a challenge back over my shoulder to him.
“I’ve got a stumper all ready for you.”
“Go ahead.”
“Why do you persist in trying to be a musician, when you’re obviously not cut out for it?”
His words waft down to me when I’m already on the second landing down.
“Bravo, spending time with you is like sitting on a sea urchin, and you have the ear of Beethoven in his later years. Carla…”
She is a few steps ahead of me, and she stops when she hears her name. She looks up toward the voice that is echoing down the stairwell.
“Yes?”
“If you’d like to get a better understanding of Bravo’s cultural poverty this evening, just tell him to take you to Byblos, in Brera. That’s where I play.”
Carla catches the ball on the first bounce and joins in the game.
“Nothing on earth could make me miss it. I’ll force him to go, at gunpoint, if necessary.”
“Very good. I have a hunch you have more than one kind of weapon at your disposal.”
Carla seems to enjoy trading wisecracks with Lucio. And so does he. I’m so used to it that it’s nothing more to me than a small everyday pleasure. I push open the glass door and we walk out onto the street. There are parked cars. There are children playing. Some of them have unlikely English names, like Richard or Elisabeth, followed by surnames that are so Italian that they cut off any international aspirations the moment you hear them. A number of people, male and female, watch us go by with the curiosity of those who don’t know but would give anything to find out.
I decide that Carla has figured out everything at first glance.
“It doesn’t strike me that you socialize much around here.”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
We walk around the corner of the building and head for the front gate, leaving behind us the whispers of the Quartiere Tessera.
“Bravo, what was that thing about the winners and the showers? And the other thing, the crypt—”
She stops short. I come to her rescue and complete the phrase for her.
“Cryptic clues.”
While we walk to the Mini I tell her about the routine that Lucio and I have developed of challenging each other to solve word puzzles. I explain the various kinds of puzzles to her and the verbal mechanism involved in solving cryptic clues. The whole time she listens raptly. Maybe she’s trying to impress my explanation on her memory.
As we talk, we get into the car and I start the engine.
“What was the one he just asked you?”
“Everyone was in debt—that’s permitted. The answer is one word of seven letters.”
She sits there, pensive, and looks around while I pull onto Via Vigevanese, heading for Milan. The light of day has changed the appearance of the houses, the industrial sheds, the people. The dark streetlights are intruders in this panorama. The
re’s traffic and there’s life, exactly what I was about to lose last night, when I drove this road in the opposite direction with a man gripping a gun sitting next to me. I was sure it was going to be my last trip anywhere.
Those three puffs of air were all that was needed to change everything.
Pfft … pfft … pfft …
The sound of nothing really, three flaps of a wing that turned the universe upside down. I am here, I’m alive, I’m breathing, I’m driving my car with a pretty young woman sitting next to me, armed with nothing but her determination. Someone else died the death that he had meant for me, may he roast in hell. All I need to know now is why. That’s the cryptic clue I want to solve: the motive. But I have no definition, no number of letters, unless mors tua vita mea—your death is my life—is the universal solution.
“Where are we going?”
“To take a spin through Fairyland. And to obtain some enchantments that expire at midnight.”
I smile at her, with mysterious complicity. Or at least that’s what I think I’m doing. With Carla I’m losing many of my bedrock certainties. She’s about to answer me when the pager beeps from my belt.
After a hundred yards or so, I slow down and brake to a halt next to a phone booth. Carla says nothing but keeps turning her head to look around, perhaps wondering what magic spell it could be that just transformed the world she lives in.
“I have to make a phone call.”
I step out of the car after providing an explanation to someone who hadn’t asked for one. I walk into the phone booth and slide the token into the slot, which gulps it down its metal throat. I dial the reliable number. They tell me that Laura was looking for me.
Her of all people. Speak of a whore and you hear the click of stiletto heels.
I slip in a second token and it seems as if everything is moving in slow motion, with the rage that’s building inside me. I carve the numbers into the dial. Laura answers almost immediately.
“Hello?”
“It’s Bravo. Well?”
“Well what?”
The sheer incongruity of this response makes me snap. So when I reply it’s not in veiled or allusive terms.
“Tell me something, you idiot, have you lost your goddamned mind? Weren’t you supposed to be at the Hotel Gallia at nine o’clock this morning? Why didn’t you show up? You made me look like a complete asshole in front of somebody who could have been a gold mine.”
She hesitates, unsure exactly what to say to me. Then, whatever it is, she decides that she has to tell me in person.
“Bravo, I need to see you.”
Her judicious tone fails to calm my nerves. Not after what just happened.
“I think so too. I need to see you, now. And I hope you have a pretty damn persuasive explanation.”
“Where?”
“I’ll be at your front door in just a few minutes.”
A pause. Then a voice edged with anxiety.
“Bravo, I’d really prefer to meet someplace else.”
I’d tell her to go fuck herself for the bitch that she is, but I can’t. Not right now, anyway. Laura is one of the three girls, together with Barbara and Cindy, that Bonifaci requested for his nine-million-lire evening.
I take a deep breath before I speak.
“I’m going to get my hair done by Alex, a hairdresser across from the Stazione Centrale. You know him?”
“At the Jean Louis David salon?”
“Yes.”
“Of course I know him.”
“That’s not far from your house. Next to the salon is a bar. I’ll wait for you in the back room. In twenty minutes.”
“Fine. I’ll be there.”
I go back to the car, get in, and slam the door behind me a little harder than normal. Carla looks at me and understands from my expression that my mood has changed.
“Something wrong?”
“Nothing that can’t be taken care of with a nice fat ‘go fuck yourself.’”
I put the car in gear and slip back out into the flow of traffic. Carla decides that silence is the balm that will let me settle down. That is clearly to her credit and it raises her standing in my estimation.
The whole thing with Laura has really pissed me off. In my relationships with the girls who work for me, there have never been elements of constraint or extortion, just total clarity. They work with me by their own free choice and they are free to do as they like, but they can’t abuse that freedom and make a fool out of me. In this case I gave but I was given nothing in return: the game is no longer fair. Maybe Tulip knew what he was doing when he smacked her around.
Still, by the time we get to Via Vittor Pisani my anger has boiled down a little bit. Just a bit, though, I decide. I guess it’s wrong to make Carla the scapegoat for another person’s faults. I find an unoccupied parking spot just fifty yards from where we’re going. In Milan, in this neighborhood and at this time of day, that’s a gift of the gods.
We get out of the car.
Carla glances at me with some curiosity. This must not be a part of the city that she spends much time in.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
I start off and she follows me on the first leg of this trip through a world of enchantment, which in this specific case is the salon of a beautician and hairdresser. When we walk into Alex’s shop, it’s packed as usual. There are lights, scents, women under hair dryers. Young men and women in black uniforms move soundlessly across the glossy floor. This place must make more money than the casino in Opera, even though I can’t imagine Tano Casale cutting anyone’s hair. Their throat, sure, but not their hair. Carla is attracted and at the same time perhaps a bit intimidated. I don’t imagine that a place like this—where a shampoo and a permanent cost more than she gets paid for a week’s work—is something she’s accustomed to.
Alex, who’s busy advising a young man on the best way to waste time on a matron whose face looks like a hen has been walking on it, sees me, and his face lights up. He tells the young man to wait, leaves the woman to her fate, and walks over to us. He’s a tall, skinny man, with the little remaining hair on his head chopped very short, indifferent to a case of incipient baldness that’s already as bad as it’s likely to get. He’s a likable guy. He knows how to treat people and how to do his job. It’s no accident that he’s one of the most sought-after hairdressers and makeup artists in the worlds of television, fashion, and advertising. And even though he’s no male model, he’s very successful with women.
“Ciao, Bravo. It’s about time you showed up here. Shall we give a trim to that bush you have on your head?”
“No, I’m not here for my hair. I need you to be in top form today.”
“I’m always in top form.”
At this point it strikes me that it’s time to tell my companion just what’s happening. Even though she must already have guessed, because her eyes are sparkling.
“Carla, let me introduce you to Alex, who’s about to turn you into a goddess.”
At last I explain to Alex the reason for our presence in his salon.
“You need to take good care of this young lady. Use all the tools in your tool kit—money is no object—and lavish your talent on her.”
Ever since my friend came over to speak with us, he’s clearly been evaluating Carla. Perhaps, just out of professional habit, he’d already been considering how to cut this diamond in the rough. Now that he knows he’s about to be given a free hand with her, he seems to be intrigued by the challenge that I’ve just issued.
For him, this too is a cryptic clue.
I’ve been filed away for later. I no longer exist. Alex’s mind is already humming with activity, summoning all his experience and all his imagination for the job. He reaches a hand out to Carla.
“Come on. Let’s see what we can do.”
He drags her away without so much as a glance at me. As Carla moves off, she turns to look back at me with a puzzled expression. I make a meanin
gful gesture with my hands, as if to recommend that she relax, but also signaling my helplessness in the face of Alex’s creative fury.
I’m left standing alone.
I leave the shop. Behind me, photographs taped to the shop windows show models, both male and female, pouting for the camera in their new hairdos. It’s a few dozen steps to the neighboring bar. It’s a newly renovated place, with some aspirations to architectural style, but made ordinary and nondescript by an excess of mirrors and chrome. At lunchtime they serve hot and cold lunches to the neighborhood office workers. The rush has ended and the place is only sparsely populated. Men and women with all the trappings of executives, running a little behind schedule, indulge in a coffee or a snack.
A waitress takes her own sweet time before bestowing the privilege of her attention on me, which is as meager as her charms. I’ve finished my coffee and I’m smoking my second cigarette when Laura shows up. When she walks in, a hush falls over the café. It’s fleeting, almost imperceptible, but significant. She’s dressed in an understated manner: a pair of jeans, a blouse, the same jacket she had on last night. Still, she’s stunning, and she captures people’s eyes and imaginations. The few women present look at her with envy, while all the men reserve their envy for me. I could eliminate that envy by standing up and saying just a few words. If you like her and you want her, and of course if you can afford her, step right up: I’m the man to see.
But I stay where I am and I watch Laura as she pulls back the chair across from me.
“Ciao, Bravo.”
I don’t even give her a chance to sit all the way down before I launch into her.
“Well? And don’t answer ‘Well what?’ again or I’ll have to throw acid in your face.”
She takes off her dark glasses. Her eyes look drawn, as if she hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. Whether that’s because she cried all night or fucked someone all night, I don’t give a damn. What I care about is that she was supposed to fuck someone this morning and that she failed to.
“But didn’t you see the television news today, at one o’clock?”
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