The Girl on the Via Flaminia Page 6

  “A stranger?” Lisa said. “But all men are strangers.”

  “I meant a foreigner, an American.”

  “They are generous,” she said, “and not all of them are alike.”

  “Have you been happy?”

  She did not answer.

  “Excuse me,” Antonio said. “Perhaps I should not ask. But it is difficult for me to accept certain things.”

  “That our women marry foreigners?”

  “No,” Antonio said. “That they don’t marry them. That they sell themselves to them.”

  She stood up, abruptly. It was absolutely necessary to escape, and to escape now, this moment, while she could. “Excuse me,” she said. She went out of the kitchen and then out of the house. The grayness of winter inhabited everything: sky, building, street. And it seemed to her, walking rapidly, with the cold coming through the inadequate raincoat she wore, that almost all of the faces of the young men she passed were like Antonio’s, and she thought how similar their memories (of transports, defeat, the desert) must be. Her own urgency had increased now; she had already lied, saying he was a lawyer, defending him, involving herself deeper, when what she wished above all was to end it, to close off forever the house, the room, and the night. She walked quickly down the Via Flaminia toward the city. A truck, one of her countrymen’s, going down the wide boulevard exploded from a protruding exhaust pipe a dense black cloud of something that was hardly gasoline. Near the old enormous stone gate, whose archways led into the Piazza del Popolo, a starved cabman’s horse stamped, his ribs covered with a soldier’s blanket. At the trolley terminal, a clump of people waited with that incredible patience born out of the war and disaster for the infrequent circolare.

  She crossed the dung-spotted cobbles, under the archways, avoiding the horn blasts of the vehicles, passing on her left the old church Nero’s ghost was supposed to haunt, the city’s birds roosting on its stone, and then the piazza itself, wide, with the fountain and obelisk in its geometrical center, and the park above it, and the statuary at each side. Three avenues fanned out from the piazza, and she walked toward the central one, the Corso. He sat on the edge of the bed, she remembered, unbuckling his boots, and in the darkness there had been that intensified and unrelaxed waiting, that expectation of his hands, and she remembered too, shrinkingly, that when he had touched her, later, something in her had not been entirely unwilling.

  She hurried on; a café, a tobacco shop, a store that once sold lingerie, the department stores with bare windows; it was the hotel she wanted, thinking this would be preferable, and thinking that the French would be different, not knowing why, thinking a hotel run by the French would be differently run than one by the Americans or the English. There were two sentries, short and swarthy, in white helmets and white leggings, outside the hotel; they did not salute her as she went through the revolving door. At the desk, in the lobby, she did not know quite how to ask; where could one find the military manager? The clerk, a countryman, as the elevator boys and the waiters and the men who take care of the lavatory were countrymen, looked at her, and then indicated a door beyond the desk and behind him. The office was paneled; there was a window the length of the wall; the desk was glasstopped and of some polished black wood; the Frenchman was a major. She sat in a leather-upholstered chair. I must smile, she thought; I’m not smiling. How could she explain how necessary the work was to her, and yet smile? The major sat, swiveling slowly in the chair, talking of Siena. Did the signorina know Siena?

  “Yes,” Lisa said.

  “A beautiful city. I like cities,” the major said, with old walls around them. We occupied it once, I think. In the sixteenth century. I was very fond of the Duomo. And the Pinturicchios. Have you been to the Pinturicchios, signorina?”

  “No,” Lisa said. “I know very little about art.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t the art,” the major said. “I was more astonished at the real gold and the jewels they used than at the paintings. Actual gold.” He spun a little in his comfortable chair. “So you like to work.”

  “Yes,” Lisa said.

  “Well, one can always use another secretary. Are you married, signorina?”

  She hesitated; but why? Why should she hesitate?

  “No,” she said.

  “Good,” the major said. “Marriage is such an inconvenience. One must always be home at a certain hour. But with no husband—one is independent. I prefer independence. Do you, signorina?”

  “Yes,” Lisa said.

  “So,” the major said. “Work. There are many girls who come into the hotel for work. Some of them type. Some take shorthand. Some lack those simple talents. Do you type, signorina?”

  “No.”

  “Or take shorthand?”

  “No.”

  “Oh,” the major said. “Neither. Well. What can you do?”

  “Perhaps answer the telephone,” Lisa said. “Anything.”

  “Anything,” the major said. “That’s interesting.

  “What is the anything you would be willing to do?”

  She did not answer.

  “There are few jobs, and many girls,” the major said. “They come in all day. Each is anxious. Well, one should take the most anxious, and the most independent, no?”

  She stood up, fingering her purse, and the major leaned back in the swivel chair.

  “We are not that independent, are we, signorina?”

  “No.”

  “Well,” the major said. “Buon giorno.”

  “Buon giorno,” she said.

  Outside, the clerk, her countryman, avoided looking at her, and the sentries stamped, snapping their arms, as the revolving door turned.

  Che bestie! she thought: che bestie! And now the French were included.

  So that was no escape, and yet she could not accept the other thing: the waiting in the room for evening to come, in the room, and hearing him enter the house, hearing him say buona sera to Adele or to Mimi or to Ugo when he entered, bringing, as she knew he would, because that was his part of the arrangement and he kept to it scrupulously, the musette bag, and what was in the musette bag. And always, when he entered, the first few days, there was the formality of the greeting, and it was always the same, she sitting on the bed, pretending to read sometimes, or pretending to sew, and Robert blowing on his hands, saying how cold it was, and she would say yes, wasn’t it cold, and then he would say yes, certainly was cold.

  They went out the second evening because Robert wanted to, and sat in a little neighborhood café, and he drank vermouth, the ice floating in the glass, and she had a gelato, with a small flavored lozenge on top which dripped a fruit brandy down into the richness of the cream, and the night they went there was an incident at the bar. There were always incidents. At the bar, the night they were there, the second night they were together, there was a Negro soldier, drinking cognac, dressed in a thick parka, and she sat, listening to them, the Negro and the proprietor, talking. She watched the teeth of the Negro: how enormous they were, how white. And the voice: how differently they all spoke, in some the speech nasal and grating, in some the speech thick and rich, and the tongue and the teeth were used a great deal when they spoke. All the tables had been taken indoors during the winter, and the chestnut trees outside the café were stripped and bare. But in the summer the strolling musicians would come. It was the Negro talking that had made her think of the musicians in the summertime. Then as she watched she realized the Negro was selling, in his musical speech that made her think of the strolling musicians, or was about to sell cigarettes to the proprietor, and all the music, of both languages, was concerned only with the price of the cigarettes. Then she watched the Negro with the musical speech take from inside his thick hooded parka a carton of cigarettes, and the proprietor went to his cash register and rang up a no-sale and took his money out of the register and gave it to the Negro who, flashing those splendid teeth, smiled and finished his cognac and went out of the café, and right after that there was the incident. The
incident consisted of the proprietor tearing off the wax-paper covering of the carton of cigarettes, and tearing open the cardboard, and then tearing open a package of cigarettes, and there were no cigarettes at all in the package, there was straw or dung or whatever the Negro soldier had been able to find and roll cigarettes of that would feel enough like cigarettes in the carton, and the proprietor, swearing and calling down maledictions upon the heads of all the armies, especially the Ethiopian one, ran out of the café into the cold, wildly looking about for the musical voice, and Robert had laughed, and they left the café soon afterward.

  Then they were back again in the room, for everything that happened between them of any importance revolved about the room. In the newspaper there was a funny cartoon, and lying on the bed she laughed at the cartoon. The newspaper was spread out on the red cover of the bed. The cartoon was a political one and showed Romulus and Remus and they had just completed cutting that long furrow within which Rome was to be built according to the legend. They were lying under a tree, resting, and the plowshare was still deep in the earth beside them. Then Romulus said to Remus: Now that we have completed building a city where the Alleati can have a good time, let us build one for ourselves.

  She laughed because it was so true and so funny, and they had just come from the café.

  “It’s not that funny,” Robert said.

  “No?” she said. “You laughed at the cigarettes.”

  “Well, that was pretty funny. When he opened up the carton.”

  “But the man paid for them.”

  “Well, the jig paid for his cognac, and that wasn’t real either.”

  “Jig?”

  “The Negro.”

  “It is not funny to pay two thousand lire for cigarettes and then find only straw.”

  He had brought now, the second night, an alarm clock with him, and he had taken the alarm clock out of his musette bag, and as he did so she thought of him coming like this every night with that bag as a miner might come home after work with a pickax or a lawyer with a briefcase. He was winding the alarm clock.

  “I brought the clock so that Adele won’t have to knock on the door in the morning,” he said.

  He put the clock on the end table near the bed.

  “That looks very domestic,” he said, looking at the clock.

  She did not answer.

  “It’s almost like I had to go to work in the morning. Would you mind if I left my raincoat here? Just in case it rains.”

  “If you wish.”

  “I’ll hang it in the closet.”

  He opened the door of the wardrobe closet. Only her raincoat was hanging in the closet on a hanger, and below the raincoat there was a valise, with all the valise straps buckled. He hung his raincoat in the closet, beside hers, and he knew then because of the valise that nothing was really settled yet. Despite the alarm clock.

  “Do you know,” he said, “I was afraid when I came tonight that you might not be here.”

  “Were you?”

  “Yes,” Robert said. “I thought the room might be empty. I thought I’d come and there would be nobody here but the Pulcinis and some excuse.”

  “What would you have done?”

  She was pretending to read the newspaper.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You would have found another one,” Lisa said. “There are other girls in the city.”

  The clock ticked, matrimonially.

  “Thousands of them,” Robert said. “Aren’t you cold in that raincoat?”

  “I’m accustomed to it.”

  He had bought a bottle of vermouth in the wineshop in the neighborhood. He opened the vermouth, at the table, while she lay there with the newspaper spread out on the bed, and the clock ticked. “Is the valise in the closet yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you unpack it?”

  She did not answer. He poured the vermouth, liking the color of the wine, into a glass. “What did you do with the stuff I left here this morning?”

  “Your gifts?”

  “They weren’t gifts. They were just things I left for you.”

  “I gave them to Adele.”

  “Oh.” He drank the vermouth. “You were sleeping when I woke up. You were all cuddled up. You looked cute.”

  “Cute?”

  “Carina,” Robert said. “We say cute.”

  “Cute,” the girl said, pronouncing it. “What words they use for endearments. Babbee, darling, cute. What a language for love. Everything is said with the teeth. The, the—” she said, showing him how the tongue had to click against her teeth in order to say it.

  “The,” Robert said, repeating it. “It doesn’t sound hard to me.”

  “Italian is soft,” she said, “and musical. And the language says exactly what it means. The,” she said again, contemptuously. “What is it? Masculine? Feminine?”

  “It’s neuter,” Robert said.

  “The,” she said. “In Italian nothing is neuter. The article agrees with the noun. Masculine or feminine.”

  “That’s fine,” Robert said. “I like that. I don’t think things should be neuter either.”

  “I mean the language,” she said.

  “I don’t,” he said. “I mean everything.”

  He came across the room, and sat down beside her, and folded the newspaper she had been reading. “I’m glad you didn’t go away,” he said. “I’m glad you were here when I came tonight.” She did not answer. “I was,” he hesitated over the word a little, “pretty happy last night.”

  “Grazie,” the girl said. “I’m glad you were pleased.”

  “Weren’t you?”

  She shrugged.

  “Non importa,” she said. She looked away. “Why did you light the match?”

  “Last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “To look at you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re beautiful.”

  “I don’t like it,” she said. “I’m not an animal in a stable you come to look at in the night. To admire because you own it. To see if it’s comfortable.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  She picked at the edge of the pillow. “Antonio asked me today what you do in America.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That you were studying to be a lawyer.”

  “Who, me? I’m no lawyer. I’m not even an engineer. I used to work for a newspaper.”

  “A journalist?” she said, hopefully.

  “No,” Robert said. “Not even a journalist. I used to sell ads. Advertisements. Like these.” He indicated the advertisements in the newspaper she had been reading. “That isn’t much to boast of to Antonio, is it?” He smiled at her. “What are you thinking?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Would you have liked me to be an officer and a lawyer?”

  “Non importa,” the girl said.

  “You always say that.”

  “What?”

  “Non importa.”

  She shrugged again. “But nothing is,” she said. “You are not a lawyer, I am not a prima ballerina.”

  “No,” Robert said, “we’re only like the two things in your language: masculine and feminine. Do you go to church Sunday?”

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “I thought you might like to go to Lake Bracciano. I could get a jeep from my company. Would you like to go? If you don’t go to church, that is.”

  “I have nothing to go to church for.”

  “Well, people go to pray.”

  “I’m in anger with God.”

  The phrase amused him. “All right. We’ll go to Bracciano. You’re not in anger with Lake Bracciano, are you?” He looked at her, wishing he could feel safe enough or sure enough of her to touch her. He wanted very much to touch her now. “One of the boys in my company is in love with a girl. An Italian girl. He’s married. But he’s going home and he’s going to get divorced and then he’s coming back for her.”
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br />   “And she believes him?” Lisa said.

  “Sure.”

  “What a fool. He’ll never come back.”

  “He might. Boats go both ways. And he says he will.”

  “He won’t,” Lisa said. “He’ll use her and that will be all.”

  “You don’t trust anybody, do you?” Robert said. “You don’t think anybody keeps a promise.”

  “Words don’t make flour,” she said.

  “What’s that? A proverb?”

  “Yes.”

  “You seem to know a lot about men and their promises.”

  “Yes,” she said. “You know how experienced we Italians are.”

  “How many men have you known?”

  “Hundreds.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I have a different one in every city. Rich, too. Doctors, lawyers, engineers. That’s why I’m here in this room with you. Because I know so many men and I’ve had so many lovers.”

  He put his glass down beside the alarm clock. The clock ticked; and he had set the alarm for seven-thirty. “Do you have a proverb about happiness?”

  “Only that God sends flies to the starved horse.”

  “How about a proverb about how happiness doesn’t gather moss or something? Don’t you have a proverb like that?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad. Happiness isn’t neuter. How’s that for a proverb?”

  “You’re drunk,” she said.

  “I’m not drunk,” he said. “I just feel good. Do you mind? I feel good because I’m in a room. With four walls, and a door. It’s wonderful. You can close the door. You can lock it. And besides, you didn’t run away. I thought you might. But you didn’t. I always thought that when I would finally be in a room with four walls and a door you could close I would go up to my girl and kiss her. Like this.”

  After a while, he took his mouth away. “Lisa,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Nothing. I just wanted to say your name.”

  She leaned back against the pillow and she was quiet. Then she said: “You are not even a lawyer.”

  “No,” Robert said, “I’m not even a lawyer.”