Giorgio Scerbanenco - A Private Venus

Perhaps the moment had come, as defenceless, exposed and dispirited as she was, to bring him up to date. ‘Maybe you never got beyond those girls in leather jackets standing by the jukebox, those scrubbers from 1960 with their long hair all straggly as if they’d drowned: according to you, they can streetwalk in the Corso Buenos Aires at night, but nobody else. I think you’re behind the times.’

Another vague smile from the man. ‘That may be, I’d never thought of graduates in history and philosophy doing it. And frankly, graduates in history and philosophy who supplement their incomes with this kind of work make me suspicious.’

His tone, however polite, was very threatening. Livia shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to do about that,’ she said. ‘If you’ve finished your interrogation, I’d like to do those photographs and leave.’

‘Yes, you’re right. Luigi, switch on the floodlights and start.’ He turned to her again. ‘Signorina, where did you put your handbag?’

‘Why?’

‘Because when I have my suspicions, I like to check.’

‘You can’t look in my handbag,’ she burst out, but only because she had to burst out, it was part of the play-acting.

‘Oh, but I think I can,’ he replied, getting to his feet. ‘Where’s that bag?’

‘It’s in the bathroom, go on, look in it, take the money if you want, I should have known I was dealing with crooks.’

‘Yes, you’re right, you should have told yourself we didn’t come from a church youth club. But if you pose for the photographs, I won’t take your money. Luigi, start,’ and he went into the bathroom. The red canvas handbag was in full sight on the little shelf over the washbasin, he took out the money, there was the fifty thousand she had been given by the man called Luigi, plus a couple of thousand-lire notes and about a dozen five-hundred-lire coins. There was the usual lipstick, the usual mirror, the usual key ring with just two keys, the driving licence, a tiny, spotless handkerchief, folded into a triangle, and finally there was a really tiny address book, a woman’s, filled neatly, in a microscopic but very clear handwriting. It was the only slightly battered object, the cover was a bit worn, it must be a few years old.

And nothing else. He put his head out of the door of the bathroom that gave on the room adapted as a studio. He could see the photographer moving around behind his Minox-‘Move, there, stop, six, move, there, stop, seven, move, there, stop, eight’-but he couldn’t see Livia. There was still time before they got to fifty photographs. He put everything back in the handbag, except the address book, and from his breast pocket he took out a pair of very normal glasses with tortoiseshell frames, which made him look like the model of a young cool jazz lover and started to read. At first he leafed through, just to get an idea of what kind of addresses the graduate kept, then he thought that he would proceed more methodically and started to read from the letter A . None of the names meant anything to him, but under E he found the addresses of three publishing houses, Editions This and Editions That, so the girl really did translate. Under the letter I he found the address of an Institute of Italian-English culture, under the letter M that of a neoanarchist movement which gave him pause for thought, was the girl an anarchist? Then at the letter R he found that name.

The photographer had been right to smell a rat. He went back in the room, sat down again, turning his back on Livia a little. They were on the thirty-ninth photograph, there were still a dozen to do, but he said to Luigi, ‘That’s enough now.’ And to her, ‘Come here, please, I have some more questions to ask you.’

‘I’d like to get dressed,’ she said. She was sure now that he had discovered something and that the battle was starting, she wasn’t afraid, she only wanted to know what he could possibly have discovered in the handbag. The answer wasn’t long in coming.

‘Come here now, you bitch, or I’ll break your legs, and tell me how you happen to know Alberta Radelli.’

So that was what he had discovered, but how could she have remembered that Alberta’s name was still in her old address book? Things were turning difficult now, and she liked difficulty. She immediately obeyed and went and sat down in front of him, with the photographer watching her from behind, but she obeyed with the air of someone who’s dealing with a madman.

‘She was a friend of mine.’

‘What do you mean, “was”? Did you quarrel?’ He was setting a trap, trying to get her to lie.

‘No, the poor girl died, she killed herself.’ She didn’t rise to the bait. All her intelligence was lit up like an electronic calculator, ready to fight the enemy’s wiles.

‘When?’

‘A year ago.’

‘How?’

‘She slit her wrists. It was in all the papers.’

‘Were you good friends?’

‘Quite good.’

‘Was she someone who went on the streets every now and again, like you?’

He thought he was being clever, in his way he was, he was just waiting for her to tell a lie, in order to jump on her. ‘Yes. Maybe that’s why we became friends.’

For a while the almost young man looked at her, he seemed more interested in her breasts then in her face, while he thought about his next move. Then he said to the photographer, ‘Give me a roll of film.’

Luigi had a box of them in the pocket of his smock and immediately gave him one.

‘Have you ever seen a roll of film like this?’ And he again looked her in the eyes, his own eyes half closed, as if to focus better.

‘Yes, it’s a Minox cartridge.’

‘And where have you seen one before?’

‘It was at university, a friend of mine had a Minox.’

‘Could other people have also showed you a roll like this?

‘I don’t remember. It’s possible, maybe a photographer.’

‘What about your friend Alberta? Didn’t she ever show you one of these cartridges?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?

‘Yes.’

‘And didn’t your friend ever tell you that she’d been asked to pose for photographs like the ones you’ve just been doing?’

The lie had to be ready instantaneously in order to seem convincing. ‘No.’

‘Let’s think about it: you and she are very good friends, you tell each other everything, even how much you earn from your streetwalking, and then she doesn’t tell you she posed for some artistic photographs, or that she’s about to. Strange.’

‘We were good friends but we didn’t see each other often, sometimes a month or two went by without our meeting.’ She was starting to feel cold, but only because of the air conditioning on her naked skin, not because of anything else.

For a while the man remained silent, with his head down, he was looking at her feet, counting the toes, almost as if he was anxious to know how many there were altogether, to help himself to think. Then, still with his head down, he said, ‘You’re not telling us the truth. I think you know something. Maybe you know a lot.’

‘But I don’t even know what it is you want from me, I only know I’ve ended up in a den of thieves. Let me get dressed and go, you can keep the money if you like, but I want to leave.’ She was playing her part almost perfectly.

‘Luigi,’ the man said, ‘bring me the cotton wool and the alcohol, and also the peroxide.’

‘I don’t know if I have any peroxide.’

‘Don’t worry, it’s just to stop the bleeding.’ The man took out his glasses and put them on. At last he looked at her. ‘If you tell me the whole truth, I won’t do anything to you.’ He also took out a penknife from one of his pockets, a modest, old-fashioned penknife, the kind that not even primary schoolchildren used any more.