Giorgio Scerbanenco - A Private Venus

‘I know it’s a bother, but turn around and walk.’

Davide obeyed like a child, worse, like a laboratory mouse following a pre-arranged path according to the impulses received, except that he couldn’t turn with much precision and swayed more than before.

‘That’s enough. Now lie down on the bed.’ Apart from these motor disorders due to his drunken state, his walk presented no abnormalities. When he was on the bed, Duca felt his liver, and for what such a rudimentary examination was worth, it could have been a teetotaller’s liver. He looked at his tongue: perfect; he examined his skin centimetre by centimetre: perfect, although the texture was undoubtedly masculine, it was as limpid and elastic as that of a beautiful woman. Even alcohol would take time to eat away at this physical monument.

There might be some failure elsewhere. ‘Stay there on the bed,’ he said, ‘just tell me where I can find a pair of scissors.’

‘In the bathroom, just go out in the corridor, it’s next door.’

He came back from the bathroom with the scissors and began pricking Davide’s feet, his calves, his legs, with one or both of the points of the scissors. The answers were always clear: young Davide was a drinker on whom alcohol had so far had absolutely no effect.

‘You can get dressed again, then we’ll go to dinner. I think there’s a place near Inverigo.’ He looked out of the window while Davide dressed, then said, ‘Your father may have told you I’m only just out of prison.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘Yes.’

‘Then I’m sure you’ll understand. We’ll start the treatment tomorrow. Tonight I’d like to relax. Quite apart from the surroundings, a prison diet is depressing. Tonight you’ll be the one to keep me company.’

Before they went out, Duca made Davide stop under the light and passed two fingers over his left cheek, where there was what looked like a coal smudge, only it wasn’t coal.

‘Does it hurt?’

‘Yes.’ He seemed less afraid. ‘Not much, only at night. It’s best if I don’t sleep on that side.’

‘Hitting you with a poker was a bit extreme.’

For the first time Davide smiled. ‘I’d drunk a bit too much that night.’ He was excusing his father, he thought the punishment was just, he would have turned the other cheek for a second blow.

The strange young man’s car was a Giulietta, dark blue obviously, and obviously with a grey interior, obviously without a radio or any other accessory: that would have been vulgar. It wasn’t far from the hill where the villa stood to Inverigo, but in no time at all after Davide had sat down behind the wheel, Duca saw the villa rise up into the sky, then the road below almost hit him in the face, there were a series of jolts, blinding lights, presumably the lights of the other cars, and the Giulietta stopped: they had arrived.

‘Your father told me how fast you drive,’ he said, ‘but he didn’t tell me how well.’ The road was narrow and full of bends, and there was a lot of traffic at this time of year: you had to be a really good driver to do that journey so quickly.

He continued working on his difficult patient, but it was like trying to make friends with a blank, talking into a void, coaxing a desert. Davide never spoke of his own accord, he only answered questions, and where possible answered only ‘yes.’ First, he took him to the bar. ‘Go ahead and have a whisky, we’ll start the treatment tomorrow.’

The place, which, like the villa, was on the side of a hill, had pretentions to being a nightclub, though it was more like a dance hall. The dance floor was on a veranda overlooking the garden. It was almost empty, a few couples of modest weekday sinners could be seen in the dim lighting. For the moment, two young people were dancing to the music of the jukebox. According to a poster, a fabulous orchestra would be playing at ten o’clock, which rather suggested about fifty musicians, but there were only four instruments on the stand.

On a little terrace there were a few laid tables: that was the restaurant. In less than an hour they ate ham that tasted of the refrigerator, chicken in aspic which by way of contrast was very well cooked, and a mediocre capricciosa salad. The best thing was the mild, slightly damp air and the view, through the darkness, of all those dots of light, houses and cottages and street lamps, sloping down towards the Milanese plain.

Davide ate, but it was clear he was making an effort, he hadn’t drunk even half a glass of wine, and he wasn’t speaking, so before he finished the salad Duca stood up, went to the bar and found three kinds of whisky. He brought the three bottles back to the table. ‘Choose the kind you prefer, I don’t mind which one.’

‘Neither do I.’

‘Then we’ll keep the biggest bottle. I didn’t ask for ice or soda because I didn’t think you needed them.’

‘I always drink it straight.’

‘So do I.’ He poured some whisky into Davide’s wine glass. ‘From now on, any time you want a drink, help yourself. I’m absent-minded, and besides, I have a lot of things to talk to you about.’

And he resumed his questions, which was the only way to talk to his companion, the only way to get a few sentences out of him. Every now and again he would ask a question, and every now and again Davide would reply, and every now and again the music of the band would drift through from the dance floor, and there were actually stars over the little terrace.

Yes, his mother was very tall, that was the answer to one question. His mother was from Cremona, another answer. No, he didn’t like the sea, but his mother did, she liked it a lot, they had a house in Viareggio but since his mother’s death they had only been there once; no, he’d never had a steady girlfriend: this was in answer to the question, ‘Can you tell me about your first girlfriend?’

‘Steady is just a manner of speaking,’ Duca insisted, ‘a girl to go out with for a few days, a week.’

Answer: ‘No.’

It was a bit tiresome. Duca poured Davide a drink: stoically, once the first round was over, he hadn’t served himself again, and he almost over-filled the young man’s glass. ‘It isn’t good, but this way we spare ourselves the trouble of pouring twenty times. Then maybe you’ll contribute a bit to the conversation. I want to talk about women, and not just talk about them. The last time I touched a girl’s arm was forty-one months ago. I woke up next to her and realised I had my hand on her arm, she was still asleep, then she woke up and took her arm away. Since then forty-one months have passed. I don’t think I can carry on any longer with this involuntary abstinence.’ If he did, he felt he would end up in the same kind of bunker in which Davide had taken refuge.

‘You may not have much luck here,’ Davide said. Coming from him, it was quite a long sentence.

‘I don’t know, I’m going to see.’ He left him alone on the little terrace under the stars and walked through the bar to the dance floor. It had filled up a little, and there weren’t many men, although the few there were were making quite a racket. He examined the refined young ladies one by one: the ones from Milan all had companions and were all got up to look like Princess Soraya, the others had a homely air, with plastic necklaces, hairdos done by their apprentice hairdresser friends, and weird gold-coloured sandals. But he had long ago stopped believing in that homely air. He went back to the little terrace, where he was pleased to see that Davide had finished his glass of whisky, and led him to the dance floor. He wasn’t swaying much more than before; once you’ve had a certain amount of alcohol, you either regain your balance or fall asleep.

‘I can’t dance,’ Davide said. They sat down at a table a long way from the band, in one of the most private and least well-lit corners of the place.