Giovanni Arpino - Scent of a Woman

He laughed shrilly. ‘Worry? Why should I worry?’

His right hand groped along the wall.

She was sitting opposite him, arms folded, listening to him talk as he sprawled in a wicker armchair.

Ines was leafing through an old magazine, Michelina and Candida, sulking, went back and forth with piles of dishes, trays overflowing with glasses.

Every now and then the heat of the night seemed to give way to a shiver of damp freshness.

The bright promising jumble of the disorderly room spread out before me as a place that constantly avoids the world’s order. Already it was rushing to hole up in some corner of my memory.

Is this all there is to life? I wondered, but dreamily, with no real curiosity.

Ines removed her glasses to give me an uncertain smile. I shrugged with curt, deliberate shyness, and did not move. Fatigue pricked at me here and there, but my head was still alert, eager.

Sara sat through it, frozen, her profile a spot barely visible in the darkness of the terrace. He went on talking, his left hand tucked into his jacket, his right hand slowly waving his cigarette.

Nonsense, naturally. Because every so often I saw Sara, pained, cover her eyes with her hand, as if to shield herself; then she took a breath to draw strength, no longer having the heart to interrupt him, counter his arguments.

He went on and on. His dark head, in stark contrast to the white suit, was thrown back against the backrest of the chair as he uttered all sorts of incoherent insults.

I felt a great temptation to move closer, to overhear a few words.

Sara, doubled over, was trying not to cry, bewildered by that endless stream of words, the faint laughter, that rained down on her, leaving her no way out. She faced him squarely, weakly arching her back, and still he gave her no respite, his teeth and glasses glinting at the slightest move of his head.

Ines stood up, came towards me languidly, her myopic eyes reddened. When she reached the piano, she too turned around to look at them, critical as she took their measure out there, the two of them so different.

‘Two actors. Old school, what’s more. Out of fashion,’ she then remarked softly but firmly. ‘Know what I mean?’

‘You’re wrong,’ was my only response.

She stared at me in disappointment, her glasses hidden in her hands. ‘Don’t tell me you too really take them seriously? I would have thought you were more savvy,’ she mocked listlessly.

‘At least I respect them,’ I said.

She made a nervous gesture, still pondering them through the glass door.

‘Respect, hah! They don’t impress me one way or the other,’ she said firmly. ‘What kind of shining example are they supposed to be?’

‘An example, I don’t know. But they seem exceptional.’

‘Time to go,’ she concluded, annoyed. ‘Sound the muster, soldier.’

Downstairs in the courtyard I finally managed to slow down beside Sara. The others walked ahead more swiftly, legs dancing a jig.

‘I don’t want to pester you, but if you want to tell me,’ I began. ‘Was he his usual self? Diabolical?’

She shook her bent head no, biting her lip, intent on studying the courtyard’s cobblestones, which formed broad black and white stripes.

‘If you want I’ll be quiet. Easy to do,’ I tried again. ‘But it’s a mistake.’

‘Hopeless. You wouldn’t understand. No one would understand,’ she replied, though not harshly.

Then suddenly raising her voice in exasperation, ‘Where on earth are you all running to? Let’s enjoy this breath of air.’

The girls, already at the door, stopped uncertainly; she crossed the courtyard and sat on the step of a dark, narrow staircase that led up into the maze of walls. The smell of damp grass was all around us.

Slowly the girls came back, holding hands, unhappily stifling yawns.

‘Sit down,’ Sara ordered irritably.

They obeyed after spreading out their handkerchiefs, no longer in good spirits, their heads now nodding.

‘A swim would be good, a dip,’ Candida’s faint voice sighed softly. ‘A nice drive and then a swim. Let’s go.’

‘Why don’t you get the car, Sara?’ Ines said.

‘Dear God, if Mother hears us, at this hour! She’ll stab each and every one of us.’ Candida laughed. She was resting her temple on her friend’s shoulder; the two faces close together stood out like a single bright spot.

‘That Vincenzino. What a dud! I’m really sick and tired of him now,’ Michelina said.

‘He does that every time. Eats and then goes to sleep. Some company. What are we? Nurses? Octogenarians in a home?’ Ines added.

‘Decent, a good man, that’s all they say about him. But who cares about these good men? Are we supposed to become nuns, maybe? And then too, how should he be? Bad?’ Michelina complained.

‘Still, the party was fun.’

‘Thanks to Fausto. Only because of him.’

‘The things he comes up with.’

‘Fausto is insane. No doubt about it.’

Sara was looking up to where the pinkish glow of lights rose beyond the terrace.

‘You’re better off giving him up,’ Ines tried to tell her.

‘I know,’ was her calm reply.

‘What? Who would have guessed? It’s the end of the world.’ Ines laughed, surprised. ‘Sara and her great love, her passion…’

‘Don’t make fun of her. You make fun of her, then she takes it out on me all day. Leave her alone,’ Candida protested, her eyes closed.

‘And you, don’t you know any funny stories?’ Michelina asked, not looking at me. ‘You don’t talk much. How come? Or is it that we talk too much? Your girlfriends in Turin must be talkers too. Listen: do you know the joke about the transplant? Two friends meet after many years…’

‘No,’ Sara cut her off sharply. ‘Shut up.’

‘Oh Sara. Stop it.’

‘Shut up, I’m telling you. That’s nothing but bawdy filth. It’s not appropriate,’ she scolded.

‘It’s not appropriate,’ the others mocked.

‘Did you really say you were giving him up?’ Ines went on in another tone, curious.

‘I said it. You heard it, didn’t you? So then I really said it,’ Sara replied coldly.

‘Did he treat you badly? Did he insult you?’

‘What did he say to you?’

‘Was it malicious? But he had been drinking and you…’

‘That’s enough. What does it have to do with you? Mind your own business, if you have any,’ Sara retorted harshly.

A faint breath of air began to drift down slowly from above. The square of sky between the rooftops still looked dark.

They shifted their shirt collars to feel the cool freshness, a few hands fanned the air to blow more life into the modest breeze.

‘Sara G. wouldn’t have had a good ring to it. I can’t picture it,’ Michelina sighed.

‘The surname test again, as usual. Kindergarten children, that’s all you are,’ Ines snapped.

‘You. What’s your last name?’ Candida asked.

I told them, lowering my voice for some reason, whereas when they talked they trumpeted every word.

They began pairing up my last name with their first names, one after the other, interrogatively or affirmatively, laughing, intoning each syllable, first quickly then stressing them, the better to judge the combination, the sound.

‘The only one it goes well with is Ines!’ Candida finally laughed.

‘The surnames of the north: curious, even appealing, but harsh, they have no music,’ Michelina pronounced.

‘Silly fools. You’re nothing but three pathetic fools,’ Sara assailed them in a sudden outburst. ‘Ineffectual birdbrains. Why must I always have you around me?’

‘Oh sure, your brain is rational, falling for that unfortunate loser,’ Ines rejoined angrily.