Giovanni Arpino - Scent of a Woman

‘Why? I don’t get it. Why do you want to do this? We’re the two most foolish…’

I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

‘My darling, my poor angel. I should have known, I should have…’ she murmured, staring at the road.

Legs, shoulders, arms were already moving independently of the lifeless, arid void I felt inside.

I was aware of sitting down, closing the door.

The car jerked forward.

Lying dishevelled behind us, he was coughing, his mouth open. When the coughing stopped, his breathing was laboured.

‘Mother of God, will you loosen that damned tie of his? Let him breathe at least!’ she barked.

‘It’s the sleeping pill you stuck in him. The drinking. He’s in bad shape. We should—’

‘Nothing. We should do absolutely nothing,’ she snapped.

She was driving in angry jolts, her face tense and clenched like a fist. The dark rings under her eyes had devoured half her cheeks. She was peering into the rearview mirror, relying only on her hands to follow the road. At a crossroads we skidded fearfully on a rail junction, miraculously avoiding a tram platform.

‘Two more minutes and we’re there,’ she said.

‘And then? What do we do then?’

‘We’re just there,’ she shouted, tears suddenly appearing. ‘The important thing is to get there. Give him time.’

‘You’re nuts. And I—’

‘I don’t want to hear it. Shut up, don’t tell me!’ she shouted again, leaning over and wrenching away from the wheel. ‘You? Who cares about you! Who asked you for anything? Who are you? Why didn’t you disappear, like you wanted to!’

‘Hey, Sara!’ I too shouted.

She swallowed, tensing the muscles of her arms and torso to give herself strength and regain control.

‘Okay,’ she said quietly, ‘okay. Tell me.’

‘Nothing. Nothing.’

Everything had once again distanced itself from my heart. Unreachable. In my gaze, those fleeing walls, narrow roads, the sky above now indifferent and hostile.

‘Talk to me. I’m sorry.’

‘Just this: you should be careful. We should.’ I spoke without conviction, my own voice detached from me. ‘But what are we doing? Let’s not make matters worse. You think you’re helping him. I’m here for the same reason. But what if—’

‘Why two shots?’ she interrupted, not paying any attention to me. ‘Did you notice that? Two shots?’

A sudden apprehension cleared the cobwebs out of my head.

‘Maybe the first one missed. Or they shot just to test the gun,’ I said.

‘Why do you say “they”? Who did? Him. Just him. He shot, tried, maybe missed the other shot. At himself. They had decided together, but he was the only one who shot,’ she suggested, her voice cracking.

‘Decided? To commit suicide together?’

A moan escaped her.

‘You think they made a pact? All planned out?’ I asked again.

She nodded, her lips sealed.

‘Couldn’t it have been the drinking? All the rest too, of course, but especially tonight’s drinking…’

‘No, no,’ she objected wearily. ‘They were prepared. Now I realize it. Even the party. All an understanding between the two of them. That’s why he came. For that reason. And I, damned fool not to have seen it right away, God help me…’

‘But what about him, then. Why nothing?’

‘He must have missed. Or dropped the gun. And we got there too soon,’ she suggested with some confusion.

‘Or because he was drunk too. His fingers couldn’t even hold a cigarette. Or maybe he was afraid.’

‘No, it wasn’t fear,’ she disagreed.

‘Why not? At the last minute…’

‘He wasn’t afraid. Not him!’ she shouted again.

I didn’t have the energy to contradict her. And it all seemed unimportant. I could still hear those gunshots in my head, and picture the lieutenant’s body slumped in the armchair, dead or alive. But those images and sounds were insignificant, merely exaggerated, superfluous: they had nothing to do with reality, mine, ours, his as he lay obliterated in sleep.

‘We’re here. Right behind there,’ she announced unemotionally, accelerating.

Only then did I notice the narrow road with its steep curves, between chipped walls and glimpses of dark green: gardens divided by wire fencing.

We turned onto a dirt track and when I got out of the car I saw the edges of several low houses, set apart among the locust trees. The calm, flat surface of the sea, still grey, was far in the distance. It was daybreak: a promising, chalky light preceded the sun, distinguishing the contrasting spaces and forms of the surrounding trees, the minute fiery spots of ripe tomatoes in the gardens, the jumbled rooftops of the darkened city that lay supine down below.

The house was abandoned: not a chair, not a stick of furniture, just rolls of dusty old carpets along the wall of the largest room. Even the inside doors were missing. A faint pale light seeped in from the closed shutters. I could smell the scent of whitewash, of moss-grown wood.

‘Over there, in the hallway. What are you waiting for?’ she asked, pointing to the carpets.

She settled him near the bathroom door on the rolls, his back against the wall, the blanket covering him from ankles to stomach. With a timid gesture, immediately withdrawn, she brushed his hair at the temples, smoothed his forehead. She turned the taps on in the bathtub and the sink, letting the water run full tilt. She placed the open bottle a few inches from his right hand.

Finally she stood looking at him, her clenched fists clamped under her arms.

‘Poor angel, at least some water, no?’ I heard her barely whisper. ‘And you, good Lord, if you would…’

I went outside to sit on the step. An electrical wire without a bulb hung from the doorway, the few feet of dirt in front of the house were invaded by yellowed weeds and scorched scrub.

I saw the looming morning light grow all around in silence. Distant humming already filled the air and a chirping came from far-off trees, but I was too wasted by fatigue to ask myself any more questions.

It wasn’t a wall, but a kind of precariously high metal fence, perhaps hundreds and hundreds of headboards, that I had to climb, fearful of falling and splatting. My cement feet would not move, refused to obey me. From up there, swaying, a soldier was shouting something at me, a blank comic-strip balloon with no words came from his uselessly waggling mouth…

I woke up.

From my watch I saw that I had slept for less than half an hour. I shivered despite the fact that the air was already warm. A murky consciousness broke in on me again.

She too was sitting on the step, elbows and forehead resting on her knees.

A cigarette, right. But no matches. With a great deal of caution I moved into the hallway, drew back his blanket, and rummaged for his lighter.

He was breathing more regularly, his brow damp with a film of perspiration.

Strolling around the house I saw only piles of debris, pieces of wood, a bucket with no bottom. The ground quickly rose more steeply among scattered trees with rust-coloured trunks to a structure half-hidden by foliage, branches on which large patched sheets were hung out to dry. A stray yellow dog stared at me from afar, wagging his tail suspiciously. He disappeared, running crookedly beyond the curve of the hill.

‘Why do you think we made a mistake?’ she greeted me, barely raising her face.

She was exhausted, beaten. But my thoughts too were fragmented, lifeless.

I sat down on the grass, careful, however, not to sit facing those dark circles under her eyes.

‘Running just to get away, we should have taken everything with us. Our stuff, the lieutenant,’ I strained to reply. ‘Do you realize how many things we forgot? Shoes, the gun, the other suitcase. What’s the point of running away like that?’