Giovanni Arpino - Scent of a Woman

But each word weighed me down as soon as I said it: a stone plunging into the dark pit of a well, that’s what I was.

She didn’t answer, her face once again hidden in her arms, her shoulders rising faintly as she breathed.

‘Your sister, the other two, by now they must have told the whole story to any number of people,’ I continued. ‘And let’s hope so, given how stupid we were. Let’s hope the lieutenant isn’t dead, that someone came to his aid. What more can I say?’

‘So you’re having second thoughts. If you are, what are you still doing here? Did I beg you to stay? Go ahead, go to the lieutenant, go wherever you want,’ she replied from inside her shelter. Not angrily, though.

‘What does that have to do with anything? Could you stop that? I’m here, aren’t I? I’m here, right? So cut it out,’ I retorted half-heartedly.

She yawned, jumped down from the step, smoothed out her sleeves, her white blouse all crumpled.

‘God, if only I at least had a comb.’ She tried to laugh. ‘That uncouth habit of mine, going around without a purse. Do you think they’ll come looking for us? Way out here?’

‘How do I know?’

‘How long does it last, that sleeping pill?’

‘Not long. Hardly any time. Always just a short while, I think. Depending on how many he takes,’ I said.

‘Of course. It is addictive. Anyway he’ll wake up soon. And be able to decide. You’ll see.’

She paced up and down in front of me, two steps towards the car, two steps back towards the house, the weeds crunching under her feet. I watched her walk back and forth rubbing her arms, which had gone to sleep, feeling her face, her hair at the back of her neck.

‘If he wanted to die as you say, will he still be capable of deciding anything?’ I asked.

She stopped, the tip of her shoe idly jabbing at the dirt.

‘I’m not afraid. Not in the least,’ she said softly. ‘I would go back right now, if it would help him. Could we have left him there? So he could go through a thousand miseries? What else could we have done? For you it’s different, I know that.’

‘I should be on the train, that’s where. My leave has run out. Assuming nothing else happens, at best I’ll end up in jail. Satisfied?’

She laughed, pacing again.

‘And what would that mean, to a soldier? Inside or out, isn’t it all one and the same? Tell me, do you have any money?’

‘Why?’

‘Before everybody gets out on the streets,’ she thought quickly, ‘we should buy something. A container of coffee, cigarettes, croissants if you can find them. Will you? There’s a shop immediately to the right after the track. They have everything. You’ll be gone and back in five minutes.’

‘Why me and not you?’

The dusty tip of the shoe quickly lost patience and began jabbing again.

‘I won’t leave him,’ she objected calmly. ‘Where he is, that’s where I stay. Then too, around here they remember my mother. It’s best if they don’t see me. Right? But if you don’t want to, don’t go. I don’t want to force you.’

‘Right now?’ I gave in.

‘Try. What can you lose? People get up early here, they’re farmers after all. Just think: some nice hot coffee. It would do us all good.’

I stood up, muscles stinging as they stretched beneath my skin.

‘A candle too,’ she was quick to add, ‘it’s always better to have one than be caught without.’

The old woman kept working the lever of the espresso maker. The drab wrinkled arm pumping away did not prevent her from giving me a half-smile.

‘You have to be patient. The water isn’t hot yet. Meanwhile look around. You might see something else. We have everything here. Like in the city.’

A curtain closed off the shop in back. The small area was cluttered with boxes and display cases, cans stacked in a pyramid stood on the shelves. A large hand scale was tossed on some baskets of vegetables.

I spotted the telephone over a tower of colourful packages, the directory hanging from a chain.

Candida, I immediately thought. Ines… I can’t remember her last name. Or else the lieutenant’s house. I just need to hear a voice, anyone’s, to know how things stand. Of course I’ll hang up without a word. Or would this too be a mistake?

My imagination exhausted, for a moment I chased nameless shadows back and forth through those rooms.

‘It’s still not as it should be. But if you want to try it—’ the old woman called me back as she moved down the counter with a cup of coffee.

As I drank it, I felt every fibre languidly drenched by those few drops of warmth.

Newspapers, I thought.

‘Newspapers? Those we don’t have. Not until later. Around noon, sometimes not even,’ the woman apologized with a toothless frown. ‘Has something serious happened? More wars? What is this world coming to. Tell me, you know more than I.’

I went out with the package. The bottle of coffee was hot and I had to continually change hands.

Time seemed endless, a boundless space, more barren and blank than the already sunny sky. But elsewhere, in those rooms down there, messy with dishes and glasses, and back in the barracks, and on my northbound train, that same time was instead fleeing, flashing past much too quickly, robbing me, accusing me.

The dirt track was steep. I wondered how Sara had managed to drive it so easily. The car and house reappeared after a sharp curve.

She was still on the step. Seeing me with the package and the coffee, she raised a hand as if to shout ‘bravo’.

‘He’s still asleep,’ she said, getting up. ‘Should I try to wake him? Would it be better?’

‘Let’s wait. Another hour. It’s early.’

‘An hour,’ she agreed.

She took the bottle, uncorking it eagerly.

‘Not even a glass. What a house and what a worthless so-and-so,’ she scolded.

She drank, pressing her chest against the heat.

‘Good. It will still be hot when he wakes up. What are those, marzipan? No croissants?’

She seemed anxious to do something again, to keep busy. I looked at her, trying to make her see how exhausted I was. Quickly she shrugged. Her eyes looked away.

‘Who do you think will come?’ she said softly. ‘Carabinieri or the police? Better the carabinieri, don’t you think?’

No one will come. I felt it hit me like a thud: no one will look for us, nothing happened, Vincenzo isn’t dead, everything is still going on as usual and we will keep wandering senselessly through this parched air, back and forth like flies, like specks of dust.

To break the silence I said, ‘Carabinieri. And who would lead them here?’

‘My mother. My sister. They’re the only ones. Who else could ever imagine?’ She sighed.

She tucked her hands into her belt like an awkward boy.

‘Exhaustion is a bad counsellor,’ she went on. ‘Let’s not worry about it. Here we are and here we’ll wait.’

‘Yeah. Right,’ I said.

‘Right,’ she smiled briefly.

‘Who knows? Maybe there’s still time. Who can say?’ I murmured but without conviction.

‘Sure. Of course,’ she agreed quickly, happy to have a pretext. ‘He’ll straighten things out. As soon as he wakes up, he’ll take care of everything. I can already see him. I swear.’

‘He’ll straighten things out if the lieutenant is alive. Otherwise what’s left to straighten out?’ I replied.

‘Of course he’s alive. Fools never die. Not even after being shot,’ she snapped fiercely.

‘Sara…’

She looked away from me.

‘Okay, okay. You’re right,’ she replied, her voice by then indifferent. ‘Even I know that I don’t always think clearly, that I make mistakes and make things worse all the time. I know it. If my mother could see me, poor woman. She’d have me walled-up alive. You can’t begin to imagine.’