Giovanni Arpino - Scent of a Woman

A parade of ants, big and shiny, moved along a thin trail of dust that zigzagged through the weeds, their abdomens rippling as their legs jostled forward. The orderly line broke up into feverish whirling at the base of a tree trunk, in the mealy opening of a root.

‘Go on. Just for a minute. Please,’ she said anxiously. ‘I’ll start waking him up. Let me do it. Then I’ll call you. I’ll call you.’

I looked up at the sound of an aeroplane. The triangular grey silhouette appeared sharp and bright against the sky, headed towards the city. It veered off into the distance, already silent, the rumble absorbed by then.

It was eight o’clock. Maybe if I lay down I would be able to sleep a little. But the desire to sleep was both strong and remote. Idle thoughts clogged and plagued my brain, slow to quiet down: whether to put my uniform back on, for example, or remorse at having sent only a single postcard home.

The shapes of my father, my mother, the Sardinian soldier who slept to my right in the barracks, did not contain any real human features; they were merely fixed points, dots indicating a neutral place which had less and less to do with me.

No sign of life from the house. Maybe she hadn’t yet been able to wake him, maybe she was just sitting there without rousing him, without calling to him. Mesmerized as usual, of course; as soon as she sets eyes on him she’s lost, a sheepish child. So much for her fine decision.

Nothing has happened, no one has actually died, I know it, we’re just in a world of our own, cut off for some reason yet still clinging to this last crust of earth by our fingernails, still unaware that before long we’ll be back among the others and it will all be as it was before and we’ll forget, we will forget. My leave has expired – did it expire last night or this morning? – I’d better put my uniform back on…

I lit another cigarette, my mouth like glue. I couldn’t taste anything any more, my tongue limp, gritty. A spot had somehow got on my sleeve. With two fingers I picked up an ant, choosing one of the largest ones; as it thrashed its legs and antennae frantically in the air, the parade went on with its bustle, rushing around in the dirt, back and forth to the root.

‘To hell with you too,’ I said, dropping it among the taller, tangled bushes.

Now I’ll get a move on, I’ll get up and go over there, I’d better keep an eye on them, not leave them alone.

I took another look around: the edges of the houses among the locust trees, the distant sea flat in the ashen grey mist, the bright green of the trees.

The exhaustion I felt was even pleasurable at times, it cautioned me tenderly from every muscle, making me more aware of various frailties, pangs, tremors.

She appeared in front of the house, her hands over her face.

I ran to her.

‘He doesn’t want me,’ she sobbed without uncovering her face. ‘He doesn’t want me. He chased me away.’

‘But is he all right?’

She nodded behind her hands, a dry sob.

‘Did you talk? Does he remember? Does he know where we are?’

She shrugged, stepped back blindly until she felt the step behind her heels. She sank down on it.

It took me a few seconds to tear myself away from there and go inside. My head felt empty, roaring, and though I knew that emptiness was deadly, I fumbled in vain to have a couple of words ready on my tongue, in my brain.

He was still on the carpet rolls, the blanket thrown off, the coffee bottle between his right hand and his stomach. Sara must have wiped his face with a wet handkerchief, I saw the scrap of cloth tossed in the sink.

‘It’s me,’ I said quietly.

I didn’t seem to feel emotion or fear or pity, I saw him as a human wreck, an unfamiliar presence in a hospital ward.

‘Ciccio,’ was all he said.

And his muscles relaxed.

I bent down, lit a cigarette, held it within reach of his lips. He leaned forward eagerly.

‘Friend,’ he said.

His voice was hoarse, slurred by the sleeping pill. He removed the cigarette to cough, drink a sip of coffee, then cough again in a lengthy release.

A couple of inches, give or take, of a slimy liquid remained at the bottom of the bottle.

‘Ciccio,’ he repeated.

‘Yes, sir. I’m here. Are you all right?’

The cigarette rolled slowly between his lips from one corner to the other then dangled as if he no longer wanted it.

‘Who’s there? Is someone with you?’

‘No one, sir. Just us.’

He tried to smile, grateful, but very weak.

‘Ice. Get me some ice. To chew. Right away,’ he said faintly.

‘There is no ice. Not here,’ I told him.

‘No?’ He roused himself slightly. ‘Why not? What’s going on. Here? What does “here” mean?’

I started talking, trying to be very brief, gradually lowering my tone as if it were just any ordinary story, unrelated, to be told in the most concise way possible, with the economy of a newspaper ad.

He was leaning his head against the wall. For an instant the cigarette smoke rushed more quickly from his nostrils. When I finished talking he didn’t say a word. The cigarette burned down to a stub. I reached out two fingers; he docilely allowed me to remove the butt.

‘We have to decide,’ I said after a while.

‘What? Who’s there. Still just you?’

‘Yes, sir,’ I went on nervously. ‘Me and Sara. We waited. For you to wake up. To decide. It’s late. Almost nine o’clock.’

‘Nine,’ he echoed.

The grooves of the two lines between his nose and cheeks had deepened as if drawn with indelible ink. He handed me the coffee bottle, I put the whisky flask in his hand. He held it against his cheek, turning it to capture its coolness, but did not bring it to his lips; he pushed it away, refusing it, his right hand trembling.

‘I should call Sara. Say something to her?’ I began again. He shook his head, his brow creased.

‘She’s outside. Crying. She’s worn out. Shouldn’t we now…’ I continued.

He reached out his hand, I felt its grip on my arm, but nagging, not strong.

‘Give her something to do. Or send her away. If she doesn’t go away, make sure she always has something to do. So she doesn’t think. So she doesn’t hang around me,’ he whispered in anxious bursts.

‘But sir, we—’

‘She mustn’t stay here. I don’t want her,’ he went on desperately, clearing the gluey mucus from his throat. ‘I’m the one who should go. Go away, vanish, drop dead. Get it? I failed tonight, God damn me. But now I won’t. Now I won’t. You’re my friend. You still are, right? Help me.’

His fingers went on worrying my arm from wrist to elbow, convulsively.

‘Sir, but I—’

‘Quiet. For God’s sake. Shut up. Don’t say a word. I can’t disgrace myself. Disgrace myself on top of it all: no,’ he finished, a sharp rasping cough lurking behind every word. ‘I’m not a lion. I thought I was, but no. I’m not. Poor Vincenzino, the mess I got you into…’

Later on I managed to persuade him. I put the bamboo cane between his fingers, helped drag him to his feet to take at least two steps outside.

I felt him trembling very faintly at my side, a papier-mâché puppet, his gait hesitant, clumsy for the first time, his cane having given up exploring.

When he came down the step, he flinched, as if what seemed to affect him wasn’t the sun, the light, but the foul breath, the chafing of some unknown beast.

‘No,’ he barely managed to say.

But he slumped against me, his balance gone.

I dragged him carefully to the shade of a tree. Sara immediately appeared from behind the house. She was biting her knuckles, her eyes frightened, intent on every little move we made, on him as he slowly folded his brittle legs, sat down on the grass. Even there, he showed no interest in feeling the bark of the tree behind him, the bristly ground around him.