Giovanni Arpino: Scent of a Woman

‘It’s not working. No way,’ he decreed, without removing his arm from mine. ‘You’re not walking. All you’re doing is dragging your 130 pounds. If you don’t move your legs with some energy, they’re almost rigid, get it? You lose your behind, you leave it half a yard away, and you end up worn out after not even half an hour. You’re not at a funeral. Come on. Push with your gluteus, for God’s sake. Do you know what the gluteus is? Are you afraid to use it?’

We started all over again, and now his cane twirled at regular intervals from my knee to my rear end, checking them in rapid, rhythmic semicircles. At the fifth lap I saw a strip of light appear along the kitchen door and realized that the old woman was watching us intently.

‘Once more. And plant your heels on the ground. What are you afraid of? The waxed floor? Plant your heels. Leave their imprint on the wax.’

He stopped suddenly, making me lurch.

‘Another thing,’ he said, stock-still, the cane raised. ‘No wandering in your head. We’re walking. There’s no need to think. You think sitting down. You have to start and stop exactly in step with me. Understood? Like clockwork. And no sashaying like a streetwalker out for a stroll.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I said, somehow managing to swallow a comment about the corridor being too dark.

We were back in his room, or maybe his study, where various massive components of a stereo system peered out from the corners. The cat was breathing loudly from beneath the couch. At the cabinet, he poured two glasses of whisky to the brim, and immediately held one out, his right hand extended in space.

‘Drink up.’

‘Actually I rarely drink. Almost never,’ I replied, taking the glass.

‘Really? I couldn’t care less. Five days plus two: with me you’ll drink. And no objections. When you can’t take any more, dump it out somewhere. In your pocket maybe. As long as I don’t notice.’ He laughed soundlessly.

I barely took a sip, then twisting my arm with the utmost caution, tried to set the glass on the table.

‘Hang on, Ciccio. Are you trying to be smart?’ He smiled calmly from the centre of the room. ‘Not with me, boy. Never with me. Finish it, now. And hand it back empty. A twelve-year-old whisky, you must be kidding.’

I drank some more, on my feet as well, a few steps away from him. I tried not to look at him, taking advantage of the darkness that made him seem transparent. His face had faded away towards the top, a grey film with no geometry.

‘Does it burn?’

‘No, sir,’ I replied.

‘You’re skinny. A skeleton. Bones are too sharp. I’ll get bruised up walking with you. I’ll fatten you up with whisky. However, I must admit that you don’t stink. The other Ciccio, your predecessor with typhus: ghastly. Every day before we went out I had to pour half a quart of cologne down his back. He smelled like a pigsty, like reheated minestrone.’

Ten minutes later I was out in the street, my eyes heavy, unable to orient myself. I had time before having to return to the base. I cursed the nothingness outside and inside me.

Standing on the sidewalk, before taking a step in the moist, sticky air, I looked for a friendly sign, a café.

‘If only it would rain. Damn it. A million bucks for a deluge,’ he kept muttering.

We were sitting opposite each other on the shaded side of the compartment. The wind drove scorching breaths through the lowered windows. Another hour to go, then Genoa. The flat countryside, at times swelling abruptly with bristling hills, whirled by in the morning light as though under an ashen umbrella.

He had been complaining and disparaging from the beginning: the vile, odious summer, the scratchy velvet seats, the deserted coach. The high speed of the express train, which shook the cars, prevented any attempt at walking in the corridor.

He sat motionless, smoking one cigarette after another, his gloved hand on the armrest, a faint layer of perspiration on his forehead. In the bright light the marks on his face no longer seemed like real scars but like blotches and traces of smallpox. And yet, during certain imperceptible movements, that head appeared more than handsome: a prism that picked up and fashioned not so much the external luminosity as the leaps and moods, the odd angles of his thoughts.

He held out his right hand.

‘Do you have a wallet? Let me feel it.’

I took it out, surprised, and placed it in contact with his fingers. He slid it into the palm of his hand.

‘How much money?’

I told him the amount.

With a single gesture he opened it, took out the few bills and handed them to me.

‘Here. Are your ID cards and driver’s licence in here?’ he continued brusquely.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’ll hold on to it.’ He smiled, satisfied, relaxing and slipping the wallet into his pocket. ‘You can depend on me more. Right? I’ll give you a new one, at the end. Don’t worry. If you’re angry now, say so.’

‘No, sir,’ I replied.

‘Don’t give me that cock and bull.’ He chuckled softly. ‘I know very well you’re angry. Anyone would be. You might as well admit it.’

‘Okay. If it matters to you. I am.’

He laughed more heartily.

‘Finally,’ he coughed. ‘But you have to admit that I also have to try and protect myself. You could get fed up, leave me high and dry in the middle of a street, a café, maybe here in the train. I don’t know you, after all.’

‘I’m not that type,’ I protested.

‘Maybe not. Who knows. And then you’d be punished. A nice stint in solitary confinement, as you know,’ he said, the cigarette wobbling between his lips. ‘So at least allow me the illusion of being able to protect myself. If you look at it that way: is it okay with you?’

‘Whatever you say, sir.’

‘It’s not at all okay with you, yet your “yessir” flows out easily just the same. You’re made of rubber, Ciccio. You take it and snap! you spring back the way you were. I bet your father was a peasant. Right?’

‘He’s a clerk,’ I said.

‘Then your grandfather was.’

‘He had a shop, my grandfather.’

‘Well, your great-grandfather then. Let’s not go on and on,’ he said irritably. ‘You’re too cautious. Too many peasant-like “yes, sirs”, I can tell. Peasants in fact always say yes, and while they’re digging for potatoes they’re also digging their grave. Forever complaining about it, of course.’

I kept quiet, and for a long moment busied myself choosing, fingering and lighting a cigarette.

‘You’re not speaking any more? Good boy,’ he went on. ‘Tell the truth: if there had been someone else in this idiotic compartment, would you have said “yessir” and “nossir” like you did before, about the wallet? Or not?’

‘Why not? Other people mean nothing to me,’ I replied.

He indulged in a broad, tolerant laugh, nodding spiritedly.

‘You’re opening up. Good for you.’ He coughed again. ‘So then, tell me, tell me: you’ve decided that it’s better to feel sorry, and so on, for this poor devil here. Right?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Look, look at me: don’t you pity me?’ He smiled, pouting ironically.

‘I don’t know, sir. I don’t think so.’

‘You see, I told you you’re made of rubber,’ he retorted, satisfied. ‘C’mon: you don’t feel sorry for me, sorry in the sense of pitying me, I mean, and besides that, you obey, you do your duty, you’re ready with a “yessir”, et cetera, et cetera, therefore you feel you’re doing the right thing. Is that it?’

‘What I meant was: you don’t make me feel sorry or pity you in some stupid way,’ I tried to explain.

‘Of course. Naturally. Let’s see then. Earlier I said: a million bucks for a deluge. What did you think I meant?’ He leaned forward a little, smiling curiously.