Giovanni Arpino - Scent of a Woman

‘Forget Vincenzo,’ he cut in, his apparent impassivity overcome by some reserve of nervous energy. ‘A shot behind the eye doesn’t miss. Like in the mouth. Only in the mouth it shatters and for the others…’

I listened as I watched him, then her. For some reason they seemed very far away, and their words false and pointless. Nothing happened, ever: it’s only one of those dreams in which he performs, dragging everything with him.

‘Enough,’ Sara pleaded.

‘Enough,’ he agreed, his head snapping from side to side. ‘What should I ask you to do? Hang me? Throw me in the sea? So you two can be convicted? A cowardly bastard, but I won’t go that far. We have no choice. Take me back there. Case closed. And let’s stop arguing about it too. All these words, a useless waste of breath.’

‘No!’ Sara shot back.

‘No, so then what?’ He laughed drily, clenching his jaws. ‘A fine solution. If all it took were a no.’

‘I’m thirsty.’ Sara sighed.

She stood up and took a couple of trailing steps around the tree, stretching her arms, disturbing the hovering gnats, which nevertheless quickly resumed frantically flitting about in their air space.

‘A cigarette. Then we leave,’ he said.

He silenced me with a gesture before I could attempt to respond.

‘Wouldn’t it be better if I went to have a look first? What would it take me? Maybe by this time… But then, no, never mind. We should stay here,’ Sara started in again from behind the tree.

With a sudden impulse she went back to him, rested her temple against his shoulder, her eyes shut tight.

‘Ciccio, you have to explain these girls to me.’ He smiled weakly.

‘It can’t end like this. It can’t. There must be a God,’ Sara murmured.

‘You hear how their mind works, Ciccio?’ he said. Despite the humiliation of his crumpled shirt, the loosened collar and tie, there was something about his shoulders, the way he held his head, that still helped him go on.

‘Don’t talk about me as if I were like everyone else. As if I were those others. Please,’ Sara protested without moving. She went on leaning her temple against that shoulder, like the muzzle of a pathetic dog hoping to be petted.

His ravaged face lost its composure under those assaults, barely holding it together.

‘You’ve done way too much. You gave me time. I can never thank you enough. But that’s enough now.’ He tried again to soothe her.

‘I didn’t do anything. Ever.’ Sara sighed. ‘If only you had let me, then I would have.’

‘Do you see anything special in yours truly, Ciccio? Something useful, I mean,’ he went on.

‘Everything about you is special,’ I took pains to say.

He laughed nervously.

‘Fool. Better yet: aspiring fool. And this bubblehead who instead of thinking about boys, thinks about me.’

‘I would have found hundreds of them attractive, if you hadn’t appeared,’ Sara objected harshly, pulling away.

I searched for something to say to stop that kind of talk.

‘Don’t you want me to call Turin? Or your cousin in Rome?’ I managed.

He feigned a shudder of revulsion. Wearily he replied, ‘Your shift is over.’

‘Please,’ Sara began murmuring in that dogged monotone. ‘A minute ago… Things were different. You too were different. You were asleep. I felt so happy. The first time in my life. It’s not my imagination. Then you wake up and everything changes again. Who on earth can keep up with you? It can’t end like this, it’s not possible. Before—’

‘There never was any before. Never. Get those foolish notions out of your head,’ he snapped.

The creases on his forehead had become a deep mesh.

‘What kind of a man are you! You don’t even ask for help, don’t even say you’re sorry…’ Sara cried.

I was already on my feet, ready to leave, when a brusque order was promptly fired up at me.

‘Get her out of here. Take her into the house. Leave me in peace for a couple of minutes.’

Sara ran, then turned around to study him; uncertain, she went to take shelter against the wall.

I no longer had the faintest idea but I clearly felt the prick of satisfaction their argument had produced. In three hours we were back to being separate and apart like before, raking up anxieties and concerns.

I saw him take a long swig from the bottle and finally feel the trunk of the tree, the grass around him, that head of his like a nervous pendulum.

I climbed up into the trees, the parched ground crunching. When I reached the top of that bastion I saw other houses scattered about, modest roofs and terraces, gardens too, and in the distance a bumpy stretch of patched asphalt, shining in the sun. A truck passed by on it, then the colourful sweaters of three cyclists appeared in a row. They struggled up the incline, their backs curved and spotted like beetles.

Almost noon by my watch. I went back to the meagre shade along the wall, sat down next to Sara; both of us were intent on the tree in front, the gestures manoeuvring the bottle.

‘Let them come. Let them all come. Bastards and swine. Let it be over,’ I heard her say.

She accepted a cigarette and we smoked in silence for several long minutes, the dusty tips of our shoes lined up in front of us; the heat seemed to send vague shimmers through the air, lightning-fast flashes of light.

‘Do you believe in love?’ she asked suddenly, turning away, a roughness in her throat.

I tensed. ‘I don’t know. You?’

‘In mine. Only in mine. In mine, I do. All the rest, the world and this life, is nothing. You tell me what really exists. Name me one thing, one single thing that’s decent.’

‘Sara,’ I protested.

‘Let it all go to hell,’ she grumbled.

‘We’re sitting here talking about life, love, he’s there drinking, and meanwhile the lieutenant…’ But my own voice sounded false even though the image of Vincenzo swayed before me for a moment, light and airy, inflated like a colourful balloon figure.

‘Would you stop talking about the lieutenant! Who is he to you? Your brother? You didn’t even know him the day before yesterday,’ she retorted hoarsely. ‘All about whether one or two shots were fired. That’s all you’re interested in.’

‘That’s not true. You’re the one who lacks sympathy. For you he’s the only one who counts, no matter what he does or doesn’t do…’

‘Exactly. That’s how it is.’

‘Let’s hope he doesn’t get drunk again. Great idea, the bottle.’ I pointed to the tree.

‘He’ll get drunk. What else can he do?’ she replied slowly. ‘Or maybe not even. That small amount of whisky can’t be enough.’

‘Do you really think he wanted to die?’

‘Before. Not now. Not any more,’ she said reluctantly. ‘Now he’s actually a different person. Still the same, yet different. So many flies here. And I’m so thirsty. Has the water come back maybe?’

Beyond the trees, a dog barked in the distance.

‘Who knows what the newspapers are saying. Have you thought about that?’

‘That’s just what I want to think about, the newspapers, of course.’ She scoffed at me, disheartened.

‘And yet it’s not every day that a blind man—’

‘Don’t say blind. Don’t call him disabled. Don’t ever let me hear you.’ She recovered the spirit to stop me.

‘You close your eyes and hope that things will change. That’s what you do. Nice trick.’

She denied it, shaking her head.

‘You’ll never understand. Not if you live to be a hundred. Not even if they drilled it into your head,’ she replied quietly. ‘It’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault.’

The tips of her shoes kept playfully moving apart and back together again. She stubbed out her cigarette in the dirt, twisting her fingers.