Giovanni Arpino - Scent of a Woman

‘Then too even if you understood, all of you, a lot I care,’ she added. Understanding – from you, from all of you – is just the treasure I need, what one dreams of at night.’

‘Okay. I won’t understand. You’ll understand everything. Only you two will know it all. You and that other one. But now drop it. We’d better go back. What are we doing here? What are you still hoping for?’ I said impatiently.

‘Hope, despair, what’s it to you?’ she retorted bitterly. ‘Do you think there’s something you can teach me? There’s nothing I can learn from you, not a thing, ever.’

‘Good for you.’ I turned to laugh at her. ‘Now I’ve made up my mind, so long and amen. I should have done it sooner. And you two who are so clever: fend for yourselves.’

She had no strength left to react. The anger that barely rose to her face vanished in a slight grimace. The tips of her shoes nervously sped up the pace of their tapping.

‘All the better. Right. Whether you stay or go, does anything change?’ she replied in a faint voice. ‘If you at least manage to get away, then go. I won’t think badly of you, I swear.’

‘Sara, but why…’ A groan escaped me.

She lowered her eyes, biting her lips not to cry.

I took her hand; I felt those cold, stiff fingers of hers between my own.

She allowed it in silence.

I moved my hand to caress her, my fingertips lightly grazing her cheek, the top of her neck. Her skin was smooth and barely warm. She moved away slowly, stopping me.

‘I can run down for something cool. An orange drink – want me to? I’ll gladly go.’

She shrugged.

‘I may certainly not be a great beauty. Definitely not,’ she murmured. ‘But I’m young. Someone might find me appealing. What did I ever ask of him? To marry me? No. Not at all. To be together, that’s all. Marriage and children and respectability and all those other syrupy things, I never thought about them, not me.’

My hands felt awkward, I stuck them in my pocket, slumped against the wall.

‘How can a man say no, always no?’ she added.

‘He’s not a man. He’s not like the others,’ I replied, resigned.

‘With just one word, he could have me. Just one.’

She said it without embarrassment, her chin lowered.

‘What do you think? My fault because I don’t know what’s what? You heard him: “bubblehead”, that’s what he thinks of me. Is he right? I don’t know what to think any more. My head is pounding…’

‘He’s afraid,’ was all I could say. ‘Maybe he’s even thought about it, but he’s ashamed and is afraid of taking advantage. And now, at this point, he’s zero. Zero plus zero, after everything that’s happened, and he knows it.’

‘Every other word for you is “now”. Always this “now” that comes out of your mouth,’ she said slowly, her arms wrapped around her knees, her pale face as transparent as fine muslin. ‘Instead, nothing can change for me, for him. Not even if the wrath of God were to descend. Nothing will change. I say “never”. Not your “now”.’

I tried to change the subject: ‘We should take the bottle away from him. Just look at him.’

‘I’m looking, I’m looking; what is there to see?’ She continued in the same half-hearted murmur. ‘Let him do what he wants. Drink, shout. Anything, as long as he feels alive.’

‘You’re not being rational any more. You don’t want to think rationally.’

‘Does being rational do any good?’ She laughed. ‘Tell me: does one survive by being rational? Take a look around.’

‘You should look around. You’re not being fair.’

She agreed sadly. ‘I’m not fair. Why should I be? What does your fairness have to do with me?’

‘Sara…’

‘Don’t beat yourself up.’

Neither of us had raised our voice. The words came out in a whisper and quickly subsided, anxious and concerned.

‘Sara, you can’t go on this way. You’re intelligent, and…’

‘I don’t want to hear about it. Not about fairness or intelligence or a thousand other things,’ she murmured.

I snapped: ‘Fine, then drop it. I’m going down. To make a call. To your house. You don’t believe me? Wait and see. It’s insane to stay here for hours having these conversations. You’re out of your head.’

She rolled her shoulders, threw her head back as if to let out some kind of laugh.

‘An obvious discovery. Good for you,’ she replied from the depths of the spell that held her, though with a certain irony, and a resignation that was undoubtedly not due to exhaustion, or awareness of danger, a resignation that was more intimate, that went further back. ‘It’s obvious that I’ve lost my mind. I had one, and it’s for him alone. You’re kind though, you’re also a man: what do you think? He can’t keep saying no to me until judgment day. Can he? He’ll have to understand, he’ll have to take pity. He’s bound to by his nature, as a human being. Answer me. Because if not, I have a hundred years of this agony waiting for me.’

In the fluid air which expanded and contracted before my eyes in braided streaks and filaments, a dark spot began to float, running and sliding as though on a slope until it took on a solid form: the face and hair of the soldier Miccichè.

He moved a few cautious inches behind the blinding outline of the car, parked in the sun among the weeds. He peered around, eagerly taking in the house and clearing, the pale spot that was him against the tree, me in the garden.

He winked to get my attention.

As I walked towards him he backed away, a thousand hand signals urging caution, silence.

I caught up with him around the curve of the track; his gaze was veiled with suspicion.

‘And the girl?’ he whispered.

‘Sara? Inside. In the house. There’s almost no water. She’s trying to collect some.’

Dully I looked at that faded uniform of his, the shirtsleeves rolled up above his elbows, the pockets sagging.

‘Have you been here all along? What a situation. And nothing to eat besides.’ He smiled. ‘But all in all you’re okay. All of you.’

He had big teeth blackened by smoking.

We faced each other in full sunlight, squinting in the brightness, his face tilted to one side and dry as a lizard. All my doubts were suddenly put to rest in the unexpected calm expressed by his presence.

‘A cigarette. Or are you out?’ he asked placidly, amused. I breathed again.

Now he’ll tell me all about it, he’ll explain the whole thing, everything will be restored to order, whatever that may be, let’s hope, if only we get out of this limbo. Instead he was slow to utter the first word.

He sat down at the edge of the path after examining the dusty grass very carefully, his still unlit cigarette in his mouth, a vague, shrewd smile.

‘Her mother—’ He made up his mind at last with a self-important smile. ‘… the screams. The despair. A mother, you know. Try and imagine.’

Slowly, in detail and with a few studied pauses, he got on with the story.

Sara’s mother herself had thought of the house while Ines, Michelina, Candida, in a frenzy, speculated about trains, the highway, even a ship. Candida had actually been slapped for too much talking and agitation. Urged by the woman, Miccichè had then taken off on his motor scooter, wasting time among tracks that were all the same. The lieutenant wasn’t dead, not at all; the bullet must have been deflected by a bone. He was in the hospital now, he’d had two transfusions already and was not in any further danger.

‘I’d be willing to swear to it: in a few days he’ll be home again. With that constitution of his, healthy as a horse. He himself could still give blood. Did he shoot himself? Was he shot? Or maybe nothing more than a mistake? Only God Almighty knows. Because he, first at home and later at the hospital, didn’t utter a single word. And I don’t think he ever will.’