Goliarda Sapienza - The Art of Joy

‘How could I, if you never say anything?’

‘There’s no need for words. You watch, you observe. Or maybe you preferred to think that they had sacrificed me? No answer? Now I understand: you had created for yourself a Dantesque saint to love. Or would you prefer Petrarch, as I imagine you do? So then, you’ve made me your pure, saintly Laura. You poor men! For us, Madame Bovary, and for you, Laura. Come on, Carlo, it’s 1921!’

‘Who knows how many of these teachers you’ve had? Now I know why you get undressed so easily and stroke me like…’

‘Go ahead and say it! If not with the accurate word, “whore”, at least with Turati’s euphemism. Go on, say it! Like a “wage earner of love”?’

A hail of slaps — not kisses, like before — pelted my face, making my cheeks sting, like when Eriprando had a tantrum and pounded my shoulders, neck and face with his little fists. I had to be patient and let him do it; it was merely the tender fury of a presumptuous child, whose expectations have been disappointed. But after having vented his fury, Prando sometimes understood.

* * *

The second week of Beatrice’s illness

‘Forgive me, Modesta. I’ve thought about what you said and maybe you’re right. I never let you talk; I’m always interrupting you. I haven’t slept a wink all these nights that I haven’t come to you. Whenever I fell asleep for a moment, I woke up seeking your body. Oh Modesta, I may be a weakling — call me what you will — but I love you so much! You won’t look at me, Modesta, and you’re right. I ran off like a coward.’

‘You’re not a coward, Carlo. I understand you. It’s neither your fault nor mine. It’s just that our pasts are so different. And it may also be that I’m so exhausted and worried about Beatrice. Forgive me, but I can’t keep my eyes open with this headache.’

I expected a furious reply; it wasn’t easy to lie to him. I sensed that in some mysterious way that young man knew me like no one else had ever known me.

‘How beautiful you are with your eyes closed, Modesta!’

My surprise made my eyes fly open. He had lifted me up from the chair just as he had done with Beatrice that long-ago night.

‘No, Modesta, close your eyes. That’s it! I’ll put you to bed myself, all right? I’ll undress you like you do with children, then you’ll sleep, and I’ll watch you. Will you let me stay with you and watch you for a while?’

In his arms, in the short journey from the chair to the bed, I was hopeful. Everything ends and then begins anew; everything dies, later to be reborn. I was hopeful. His hands undressed me with meticulous care. I let go. Under the covers his naked body gently nestled against my own, his mouth resting on my breast. He couldn’t see me, so I opened my eyes. I couldn’t believe what I was feeling. He took hold of my nipple with his lips and sucked it. I was hopeful, and reached down — I was the one trembling now — to try and stroke his penis. Had I gone too far? No, because he entered me gently and, with the right rhythm, like long ago, took me back to a small bare room smelling of tobacco: ‘ Help me and help yourself, figghia; that way we’ll climax together. ’ I bit my lips, because a name had risen from the depths of my rapt being. But I hadn’t said that name because he was moving frantically between my breasts and hips, perspiring lightly like a child, murmuring: ‘Hold still … that’s how I like you, still, with your eyes closed.’ Now he reared his head, satisfied. I tried to keep my eyes closed and not say anything, but the tears I couldn’t keep from trickling through my tightly shut eyelashes spoke for me.

‘What is it, Modesta, are you crying?’

‘It’s nothing, Carlo, just emotion.’

‘Emotion over what? You’re thinking about that man. I’m getting dressed. I have a house call at eight. We’ll talk later.’

Angrily, he gathered up his clothes and slammed the bathroom door. The door stayed closed for several minutes. He always went to wash after sex. Why? I turned off the light and whispering Carmine , Carmine’s hands gave me the orgasm that for weeks I had been hoping for.

‘Why did you turn off the light?’

‘I’m tired, Carlo.’

‘That’s not true. I believed you earlier, but it’s not true! Open your eyes. We have to talk!’

‘Please, Carlo, tomorrow. You were the one who didn’t want to talk before.’

‘Before, it’s true. But not now! Now I have to know. You were thinking of that man, admit it!’

‘No, Carlo. Or rather, I was thinking about that man’s freedom.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It takes two to make love, Carlo. You’ve learned a lot of things, but…’

‘But what? Let’s hear it.’

‘When you meet the right woman, let her join in, or teach her if she doesn’t know how.’

‘“When you meet the right woman”, did you say? Does this mean that I’m not the right man for you and that you don’t love me anymore? Or maybe you never loved me?’

‘I love you, Carlo, even now when you’re looking at me like a policeman. I love you and I think highly of you. It’s just that we haven’t connected physically. Or maybe, for me at least, I mistook as love the appeal you had, and still have, when we talk. It’s difficult to explain it to you, but during these past weeks I’ve begun to understand many things about this word that we all use, but which we know so little about.’

‘Excuses, nothing but excuses! You’re still in love with that man!’

‘Not with that man, Carlo, but with the physical connection there was between us when we had sex.’

‘You’re being vulgar, Modesta.’

‘For you, everything natural is vulgar.’

‘Oh God, I can’t take any more of this! I’m leaving before I kill you! I’ll kill you! But we’ll talk about it later.’

The period of Beatrice’s convalescence

‘No! It’s futile for you to try to avoid me.’

‘I’m not avoiding you, Carlo!’

‘You are avoiding me! But we should talk, given that you wanted to talk so much before, instead of loving me the way I loved you.’

‘And how should I have loved you, Carlo? In silence, letting you adore me like a statue?’

‘But love is mystery, silence. I venerated you in silence. Just looking at you was enough to make me happy for days and days. I didn’t need to talk. Love is a miracle, and as such…’

‘Love is not a miracle, Carlo, it’s an art, a skill, a mental and physical exercise of the mind and of the senses like any other. Like playing an instrument, dancing or woodworking.’

‘You’re talking about sex.’

‘But isn’t sex love? Love and sex are two sides of the same coin. What is love without sex? The veneration of a statue, of a Madonna. What is sex without love? Nothing more than a clash of genital organs.’

‘Then you deny the spiritual essence of love? You deny its spontaneity, and the fact that the more spontaneously it arises, the more genuine, pure and miraculous it is?’

‘Carlo, you, too, like your comrades in Catania: “The asceticism of the Russian people, the sacredness of the working class, the martyrology of the proletariat, nature as God, the artist as God.” How is it possible?’

‘What does all that have to do with it?’

‘It has everything to do with it, because all I found among your comrades was a barely concealed aspiration for sainthood and a vocation for martyrdom. Or else a ferocity of dogma hiding a fear of investigation, of experimentation, of discovery, of life’s fluidity. If you want to know, I didn’t find anything resembling the freedom of materialism. And I ran away, yes, because I had no intention of falling into a trap perhaps worse than the Church from which I had escaped.’