Pagano tore mercilessly into his adversary.
‘Stop! Perfect. That’s enough, could someone tell the Italian to stop. Oi, you, stop! The scene is over! Will you let go? Jesus Christ, call the interpreter!’
The actor broke away from Kociss’s grip, and made off, coughing.
Zollo approached the set manager: ‘Can I take him away?’
‘You must take him away, my friend. He’s almost ruined one of my actors. Have you any idea of the insurance premiums?’
Zollo didn’t stay to listen, but went over to Pagano and put an arm around his shoulder.
‘Let’s go.’
‘Stiv! You should have seen me, Stiv! That animal was trying to choke me, so I nutted him one.’
‘Sure, sure, get your stuff and be quick about it.’
‘I’ve got to pick up my pay. That guy almost strangles me and I don’t even get paid for it? Wait —’
Zollo was starting to get impatient. He had a drive to Naples ahead of him. How many kilometres would he be travelling during those two days? Shit, once he had that money in his pocket, the first thing he would do would be to tear up his licence. He never wanted to see another steering wheel as long as he lived.
He lit a cigarette and watched Grant going through the script.
That was class. You only had to look at the crease in his trousers, even when they were crumpled. And he wasn’t wearing a belt, they stayed up all by themselves. Everything seemed to be completely effortless for him. He had read something in the barber’s, in a magazine, about the film Hitchcock was making. The story of a retired thief forced to come out of retirement because someone is trying to frame him using the same modus operandi. A fine metaphor for Cary Grant’s return to the big screen.
He went over to him.
‘May I just say how much I admire your work, Mr Grant?’
Cary looked up from the sheet and shook Zollo’s hand.
‘Ah, you will be the companion of that nice Italian boy. You were at the casino the other evening.’
‘Stefano Zollo, pleasure to meet you. And to see that you’ve decided not to give up.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘To see you back in action again. There were rumours that you’d quit the cinema.’
A smile spread across Grant’s face. ‘I did actually think about it.’
‘I’m glad you had second thoughts. Hollywood wouldn’t be the same without you, believe me. You set a high standard.’
‘Well, thanks, it’s good to hear such things.’
‘I had to tell you. Don’t you worry about those two-bit toughs who make the girls swoon. Even sitting on their fathers’ shoulders, Dean and Brando couldn’t kiss your ass, with all due respect.’
Grant blushed and laughed heartily.
‘A nice image, Mr Zollo. I couldn’t have put it better myself. But I mustn’t speak ill of my colleagues.’
‘Sure, you’ve got too much style even for that. But we both know that Dean is an addict. And Brando’s a lard-bucket. By the time he’s your age he’ll be well over twenty stone.’
Grant laughed again.
‘You really are an incredible chap, my friend.’
‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘Fire away.’
‘Have you ever been to Yugoslavia?’
The actor gave a start, coughed and glanced at him strangely.
‘Yugoslavia? No, I’d have to say that I haven’t. Why?’
‘I knew it. I met someone who insisted he’d met you on an island off the Yugoslavian coast. He even tried to convince me you’d given him a book. He must have been a lunatic.’
Grant held his embarrassment in check. ‘Or a fantasist having some kind of joke. Are you leaving?’
‘Yes, we’re going back to Italy. I won’t disturb you any further, Mr Grant. It was a pleasure to meet you. Remember what I told you: don’t give up.’
They shook hands.
Grant watched Zollo walk away and join the boy, who was talking to the set manager, in improvised English, about his day’s wages, then take his arm and drag him away.
Hitch’s voice pulled him from his reflections on the absurd coincidences of life.
‘Cary, are you ready? We’re waiting for you!’
L’Unità, 2.6.1954
Today in Geneva the first attempts to bring about a truce in Indochina
Il Resto del Carlino, 4.6.1954
Farmers’ strike in Cavarzerano
Policemen injured by demonstrators
Roadblocks, poisoned wells and barns ablaze
Il Resto del Carlino, 6.6.1954
Union agitation more severe
Agents of order injured by strikers in Ferrara region
Attempted intimidation to prevent the influx of non-unionised workers into factories Denunciations and arrests
L’Unità, 9.6.1954
The three points of the wretched deal struck to the detriment of the populations of Istria
The Anglo-Americans announce their plan for the partition of the free territory of Trieste
Declaring that the Geneva discussions have already lasted too long
The American Secretary of State threatens war in Asia and wants to ‘finish off’ Guatemala
American marines off Central America ready to disembark in Honduras to quell the strike under way for thirty days against the United Fruit Company and to hit out at Guatemala
L’Unità, 16.6.1954
Lightning over Guatemala
How a large US company can influence the fate of a small country
Chapter 26
Bologna, 5 June
The frescoes on the ceiling were frightening. Fat, unrealistic cherubs. Their smiles seemed to mask an infinite cruelty.
Impossible to turn on to her side. Or to close her eyes. Fefe’s face re-emerged from the deep darkness. Every inch of her body in contact with the bed, as though hanging in the room. Her body, still young, and already exhausted, her childless body.
No more tears. Dried up.
Odoacre was a stranger who drifted from the hospital to the study at the end of the corridor almost without a word. She couldn’t work out whether it was out of respect for her grief or fear that he could not share it in the same way.
You can’t share grief with anyone. Grief is yours. You can be jealous of your own grief. You can transform it, turn it into a tool.
Fefe had understood. He knew that she and Pierre had left one another.
Fefe felt guilty.
Fefe felt that he was the cause.
Something had been unleashed in him. It had said: erase yourself and she will be free.
The guilt had been building up for years, it had grown inside him like a cancer. Guilt had turned to fear. Fear of thunder, fear of unhappiness.
Fefe couldn’t bear it.
Fefe had decided to do it.
She drove the thought from her head.
*
Sante’s expression was a mixture of pain and unease. The unease that comes from finding yourself in the presence of a grief so great it is beyond your comprehension. The fear of the unknown, don’t tempt providence, embarrassment at the feeling of ‘rather you than me’ instinctively shared by the spectators of a tragedy.
He had kept his eyes lowered, as though ashamed at that involuntary thought.
‘Excuse me, Madam, I was just behind that door. Dr Dall’Oglio had a word with the man in charge and said that Fefe’s medication was suspended for ten days. That was when your husband was away in Rome.’
Dall’Oglio had managed to look her in the eyes from behind his thick glasses. He was a doctor, he was used to suffering. He knew how to confront other people’s grief without embarrassment. He had received her as you receive a refugee, with all the understanding that he could muster, and the air of someone explaining the obvious to victims of their own ignorance.