Then he took his Livia Ussaro and drove her home. At the front door they even shook hands, they might as well have said, ‘Thanks for the company.’ He went back to the Cavour feeling completely nauseated with everything, starting with himself, but not with her.
PART THREE
‘Maybe you never got beyond those girls in leather jackets standing by the jukebox, those scrubbers from 1960 with their long hair all straggly as if they’d drowned: according to you, they can streetwalk in the Corso Buenos Aires at night, but nobody else. I think you’re behind the times.’
‘That may be, I’d never thought of graduates in history and philosophy doing it.’
1
Here is Livia Ussaro at work, in the last stretch of the Via Giuseppe Verdi, close to the Piazza della Scala, just after half past ten. The area has been carefully chosen, like a rare literary text, after a three-way meeting, with Davide as a listener but without a right to vote. She’s neatly dressed, all in blue, her skirt is short and under her little jacket she’s wearing something so skimpy you couldn’t really call it a blouse. The impression she needs to give, as she walks up towards the Piazza della Scala, is that she’s looking for someone or something, a shop perhaps, or is waiting for a date. And that is indeed the impression she gives.
Davide has taken up position under the portico in the Piazza della Scala, his Giulietta, thanks to a thousand-lire tip, is parked by the monument to Leonardo da Vinci in such a way that he can pull out easily. For many mornings now, nothing has happened. Yes, there were two gentlemen who spoke to Livia, but one she ruled out because he didn’t have a car-the person they want to meet definitely uses a car-the other because he was a young man of twenty-two or twenty-three, who had started by saying to her, ‘Hey, good-looking!’ and the person they’re looking for is not a young man, he must be over fifty, and he certainly wouldn’t use a phrase like ‘Hey, good-looking!’
That morning, from under the arcade, Davide saw a tall man in his fifties walk up to Livia as she appeared to be waiting for the lights to turn green. Livia’s conversation with the gentleman continued, rather than breaking off immediately like the others: obviously Livia had thought it was worth a try.
Indeed it was, and she crossed the Via Manzoni with the man, even smiling at him once, but in a very refined way. The very fact that Livia had accepted his company meant that the man had a car and that she had kindly consented to be given a lift. Davide walked to the Giulietta, now it was all a question of where the distinguished-looking street Casanova had parked his car, but Livia made it easier, slowing her suitor down until Davide was able to catch up with them.
It was all easy now: the man’s car, a beautiful black Taunus, was also parked by the Leonardo monument, only it was stuck in the middle of the anthill and Davide had time to smoke almost a whole cigarette before the other man managed to get out and he was able to follow him. The route, too, had been carefully chosen: Via Manzoni, Via Palestro, Corso Venezia, Corso Buenos Aires, Piazzale Loreto. The reasons were twofold: Livia would tell her companion she had to go to the beginning of the Viale Monza, a long enough route to give her time to talk to him. If Livia judged that it was worth continuing, she would accept his gallant proposition and tell him to drive in the direction of Monza, where there were some fairly quiet spots. Otherwise, she would convince the man that she had made a mistake, that it was the first time she had accepted a lift and she would never do it again because men always tried to take advantage.
The Taunus followed the prearranged route under an increasingly hot sun, joined the compact river of vehicles streaming along the Corso Buenos Aires, reached the Piazzale Loreto, did a turn around the metro station, and stopped at the beginning of the Viale Monza. Davide, risking a fine, parked right behind them. He could see Livia and the man: the man seemed to be insisting, but Livia was shaking her head very sternly. The farce lasted a couple of minutes, then the gentleman resigned himself, got out, opened the door to his grouchy passenger, and helped her out, it was obvious he was still insisting, but Livia was unmoveable: virtue personified.
When the Taunus had left-another basic rule: take the number of all these men’s cars, even when the encounter led nowhere, and he had taken this one-Livia waited for a while, then got into the Giulietta next to Davide.
‘He’s a madman,’ Livia said, although with barely a smile, ‘either that or it’s the heat, he has business cards with him and gave me one. Look, give it to Duca.’
Armando Marnassi, exclusive representative for Alcheno food colouring, there followed two addresses and two telephone numbers. Davide put it in his jacket pocket, he would give it to Duca. ‘Why’s he mad?’ he asked, driving towards the Via Plinio.
‘He immediately offered me a job, two hundred thousand lire a month, he needs a trustworthy secretary. Then he told me he’s invested his money in various apartments, and if I wasn’t happy with the one where I’m living, he’d gladly give me one. If the journey had been longer and he didn’t already have a wife, he might even have asked me to marry him.’ If he hadn’t given her his business card, she might have thought that all these offers were bait, but a man of that age who gives his name, address, and telephone number is clearly quite serious. Maybe he was one of the few older, but still youthful, men who didn’t have a lady friend with an apartment or a boutique, and was trying to remedy the lack as quickly as possible.
In the afternoon, after a few hours’ break, they started again. At half-past three Livia Ussaro was in the second area: from the Piazza San Babila to the Piazza San Carlo, making the round of the shopping arcades, apart from the area of the Via Montenapoleone-not because it was sexless, but because it was given over to other equally demanding activities. At that hour, especially in summer, mature men sleep, the most active in heavy armchairs, the spoiled actually in bed. Only at four-thirty or five do they return to their desks, discreetly sprinkled with rare and refreshing colognes, ready to make important decisions. But at the same time, many young women, from Milan or from out of town, often pretty, who don’t need afternoon naps and are immune to the heat, wander that area looking in the windows, making a few purchases or meeting friends. If a middle-aged man interested in such things knows of this habit, he knows that it’s at this time and in the areas richest in shops that he will find what interests him, so he gives up his own afternoon nap, and goes there. It’s actually a discreet hour, with nothing dubious about it: a man over fifty in the company of a slim young brunette doesn’t seem like a faun at that hour, but like her uncle. Assuming the person they were looking for still existed, and was still devoted to his activity, this was the area in which there was most likelihood of meeting him. That was why they combed the same area in the evening, too, from nine to ten-thirty, giving it the name Area 2b: it was the time when the cinemas and theatres were busy, they just had to keep away from the Corso Venezia, where the professionals worked, and concentrate a bit more on the Corso Matteotti, to have the best chance of having a few encounters.
The command post of this complex system is an apartment in the Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, Duca’s apartment, bought by his father. On the door there’s still a name plate saying Doctor Duca Lamberti, there used to be one by the street door which said Duca Lamberti, doctor and surgeon, which he had immediately removed, but as for the one on his apartment door, he had put a strip of tape over the word Doctor, and one morning found that someone had taken away the tape, the usual stupid delivery boy or local kid. He’d put on the strip again, but once again it was taken off, and he gave up.