The door to the bedroom was open, Lucca glimpsed an unmade bed. It is a small flat, said Stella behind her back, putting a plate of cheese and salami on the table. Did she have somewhere to stay? Lucca nodded and sat down. When had she arrived? Stella lit a cigarette as Lucca ate and explained how she had found them. Stella would have to go out again soon, but she could just wait for Giorgio. They both worked in the evenings, actually he should be home by now. But she should have something to drink as well! She shook her head at her own vagueness and went back into the kitchen. Lucca looked out at the covered balcony. Three man’s shirts hung on the line floppily waving their sleeves.
Stella came back with a bottle of mineral water and a glass. Unfortunately that was all she had. She should have known Lucca was coming. Lucca said she had tried to telephone. Stella lit another cigarette and inhaled, looking at Lucca with her hard narrow eyes. She had expected her to turn up one day. Suddenly she got to her feet, Giorgio would be sure to come soon. She went into the bedroom. When she came back she had on a white shirt with a black bow tie, a black, thigh-length skirt and black stockings. There was something inappropriate about the tie, and Stella looked as if she could see what Lucca was thinking. Her hair was combed back from her forehead and gathered with a clasp. Her face seemed still more angular and wasted without the bird’s nest of unkempt hair to frame it. She put out her hand in farewell. Lucca would probably have left when she came back. She hoped she would have a pleasant stay in Italy.
Lucca heard her steps fade out of hearing down the stairs. She rose and opened the bedroom door. Their clothes were jumbled together in heaps on the bed, the floor and over a chair. A low bookcase held books in close-packed piles and on top of it was a framed photograph. She recognised Stella, a younger, sunburned Stella in a flowered dress. Beside her stood a man with dark curly hair and a full beard. He wore a checked shirt hanging loose over his trousers. The same old shirt he had worn when they were at the summer cottage. Lucca recalled the feeling of the soft, washed-out material when she pressed her face against his stomach. She put a hand over his jaw. The eyes were the same too, the creases around them when he smiled.
She lay down on the sofa in the living room. Now it was just a question of waiting and she would hear the steps coming up the stairs and a key inserted in the lock. She thought of Stella’s hard, inquiring scrutiny before she took the last steps up and stretched out her hand.
She awoke in semi-darkness. At first she did not know where she was. She could feel there was someone in the room and sat up in confusion. He sat astride a chair over at the table with his arms resting on its back. He looked at her, supporting his chin on his crossed arms. His beard had gone and his unruly hair looked as if someone had emptied an ashtray over his head. Slowly she recognised his features from the youthful black and white picture, behind the furrows carved into his face. He had been observing her while she slept. It’s me, she said in Danish, in a muted voice. It’s me, Lucca…
He nodded and smiled faintly, and only then did she notice the tears that had gathered at the corners of his eyes. She rose and went over to him, but stopped when he turned his face away. She stood still for a moment before cautiously laying a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her, dried his cheeks with his palms and got up from the chair. Then he suddenly smiled and flung out his arms like a clown, as if to excuse his tears. He embraced her. She didn’t cry. She would have liked to cry, she had pictured herself weeping.
She was surprised he was not taller. He smelled slightly of sweat, but his smell was not as she remembered. While they stood there embracing he said something she did not understand. He held her away from him and smiled again. He spoke Italian to her. Apparently he had forgotten the scraps of Danish he had learned while he lived with Else. She hadn’t imagined they might not be able to talk together. It made them shy. He pointed to his watch and smiled again. Andiamo, he said and nodded towards the door.
She had no idea where he was taking her. Now and then he looked at her with his sad eyes and smiled mysteriously. He asked her to wait outside a shop and soon returned with a bottle of wine and a bag smelling of grilled chicken. He waved the wine and the bag and smiled, indicating they should go on. He put on speed, occasionally glancing at his watch. They had walked for a quarter of an hour when they came to a cinema. Was he going to invite her to the movies? Giorgio went first up a steep staircase on the side of the building. The steps led to a door in the middle of the bare wall. He unlocked it, switched on the light inside and held open the door for her with a gallant gesture.
While she watched he took a big reel of film from a round box and fixed it with practised movements on one of the projectors. He called her over with a cunning look and pointed to a little window. Down in the auditorium the audience were taking their places. He pressed a button and the lights dimmed in the hall. Then he started the machine and the spool began to rotate with a ticking sound while the film ran past the bright ray of light that penetrated the darkness of the cinema. Giorgio pointed to his watch again and shook his wrist as if he had burned himself. Lucca had to smile.
He took plates, cutlery and glasses from a cupboard and laid a small table between the projectors. The grilled chicken was still warm and Giorgio watched her gleefully as she gnawed the meat from her half and sucked her fingers. He took a sip of wine and washed it around his mouth with the air of a discriminating connoisseur which brought the smile to her face again. They drank a silent toast, Giorgio assumed a ceremonial expression, and it all made her feel she was in a silent film, partly because of the ticking sound of the machine, partly Giorgio’s comic gestures. He wanted to amuse her, but the melancholy look did not leave his eyes. The wine relaxed her, and the tension that had held her in its hard grip for two days was replaced by a crestfallen flatness. There was so much she would have liked to ask him about, so much she had wanted to tell him.
He rose, put a reel of film on the other machine and told her by signs to look out of the little window. Lucca viewed the distant picture floating in the dark. A man and a woman lay in a four-poster bed making love in the golden light of an open fire, and suddenly she saw a little white flash in the right hand corner of the picture. Immediately Giorgio set the other projector going and the next moment the couple in bed were succeeded by a group of riders in fluttering cloaks galloping beside a wood at dawn. He stopped the first projector, took the reel off and carried it over to a table with two steel plates on which he rewound the film. He went to the window and absent-mindedly watched what was happening on the screen.
When they were in the street after the show he took her arm and led her to a bus stop. Fishing a crumpled packet of cigarettes out of his breast pocket he offered her one. She accepted it, although she didn’t feel like smoking. There was hardly any traffic. Long rows of cars were parked beside the closed shutters of the shops. A little further on they heard the shrill yelp of a burglar alarm. Giorgio stooped slightly, one hand in his pocket, now and then taking a drag at his cigarette. He looked at her and shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe his eyes. Lucca… he said softly. She smiled back, but it was a slow smile, her mouth felt sluggish and stiff.