She responded brightly, her voice betraying the slightest trace of a local accent: “Please don’t apologize … it’s understandable. You found me in this park, alone … it’s normal for you to ask questions.”
After a short silence, he said, “My name is Sergio … I’m a journalist. And I’m from Rome.”
Again, she was silent, and after a moment he added, “Do you have a suitcase, or something else?”
“Yes, at the station.”
“All right then,” he said with some effort, “let’s go get a bite to eat and then we can go to the station and pick up your bag. We’ll take it to your room.”
“All right,” she said with a trusting docility that he
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found slightly jarring. “Let’s go.”
They got up from the bench and left the square, walking along a vast, empty avenue. Nella unexpectedly began to speak in a relaxed, trusting voice, as if they were old friends. Not only did she not attribute much importance to the war, but she did not seem to even understand its exact terms. After he asked whether she thought they had really been bombed that morning, she asked casually, “Were those German planes?”
Sergio stared at her in disbelief. “German planes? No … not yet … the Germans are our allies.”
She turned away and said in a serious voice: “I don’t understand any of it, you know … Germans, British, they’re all the same to me … Now that the Fascists are gone, I assumed it was the Germans bombing us because we got rid of the Fascists.”
“No,” Sergio explained, “those were English planes … that is, if there were planes at all.”
[…]
was not surprised by this request for a bathing suit.
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Nella looked at several different styles, measuring them with her eyes. The shopgirl stared out at the street rather than at Nella, and said: “This one is made of knitted fabric … This is a two piece … This is a one piece.” Sergio could not help asking: “Do you sell a lot of these despite the war?”
“Yes, of course,” she answered, “like every other year.”
Nella asked, “Can I try one on? This one?”
“Yes of course,” the young woman answered, picking up a bathing suit and taking it over to a folding screen. Now alone, Sergio looked around the shop nervously. For some reason he felt that he should pay for the bathing suit, and yet he wasn’t sure that he had enough money and was afraid of appearing stingy. He said to himself, “I met her just three hours ago … she’s nothing to me,” and realized once again that his feelings, almost like a lover’s, had no basis in reality. He was startled by Nella’s voice asking, in a pleased tone: “Do you think it suits me?”
He turned around.
“It suits me, don’t you think?” she repeated.
It was true: it fit her perfectly, Sergio thought, or rather, any bathing suit would have suited her. Without the red cotton dress that concealed and almost erased her shape, her body was revealed in all its luminous, firm beauty. Like her face, it was as appetizing as bread and as life itself. In her, nature seemed to express only candor, health, luminosity, and purity. He remembered a prostitute he had visited two weeks earlier, a young woman, dark-haired and ill-proportioned, dark-skinned and sweaty, and it seemed to him that this girl standing before him now was the exact opposite of that woman, as different from her as day from night. Nella’s shoulders were plump
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and wide, her waist slender. Rising from this waist, her bust sloped upward, like two large round fruits about to burst. Her breasts were round and firm, and the wool of the suit stretched across them, almost painfully. Nella’s hips were almost as wide as her shoulders, giving her body the singular appearance of a vessel, narrow in the middle and flaring outward at either end. Her legs touched, without the slightest space between them, and her thighs were full. The skin of her legs was hairless, amber-colored, and taut. Her legs were longer than he had imagined, and elegantly tapered. But most of all, the color, the healthy, innocent glow that her body emanated, made a deep impression: it was like the morning sunlight shining upon the objects in a room and the faces of those who have rested in a deep slumber and bathed in clear, fresh water. She had the sweet, limpid, healthy, and almost child-like flesh of a woman who had never known passionate love. But neither was she a virgin, he thought. Her virginity must have been taken almost by chance, perhaps in a single embrace by a fortuitous lover, an act of convenience, almost a means to release her vitality, so impetuous and fresh. Taken without pain and without love, as in nature, without a trace, without regret or shame, nor any other sentiment.
Nella strutted around the store, watched by the exhausted shopgirl. As a matter of professional obligation, she felt compelled to comment: “Signorina, that one really suits you.” Finally, Nella said with conviction, “I’ll take it.” The two women returned to the folding screen, leaving Sergio alone.
Once again he felt the impulse to pay for the bathing suit and realized that if he did not do so he would feel shame and regret. When the two women emerged from behind the screen, Sergio pulled his wallet from his pocket almost without thinking and asked: “So how much is it?”
He was surprised to see that Nella did not protest and instead stood there calmly with a self-possession that did not exactly irritate him
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but troubled him more than if she had openly asked him to pay for the suit. As he paid he realized that he had only a few bills left in his wallet, just enough to pay for transportation. Holding the package under her arm, Nella said, “Thank you,” in a simple, uningratiating manner that pleased him. They returned to the cab, which took off at a trot.
A few minutes later they arrived at the address on Via della Vite which Nella had pointed out before. She descended and waited calmly for Sergio to pay for the cab with his last remaining bills. Once again, she seemed ready to take her leave, and once again Sergio reacted by offering to carry her suitcase. Again, she accepted without any hint of embarrassment and preceded him up the staircase.
It was a modest old building, with a gloomy, steep staircase and vaulted ceilings. They climbed up four floors and Nella stopped at a door with the name Ginori written on a plaque and rang the bell. A scantily dressed woman came to the door, holding a baby in one arm; they could hear music from a radio and smell cooking. Nella said: “I saw a room this morning … I’ve come back with my suitcase.”
Without a word or any sign that she had understood, the woman disappeared and then reappeared with a large key. It turned out that the room had its own entrance. The woman unlocked the door and said, “Here you are,” and led them into a long, narrow room with a single window facing a courtyard. Someone called out from the apartment: “Adalgisa … Adalgisa …” She excused herself and ran out, closing the door behind her. Sergio and Nella were left alone.
Sergio realized that he absolutely had to leave. He had already paid for the bathing suit and the taxi, and if Nella decided that she wanted to go down to eat, he would be unable to pay for lunch. And yet the
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thought of leaving made him unhappy. He wasn’t sure whether he was attracted to her or not; he only knew that he did not want to leave. After a moment, he asked awkwardly: “Where should I put the suitcase?”
“Right here on the bed, that way it will be easier to un<pack>.” He carried the suitcase over to the bed and s<at> down next to it, almost mechanically. Nella had retreated behind <a scree>n hiding the sink; he heard running water, and assumed that she was washing up. She reappeared, looking happy. “What do you think of the room?”