After a pause, Sergio continued: “I’m broke … Lalla desperately needs a new dress … Could you please lend me the money? I’ll pay you back in a month.”
Maurizio betrayed no emotion. “How much do you need?” he asked, in a calm voice.
“Twenty thousand lire.”
“That will only buy a very modest dress,” Maurizio said, fixing him with his gaze.
“Well, we’re modest people,” Sergio said, almost angrily, “and we dress modestly.”
Maurizio reflected for a moment: “Modesty is fine of course … but if I may be frank, Lalla dresses like a beggar.”
Sergio pressed his lips together, offended. “Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s true,” Maurizio said, with a cruel calm. “She wears rags … shapeless skirts, worn-out shoes … Her gloves are dirty and full of holes … The other day she was wearing a blouse that was discolored under the arms from sweat … Her stockings are darned … Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but she looks like a beggar. If I were you I would be ashamed to go out with her.”
Sergio was so disconcerted by this attack that he did not respond immediately. His heart was heavy. After a long pause, Maurizio continued: “Listen, instead of twenty thousand, I’ll lend you two hundred thousand … It’s very little, even for a woman who dresses moderately well, and almost nothing for Lalla, who owns no clothes at all. At least she’ll be able to buy a dress, stockings, a blouse, some shoes, and maybe a few other things … like a slip or a camisole;
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I’m sure hers are in a terrible state, if she has them.”
As he calmly said these words, he pulled a checkbook and a pen out of his pocket. He wrote out the check, saying, “Don’t worry, you can pay me whenever you like.”
“But I …,” Sergio began, still taken aback.
“Don’t worry,” Maurizio said, holding up his hand, “and anyway, you can’t deny her these things that will make her so happy. It makes her deeply unhappy, as it would any woman, to go about dressed in rags.
After all,” he said, staring at Sergio, “I’m happy to give you this money … I’m very attached to Lalla, as you know, so it gives me pleasure.”
Without paying any more attention to Sergio, he finished writing the check. Sergio watched him, staring at the dark, shiny hair on his head, the head of a courteous, well-brought-up man bent over the checkbook at the small table. He wanted to protest, to stop him, but he knew that he would not, though he was not sure why. He had a strange feeling, a kind of gratitude mixed with humiliated attraction, and at the same time, a bitter sense of powerlessness, of irredeemable inferiority. Once again Maurizio had shown him up and was imposing his will; he towered over him with his money, as he had before with his intelligence. Sergio felt a violent desire for revenge, though he was not sure what form this revenge would take. He saw his hand reaching for the check, bathed in a ray of sunlight that came in through one of the windows. As in a dream, he heard himself say “Thank you.” He peered at the check. It was in his name, and suddenly it occurred to him: “He doesn’t want Lalla to know … This is between Maurizio and me … Either he really loves her, or he wants to humiliate me, or both.”
As if hearing his thoughts, Maurizio said nonchalantly, “Of course you shouldn’t tell Lalla that I gave you the money … Tell her you were paid to write a screenplay or something along those lines … You’ve written for the movies in the past, haven’t you?”
“No.”
“Well, think of something … then after a while
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I’ll give you more money … for the next installment of your screenplay … That way Lalla will be happy … Clothes are important to women.”
“But I’ll never be able to pay you back.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Maurizio said.
Without knowing why, Sergio blurted out, “You think that, with the excuse of this lie about a screenplay, I’ll accept more money from you.”
“Well,” Maurizio said, shrugging, “if you are willing to take this money I don’t see why you wouldn’t take more.”
“Have I accepted?”
“Well, you put the check in your wallet.”
“And how much will you give me later?”
“As much as you need,” Maurizio said, calmly, “so that Lalla can dress decently.”
“And you’re happy to give me this money?”
“Yes, very … As I said, I feel great affection for Lalla.”
“Or is it because you want to humiliate me?”
Maurizio pretended not to hear his rebuke. He walked over to a small bar on wheels and asked, invitingly: “Would you like an aperitif … a cocktail?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“A martini, then,” Maurizio said. He mixed the gin and vermouth in a large glass, then rang a bell and asked the butler for some ice. As soon as the butler left the room, he asked, in the same calm voice as before: “Regarding our earlier conversation … have you come to a decision?”
Sergio’s heart jumped. “What do you mean?”
“Our conversation about my possible conversion to Communism.”
In a voice that did not feel like his own, and with the same spontaneity that had led him to ask Maurizio for money, Sergio heard himself respond: “I accept.”
There was a sound of broken glass. A small glass
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had crashed to the floor; it was not clear whether it had fallen out of Maurizio’s hand or had simply tumbled from the bar. “How nervous I am,” Maurizio said. His voice was agitated, polite, and intense. The butler returned with the ice. “You can put it there, Giovanni,” Maurizio said in his usual voice.
Maurizio picked up the pitcher containing the mixture of gin and vermouth and returned to where Sergio was sitting. He dropped in some ice with a spoon and, pouring the mixture into a small glass, said, with some nervous anticipation, “Not only will I sign up, but I’ll donate two million lire to the Party … on the day you fulfill your promise.”
He looked almost upset, overcome by a powerful, long-repressed happiness. Sergio could not help thinking that he seemed happy to join the Communist Party, and to obtain Lalla in the process. In other words, he had killed two birds with one stone. Sergio felt weak, and slightly faint. The blood drained from his face. In order to steady his nerves he gulped down his drink. Maurizio insisted: “So, how will we go about it?”
“You’re very impatient,” Sergio said, looking at his friend.
“You know I’m head over heels for her,” Maurizio said.
“I’ll speak with her today … but I’m not sure she’ll agree.”
“If you really want to, I’m sure you’ll convince her.”
Sergio stood up, abruptly. “I’m leaving,” he said, adding, “don’t get up … I know the way.” He rushed out without waiting for an answer.
[V]
Two questions went round and round in Sergio’s
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mind. Why had he taken the money? And why, once he had taken it, had he accepted Maurizio’s proposition to convert to Communism?
He could answer the first question with relative ease: out of love for Lalla. But he knew that this was not the real reason. The truth was that he had accepted the money for reasons that were deeper, and more obscure. He felt the need to thrust Lalla into Maurizio’s arms, and this money was simply a means to that end; he had sold Lalla to Maurizio, like a piece of merchandise. Why did he feel this need to thrust Lalla into Maurizio’s arms? The obvious answer was that he wanted to convince Maurizio to become a Communist, but the second, more subtle, was closer to the truth: there was a struggle for power going on between them, and he wanted to vanquish his opponent. If he convinced Maurizio to join the Party it would be his victory, the proof of his power. Each of his actions had two motivations, one more generous and more noble, the other darker and more selfish. He had accepted the money so that Lalla would be able to look more presentable, and so that she would become Maurizio’s lover. He wanted her to become Maurizio’s lover so that he would join the Party, and in order to feel superior to him. Which was the true reason? Probably both, just as all our actions tend to be both disinterested and selfish.