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Maurizio’s check from his wallet and grabbed Lalla’s hair, pulling it until she was sitting upright. “Here’s your money, look at it. Two hundred thousand lire.”
She stared at the check in astonishment. Despite his rage, Sergio took care to conceal Maurizio’s signature on the check with his thumb. “Now you can buy clothes and everything else you want … I signed a contract to write a screenplay for two hundred thousand lire … Later I’ll get another eight hundred … so you can stop complaining about how poor we are.”
He put the check back in his wallet and pulled Lalla toward him, until their faces were almost touching, and stared into her eyes: “Listen to me … you were about to sleep with that lout just because you had a few drinks in you … so it seems that such things are not difficult for you. Now, listen to me … Maurizio is planning to join the Party within the next month … Do you hear me? He’s going to sign up. But in return, he wants you … Listen, now … I want you to do what you were about to do with that dancing monkey for nothing, you whore, but with Maurizio instead, to ensure that he keeps his promise. Do you understand me?”
She stared at him, bewildered. “You want me to become Maurizio’s lover?” she said, finally.
“Yes,” Sergio answered angrily, although with less conviction.
“Do you know what you’re asking?”
“Of course … I’m asking you to do this for a good cause, instead of doing it for no reason at all.”
She touched her face and said in a muted tone: “I feel awful … I really drank too much.”
She said those words in a languid voice. She got
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up from the bed, walked to the door shakily, and disappeared. Sergio remained on the bed, still furious, wallet in hand.
Lalla was gone for a long while. Finally, when she returned, she closed the door behind her and went over to the mirror. Sergio stared, waiting for an answer and hating himself for it. The answer never came. Lalla undressed, walked around in the nude for a few minutes, put on her tattered old nightgown, and returned to the bed, without a word. Sergio wanted to press her for an answer, but could not find the strength. Meekly, Lalla said, “Move over so I can get in.” He got up and she climbed into bed. He too undressed and climbed under the covers, suddenly exhausted, and fell asleep at once. During the night, he thought he saw a light and the outline of Lalla leaning on one elbow, one breast visible through the holes in her nightshirt, with a lock of hair dangling in her face as she contemplated him in silence. But perhaps, he reflected the following morning, it had all been a dream.
[VI]
A few days later, the three of them decided to go to Olevano. Maurizio had a dilapidated old car that he hardly ever brought out of the garage where it sat rusting away. Moroni, Lalla’s pupil, was expecting them. Sergio and Lalla had not returned to the subject of Maurizio’s political conversion and the condition he had placed for it. Lalla’s silence was so ambiguous that Sergio sometimes had the strange feeling that the subject had never been broached at all. Other times, he felt that the issue hung in the air and that even though none of them mentioned it, they were all thinking about it. It was present in their spirits if not on their lips, fermenting, growing, becoming increasingly real. But none of them discussed it. Sergio felt that one day it would explode, like an illness lying dormant in an apparently healthy body.
They left early. Lalla sat in the front next to Maurizio,
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with Sergio in the back. During the trip they laughed and joked, intoxicated by the thrill of the road, the beautiful spring weather, and the change of scenery after so many months in the city. Lalla was, it seemed to Sergio, particularly affectionate toward him. She was wearing a new skirt, a new blouse, and new silk stockings, all bought with Maurizio’s money. She glanced back at Sergio several times and said: “Sergio is making money now … Maurizio, you wouldn’t believe it … everything I’m wearing, from my hat to my shoes, was bought with Sergio’s money.” Maurizio answered calmly: “How lovely … So what happened?” “Sergio is writing a screenplay,” she said proudly; “the hard times are over.” Her happiness and the new clothes made her look even prettier. Every so often she turned to Sergio, gazing at him affectionately with her large, dark eyes or quickly caressing his hand, which lay on his knee. Sergio felt a strange emotion, a combination of guilt and surprise: Could she really still love him after his proposal? How could she not realize that he did not love her and considered her an object, precious perhaps, but inanimate, to be used as a means to an end? He knew of course that she could not have forgotten his proposal. And he wondered, almost cruelly, what her decision would be now that the problem was in her hands, with all its humiliating weight and mortifying ambiguity.
They drove for a long time through the countryside in the warm spring sun. After they passed Zagarolo and were driving through terraced hills and small forests, the car suddenly came to a stop. “Something must be wrong with the motor,” Maurizio said; “this damned car is always breaking down.” He got out and invited the others to do so as well. While Maurizio peered at the motor, Sergio and Lalla began to walk down the empty, sunny road.
It was a beautiful day. Lalla pointed out a few tiny white clouds, clearly delineated against the pure, luminous blue sky. Sergio suddenly turned to her: “Why did you tell Moroni that we were getting married this year?”
“How do you know?”
“He told me.”
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“I know we’ll probably never get married, but I love you … Perhaps you won’t understand this, but a woman always hopes to marry the man who loves her. I’m a woman just like any other. I would like to be your wife.”
“But I don’t want to be your husband,” he said, harshly.
Without seeming to notice his tone, she took his arm. “Let me at least have my illusions … Why are you so cruel? What have I done to you?”
“Nothing.”
“You see? So why not just let me say whatever I like? Another person might say that they hope to win the lotto, and I say that I would like to marry you … What harm is there? There was a good reason for me to say it.”
“What was that?”
“Moroni is in love with me. He says that I look exactly like his dead wife. He has asked me to marry him several times. So, just to shut him up, I told him we were engaged.”
Sergio said nothing.
“Sergio, why are you always so cruel with me? I had started to hope, these last few days after you gave me all these gifts … but now you’ve reverted to your cruel ways.”
Maurizio called out: “Shall we go?”
“Let’s go back,” Sergio said; “we can discuss this later.” Lalla followed him in silence.
They were not far from Olevano; the town was visible on the horizon, at the summit of a rocky hill. When they reached it, they caught a glimpse of a man leaning against the parapet of a bridge over a small stream, beneath the shade of a leafy tree. He walked toward them, indicating that they should stop. It was Moroni. He went over to the car, exclaiming, in his loud, boisterous voice: “Welcome! Welcome to my town, signorina.” He stepped onto the running board of the car and guided them toward his home, which was built on a terrace cut into the hill, below street level. The car descended a narrow road with vineyards on either side and finally came to a stop in a courtyard in front of the simple, square façade of a white three-story house with green shutters. Moroni helped
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Lalla out of the car. When they had all emerged, he asked: “No bags?”