The Italian Romance, page 3
Let’s not ask me why. I almost didn’t invite Johnny. He always does this. No wonder his wife left him.
‘Well, there’s an interesting point,’ I say. ‘Why did you come back from the States? He spent twenty-eight years of his life in New York.’ I am looking directly at the bushman, signalling him to catch the ball.
Vincenzo gets it first, bless him. ‘Culture, culture, culture – that is the reason. We are at the heart of civilisation. They may have all the Metropolitans and their Guggenheims,’ he holds up a hand to stop Johnny who wishes to protest, ‘but nevertheless it is here we find the treasure without seeking it.’
‘That is not why I returned,’ Johnny says. ‘No.’ He looks around at his new-world dinner companions, worried at the insult delivered to us. Whether or not he’d be so chivalrous in exclusively Roman company, I will never know. As it is, I am well aware of why Johnny came home but I defy him to reveal his very personal reasons this evening, and I hope that will teach him a lesson.
‘Romans live a multi-temporal life,’ I say. I am talking to the newcomer, Jim. That is what newcomers are for, to listen to old-timers trumpeting their pet theories and advanced state of knowledge. ‘We live in almost every age at one and the same time. It doesn’t cost us a thought. It’s as natural as breathing.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Johnny says, and I could recite his next piece, for he will of course pour a courteous degree of scorn on his own in order to placate the foreigner. ‘Only because, cara, we have the props. Props everywhere. If you walk out of your air-conditioned apartment and on to the sidewalk, take a deep breath of car exhalations,’ and he beats his chest, opens his arms and does a good imitation of breathing, ‘and if your eye falls here on the few stones left of a temple dedicated to the goddess of war, and there on the Senate where Caesar trod, and further along the street,’ his fingers trot across the table, ‘here is an excavation of an Etruscan site, there a Versace suit in the window of a discreet boutique, overhead a satellite hangs in space,’ his eyes grow wide with astonishment, ‘my God! We would be blind if we did not live as you say.’ He can’t quite remember what it was I did say.
‘In every age at once,’ I supply, helpfully.
He nods, case won.
‘In our country,’ Jim says, ‘the Aboriginal people live in that light. The dreamtime remains always alive. The props, as you call them, are different, that’s all. I don’t really understand it, do you, Lilian? Or Dora?’ He looks to me, and I shake my head. ‘It’s not easy for us to understand this strange way of looking,’ he says. ‘It seems they look outwards to a particular rock, for example, or waterhole, and this is the way of gazing within to the world that is not made up of solidities. One and the same thing.’
I feel a silence in me. Who is this man?
Dora is watching me. I raise my eyebrows at her, questioning her curiosity. She lifts her glass and smiles secretly at me. I attempt to dissuade her with a narrowing of my eyes – she has it wrong.
And the bell rings for the final time. My hands begin to shake, and I hope to God no one notices. ‘Excuse me,’ I say, ‘that will be Francesca.’ Even the saying of her name surely gives me away. My breath is behind it, and the tug of my raised palate and at last the teeth coming together just before the release, the sigh.
I hurry to the intercom. ‘Is that you, Francesca?’ I say briskly.
‘I got lost,’ she says.
‘Ask the portiere to show you the way.’
I put my door on the latch. I can’t stand here waiting so I open the door to the roof terrace. It’s actually a bit cold. The bats have settled on the vine pergola; they particularly enjoy the passion-fruit, but they’re a bit early for that. One darts across the darkness to my neighbour’s roof garden as if she suddenly remembered something she forgot to do there.
‘Cool evening,’ I say as I make myself turn to the room, for the truth is that I completely forgot about the rest of them. Perhaps they didn’t notice.
‘We were just saying that.’ Dora’s voice is almost lost in the traffic sound, still so raucous even eight storeys up. ‘Spring is quite cool this year, don’t you think?’
I find myself walking outside on to the terrace. A misplaced chair has beckoned me and I have picked it up before I realise I haven’t answered Dora. There’s not much I can do about it. I tuck the chair in under the garden table. I’ve forgotten about the bats, too. I don’t like them, as a rule, and I’d usually switch on the light, which scatters them.
‘Yes,’ I say as I casually reappear in the doorway. ‘It’s unseasonal, all right. Did she knock?’
And on cue, she does. ‘Ah, there she is,’ I say.
I am hidden from them in the lobby. I lean against the door, almost collapse against it. I may cry; I am not sure because the tears are so deep down I don’t know what they are for.
When I turn the handle, I am myself. ‘Hello, there,’ I say, bright.
‘Not too late, I hope,’ she says, also fairly bright. Maybe she doesn’t get much brighter, how should I know?
‘Well. This is my home.’ I stand back so she may view it. I pretend to us both that she is consumed with curiosity about my lifestyle, as they call it these days.
I am so stupidly unworthy of her curiosity that the tears almost break through. Her anger towards me, her well-founded resentment, are so startlingly real compared to my little idiocies. How on earth am I going to continue with this performance tonight?
She hands me her bag and red jacket and simply walks by me into the living room. ‘Hello, there,’ she says to them all.
The three men rise to their feet. Poor Johnny nearly capsizes his chair.
I see it then, but I don’t know if they do. They are each registering our resemblance. It’s as clear as day to me. Their senses sniff the answer. I don’t believe it has hit anyone’s cerebral cortex. I move away, breaking the genetic pattern we have set up in front of their eyes. ‘Do you all know Francesca? Johnny, you don’t. You weren’t at the do the other day. Johnny has lived in New York for many years. He thinks he’s a foreigner here himself.’
Johnny begins his usual protest, delighted to be given the opportunity. As Francesca approaches the table, he bows. She offers her hand, he bends and touches his lips to her fingers. She seems to accept this old-world courtesy quite easily.
‘And Vincenzo and Dora Rinaldi, whom you did meet, I believe, at the ambassador’s. Dora is from Adelaide originally.’
Dora says, ‘Lovely to see you again, my dear. We were hoping we’d get the chance, weren’t we, Vince?’
‘Absolutely,’ Vincenzo replies. He gestures her to the chair which has been waiting for her. He is a terrible flirt, but entirely harmless. ‘How charming you look this evening,’ he says as she sits under his charge.
It’s only as I light the gas under the pasta pot that I realise I forgot to introduce Jim, my bushman. He hasn’t said a word. He is seated beside her, fiddling with the napkin on his lap, picking at the hem of the linen square. I lean across him to place the antipasto plate on the table. They can amuse themselves with ham and melon while the taglietelle cooks.
‘Jim,’ I say, to make up for my unpardonable lack, ‘would you pour some of the lovely red you brought with you, for Francesca? If you like red wine?’ I ask her. How utterly absurd it all is. I still don’t know her surname.
‘Thank you,’ she says.
‘Someone recommended a shop in town,’ Jim says. ‘I hope this is okay.’
‘Pricey,’ she says. She has leaned towards him to read the label and there, sure enough, is the price tag.
‘Sorry,’ he says. I think he is genuinely embarrassed. His thumbnail scrapes at it, and he peels it off.
‘Do you know Adelaide?’ Dora asks. She’s a kind soul. She directs us from Jim and his sudden awkwardness.
‘Not too well,’ Francesca replies. ‘If you’re talking about the wine district, I’m more familiar with the Hunter Valley.’
‘Now you’re talking,’ Jim says.
‘Oh, are you from there, possibly?’ she says. I almost drop the basket of bread. She has turned into a young girl. She has mislaid her guard. I was beginning to think she had surrendered to her fifty years without a fight. But no, there is the clear brow, the sincere and perhaps painfully intense gaze in her eyes, and even, I hardly believe it, a slight lisp as she says, inappropriate as a child, ‘possibly?’ How innocent that lisp sounds on her lips. I think it was once innocent on mine.
‘Possibly I am,’ Jim says. And his humour has an intimate edge to it. I am not sure I like it. I have the urge to seat her safely between Vincenzo and Johnny, neither of whom would hurt a fly. And Johnny certainly couldn’t catch one, not these days.
I insinuate myself between Jim and herself as I deposit the bread. ‘Who’d like butter?’ I say, immobilised there. I can literally feel Jim’s frustration at the wall of my torso. Blow him. ‘How about you, Dora?’
‘Trying to give it up. Again,’ she says. She’s also given up dyeing her hair, and as a result has had to cut it very short. It doesn’t really suit her. Her face is too soft and rounded for it.
‘Again,’ Vincenzo echoes. ‘Always she is giving up butter, milk, meat, even cheese sometimes. I don’t know why! She is delectable, butter or no butter.’
Dora beams. No wonder she always smiles. Lucky, lucky woman. Vincenzo, unlike most flirts, flatters his wife above all others.
And now as I think of husbands and wives, what is this Jim’s status, exactly? Has he the slightest right to be seductive with people?
I can’t stay here forever, parked between the two of them. I back out. ‘Butter?’ I pipe at Francesca. I am horrified to see her face. I have maddened her – it wouldn’t take much to ignite her. I can hardly explain my behaviour and will have to make do with feigned ignorance. She doesn’t help. She ignores my question, waiting for the bushman to continue the conversation I so rudely interrupted.
‘Right,’ I say. ‘Well, help yourselves.’ And I flap at the kitchen bench dementedly. Behind me, Jim’s voice, clear, low and displaying a wealth of patience in the driver’s seat, pronounces the words, ‘Born and bred.’
‘I love it out there,’ she says. ‘You can see the heat.’
‘And hear it,’ he adds.
‘Blast,’ I say. There is a silence behind me. ‘Sorry. Can’t seem to open this can of chickpeas.’
‘Please,’ Johnny says. Though I am not watching him, I can just see the eager face, his awkward rise from the table.
‘Jim,’ I say to the bushman. ‘Would you mind?’
‘Sure.’ He joins me. I have a clove of garlic on the pan, sizzling quietly in olive oil. He takes the can opener from my hand. I don’t think he believes me.
‘Just drain them and throw them in the pan.’
‘Sure,’ he says again. He is over six foot, and ripe for a woman. I hadn’t noticed it before.
I dry my hands on the tea towel. Dora is engaging her now. Francesca says the name of the small town where I lived many, many years ago. I haven’t heard it spoken in a long time.
‘Isn’t that near where you’re from, Lil?’
Dora has an inconvenient memory.
‘Down that way, yes,’ I reply. ‘Just turf them into the pan, Jim, that’s the way. Give them a bit of a stir.’
‘Oh,’ Dora says. I’ve railroaded her conversation.
Vincenzo saves it. ‘And what are you doing in our beautiful city? I hear you are an academic. Are you to teach here?’
‘No, I’m researching for my doctorate. I am here to meet Australian artists who live in Europe. Exile and so on. And different influences.’
‘Ah, you are interviewing our famous writer! Lily, you are too modest as usual. You didn’t tell us.’
‘No,’ Francesca says, firm as a knife. She cuts Vincenzo’s enthusiasm dead. ‘No, I don’t do writers. Visual artists.’
I throw the steaming pot of pasta into the colander in the sink, and turn to face them as the water drains. Dora is gulping at her wine. She knows something is wrong. I suppose I’ll have to tell her. I might ring her tomorrow.
Johnny, ever-valiant, wades in. ‘But you can take a diversion, a path off the main road. It might lead you down a rich mine. Or you could do an article, for a magazine.’
I say, ‘I don’t think so, Johnny.’
His brown eyes look up at me like a puppy’s. ‘Apart from anything else,’ I say, ‘I was interviewed for some newspaper out there only a few weeks ago. I’m sure you saw it, Francesca.’
‘Yes,’ she says. She won’t take my gaze. ‘I did see it.’
Well, that’s part of the puzzle solved.
‘Va bene,’ Johnny says. He raises his hands in surrender.
Jim says quietly to me, ‘What do you want me to do with this?’
‘Oh!’ I have forgotten about him, stirring away at the chickpeas. ‘We sling all of this together in a bowl. And you see the coriander in the glass of water there by the window? Throw in a bit of that, too.’
‘Lily, when you sit down, you must tell us about your new novel,’ Vincenzo says. ‘More wine, my dear?’ It is Francesca’s glass he hovers the bottle over.
‘She doesn’t like to do that, Vin. Do you, Lil? You’d rather not talk about it,’ Dora says.
‘Ah, a little hint, that’s all we want. We do not want your secrets,’ Vincenzo says.
Jim places the pasta bowl on the breadboard I had earlier put on the table for that purpose. I didn’t even have to tell him. I carry over the salad.
‘Now, sit and relax,’ Vincenzo orders. ‘We will help ourselves. Tell us what it is about, this new masterpiece.’
‘Oh.’ I am truly sighing. I decide it is probably better to speak than not to speak. I gesture with my hand toward the food. Jim pulls out his chair as if to sit, but says to Francesca, ‘May I help you?’ He takes up strings of pasta between two serving spoons, all I have for the purpose these days, and she drives her plate across the table to meet it.
I catch Vincenzo’s eye. He eagerly awaits my next word, or so he would have me believe. ‘Well, it’s about the war,’ I say. ‘Set in Italy.’
‘Wonderful, wonderful,’ he says.
Johnny says, from the opposite end of the table, ‘Wonderful. Yes, there is so much to be said. Untold stories. It was a terrible time for us.’
‘I wasn’t here, of course. I came after the war.’
‘But you can imagine. That is the great gift of a writer,’ Vin says.
‘Indeed,’ I say. ‘We are bloody marvellous.’
Dora snorts. That’s another reason I like her.
Johnny’s fluency with the language has palled somewhat since his return from New York. He doesn’t know whether to laugh or not. ‘And who is the subject of the novel, Lilian? Do you tell a soldier’s story, or a woman’s story like Moravia?’
‘I really can’t say too much, Johnny, if you’ll forgive me.’ I feel Francesca looking at me. Surprised, I meet her eye and she expresses such hostility that I wish I hadn’t. I agree that I sound pompous about my work. I agree. I hadn’t wanted to talk about it at all. What am I supposed to do?
Johnny, however, is now a dog with a bone. ‘But which area do you cover? The domestic, or the war front?’
‘Ah, well, not one or the other, in those terms. The main character is a woman, a Jew.’
‘Oh, my God,’ he says. He throws his hands up.
Dora says, ‘That will be hard going.’
‘Indeed,’ I say. I can feel Francesca’s eyes on me again. ‘Indeed, it’s a hard life being a writer compared to being a Jew in Italy in nineteen forty-three.’ I hope I have succeeded in demolishing myself, so that she might be satisfied.
Vincenzo says to her, ‘You are too young to remember those days. Even in your country the danger was rife. Lilian has very interesting comments to make. I was not aware myself of the difficulties out there.’
She says, ‘My father was in the war. He was over here for a while, fighting.’
I grip my wine glass.
‘You must be very proud of him,’ Dora says.
‘He’s dead,’ she says. She stares at me.
I am now the one who cannot meet her eye. I didn’t know he was dead. I suppose it was more than likely.
‘Yes, I am proud of him,’ she continues. ‘He was the most wonderful man I ever met.’ She dabs at her mouth with the linen napkin.
My own throat constricts. I am scared for her. Don’t let her cry, don’t let her do what she does not want to do in front of me.
And suddenly she is on her feet. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she says. ‘Excuse me, please. I really must ... I’m sorry.’
I clamber up, too. She rushes into the lobby and I am after her. She grabs her bag from the side table and her jacket from the chair beside it. ‘Shouldn’t have come,’ she says. There is a tear sliding down the side of her nose. What can I do for her? I cannot put my hand on her. I rush back to the sitting room.
‘Jim!’ I say. I am like a mad hen.
She is out the door. It closes shut behind her before I reach it. ‘Oh, my God,’ I say to it. I hear her running down the stairs. Jim is in the lobby behind me. ‘Go after her,’ I say. ‘She doesn’t know the area. She’ll get lost.’
He doesn’t say, ‘What is wrong with you both?’ He doesn’t say, ‘What did you do to her?’ or ‘I thought you didn’t want me to even finish a sentence to her.’ He picks up his coat from the chair, opens the door and takes the stairs two at a time. I hear the lift door closing. He is going to miss her.
I hear him shout, ‘Hold it.’
I stand in the doorway. I am clinging to the architrave. ‘Hurry,’ I mouth. And then the doors slide open again, and I hear his voice. I am absurdly relieved.
If my other guests would now kindly leave without a word, I would be grateful.
However, there they are, the three of them staring at me as I walk across to them.
‘What on earth happened?’ Dora says.
‘Long story,’ I say.
