Director's Cut (11 page)

Arms full, Maxim stands in the elevator. For a moment Sangallo studies his face.

“Yes,” he sighs, then presses the button and slams the iron grate shut between them. “That's what's exciting about beautiful things. They know when enough is enough. A blink of the eye and it's gone!”

Gala proves the opposite, Maxim thinks. She emerges from the bathroom with her hair wet, as beautiful as ever. Or is beautiful even the word? Nothing about her resembles classical beauty. Her nose, if you look at it closely, is too flat. Her head is too square. It's almost too big for her body, and her features are irregular. But still, there's not a man who doesn't feel attracted to her and longer than the blink of an eye, longer than a night, longer than the years Maxim has known her. No, Gala's secret is anything but fleeting.

Her body is crooked as well. Legs and hips, as mentioned, but especially her back. It hurts after a long day's walking. She drops onto the bed and rolls over onto her stomach with difficulty. Maxim straddles her on his knees and rubs her aching muscles.

“He seemed nice.”

“A man who just comes up to you on the street?”

“He wasn't pushy.”

“Well, thank goodness for that.”

“Ouch!”

Maxim plants his thumbs between Gala's shoulder blades and moves them in little circles, constantly changing the pressure, as he follows her backbone. He can trace two curves. The first, gradual, runs almost the entire length of her spine, and then right at the bottom is a sharp little kink, just above her buttocks. This area has grown more sensitive over the past few months, but no matter what Maxim says, Gala insists on high heels.

“What do
you
suggest?” she asks. “We have to move somewhere tomorrow morning. That count of yours is no use.”

Maxim pours her a glass of vin santo. He dips some basil in the honey.

“Bite first, then rinse.”

Gala tastes it and says, “I take it all back. The man is priceless.”

Maxim searches through her bag for the other half of the map.

“Don't worry,” Gala reassures him, “we'll find something. We could live off the wind in a land that makes things like that.”

He spreads the two halves of the map out over the bed and Gala, who is still lying on it. He tries to fit them together on her back.

“And the house that guy was talking about …”

“Gianni is
not
just a guy. You'll see, he's very much a gentleman.”

Every time Gala breathes, the city splits open, revealing a strip of skin between the streets. Redness shows where Maxim pressed too hard.

“What's the area called where that house is?”

With its embassies and galleries, Parioli is one of the best neighborhoods in Rome. The houses were built in the nineteenth century on the slopes of the Valle Giulia, and most of the gardens back onto the park of the Villa Borghese. The Via Michele Mercati turns out to be on one of the quiet streets behind the National Gallery of Modern Art.

Gala strides from one gate to the next looking for the number Gianni has given her. Maxim follows with his pack and her suitcase. He got up this morning without waking her. First, he went out to change money and get some bread, then he paid the hotel bill and packed their things so that everything would be ready before Gala opened her eyes.

These are small tasks that Maxim always takes upon himself. That's how things have turned out. If he doesn't do them, no one else will. They're practical matters, and Gala has no interest in them. They simply don't seem to exist for her. She assumes that everything will turn out fine. And it always has. For years. Maxim doesn't even know if she realizes how much he does for her. He doesn't care. He likes doing it. It makes him feel good. Like a father looking after his child, Maxim doesn't expect anything in return. It feels warm. It feels like love. It's enough just being part of that carefree life of hers, which gives him so much hope.

Number seventeen is scarcely visible from the street. The moment Gala steps onto the drive, a watchdog starts to bark. Maxim hesitates.

“Why would someone offer us a house like this?”

“Why not? We're not in Holland anymore. Anyway, it's only a room.”

A young man is sitting on a rhododendron-shaded bench at the side of the house smoking a cigarette. When he sees Maxim and Gala, he immediately makes himself scarce.

The house is run-down.

“Angels! There you are. Angels, descended among my flowers.” A woman has thrown open the shutters on the first floor. “The front, go round to the front.” She gestures frantically, leaning dangerously far out of the window. “I come as fast as I can. The big yellow doors. You can't miss them. For you, I'll open them. Just a second.”

She only comes up to Maxim's navel and seems as broad as she is tall. The coarse material of her black dress is tight at the seams. One moment she's wringing her hands, the next she's running her fingers through her gray hair and pushing loose strands back into her bun. She introduces herself as Geppi, the concierge, and seems to have been expecting her two guests, so much so that Maxim is afraid she's mistaken them for someone else.

“Not at all. Signor Gianni called me. Two shining North Stars. She is as seductive and beautiful as a panther, and him … Well, he's big and blond and taller than seems humanly possible. And straight. Up into the sky like an obelisk.”

Her eyes are gentle but too nervous to hold your gaze for long. To conceal her insecurity, she chatters away nonstop about the adventures of the forgotten cartoon character she was named after, Geppi, la Bimba Atomica.

“Did you tell this Gianni what I look like?” Maxim asks in the meantime, but Gala shakes her head. Geppi takes a bunch of keys and leads them down a narrow hall beneath the grand staircase. There are no windows here. The only light comes from under the doors. There is life in some of the rooms. The rays are interrupted by people moving around inside. At the end of the hall, the concierge opens a room with a bathroom en suite.

“This is too expensive for us,” says Maxim.

“Heavens,” laughs Geppi, “if we measured our happiness in money …” She opens the shutters. There is a small, round window, set
high in the wall. The room is sunk below in the garden, which slopes up toward Monte Pincio on this side of the house. For people inside, the path and the trunks of the rhododendrons are at eye level. Two pinstriped legs walk by.

“What's more,” Geppi continues, “it's up to Signor Gianni to decide what things cost. Of course, you have the use of the furniture, and that's quite something. This wardrobe, that bed, and just look at this magnificent clock. It's the kind that's only right twice a day, but who could expect more from something so gorgeous?” She helps Maxim take off his backpack and throws it onto the bed. Then she lays her hands on his shoulders and stands on her toes to look into his eyes.

“How big they are, and how blue, sainted innocence, it's going to be mayhem! Crick, crack, I can already hear the first heart breaking. Boom, bang, my ears are hurting. Don't let it get you down, son, the first heart's always the noisiest. Afterward they just fall softly, plomp, ploff, like newborn sparrows falling dead onto the moss.”

“It's a whorehouse,” Maxim says, refusing to unpack his things. “You can see it, you can smell it. What's behind all those doors?”

“We'll ask,” says Gala. “In an hour we're having lunch with Gianni at the tennis club.”

“Tennis club?” Maxim feels his resistance wobbling. “We're having lunch at a tennis club?”

Only Gala can talk about completely unknown places as if she's frequented them for years with the rest of the jet set. God, how he loves the unexpected. How he loves her for attracting it.

“Thank God you're here,” says the man, introducing himself to Maxim as Gianni Castronuovo. He's just showered and his hair is plastered wet against his skull. Small droplets are dripping down onto the shoulders of his elegant suit. “I was so worried that I might have offended you by offering you such a shabby room, but it's all I have, everything else is taken.”

The tennis courts are wedged in between the ancient Muro Torto and the road through the park. In the outdoor café their voices mingle with the traffic noise echoing off the high wall. As food and wine are served, Gianni puts a thick book down in front of the Dutch couple.
The names, biographies, and addresses of everyone in Rome who has anything at all to do with the film industry.

“It's a beautiful city, but you can't keep wandering around until you're old and gray. You want to live here, don't you? Then we'll have to get those careers of yours off the ground as soon as possible.”

“Do you work in cinema as well?” Maxim leafs through the book.

“Ah, if only. But I've done my bit. Yes, when I was your age I put on a miniskirt and stood there behind Ben-Hur with the lions. Who didn't in those days? But later …” Gianni lowers his eyes, not out of modesty, but to look up again with more effect while revealing his triumph. “Yes, later I worked with Snaporaz.”

“With Snaporaz?” A passing waiter looks up at the sound of the name. A woman at the next table turns around in the hope of catching the rest of the conversation.

“With Snaporaz. Twice.” The dapper gentleman searches the air with his hands as if to recapture the shape of a memory. It's touching how he's forgotten himself. His eyes gleam.

“His classic scene on the forecastle of a ship. Right next to the lifeboat, the man in the bathing tights, that was me.”

The woman at the next table can't resist. “The blue-striped bathing tights?”

“The same.”

“How amazing, meeting like this!” She slides over her chair. “Did you have any lines?”

“Lines? No, I didn't have any lines. I didn't have any action either. But I had my personality.”

“And your bathing tights,” says the waiter, coming over to stand by their table. “We shouldn't underestimate that. Those blue-striped bathing tights are etched in everyone's memory.”

“Nonsense,” the woman snaps, “this gentleman would have stood out even without the tights.”

“It might not have been a big role,” says Gianni, “but it was the crux of the whole film.”

Gala, who has been looking through the film almanac, now finds, to her astonishment, Snaporaz's address.

“That a man like him is simply listed …,” she says. “Telephone number and all!”

None of the Romans bats an eye.

“Via Margutta,” they exclaim together. The waiter disagrees with the woman about the house number. According to a ball boy who runs past collecting strays between the tables, they're both right: one door leads to Snaporaz's office; the other to his home.

“Closed doors, yes,” Gianni adds triumphantly. “Anyone can stand in front of them, but to be asked inside … Well, that's a different story.”

The conversation falls silent. Gianni bites his lips like a child, beaming as if a secret he can't tell is burning the tip of his tongue. Gala catches Maxim's eye and gives him a quizzical look. He has to admit that Gianni seems pleasantly naive rather than cunning, as expected.

“Why are you helping us?” he asks, going straight to the point.

“I have my house. I live off it. Plenty of actresses live there. And actors. You'll meet them. Americans, French, a model from Hungary. One month they have work, the next they live on credit. It's in my own interest for you to start earning as soon as possible, because come the end of the month, I want to see the rent. If I were a developer, I'd discuss building projects with you. As it happens, I know some film people. Not the real big shots, but it's a start.” From his inside pocket, he pulls out a list with names. Some have two stars after the telephone number, others, less important, just one. “Maybe my name will help you to get a foot in the door. That's all. The rest is up to you. Every day I kiss the hem of the Madonna's robe in the hope that she will send me youngsters with talent, so that I won't go hungry.”

“May I have a look at that list as well?” asks the woman at the next table.

“Out of the question,” snaps Gianni.

“Maybe I could do something in the movies too.”

“Not until the day blandness comes into fashion, madam.”

After lunch he escorts Maxim and Gala to the exit. While shaking their hands, he looks them over again from head to toe.

“Very serviceable,” he says contentedly. “The kind of thing people here are looking out for. I'd bet my
motorino
on that. What an adventure is in store for you two, what a world of possibilities!”

Maxim and Gala walk into the park. When they glance back, Gianni salutes them briefly before plunging recklessly into the stream of traffic, bolt upright on his red scooter.

•  •  •

By evening, Maxim and Gala have settled into the house in Parioli. They are sitting on a big bed surrounded with hundreds of pictures of themselves. There is a glossy portfolio with an extensive selection of both of them. It starts with photos of the two of them together: embracing, fighting, entangled. Then a series of each alone. Neither had considered making a separate portfolio. This adventure is theirs together. They also make folders for all the agents and directors who seem in any way important. Gala slips two portraits into each, one with glamour and one with character. Maxim has borrowed a typewriter from the concierge. He has it balanced on his lap and is busy putting together their curriculum vitae. One by one, they tally up their film and television roles and their achievements in Dutch theater. It's quite a list. There's not enough space to mention everything. That's convenient, because the less there is, the more impressive it sounds.

“The Mannequins' Ball,”
says Maxim. “I don't need to say that it was a student production, do I?”