The Story of My Wife (3 page)

About my soul I used to think: a painful frill. And that's exactly what it was.

Then again, I became a shipmaster rather early on. While still a smooth-faced youth, I was entrusted with all sorts of fine wares, precious cargo worth fortunes. Now and then I struck my own deals, private deals, on the side. There are ways. I began to prosper, and before I reached thirty I had accumulated a handsome fortune.

But then something happened, a minor accident. Not even so minor, actually. The nemesis of seafaring men. Stomach trouble. It felt as if an armored plate was pressing on my belly ... I couldn't eat. Here is how it happened.

We were laid up in Naples, and I bought some things in a delicatessen shop. I like to shop in Italy: the merchants are high-spirited and their stores well-stocked. In this shop, too, there were first-class foodstuffs: smoke-cured ham, poultry, even game, from woodlarks and thrushes and tiny quails to good-sized ducks, some already roasted, others uncooked and therefore pleasantly yellow, with their heads tucked under their wings, looking as though they were made to rest plumply on a marble slab. I could watch them for hours, as well as the appetizing breadstuff, the nuts, the clusters of grapes, the pyramids of apples and chestnuts, even the golden-yellow dessert wines which remind one—who knows why?—of cheerful old women.

I ended up with quite a selection; and as I fingered my crisp banknotes I anticipated the swishing sound the little packets would make. (I walk down the street and they begin their little chatter. I like that sort of thing.) But then I thought: Why carry all those packages? They can be delivered. I had to stay in town to attend to a few things and thought of inviting a few people to my boat.

"Ah, ah, Jacopo, carissimo amico mio."
My Italian acquaintances greeted me with noisy effusiveness; they even flung out their arms. The Italians love this sort of self-generated conviviality, everybody knows that. What my friends also knew was that if I invited them for supper, they wouldn't regret it.

On my way home I had another idea.

Why not have a bite before dinner? I was in the vicinity of Posilippo, so I stopped in at a place near there. Right by the water, on the pier in fact, there was a pleasant little tavern, pretty much deserted at this time of the day; the area around it was quiet too, all of which made the place kind of inviting. A hearty snack with a couple of the local boys would be just right. They were having ordinary shellfish with white bread and wine. I joined them
straightaway, and we had a pleasant chat. The shells sloshed in the
buckets as we rinsed them one by one. Everything around was
spotless: the pier on which we sat, the sea, life itself, it seemed,
including the hearts of those sitting around the table. And to top it
off, the sun setting across the bay was a glorious red.

This isn't half bad, I said to myself; rather nice, in fact. And as I had always been fond of a little make-believe, a little pretending, I
imagined for a while that I wasn't me but a languid world traveler
on a rest cure. I paid for the boys' drinks, whereupon they stood up
and bowed. (Italians are fond of such ceremony.)

But I did suspect that the shellfish I ate there was the cause of
my undoing. To this day I think of that little snack as the begin
ning of my troubles. That night nothing tasted good, the excellent
supper was wasted on me. There was a coldness in my stomach from all that wretched seafood.

Not even the preparations gave me any pleasure, though ordi
narily that's the part I like most. First I check if they sent home
everything, making sure nothing got switched. As a rule I buy the
finest cooking oil, as yellow as the warm light of a lamp. The one I
had just bought was naturally of this kind. I held it up to the light;
it was flawless, perfect. Normally, the mere sight of such a fine
product gives me a little thrill of pleasure. Now, too, I stood in the
kitchen, waiting for the snails to cook, telling myself: You have to
learn to anticipate those little pleasures. But I
had
learned it, I
knew how to live. I watched the kitchen boy drying the plates and
stuffing and twisting the dishcloth in the glasses, and holding them up to the light to see if their sparkle was brilliant enough. An even tempo can be so soothing. I like quiet, measured movements; I also like quiet brilliance. So I usually prepare for these
dinners with great inner calm. I tried now too, but it was no use;
my insides were going haywire. Watching my friends didn't help any; they were noisily devouring everything in sight, while I
hardly touched a thing. They sang boisterously, while I remained
silent. Years ago, in happier times, I bought rich, heavy tobacco in
the Levant. In some ports the fast-talking merchants would lug on
board vast quantities of the slender leaves, as golden yellow as the
hair of virgin girls. I brought out a few sheaves of the stuff and tossed them in front of my guests. Later I also tried smoking one cigarette after another, but it just didn't taste the same, nothing did—life itself appeared futile. Until then I was never sick, never had a stomach upset; but now I felt this was it: an evil fate. I was desperate.

Meanwhile the gramophone was playing.

"Niente, niente"
I told them;
"sono un poco amolato cosi."
I pretended to be drunk from the resin-colored wine.

But they had a fine time without me.

"Vieni, vieni,"
they told my boy. "Eat this, for your master." They fed him all the delicacies, though eating on duty was never allowed on my ships. But now even this didn't bother me.

I was angry enough, however, to toss the leftovers into the sea.

This painful interlude, I am now convinced, led me to my marriage. In a way I began to hate people that night. And no wonder. They gorged themselves and ignored me completely.

It happens often that for all our experience and wisdom we get deeply offended when people, seeing we are in trouble, pass us by like a speeding car, without so much as looking back. These rejections hurt, as can disappointments suffered at the dinner table. Indeed, some people take these even more to heart, and not just youngsters, as prigs and pedants might think, who belittle such grievances. For instance I had a crony, a captain by the name of Gerard Bist, who lapsed into melancholy every time his cook spoiled his dinner.

"What's the use of living?" he'd say to me. "You're stuck on that bloody boat for months on end like a goddamn prisoner; and then you can't even have the satisfaction of eating a decent meal." He was right. Me, I was doubly offended, as can be imagined. For if I can't enjoy good food, what is there left for me? I who had always been intemperate should now start being careful, stick to diets, visit hospitals, medicine women? Well, I did; I even tried acupuncture, and counting therapy, for God's sake, in Japan! There isn't a cure under the sun I didn't try, but nothing helped. Finally, I was directed to a so-called psychoanalyst, and for all I know this man may have been responsible for my even greater misfortune.

"Women," the psychoanalyst said to me. "Women." And he looked into my eyes significantly.

Women? So be it. Let's look around. But I didn't even have to do that, for it was just then that I met my future wife.

She was a French girl, very much a flirt and very ticklish. She laughed all the time, mostly at me, and always so hard as if someone was tickling her. She called me Oncle Douc Douc and Dodo and Cric Crac and Croc Croc because of the way I laughed, which she said sounded like an explosion. And she called me Papa Bear, too, because it was so funny to see the points of my napkin stick out behind my ears. She rolled in delight like a little pig. I do happen to tie my napkin in the back of my neck—who knows why, an old habit, I suppose.

"Your big ears," she cried, "and those two points . . . it's too precious." And she kept clapping her tiny hands.

"Sloppy again," she'd yell at me from her window when she saw me trudging up the steps behind the church (her house was rather high up, on a hill behind the church), and I had the feeling already then, I am not even sure why, that God alone knew how many men—and what sort of men!—she must have greeted like that, leaning out of the upper story window, a fragrant French rose. She was a sinful creature, she had to be; I sensed it immediately. But it didn't much matter then, I had a grand time with her. I asked her to repeat the words
"Veux-tu obéir? Veux-tu obéir?"
and she repeated them diligently, greeting me with the phrase after a time. In other words, she was quite smart, and quick too, because she learned in no time how to handle me, always letting me have my way, saying mine was the correct way, urging me to do as I please. From all this I could have surmised a certain degree of expertise, but I didn't want to. I refused to consider the evidence.

I thought to myself: If I like her, I'll marry her, so why fret? Seafaring men get nowhere as anxious about these things as landlocked folk do. I say this because I've seen enough of them ponder the matter endlessly before finally making up their minds. But us?

My life is always in danger, was then too, and not only on the high seas. I was consorting with some pretty dangerous Levantine gentlemen at that time. Why then should I have been bothered by such minor worries? Will my wife love me? Will she be faithful while I am gone? Women are never faithful, especially sea captains' wives—it comes with the territory.

So I bought her a bunch of bracelets and necklaces and married her. We sailors don't like long courtships. I had a mate who ingratiated himself with the ladies by saying
"Andiamo a letto"
after his first evening walk with them. And with some, this abruptness worked wonders. If not right away then two weeks later. It's no good being shocked by these things—they happen. It may not be very nice of me to bring this up just here, but why pretend? That's just how I felt. Matrimony to me was not any more sacred than, say, a carrot stick. I was beyond all sacredness, or so I thought. (I was wrong; just how wrong is what I intend to relate here.)

Anyway, I married her. I think she had a little affair right away, soon after the wedding, that is—at least that is what all the signs seemed to point to. I will not say I cared very much for her speed, but I tried to get over it. Told myself not to be petty. After all, I wasn't used to having a woman who was only mine. Was I to follow her now, spy on her, gather evidence? What the hell for? If she didn't do it then, she'll do it later. How could she not be unfaithful? I was away for months at a time, often as long as a half a year at a stretch. Can one expect superhuman behavior from a mere human? Or should she pine away, for years, all alone? Were she really to do that, she probably couldn't say
"Veux-tu-obéir?"
in such a beautiful sing-song. And then she'd no longer give me pleasure. I said I didn't make much of the affair, still I want to put down everything about that first night. Not because there was anything extraordinary about it, but because I do believe that every "first" has some significance. But I also have another purpose, and that is to give some idea of the circumstances and conditions under which my wife lived—to demonstrate, in short, what an utter fool I would have been if in full knowledge of those circumstances. I still had anxieties about her fidelity.

Motley groups of people inhabited the island of Menorca at the time: displaced Italians, Slav émigrés, and a whole band of Swedes who hadn't made it in South America. The story was that they were twice sentenced to death but escaped both times, and trudged on buffaloes across the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. There were also German Communists and Polish insurrectionists on the island, and others who could easily be taken for spies. I am thinking of one group in particular, an ignorant bunch that nevertheless managed fairly well—just how they did it, nobody seemed to know. One of them was forever performing, wretchedly, needless to say. My wife had lived among these people, which in itself was not objectionable to me. At least she had a chance to learn what life was really like, and not just on the surface but way below, in the depths. She could learn about things I saw around me all the time, in port and elsewhere . . . Why, the life story of someone like me must be like a compressed version of mankind's history. And what sort of history is that? Once I thought this through: if some day, after the earth had cooled off, someone were to read this history, he would have to come to the conclusion that only rogues, rapists, murderers, monsters inhabited this earth, and the only way to survive here was to kill. . . . Take my profession; in this line of work you can go for years without meeting a decent human being. Since my wife had also seen some rough things in her time, I didn't have to worry that one day she'd give herself airs and become sensitive, and say things like "oh my" and "dear oh dear" and tell me I didn't express myself properly—all of which would drive me straight up the wall. In this respect she seemed like a suitable mate for me. But let me continue where I left off, with a description of living conditions among those gentlefolk on the island of Menorca. This is how my landlord there, a certain Don Juan, described one well-mixed group—the one that had been my wife's home base. I'll try to quote the Don himself:

"I have to start with the first, now divorced, wife of Koch, a writer from Berlin. This woman lived, harmoniously, I would say, with an Italian automobile dealer by the name of Samuele Annibale Ridolfi. Signor Ridolfi was a rather amiable chap with nice white teeth; I knew him well. This, then, was the first couple: Madame Koch and Ridolfi. Their house was on the beach. On New Year's Eve that year a Scandinavian couple (Norwegian? Swedish?) visited them. These two, though they knew each other from childhood and married for love just a year before, were not very happy. While here, the Scandinavian woman came down with acute appendicitis, on New Year's Eve, mind you, and had to be taken to the hospital. When it was all over she returned to her friends' house on the seashore, to Madame Koch Number One, that is. Are you with me so far, sir?" asked my landlord, a gossipy old gentleman.