The Woman of Rome (18 page)

We had reached the restaurant, a noisy place crowded with men of Giacinti’s sort — commercial travelers, stockbrokers, shopkeepers, businessmen on their way through town. Giacinti entered first.

“Is my usual table free?” he asked as he gave the boy his hat and overcoat.

“Yes, Mr. Giacinti.”

It was a table near the window. Giacinti sat down, rubbing his hands together.

“Got a good appetite?” he then asked me.

“I think so,” I answered awkwardly.

“Good, I’m glad — I like people to eat when they’re at the table. Gisella, for instance, never wanted to eat anything, said she was afraid of getting fat.… That’s silly! There’s a time for everything — when you sit down to the table you eat.” He seemed full of resentment toward Gisella.

“But you really do get fat if you eat too much.” I said timidly, “and some women don’t want to put on weight.”

“Are you one of those?”

“No, I’m not — but, as a matter of fact, they tell me I’m on the heavy side.”

“Don’t you listen to ’em — it’s all envy. You’re all right, as you are — I say so, and I know what I’m talking about.” He patted my hand in a fatherly way as if to reassure me.

The waiter came. “First of all,” said Giacinti, “take these flowers away, they’re a nuisance to me. Then bring the usual — you know — double quick!”

The he turned to me. “He knows me and knows what I like. Leave it to him. You’ll see you won’t have anything to complain of.”

And indeed I had nothing to complain of. All the courses that were served were delicious and plentiful, even if not the finest. Giacinti had a huge appetite and ate with concentration, his head lowered, his knife and fork firmly gripped; he did not look at me or talk, but acted as if he were by himself. He really was entirely engrossed in the act of eating and in his greed even lost his much-vaunted calm; his gestures were confused, as if he were afraid he would not be done in time and would have to go hungry. He pushed a piece of meat into his mouth; with his left hand hurriedly broke off a morsel of bread, bit it; with his other hand poured himself a glass of wine and began to drink before he had finished chewing. All the time he kept on smacking his lips, rolling his eyes, and shaking his head every now and again like a cat when it has got hold of too big a mouthful. Unlike my usual self, however, I was not at all hungry. For the first time in my life, I was going to make love to a man I didn’t care for and didn’t even know, and I looked him over carefully, noting my own feelings and trying to imagine how I would go through with it. After this first time, I used to pay no attention to the appearance of the men I went with; perhaps because, being driven by necessity, I quickly learned to pick out at first glance the one good or pleasing aspect in each man that would make intimacy bearable. But that evening I had not yet learned this trick of my profession, and I was seeking it instinctively, as you might say, without realizing what I was doing.

I have already said that Giacinti was not ugly; as long as he kept his mouth shut and did not reveal the consuming passion of his soul, he might even have been called handsome. This was saying a great deal, because, after all, love is very much a matter of physical contact; but it was not enough for me, because I have never been able to stand a man, let alone love him, only for his physical qualities.
Now when supper was over and Giacinti, after a belch or two, had begun to talk again, once his ill-mannered greed was satisfied, I realized there was nothing in him, at least nothing I could discover, which would make him even tolerable. Not only did he talk about himself the whole time, as Gisella had said, but he did it in a most unpleasant, boring, and conceited way, telling me mostly things that did him no credit at all and only strengthened my first instinctive feeling of repulsion. There was absolutely nothing in him that I could like; and all the things he boasted of and enlarged upon as desirable qualities seemed dreadful faults to me.

Later I met other men, though not many, who were just as worthless, with nothing good in them at all to cling to that might make them likable; and I have always marveled at their existence and asked myself whether it was not perhaps my own fault if I was unable to discover at first sight the qualities they must undoubtedly possess. In time, however, I have become accustomed to such unpleasant companions, and I pretend to laugh, joke, and be what they believe I am and want me to be. But that first evening my discovery filled me with gloomy reflections. While Giacinti went on talking, fiddling at his teeth with a toothpick, I was telling myself I had taken up a very hard profession — the simulation of passionate love for men who actually roused the most contrary feelings in me — as in Giacinti’s case. I told myself no money could repay such favors — that it was impossible, under such circumstances, not to behave like Gisella, who thought only of the money and showed it. It also occurred to me that that evening I would be taking this hateful Giacinti back to my poor little room, which I had intended to use so differently. And I thought how unfortunate I was and how fate had meant me to be under no illusions from the very beginning, by leading me to meet Giacinti and not some artless youth in search of adventure, or some ordinary, decent, unpretentious fellow, and that Giacinti’s presence among my furniture would put the seal on my reunuciation of all the old dreams of a respectable, ordinary life.

He talked all the time, but still he was not so dull as not to notice that I was hardly listening to him and was not cheerful.

“Feeling glum, little girl?” he suddenly asked me.

“No, no,” I replied, hurriedly pulling myself together, but half tempted by his deceptively affectionate tones to confide in him and talk a little about myself, since I had allowed him to talk of himself for so long.

“That’s better!” he went on. “Because I don’t like sadness.… And I didn’t invite you here to be sad — you may have your reasons, I don’t doubt it, but as long as you’re with me leave your sorrow at home. I don’t want to know anything about your affairs; I don’t want to know who you are, what’s happening to you, or anything else — I’m not interested. We’ve got a deal, you and I, even if it’s not in writing. I guarantee to give you a certain sum of money and you in return guarantee to make me pass the evening pleasantly. Nothing else matters.” He said these words seriously, perhaps a little irritated by the fact that I had not appeared to be listening to him attentively enough.

“But I’m not sad at all! Only it’s so smoky in here — and noisy — I feel a little dizzy,” I answered, without showing anything of the feelings that had stirred me.

“Shall we go?” he asked anxiously. I said yes. He called the waiter immediately, paid the bill, and we left.

“Shall we go to a hotel?” he asked me when we were out in the street.

“No, no,” I answered quickly. I was frightened at the idea of having to show my papers; and anyway, I had already made up my mind in another direction. “Come to my place.”

We got into a taxi and I gave my home address. As soon as the taxi started, he threw himself onto me, pawing me all over and kissing my neck. I could tell from his breath that he had had a lot to drink, and that he was drunk. He kept on calling me “baby,” a term usually only used with little girls, and on his lips it irritated me, sounded ridiculous and slightly profane. I let him have his way for a while, then, pointing to the chauffeur’s back, said, “Shouldn’t we wait until we get there?”

He did not reply but fell heavily back against the cushions, red and congested in the face, as though suddenly attacked by an apoplectic
fit. Angrily he muttered, “I pay him to take me where I want to go and not to busy himself with what’s going on in his taxi.” He was obsessed by the idea that money — and more especially his money — could shut anyone’s mouth. I did not answer, and for the rest of the journey we sat stiffly beside one another without touching. The city lights flashed through the taxi windows, lit up our faces and hands for a moment, then were swallowed up again. It seemed strange to me to be beside that man whose very existence I had been unaware of a little time before and to be hurrying with such a man toward my own flat, to give myself to him as I would to my beloved. These reflections shortened the journey. I pulled myself together, amazed to see the taxi stop in the usual street before my door.

“Don’t make a noise going in, because I live with my mother,” I said to Giacinti in the dark on the way upstairs.

“Don’t worry, baby,” he answered.

When we reached the landing I unlocked the door. Giacinti followed me, I took his hand and, without switching on the light, led him across the hallway to the door of my room, which was the first on the left. I made him enter first, turned on the bedside lamp, and standing in the doorway gave a kind of farewell look around at my furniture. Giacinti, delighted at finding a new, clean room when he had probably been afraid he would find himself surrounded by filthy, ramshackle furniture, sighed with satisfaction and threw his overcoat down on a chair. I told him to wait for me and went out of the room.

I walked straight to the living room, where I found Mother sewing at the center table. When she saw me, she put down her work at once and started to get up, probably imagining she would have to fix my supper as on other evenings.

“Don’t get up,” I said. “I’ve already had my supper. I’ve got someone in the next room. Don’t come in on any account.”

“Someone there?” she asked in astonishment.

“Yes,” I answered quickly. “Not Gino — a gentleman.” Without waiting for her to question me further I left the living room.

I returned to my own room and locked the door. Giacinti, red in the face and impatient, came to me in the middle of the room
and took me in his arms. He was much shorter than I, and bent me back against the end of the bed in order to reach my face with his lips. I tried not to let him kiss me on the mouth, and by turning my face away as if I were shy and then throwing my head back as if in ecstasy, I succeeded in my intention. Giacinti made love exactly as he ate, greedily, without discrimination, beginning in one place, then another, afraid he was missing something, blinded by my body as he had been by the food at the restaurant. After he had embraced me, he seemed to want to undress me as we were, still standing up. He uncovered one of my arms and a shoulder, and then began to kiss me again, as if the sight of my bare flesh had put his head in a whirl. I was afraid his clumsy gestures would tear my dress and at last I said, “Come on, get your clothes off,” but without pushing him away.

He left me at once and began to undress, sitting on the edge of the bed. I did the same on the other side.

“Does your mother know?” he suddenly asked.

“Yes.”

“What does she say about it?”

“Nothing.”

“Does she disapprove?”

These details were obviously nothing more to him than an additional spice to his adventure. This trait is common to all men. Few can resist the temptation of mingling physical pleasure with some other kind of interest or even pity. “She neither approves nor disapproves,” I said shortly, standing up and pulling my slip off over my head. “I’m free to do what I want.” When I was naked I put my clothes neatly on a chair and then stretched myself on the bed, flat on my back, one arm under my head and the other across my breasts to cover them. I do not know why, but I remembered this was the position of the pagan goddess who resembled me in the colored print the stout painter had given Mother; and suddenly I felt resentfully angry at the thought of the great change in my life since that day. Giacinti must have been astonished at the firm, shapely beauty of my body, which was not apparent when I was fully dressed, for he stopped taking his clothes off and stared
at me in amazement, his mouth half open and his eyes bursting out of his head.

“Hurry up,” I said. “I’m cold.”

He finished undressing and threw himself on me. I have mentioned his way of making love already, it was exactly like him, and I think I have described him adequately. I need only add that he was one of those men who become fearfully exacting at the thought of the money they have spent or are going to spend, as if they are afraid of being cheated if they don’t take everything they think they have a right to. His aim, I soon realized, was to make our meeting last as long as he could and to get out of me all the enjoyment to which he thought he was entitled. With this in mind he labored over my body like someone over an instrument and urged me all the time to do the same with his. But although I obeyed him, I soon began to be bored and to watch him coldly, as if his obvious calculations had set a distance between us, and I were seeing not only him but also myself from a great way off, through a mirror of dislike and disgust. This was the very opposite of the feeling of affection I had tried instinctively to encourage at the beginning of the evening. Suddenly a wave of shameful remorse swept through me and I closed my eyes.

In the end he grew tired and we lay beside one another on the bed.

“You must admit,” he said in self-satisfied tones, “that although I’m not so young as I was, I’m an exceptional lover.”

“Yes, you are,” I said indifferently.

“All the women say so,” he went on, “and do you know what I think? Little bottles hold good wine — some men twice my size aren’t up to anything!”

I began to feel cold and sitting up pulled a corner of the blanket over us both. He interpreted this as a sign of affection.

“Good girl,” he said. “Now I’m going to have a little nap.” Then he curled up against me and dropped off.

I kept still, lying on my back, his white head against my breast. The blanket covered us both to the waist and at first, as I looked at him, at his hairy chest with its flaccid folds of middle age, I felt once more that I was with an utter stranger. But he was asleep;
and sleeping he no longer talked, looked, moved. Given his unlovable character, sleep revealed only the best of him; that is, he was just a man like any other, with no name or profession, no virtues or faults, simply a human being whose breast rose and fell as he breathed. It may seem odd, but as I looked at him and watched him trustfully sleeping beside me, I felt almost affectionate toward him, and this feeling was brought home to me by the care I took to avoid waking him by some movement. This was the impulse of sympathy I had been seeking in vain until that moment; the sight of his white head leaning heavily against my young breast aroused it in me. This sensation comforted me and almost made me feel less cold. For a moment, in fact, I experienced a kind of amorous exaltation that brought tears to my eyes. In reality my heart was full to the brim with affection — then as always — an affection that for lack of legitimate objects I poured out even on unworthy things and people, rather than leave it unused and unwanted.