The Woman of Rome (3 page)

“She was eighteen in August,” replied Mother readily.

He got up in silence, panting a little, and walked over to a phonograph standing on a table among a heap of papers and clothes. He wound it up, carefully chose a record, and put it on the phonograph.

“Now try to dance to this music — but keep your dress up,” he said.

“She’s only had a few dancing lessons,” said Mother. She realized that this would be the decisive moment and, knowing how clumsy I was, she feared the result.

But the producer motioned to her to be silent, set the record going, then with another gesture invited me to begin dancing. I
did as he requested, holding my skirt up. Actually I only moved my legs, first left and then right, rather slowly and heavily, and I knew I was not keeping time. He was still standing by the phonograph, leaning his elbows on the table and looking in my direction. He suddenly stopped the phonograph and went to sit down again in the armchair, with an unmistakable gesture toward the door.

“Won’t it do?” asked Mother anxiously, already on the warpath.

“No, it won’t do,” he replied, without looking at her, while he felt about in his pockets for his cigarette case.

I knew that when mother had a certain note in her voice she was going to make a scene and therefore I pulled her by the arm. But she jerked herself free and repeated in a louder voice, while she fixed the producer with gleaming eyes, “It won’t do, eh? And why not, if I may ask?”

The producer, who had found his cigarette case, was now hunting for his matches. His stoutness made every movement a great effort.

“It won’t do,” he replied calmly, but panting as he spoke, “because she’s got no gift for dancing and because she hasn’t the right figure for the job.”

Just as I had feared, Mother began to shout out her usual arguments at the top of her lungs — that I was a real beauty, my face was like a Madonna’s, and just look at my breasts, my hips, my legs! He remained quite unmoved, lit his cigarette and went on smoking and watching her while he waited for her to finish.

“Your daughter may make a good wet nurse in a year or two — but she’ll never be a dancer,” he pronounced in his bored and plaintive voice.

He did not know the frenzy Mother was capable of; it so astonished him that he took his cigarette out of his mouth and stood gaping at her. He wanted to speak but she would not let him. Mother was thin and breathless and it was difficult to tell where all the noise came from. She said a number of insulting things about him personally and about the dancers whom we had seen in the corridor. At last, she snatched up some lengths of silk shirt cloth he had entrusted to her and threw them at him, exclaiming,
“Get these shirts of yours made by anyone you like — maybe your dancing girls will do them for you — I wouldn’t touch them for all the gold in the world!” He was completely disconcerted by this unexpected conclusion and stood there, amazed and apoplectic, with his body enveloped in his shirt material. Meanwhile I kept pulling at mother’s sleeve and was almost crying with shame and humiliation. At last she yielded and, leaving the producer to extricate himself from his lengths of silk, we went out of the room.

Next day I told the artist, who had become my confidant to some extent, all that had happened. He laughed a great deal at the producer’s phrase about my potentialities as a wet nurse, and then observed, “Poor Adriana — I’ve told you time and again! You ought not to have been born in the present age. You ought to have been born four centuries ago. What today is a fault was then considered an asset, and vice versa. The producer was quite right, from his own point of view. He knows the public wants fair, slim girls, with tiny breasts, tiny behinds and cunning, provocative little faces. But you’re full, without being exactly plump; you’re dark, with a beautiful, round bosom — ditto for your behind! And yours is a sweet and gentle face. What can you do about it? You’re absolutely what I want! Go on being a model — then one day you’ll get married and have a lot of dark, plump children just like yourself, with sweet and gentle faces.”

“That’s exactly what I want,” I said emphatically.

“Good!” he replied, “And now, lean over a little to one side — like that —” This artist was very fond of me in his way; and perhaps, if he had stayed in Rome and had gone on letting me confide in him, he might have given me some good advice and many things would not have happened. But he was always complaining that he could not sell his pictures, and at last took the occasion of an exhibition that was being organized in Milan to go and settle there permanently. I went on being a model, as he had advised me to do. But the other artists were not so kind and affectionate as he was, and I did not feel inclined to talk to them about my life — which was, after all, an imaginary life made up of dreams, aspirations, and hopes. Because at that time nothing ever happened to me.

2

S
O I CONTINUED BEING A MODEL
, although Mother complained because she felt I earned too little. At that time Mother was almost always in a bad mood; she had counted on my beauty to bring me unimaginable success and wealth. As far as she was concerned, the job of being a model had never been more than a first step after which, as she used to say, one thing would come of another. Seeing I was still nothing more than a model, she grew embittered and irritated toward me, as if lack of ambition had cheated her of certain gain. Of course, she never put her thoughts into words, but allowed her hints, her rudeness, her sighs, the long faces she pulled and all the rest of her transparent play-acting to speak for her. It was a kind of never-ending blackmail; and I understood then why many girls, who are constantly badgered in this way by ambitious, disappointed mothers, end up by running away from home and giving themselves to the first man they meet, if only to escape from such an unbearable state of things. Naturally, Mother behaved like this because she loved me,
but it was the kind of love the housewife feels for a laying hen: if it stops laying, she begins to examine it, weigh it in her hand, and reckon whether she would not do better to wring its neck.

How patient and ignorant we are when we are very young! I was leading a wretched life at this time and really never noticed it. I used to give Mother all the money I earned by posing for long, wearisome, boring hours in the studios; and the rest of the time, when I was not naked, stiff, and aching from allowing myself to be drawn and painted, I sat bent over the sewing machine, never lifting my eyes from the needle, in order to help Mother in her work. Far into the night I would still be sewing and in the morning I would rise at daybreak, because the studios were a long way off and the sittings started very early. But before I went to work I made my bed and helped Mother clean up the apartment. I was really indefatigable, docile, and patient, and at the same time serene, cheerful, and even-tempered. Envy, bitterness, and jealousy had no place in my heart; rather I was filled with the gentle, unceasing gratitude that blossoms so spontaneously in youth. And I never noticed the squalor of our apartment.

One huge, bare room served as our workroom; it was furnished with a large table in the middle, always covered with pieces of cloth, while other rags hung from nails in the dark walls where the plaster was peeling off, and a few broken straw-bottomed chairs. There was a bedroom where I slept with Mother in her double bed, immediately above which a huge patch of damp stained the ceiling, and in bad weather the rain used to drip down on us. Also a dark little kitchen cluttered up with the plates and saucepans that Mother, being shiftless, never managed to wash up properly. I never noticed what a sacrifice my life really was, with no amusements, love, or affection. When I think of the girl I was, and remember my goodness and innocence, I cannot help feeling deeply sorry for myself, in a powerless, poignant sort of way, as you do when you read of some charming person’s misfortunes in a book and would like to be able to ward them off, but know you cannot. But there you are! Men have no use for goodness and innocence; and perhaps this is not the least of life’s mysteries — that
the qualities praised by everyone, of which nature is so prodigal, in point of fact serve only to increase the sum of unhappiness.

I imagined at that time that my longing to get married and set up a family life would one day be satisfied. Every morning I used to take the streetcar in the square not far from our house, where among a number of newly erected buildings, I noticed one long, low structure against the city walls that was used as a garage. At that hour there was always a young man about the place, either washing or cleaning his car, who used to stare at me pointedly. His face was dark, thin, and perfectly shaped, with a straight nose, black eyes, a marvelous mouth, and white teeth. He closely resembled an American movie star much in vogue in those days, and that is why I noticed him and, in fact, why I took him at first for something different from what he was. He wore good clothes and had the air of being well educated and decently behaved. I imagined that the car must be his and that he was well-to-do, one of the gentlemen Mother talked so much about. I rather liked him, but I only thought of him when I saw him; then on the way to the studios he slipped out of my memory. But, without realizing it, his looks alone must have seduced me, because one morning while I was waiting for the streetcar, I heard someone obviously trying to attract my attention by making the sort of noise people make to call a cat, so I turned around. When I saw him beckoning to me from the car, I did not hesitate at all, but, with a thoughtless docility that astonished me, walked over to him. He opened the door and as I got in I saw that his hand on the open car window was coarse and roughened, with black, broken nails and the first finger tobacco-stained, like the hands of manual workers. But I said nothing and got in all the same. “Where would you like me to take you?” he asked as he shut the door.

I told him the address of the studio. I noticed he had a quiet voice and I thought him rather pleasant, although I could not help feeling there was something false and affected about him.

“Well, let’s go for a ride — it’s early — then I’ll take you wherever you like,” he answered. The car started up.

We left my neighborhood by the avenue running along the city walls, went along a wide road with warehouses and little hovels
on each side, and at last reached the country. Then he began to drive like a madman down a straight track between two rows of plane trees. Every now and again he said, without turning around, “We’re doing eighty, ninety, a hundred, a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty kilometers an hour.” He wanted to impress me with the speed, but I was chiefly anxious because I had to go and pose and was afraid that for some reason or other the car might break down in the open country. Suddenly he put on the brakes, switched off the engine and turned to me.

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.” I answered.

“Eighteen — I thought you were older.” He really did speak in an affected voice, which occasionally, in order to emphasize some word, dropped as if he were talking to himself or telling a secret.

“What’s your name?”

“Adriana. What’s yours?”

“Gino.”

“What do you do?” I asked.

“I’m in business,” he replied quickly.

“Is this your car?”

He looked at the car with a kind of disdain.

“Yes, it’s mine,” he said.

“I don’t believe you,” I said truthfully.

“You don’t believe me! Well, great —” he repeated in an astonished, mocking tone, without turning a hair. “Well, wondeful — why not?”

“You’re a chauffeur.”

His ironic amazement became even more apparent.

“Now really, what extraordinary things you say! Just think of that, now! Really — a chauffeur! — what on Earth makes you think that?”

“Your hands.”

He looked at his hands without flushing or being embarrassed. “Can’t hide anything from this young lady, can I? How penetrating of you. Very well — I’m a chauffeur. Is that all right?” he said.

“No, it’s not,” I retorted sharply, “and please take me back to town at once.”

“Why? Are you cross with me because I told you I was in business?”

I really was cross with him at that moment. I didn’t know why; it was as though I could not help it.

“Don’t talk about it anymore — take me back.”

“It was only a joke. Why not? Can’t we even joke anymore?”

“I don’t like that kind of joke.”

“Oh what a nasty character; I was only thinking: this young lady may even be a princess — if she finds out I’m only a poor chauffeur, she won’t even look at me — so I’ll tell her I’m in business.”

These words were very clever because they flattered me and at the same time showed me what his feelings were toward me. In any case, he said them with a kind of grace that quite won me over.

“I’m not a princess — I work as a model, like you do as a chauffeur, to earn my living,” I answered.

“What do you mean, a model?”

“I go to artists’ studios, take off my clothes, and they paint or draw me.”

“Haven’t you got a mother?” he asked pointedly.

“Of course I have! Why?”

“And your mother lets you pose naked in front of men?”

It had never crossed my mind that there was anything to be ashamed of in my occupation, and indeed there was not; but I was glad he felt like that about it. It showed he had a serious moral sense. As I have already said, I was thirsting for a normal way of life, and in his astuteness he had guessed (even now I don’t know how) what were the right things to say to me. Any other man, I could not help thinking, would have made fun of me or would have shown an indelicate kind of excitement at the idea of my being naked. So, unconsciously, I modified the first impression his lying had given me and thought that after all he must be a decent, honest young man, just the man I had imagined for a husband in my dreams.

“Mother found me the work herself,” I answered simply.

“That means she doesn’t love you.”

“No, it doesn’t,” I protested. “She loves me — but she was a model herself when she was a girl, and really, there’s nothing wrong in it; lots of girls like me model and are decent girls.”