The Woman of Rome (7 page)

“She won’t believe it.”

We hurried out of the villa and Gino took me home in the car. I was sure Mother would not believe the tale about the car having broken down; but I did not imagine that her intuition would have led her to guess exactly what had happened between Gino and me. I had the keys of the front door and of the apartment. I went in, raced up the two flights of stairs and opened the door. I hoped Mother was already in bed, and my hope was strengthened by finding the house in pitch darkness. Without turning on the light, I started to go on tiptoe toward my own room, when I felt myself seized violently by the hair. In the dark my mother, for it was she, dragged me into the living room, threw me onto the sofa and began to strike me with her fists, in a tempest of fury, without once giving vent to a single word. I tried to defend myself with my arm, but Mother, as if she could see what I was doing, always found a way of delivering some nasty blow from underneath that got me full in the face. At last she grew tired and I felt her sit down beside me on the sofa, panting heavily. Then she got up, went and lit the lamp in the middle of the room, and came to sit beside me, with her hands on her hips, staring at me. I felt full of shame and embarrassment as she watched me, and tried to pull down my dress and tidy myself up.

“I bet you and Gino have been making love,” she said in her usual voice.

I wanted to say yes, it was true; but I was afraid she would hit me again; and now it was light, I was more afraid of the precision of her blows than of the pain itself. I hated the idea of walking about with a black eye, especially before Gino.

“No, we haven’t — the car broke down during the trip and made us late,” I replied.

“And I say you’ve been making love.”

“We haven’t.”

“Yes, you have — go and look at yourself in the mirror — you’re green!”

“I’m tired — but we haven’t been making love.”

“Yes, you have.”

“We haven’t.”

What astonished and rather worried me was that she showed no indignation while she kept on insisting like this, but only a strong and by no means idle curiosity. In other words, Mother wanted to know whether I had given myself to Gino, not in order to punish me or reproach me with it, but because, for some hidden motive of her own, she simply had to know. But it was too late; and although I was sure by now that she would not hit me again, I continued obstinately to deny it. All at once Mother stepped forward and made as if to take me by the arm. I raised my hand to protect myself, but she only said, “I won’t touch you — don’t be afraid. Come along with me.”

I did not understand where she wanted to take me, but, since I was frightened, I obeyed her all the same. Still holding me by the arm, she led me out of the apartment, made me go downstairs, and accompanied me into the street. It was deserted at this time of night, and I realized immediately that Mother was hurrying me along the pavement toward the little red light burning outside the chemist’s shop where the first-aid station was. I made a last effort to resist her when we were on the chemist’s doorstep, and dug my feet in, but she gave me a push and I entered, all of a heap, almost falling on my knees. Only the pharmacist and a young doctor were in the shop.

“This is my daughter. I want you to examine her,” Mother said to the doctor.

The doctor made us go into the back room where the first-aid bed was.

“Tell me what’s the matter — what must I examine her for?” he asked Mother.

“She’s bee making love with her fiancé, the little bitch, and she says she hasn’t,” shouted Mother. “I want you to examine her and tell me the truth.”

The doctor began to be amused, his lips twitched as he smiled and said, “But this isn’t a diagnosis — it’s a matter for a specialist.”

“Call it what you like,” answered Mother, shouting at the top of her voice all the time. “I want you to examine her — aren’t you a doctor? Don’t you have to examine the people who ask you to?”

“Calm yourself.… What’s your name?” He turned to me.

“Adriana,” I answered. I was ashamed but not deeply. Mother’s scenes were as well known in the whole neighborhood as my own mildness of temper.

“And suppose she has? continued the doctor, who seemed aware of my embarrassment and was trying to avoid making the examination. “What’s the harm? They’ll get married later on, and it’ll all end well.”

“Mind your own business.”

“Keep calm, keep calm!” repeated the doctor pleasantly. Then turning to me, “You see your mother really wishes it — so take your things off, I won’t be a moment and then you can go.”

I summoned up all my courage. “All right, then,” I said, “I have made love — let’s go home, Mother.”

“Not at all, my dear!” she said authoritatively. “You’ve got to be examined.”

Resignedly I let my skirt fall to the ground and stretched myself on the bed. The doctor examined me.

“You were right,” he then said to Mother. “She has — now are you satisfied?”

“How much?” asked Mother, taking out her purse. Meanwhile I slipped off the bed and put on my clothes again. But the doctor refused to take the money.

“Do you love your fiancé?” he asked me.

“Of course,” I replied.

“When are you getting married?”

“He’ll never marry her,” shouted Mother. But I replied calmly, “Soon — when we’ve got our papers ready.” There must have been so much ingenuous trust in my eyes that the doctor laughed indulgently, gave me a little pat on the cheek, and then pushed us out.

I expected Mother to cover me with insults as soon as we reached home and perhaps even hit me again. But instead there she was, silently lighting the gas and beginning to cook me something. She
put on a saucepan, then came into the living room and, having removed the usual bits of cloth from the end of the table, she laid a place for me. I was sitting on the sofa onto which she had dragged me by the hair a little while before and was watching her in silence. I was very much surprised, not only because she did not scold me, but because her whole face reflected some strangely unrepressed and bubbling satisfaction. When she had finished laying the table, she went back into the kitchen and after a while returned with a dish.

“Now eat.”

As a matter of fact, I was very hungry. I got up and went to sit down, rather awkwardly, on the chair Mother was urging me to take. There were a piece of meat and two eggs in the dish, an unusual dinner.

“It’s too much,” I said.

“Eat — it’ll do you good — you need something,” she answered. Her good temper was quite extraordinary, perhaps a little malicious but in no way hostile.

“Gino didn’t think of giving you anything to eat, eh?” she added after a while, almost without bitterness.

“We fell asleep,” I answered, “and afterward it was too late.”

She said nothing, but stood watching me while I ate. She always did this — served me and watched me while I ate, then went to eat by herself in the kitchen. For a long time now, she had not eaten with me at the same table; and she always ate less, either my leftovers or some other food not so good as mine. I was a delicate, precious object in her eyes, the only one she had, someone to be treated with every care; and, for some time now, her flattering and admiring servility had ceased to astonish me. But now her calm satisfaction gave me an uneasy sense of anxiety.

“You’re angry with me because we made love — but he’s promised to marry me. We’ll get married very soon,” I said after a while.

“I’m not angry with you,” she replied immediately. “I was at the moment, because I’d been waiting for you all evening and I was worried — but don’t think about it anymore — eat.”

Her deceptively reassuring and evasive tone, like the tone people use in speaking to children when they don’t want to answer their questions, made me even more suspicious.

“Why?” I insisted. “Don’t you believe he’ll marry me?”

“Yes, yes, I believe it, but go on, eat.”

“No, you don’t believe it.”

“I do, don’t worry — eat.”

“I won’t eat any more,” I said, driven to the point of exasperation, “until you tell me the truth — why are you looking pleased?”

“I’m not.”

She picked up the empty dish and took it into the kitchen. I waited until she came back and then repeated, “Are you glad?”

She looked at me for a long time in silence, and then answered, in a threatening, serious tone, “Yes, I’m glad.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m quite sure now that Gino won’t marry you, and he’ll ditch you.”

“He won’t. He said he’d marry me.”

“He won’t marry you — he’ll have some fun with you, but he won’t give you even a pin, penniless as he is, and then he’ll leave you.”

“Is that what you’re glad about?”

“Of course! Because now I’m quite sure you won’t marry each other.”

“But what does it matter to you?” I exclaimed, hurt and irritated.

“If he wanted to marry you, he wouldn’t have made love to you,” she said suddenly. “I was engaged to your father for two years, and until a few months before we were married, he only gave me a kiss or two — he’ll have a good time with you and then ditch you, you can count on it! And I’m glad he’ll leave you, because if he married you, you’d be ruined.”

I could not help admitting to myself that some of the things Mother was saying were true, and my eyes filled with tears.

“I know what it is,” I said. “You don’t ever want me to have a family; you’d rather see me begin to lead a life like Angelina’s!”
Angelina was a girl in our neighborhood who had openly begun to be a prostitute after two or three broken engagements.

“I want you to be comfortably off,” she replied gruffly. And when she had picked up the plates, she took them into the kitchen to wash them up. When I was alone, I began to think over her words at some length. I compared them with Gino’s promises and behavior, and I did not feel that Mother could possibly be right. But her certainty, her calm, the cheerful way in which she looked ahead, disquieted me. Meanwhile she was washing up the plates in the kitchen. Then I heard her put them on the dresser and go into her bedroom. After a while I went to join her in bed, feeling tired and dispirited.

Next day I wondered whether I ought to mention Mother’s doubts to Gino; but after much hesitation I decided not to. The truth of the matter was, I was so afraid that Gino would leave me, as Mother had insinuated, that I dared not mention her opinion to him in case I put the idea into his head. For the first time I realized that by giving herself to a man, a woman places herself in his hands and no longer has any means of forcing him to behave as she wishes. But I was still convinced that Gino would keep his promise, and his behavior, as soon as I met him, strengthened me in this conviction.

Certainly I was looking forward to his many attentions and caresses, but I was afraid he would not mention marriage or would only speak of it in a general way. Instead, as soon as the car stopped in the usual avenue, Gino told me he had fixed the date for the wedding in five months’ time, not a day longer. I was so delighted that I could not help bursting out, as though Mother’s ideas had been my own, “Do you know what I thought? I thought that after what happened yesterday, you would leave me.”

“What the … !” he said with an offended look. “Do you take me for a brute?”

“No, but I know lots of men act like that.”

“You know,” he continued, without noticing my reply, “I could have been offended by what you thought about me? What idea do you thave of me? Is this how you love me?”

“I do love you,” I said ingenuously. “But I was afraid you wouldn’t love me anymore.”

“Have I shown you in any way so far that I don’t love you?”

“No — but you never know.”

“Look,” he said suddenly, “you’ve put me into such a bad mood that I’m going to take you straight to the studio.” And he made as if to start the car up at once.

Terrified, I threw my arms round his neck and begged him not to. “No, Gino, what’s come over you? I was only talking — forget it.” I pleaded.

“When you say such things, it means you think them — and if you think them, it means you aren’t in love.”

“But I do love you.”

“I don’t love you, though!” he said sarcastically. “I’ve only been playing with you, as you say, with the idea of leaving you — funny thing you didn’t realize it until now.”

“But, Gino,” I exclaimed, bursting into tears, “why do you talk to me like this? What have I done to you?”

“Nothing,” he said, starting up the car, “but now I’m going to take you to the studio.

The car started off, with Gino sitting bolt upright and serious at the wheel; and I let myself go entirely, sobbing as I watched the trees and milestones slipping past the window, and saw the outline of the first houses in the town on the horizon beyond the fields. I imagined how Mother would crow over our quarrel, if ever she came to know of it and found out that Gino, as she had predicted, had left me. Driven by despair, I open the door and leaned out.

“Either you stop or I’ll throw myself under the car!” I cried.

He looked at me, the car slowed down and then turning up a sidepath he brought it to a standstill behind a little hillock topped by ruins. He switched off the engine, put on the emergency brake, and then turned to me.

“All right,” he said impatiently, “say what you have to say — go on.”

Believing he really meant to leave me, I began to speak with a passion and ardor that seem both ridiculous and touching as I look back on them today. I explained how much I loved him; I even went so far as to tell him I did not care whether we were married
or not, so long as I could continue to be his lover. He listened to me, sullen-faced, shaking his head and repeating every now and again, “No, no — it’s no use today — perhaps I’ll have got over it by tomorrow.” But when I said I would be content to be his lover he retorted firmly, “No, it must be marriage or nothing.” We continued arguing in this way for some time and by his perverse logic he often drove me to despair and made me cry again. Then, little by little, he appeared to change his inflexible attitude; and at last, after I had kissed him and caressed him in vain, I seemed to have won a great victory when I persuaded him to leave the front seat of the car and make love to me in the back seat, in an uncomfortable posture, which in my anxiety to please him, was too quick for me and bitterly exhausting. I ought to have realized that by behaving like this I was not the victor in any sense, but, on the contrary, was placing myself even more in his hands, if only because I showed I was ready to give myself to him, not merely because I loved him, but in order to coax and persuade him when words failed me — which is just what all women do when they love without being sure that their love is reciprocated. But I was completely blinded by the perfect behavior his cunning had taught him to assume.