Two Friends (11 page)

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lower body. Rather than beautiful, he reflected, she was profoundly attractive. Lalla walked a step ahead of Sergio and he observed her, until finally they reached the doorway. Sergio pushed open the door, which was always unlocked, and they climbed up four dark, dank floors in silence. Lalla moved quickly, undulating like a reptile, and he could not help thinking of all the staircases he had climbed in his young life, walking behind one prostitute or another. This
thought vexed him; he was often vexed by his own thoughts when they were not as he wished them to be. He wanted to respect Lalla and was convinced of his affection and esteem for her. Sometimes he suspected that such thoughts were precisely what Catholics referred to as the Devil: thoughts, feelings, reflections that rise to the surface despite our better nature, against our will and unworthy of us. When they reached the landing Sergio reached forward and opened the door as Lalla waited, out of breath. The foyer was illuminated and they tiptoed down the hall to their room, as usual. Lalla went first and turned on the light. Sergio walked to the corner where the coatrack stood and removed his raincoat and shoes, and then sat down on a rickety armchair near the yellowing curtain.

Lalla began to undress in silence. First she removed her little brown overcoat and carefully placed it on a hanger in the closet. Then she pulled her dress over her head. As she stood there in her short green slip, the strange proportions of her body were even more apparent: the large thighs, outlined with heavy muscles under the fabric of her slip; the almost painfully slender waist that looked as if it had been compressed by some sort of contraption since infancy; the low, ample chest; and finally the long neck topped by a small head. Every time he saw her partly dressed or nude, Sergio could not help being aroused; this was one of the things he did not approve of in himself and would have liked to change. Usually he said nothing and tried to avoid looking at her. But on that night he felt discouraged and unhappy and he could not resist, just as a drunken man cannot resist a bottle
whose contents promise release and oblivion. Now she was fussing around the room, opening the bed, checking her hair in the mirror. As she passed him, he reached out his hand: “Come here …”

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She paused, saying in an indecisive, plaintive voice: “Why should I? What do you want from me?”

“Come here … I need to be near you.”

“I’m too big to sit on your lap,” she said, mournfully. “You’re too small for me … I’m too heavy … Don’t you agree?” But she too was a bit aroused and perched willingly on his lap, sitting sideways with her arms around his neck. The armchair creaked under their combined weight, and she whispered: “Am I too heavy?”

Sergio didn’t answer; instead he sought her lips. They kissed, in silence, for a long time, as if silently agreeing to seek consolation for their unhappiness and discouragement in the joys of the flesh. It was always the same, he thought to himself, not without a certain melancholy satisfaction: she would hesitate, struggle slightly, and then give in and indulge him. It was a sign that she loved him and that he still pleased her. They kissed once, and then pulled apart and kissed again; this time Sergio pulled her head slightly away by the hair. They separated again, still looking at each other, and Sergio rested his head on the back of the armchair. She kissed him, this time pressing down with the full weight of her chest and body. After the third kiss they separated and Lalla said, caressing him with her long, shapely hand: “This is what poor people do when they can’t afford to go to the movies or the theater or a café … Love is our entertainment, isn’t that right?”

He grumbled: “Why do you say that? We love each other … that’s all.”

“Poor people love each other too … That’s why they have so many babies … because they don’t have anything else to distract them at night.”

“Do you want to have a child with me?”

“Of course … I love you,” she answered, seriously.

“Do you really love me?”

“Very much.”

She still seemed dejected and unhappy, and yet filled with passion. Her body pressed against his, and she wormed her hand into his shirt, between two buttons, and caressed his chest, not so much to please him, he thought, as for the pleasure of feeling his

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skin beneath her hand. He could not help thinking about the fact that she was beginning to weigh heavily on his legs, making his knees ache. They kissed again, and he shifted slightly. She noticed and said, with a melancholy laugh, “I’m too heavy … You’re too small for a big woman like me, Sergio.”

He did not respond. As she retreated to the other side of the bed to undress, he too began to undress in silence. He was not as neat as she was and usually threw his trousers, jacket, and shirt on the floor. They were both naked now: she on the other side of the bed, and he by the armchair. She tiptoed toward him, picking up his clothes piece by piece, murmuring censoriously, “What a mess you make … Strange; after all, you didn’t grow up with servants to put your clothes away, iron your shirts, and present them to you the next day, like Maurizio.” He said nothing, feeling slightly annoyed; Maurizio’s name reminded him of his task and the difficulties that faced him. As
she leaned down to pick up his shoes, he pulled her toward him, pressing her firm belly and the warm, soft flesh of her breasts against his meager, skinny frame. Still holding his shoes, she allowed him to embrace her. Then she pulled away, placed the shoes beneath the armchair carefully, and said, “Let’s go to bed.”

The bed was typical of furnished apartments, wide but also very low, with an iron frame and a thin mattress. “I don’t have a decent nightgown … they’re all torn or dirty,” Lalla said, sighing as she parted the bedcovers. “I’ll have to sleep in the nude.” Sergio lay down next to her in silence. She turned off the light and pressed her body against his. In the dark, she asked, “Do you love me?” “Very much,” he answered quickly, reaching around her waist to pull her close. “Make love to me,” she said in the dark, turning so that her back was pressed against his body, her buttocks against his groin, her legs slightly open. She pulled his arm around her and guided his hand to her breasts. He sought her sex with his own; with her hand, she guided him inside her, amid the hair and the profound, burning moisture of desire. Once inside her, he remained still with his arms around her, attached to her back like a baby Eskimo or a member of one of the nomadic tribes who carry their young on their backs. They always did this, holding each other in a tight embrace, joined together, motionless,

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until sleep overcame them, merged and amalgamated into one flesh, perhaps more out of a need for consolation and togetherness than desire. Later, in the dark of night, they would pull apart involuntarily. The following morning Sergio always awoke on his
side of the bed, with a wide expanse of cold bedsheets between them.

A few days later, Sergio and Lalla visited Maurizio at home. They had called him that morning, as usual. During that period, their friendship had reached its apogee; they saw one another almost every day. Maurizio, who did not like cafés, where one was uncomfortable and had to share space with other people, had invited them to his house. It was the first time they would meet there. Sergio’s goal of converting Maurizio to his political ideas had not changed. He also knew that Maurizio was aware of this and had invited them over with this in mind. In short, there was between them, in addition to their mutual sympathy and the obscure attraction Sergio felt—and which Maurizio also seemed to feel—the matter of Maurizio’s conversion to Communism. It hung there, silent but clear to both of them, like a game whose rules they both knew and played day after day. Sergio was convinced that deep down it was a struggle for power: the power of an ideology, whose truth and validity he wanted to impose upon his friend, as well as his own personal power. And the power of a social reality which Sergio felt his friend would eventually have to accept, if the ideology itself and his personal authority were not enough. He was convinced that Maurizio was simply weak, afflicted by a lassitude that was the result of a lack of ideas and the personal
deficiencies of a man with less fortitude than himself. A weakness born of a social situation whose hopelessness Maurizio himself admitted and condemned. Under such conditions, Sergio reasoned, there was

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no alternative for Maurizio but to convert if he was a man of good faith and good intentions. And since he had no doubt that Maurizio was a man of good faith and good intentions, he was convinced that in the end he would convert.

He mentioned none of this to Lalla. Nevertheless, for some reason he sensed that she looked upon his plans with some skepticism. They set out for Maurizio’s in the early afternoon. That afternoon, Sergio was in a hurry, as if impatient to lock horns. Lalla seemed to intentionally take her time in preparing for the visit. Sergio sat for a long time in the armchair by the window, waiting for her to finish brushing her hair. Lalla had a very limited wardrobe, but she made a conscious effort to dress as well as possible, applying herself to her toilette with a care that irritated him even more than their lateness. First she went to the bathroom wearing her old, tattered dressing gown, and stayed there for a good half hour. Then she sat at her dressing table. He waited in silence, angrily chain-smoking in the dark room, which looked even smaller and shabbier in the gray light of the rainy afternoon. With exasperating care and deliberateness, she brushed her hair and applied face cream, lipstick, powder, eyeliner, and mascara. She sat on a low stool, her powerful hips spreading over the edge of the chair; her dressing gown hung open, revealing two dark, oblong breasts, delineated by a pink fold that formed on her belly because of
her hunched posture. Peering into the mirror with her head inclined, she presented her small profile and elongated neck. From his position, he could just make out her face in the mirror, embellished by the shadows and her contemplative air. Each time he looked over as she combed her hair with careful, slow strokes, his irritation grew. But then he would catch a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror, and his irritation would pass and he would feel content to wait, almost as a way to prove his love for her. In the end, however, his impatience won over, and he broke his silence: “Couldn’t you move a bit more quickly? We’re already half an hour late.”

“Why are you so worried about being on time?” she said, without turning around. “He can wait … You’d think he was your lover.”

“What nonsense … I can’t stand being late, that’s

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all.”

“But sometimes you make me wait for hours,” she said slowly, still combing her hair.

“That’s different.”

“You should always be on time … The truth is that your feelings for Maurizio are different.”

“What do you mean by that?”

She paused for a moment and then said, distractedly: “If I weren’t convinced that you love me and that you are normal, I would think that you were a little bit in love with him.”

“What a stupid thing to say.”

She finished arranging her hair in silence and went over to the bed and sat down, pulling a plastic bag out of the dresser drawer. It contained a pair of new stockings. “I bought them just this morning,”
she said, leaning over to pull on one of the stockings. “You can’t say that I’m not doing my best to do honor to your dear Maurizio.”

Sergio said nothing. Lalla finished putting on her stockings, then a slip, and finally picked out her best dress, the one she wore on special occasions. For some reason, this irritated Sergio, and he protested: “Why are you wearing that dress?”

“It’s the only decent one I have.”

“You usually wear it to parties,” he said, bitterly. “This isn’t a party … Why don’t you dress normally?”

“Why should I?” she said, staring at him. “Maurizio has invited us to his house … I should do my best to look presentable.”

“He’ll get the impression that you’re intimidated and honored by his invitation.”

She looked at him for a moment with a dreamy expression. “Why do you say that?”

“Because … I don’t want to give the impression that this is a big event … an honor.”

“Who wants to give that impression?”

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“You, with all your fineries and that dress.”

“Do you know why you’re saying this?” she said, sharply.

“Why?”

“Because despite your Communist ideals, you feel socially inferior to Maurizio … That’s the truth … and you’re trying to project your feelings onto me. But I don’t feel inferior in the least.”

Her answer irritated Sergio even more, almost as if it contained a grain of truth; but he quickly examined his conscience and concluded that she was wrong: “Don’t be silly. Why should I feel socially
inferior? What kind of Communist would that make me?”

“I don’t know … that’s your business.”

He paused. Then, in a precise, almost scientific tone, he explained: “As you know, we are very poor, and he is very wealthy. I don’t feel inferior in any way, please believe me … but it’s important to me that he not feel superior to us, and if he sees you arrive all gussied up for a simple, friendly conversation … If it were a party, at his house or elsewhere, I would be the first to say that you should make an effort … Elegance is important, and dressing well for a festive event is a serious matter … I’m not as stupid as you think … but I don’t want him to get the wrong idea about us … that’s all. I’m also thinking of him, because I have great affection for him, not only about us.”

Lalla listened carefully, and answered, somewhat bitterly: “You think he’s stupid, but he’s not … All right, I’ll take off this dress and wear the oldest, most worn-out one I have … the one I wear when I teach.”

“No need to go overboard … Then he’ll think we want to make a spectacle of our poverty, and that would just be another way of revealing a feeling of inferiority.”

“What dress would you like me to wear, then? The selection is quite limited, after all. I only have three dresses.”

“Just wear the one you’re already wearing,” he said, moodily. “Do whatever you want … but let’s go, shall we?”