Two Friends (27 page)

The jeep came to an abrupt stop and the same coarse, breathless voice announced: “Via Bertoloni.” At that moment, without warning, all the excitement, desire, and love I had been feeling disappeared, as if a charm had been broken. I knew that in a moment I would be in Maurizio’s company, not only physically—not such an ominous prospect—but in the sense of our struggle, which would inevitably begin again. Our battle, which had been suspended for many years, would be fought even more ardently than before. I was excited, not by love or desire but rather by a pugnacious and troubling fear of not being up to the challenge. I felt that Nella’s flirtatiousness

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in the jeep had disarmed me and distracted me from my struggle with Maurizio and the means by which I meant to overcome him, and from the results I so desired. Suddenly, like a boy on his way to an exam who has been momentarily distracted by the traffic or the spectacle of nature and then is forced to come back to reality at the sight of the schoolyard, I felt almost a sense of panic. I tried to assemble in my mind all the points of contrast between Maurizio and myself: my membership in the Communist Party, his association with a class of people whom I considered doomed, my firm belief in the imminence of revolution, my desire to turn my inferiority complex into a lasting and powerful sense of superiority … As I went through this list in my mind, I tried to recover my earlier aggressive, decisive mood, which I considered more favorable to the execution of my plan. I could feel that my heart had begun to flutter and that I was out of breath. I saw a gate with the number sixty-four and whispered to Nella, “We’re here.”

It was a large gate with two pilasters topped by two massive pots filled with luxuriant ivy. I felt so overexcited that I decided to pause for a moment to look around before pressing the bell. We were on a pleasant street in an elegant, almost deserted neighborhood lined with gardens. Behind the garden walls, one could make out leafy trees and the aging façades of mansions and large houses. There were cars parked on both sides of the street, many of them luxury models. Many probably belonged to Maurizio’s guests. Nella peered at me, surprised by my hesitation. “What’s wrong? You look pale … Don’t you feel well?”

I answered steadily, “I’m fine.”

“Why don’t you ring the bell?”

“Yes, of course,” I said, pressing the brass button on the pilaster.

The gate opened, and a butler in a striped jacket

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appeared and invited us in. We followed him through the garden and to the door, which was set on one side of the house, protected by an old glass-and-iron roof. Ten years earlier I had often visited Maurizio’s house, and I suddenly realized that everything looked smaller, more modest, older, and less luxurious than I remembered it. In those now distant days, I had always felt an intimidating impression of luxury and wealth whenever I entered that house. Now I realized that this luxury and immense wealth had existed only in my imagination. Of course it was a large, comfortable house, I said to myself, looking around as we passed through the foyer and an anteroom leading to the main rooms of the ground floor, but nothing more. The décor was nothing special, without style or
taste; one could even call it nondescript. Everything that had seemed so impressive ten years earlier was now revealed to be much less so to my cold, informed eye: the shabbiness of the furniture, which was old but not valuable, of the kind one finds at secondhand stores; the ugliness and excessive profusion of vases, firearms, and knickknacks distributed on every table and cabinet; the old-fashioned tapestries made out of simulated damask silk on the walls, and the dark, heavy curtains that obscured the windows. The house, I saw immediately, was poorly maintained; it was clear that an insufficient staff cleaned those vast, poorly lit sitting rooms, and did so only superficially. There was the sense of debris left in dark corners, of unwaxed floors hidden beneath ragged carpets, and of dust spreading like an impalpable veil over everything. I also saw that nothing had been replaced in the last ten years and that everything looked visibly worn: the velvet couches were stained and tatty, the damask on the walls was faded, the curtains were dusty and limp. This tired quality struck me as a concrete symbol of a moral condition: that house was, as they say, stale; nothing had been renovated or improved upon for many years, just as ideas, convictions, feelings, and taste grows old; in other words the entire inheritance of the family that lived in that house, and more generally of the social class to which this family belonged, was antiquated and tired. Needless to

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say, I felt almost a sense of victory as the decadence and modesty of Maurizio’s home were revealed to my eyes, as if I hoped to find the same qualities in him, a decadence and modesty which would render him less formidable. I hoped that he would no longer
carry the air of superiority which in the past had so tormented me.

The first two rooms were empty, and the doors and windows were all open to let in the night air from the garden. We could hear music coming from a smaller drawing room at the rear of the villa; as we entered we saw that most of the guests were in this room, crowded around a bar near the far wall. There was a radio playing and some of the guests were dancing, both inside and also on the terrace outside. There were about thirty guests and they were exactly the kind of people I had expected to find: men and women belonging to the Roman bourgeoisie, many of the men in blue suits, neither young nor old, a bit corpulent, a bit bald, dressed to the nines with pomaded hair and clean-shaven cheeks, and wearing an expression, also typical of their class, that seemed to combine contentment, skepticism, and irony. The women were not terribly young, and I noticed that most of them were attractive and dressed with a kind of fussy elegance, with lots of bracelets and jewelry and a profusion of color; they seemed vivacious, excited, enthusiastic. In the small crowd, I could make out a few brown and green uniforms, and the stolid faces and blond hair of Allied officers. I also noticed that among these bejeweled ladies—who with their high heels and fancy clothes reminded me of festive statues of the Madonna—Nella looked like a little servant girl who had wandered in from the kitchen to ask the master a question. Her simple, ankle-length

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dress and low shoes made her look small, and the lack of jewels or décolleté added a modest air that made her look even smaller. Only her hair, which in the
semi-darkness of the room was tinged with copper and gold from the light of the few lamps, looked precious. It seemed to reveal an equally precious moral quality, a naïveté, a purity, and a child-like simplicity.

No one there knew us, and we knew no one. Paying no heed to Nella, I navigated among the groups sitting and standing around the room, talking, laughing, and dancing. I was looking for Maurizio. Nella followed my footsteps with a tenacious fidelity that I found both irritating and touching, without leaving me for a moment, her steps matching my own. She seemed intimidated by the small crowd of elegant strangers and for some reason I became annoyed with her and whispered: “Don’t make that face.” “What face?” she asked, surprised. “Stop looking so bashful … Your toenail is worth more than all of them combined.” She stared at me again and said: “I don’t feel the least bit intimidated … It’s just that I don’t know anyone.” “I don’t either,” I said, “what of it?” We had reached the bar. I climbed onto one of the stools, feigning an awkward ease, and invited Nella to do the same. She obeyed, but perhaps because she was too petite, or because she was not accustomed to being perched on a stool, she slid off the first time and was able to climb back on only after pulling her dress up over her knee. Once again I felt annoyed by her awkwardness. Attempting to hide my ill humor, I asked if she wanted something to drink.

“I don’t know … I suppose so … Whatever you say,” she said, unsure of herself.

Behind the tiny bar, a chubby, indolent-looking young man was amusing himself serving drinks to
his friends, imitating the gestures of a bartender. Smiling, he said, “At your service … What can I get you?

Brusquely, as if he were really a bartender, I said, “A whisky for me … Nella, what do you want?”

“I …,” she said, vaguely, “I’ll have whatever you say.”

“Whatever you say.” This was invariably her answer when I asked her “What do you want?” no matter what the subject.

I repressed my irritation at her passivity and said,

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“Another whiskey for the
signorina.
”

The young man was no longer smiling, and stared at me with a look that was both mocking and annoyed. Nevertheless, he picked up a bottle of whiskey and two glasses, poured some liquid, held out the glasses, and said: “Here are your drinks … but just to be clear … I’m not really a bartender.”

I felt myself blush and grew even more irritated. I held out my hand across the bar and said: “Please excuse me … The name is Maltese.”

He held out his hand: “Giacinti.” And then, looking at Nella, “and the
signorina
?”

“Nella,” I said.

“Just Nella?”

For some reason I wanted to say, “Yes, just Nella.” But instead I muttered: “Nella Ciocchi.”

Some dance music came on the radio. Giacinti put the bottle back on the bar and turned to Nella. “Would you like to dance?”

Again I felt a surge of irritation as Nella turned to me before accepting his invitation. “Go ahead,” I said, “that’s what we’re here for.”

With the same docility as before, she reached toward the young man as he approached her. For a moment I watched them dance. The young man was stiff and upright, smartly dressed in his blue suit, like a mannequin; every so often, he moved his shoulders in a way that seemed both ridiculous and typical of a man of his particular social circle. As I watched I realized that it hurt me to see Nella, usually so awkward and unskillful, pressed up against him, her chest against his chest, her belly against his belly. It wasn’t exactly jealousy, I thought, but almost a feeling of profanation and absurdity. I gulped down my drink, still watching the two of them, then drank Nella’s as well. The dance concluded, and another began. Nella glanced over at me with an anxious expression as she accepted another dance in Giacinti’s arms. Now, feeling uncontrollably nervous but trying to simulate calm, I stepped around the bar and stood in the bartender’s spot. First, I poured myself another glass of

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whiskey, twice as much as before. But soon a couple came up to the bar and said, as if speaking to a bartender, “Two whiskeys, please.”

They had mistaken me for a bartender. For some reason, a little devil led me to try to imitate the much more self-possessed Giacinti. I poured two glasses of whiskey, added some soda water from a siphon, and was about to offer the drinks to the two guests. The young man, who was sitting sideways at the bar and talking, said, without looking at me: “Some ice, please.”

My head was spinning. I could feel the whiskey I had drunk rising to my cheeks with an unpleasant ardor and my eyes clouding over with its fumes. I

managed to find a bucket of ice at my feet, dropped two cubes in each glass, and placed them on the bar, just as Giacinti had done: “Here are your drinks … but I just want to make something clear … I’m not the bartender.”

But here things took a confusing turn. Instead of introducing himself, the young man stared at me for a moment, surprised or perhaps simply distracted, after which he took the glasses and placed them between him and the young woman and went on talking as if nothing had happened.

I forced myself to put out my hand: “Allow me to introduce myself … Maltese.”

This time, the young man behaved with more propriety. Coldly, with a hint of annoyance, he introduced himself and his companion. I can’t remember their names, and perhaps I did not even hear them; by then I was feeling bleary, irritated, and scattered—in other words, drunk. After this quick introduction, the young man went back to his conversation. Desperately, I leaned over the bar and repeated Giacinti’s move: “Excuse me,
signorina
, may I have this dance?”

She was quite young, very thin and pale, wearing

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a red velvet dress. She had a long neck, a small, bird-like head, round eyes, and a small mane of frizzy hair. She stared at me for a moment and then, without looking to her companion as Nella had, answered coldly: “Thank you, but I don’t dance.”

I felt my face burning with a sudden, absurd wave of embarrassment. I knew I had a disconcerted look on my face, and with much effort I tried to modify it with a smile that attempted to be slightly ironic and at the same time indifferent. But I realized that
my efforts were unsuccessful and that I had managed only to render the stiff, embarrassing mask of bitterness and awkwardness on my face even more uncomfortable. The two went on talking, the radio went on playing dance music, and I began to look around for Nella, unsuccessfully. Was it the whiskey that clouded my eyes or my sense of embarrassment that obscured my sight and ability to reason clearly, making me feel drunk? In order to regain my dignity, I turned toward the bar and once again filled my glass—which I had already emptied four times—and then walked around the room with unsteady steps, as if looking for someone. Finally, I headed toward the French doors that led out into the garden, which were wide open.

I say “as if looking for someone,” and in fact that was precisely what I had been doing from the moment of our arrival. I was looking for Maurizio. As I walked toward the garden, I thought vaguely that I might find him outside, given that I had not seen him in the house. I now realized clearly that I was drunk, and that this drunkenness had unleashed, as the saying goes, my “true self”: the scene at the bar, my awkwardness, my sense of shame, all revealed, more powerful than ever, my old inferiority complex. For a moment, I had felt free. Yes, I thought as I walked unsteadily out of the sitting room, I was still the same person I had been ten years earlier, at least where Maurizio was concerned. The intervening years, my Party membership, my relationship with Nella, and my resolution to be strong and aggressive