Scent of a Woman

12

A parade of ants, big and shiny, moved along a thin trail of dust that zigzagged through the weeds, their abdomens rippling as their legs jostled forward. The orderly line broke up into feverish whirling at the base of a tree trunk, in the mealy opening of a root.

‘Go on. Just for a minute. Please,’ she said anxiously. ‘I’ll start waking him up. Let me do it. Then I’ll call you. I’ll call you.’

I looked up at the sound of an aeroplane. The triangular grey silhouette appeared sharp and bright against the sky, headed towards the city. It veered off into the distance, already silent, the rumble absorbed by then.

It was eight o’clock. Maybe if I lay down I would be able to sleep a little. But the desire to sleep was both strong and remote. Idle thoughts clogged and plagued my brain, slow to quiet down: whether to put my uniform back on, for example, or remorse at having sent only a single postcard home.

The shapes of my father, my mother, the Sardinian soldier who slept to my right in the barracks, did not contain any real human features; they were merely fixed points, dots indicating a neutral place which had less and less to do with me.

No sign of life from the house. Maybe she hadn’t yet been able to wake him, maybe she was just sitting there without rousing him, without calling to him. Mesmerized as usual, of course; as soon as she sets eyes on him she’s lost, a sheepish child. So much for her fine decision.

Nothing has happened, no one has actually died, I know it, we’re just in a world of our own, cut off for some reason yet still clinging to this last crust of earth by our fingernails, still unaware that before long we’ll be back among the others and it will all be as it was before and we’ll forget, we will forget. My leave has expired – did it expire last night or this morning? – I’d better put my uniform back on…

I lit another cigarette, my mouth like glue. I couldn’t taste anything any more, my tongue limp, gritty. A spot had somehow got on my sleeve. With two fingers I picked up an ant, choosing one of the largest ones; as it thrashed its legs and antennae frantically in the air, the parade went on with its bustle, rushing around in the dirt, back and forth to the root.

‘To hell with you too,’ I said, dropping it among the taller, tangled bushes.

Now I’ll get a move on, I’ll get up and go over there, I’d better keep an eye on them, not leave them alone.

I took another look around: the edges of the houses among the locust trees, the distant sea flat in the ashen grey mist, the bright green of the trees.

The exhaustion I felt was even pleasurable at times, it cautioned me tenderly from every muscle, making me more aware of various frailties, pangs, tremors.

She appeared in front of the house, her hands over her face.

I ran to her.

‘He doesn’t want me,’ she sobbed without uncovering her face. ‘He doesn’t want me. He chased me away.’

‘But is he all right?’

She nodded behind her hands, a dry sob.

‘Did you talk? Does he remember? Does he know where we are?’

She shrugged, stepped back blindly until she felt the step behind her heels. She sank down on it.

It took me a few seconds to tear myself away from there and go inside. My head felt empty, roaring, and though I knew that emptiness was deadly, I fumbled in vain to have a couple of words ready on my tongue, in my brain.

He was still on the carpet rolls, the blanket thrown off, the coffee bottle between his right hand and his stomach. Sara must have wiped his face with a wet handkerchief, I saw the scrap of cloth tossed in the sink.

‘It’s me,’ I said quietly.

I didn’t seem to feel emotion or fear or pity, I saw him as a human wreck, an unfamiliar presence in a hospital ward.

‘Ciccio,’ was all he said.

And his muscles relaxed.

I bent down, lit a cigarette, held it within reach of his lips. He leaned forward eagerly.

‘Friend,’ he said.

His voice was hoarse, slurred by the sleeping pill. He removed the cigarette to cough, drink a sip of coffee, then cough again in a lengthy release.

A couple of inches, give or take, of a slimy liquid remained at the bottom of the bottle.

‘Ciccio,’ he repeated.

‘Yes, sir. I’m here. Are you all right?’

The cigarette rolled slowly between his lips from one corner to the other then dangled as if he no longer wanted it.

‘Who’s there? Is someone with you?’

‘No one, sir. Just us.’

He tried to smile, grateful, but very weak.

‘Ice. Get me some ice. To chew. Right away,’ he said faintly.

‘There is no ice. Not here,’ I told him.

‘No?’ He roused himself slightly. ‘Why not? What’s going on. Here? What does “here” mean?’

I started talking, trying to be very brief, gradually lowering my tone as if it were just any ordinary story, unrelated, to be told in the most concise way possible, with the economy of a newspaper ad.

He was leaning his head against the wall. For an instant the cigarette smoke rushed more quickly from his nostrils. When I finished talking he didn’t say a word. The cigarette burned down to a stub. I reached out two fingers; he docilely allowed me to remove the butt.

‘We have to decide,’ I said after a while.

‘What? Who’s there. Still just you?’

‘Yes, sir,’ I went on nervously. ‘Me and Sara. We waited. For you to wake up. To decide. It’s late. Almost nine o’clock.’

‘Nine,’ he echoed.

The grooves of the two lines between his nose and cheeks had deepened as if drawn with indelible ink. He handed me the coffee bottle, I put the whisky flask in his hand. He held it against his cheek, turning it to capture its coolness, but did not bring it to his lips; he pushed it away, refusing it, his right hand trembling.

‘I should call Sara. Say something to her?’ I began again. He shook his head, his brow creased.

‘She’s outside. Crying. She’s worn out. Shouldn’t we now…’ I continued.

He reached out his hand, I felt its grip on my arm, but nagging, not strong.

‘Give her something to do. Or send her away. If she doesn’t go away, make sure she always has something to do. So she doesn’t think. So she doesn’t hang around me,’ he whispered in anxious bursts.

‘But sir, we—’

‘She mustn’t stay here. I don’t want her,’ he went on desperately, clearing the gluey mucus from his throat. ‘I’m the one who should go. Go away, vanish, drop dead. Get it? I failed tonight, God damn me. But now I won’t. Now I won’t. You’re my friend. You still are, right? Help me.’

His fingers went on worrying my arm from wrist to elbow, convulsively.

‘Sir, but I—’

‘Quiet. For God’s sake. Shut up. Don’t say a word. I can’t disgrace myself. Disgrace myself on top of it all: no,’ he finished, a sharp rasping cough lurking behind every word. ‘I’m not a lion. I thought I was, but no. I’m not. Poor Vincenzino, the mess I got you into…’

Later on I managed to persuade him. I put the bamboo cane between his fingers, helped drag him to his feet to take at least two steps outside.

I felt him trembling very faintly at my side, a papier-mâché puppet, his gait hesitant, clumsy for the first time, his cane having given up exploring.

When he came down the step, he flinched, as if what seemed to affect him wasn’t the sun, the light, but the foul breath, the chafing of some unknown beast.

‘No,’ he barely managed to say.

But he slumped against me, his balance gone.

I dragged him carefully to the shade of a tree. Sara immediately appeared from behind the house. She was biting her knuckles, her eyes frightened, intent on every little move we made, on him as he slowly folded his brittle legs, sat down on the grass. Even there, he showed no interest in feeling the bark of the tree behind him, the bristly ground around him.

Resorting to gestures, spreading my arms, moving my fingers, I tried to explain. But Sara, motionless, wasn’t even looking at me, riveted only on him.

When she decided to return my gesturing, she made a disconsolate, meaningless sign, then squatted on her heels, no longer daring to approach.

Incredibly long minutes went by, my eyes bewitched by the dizzying sweep of the second hand on my watch. A solitary cicada suddenly broke the silence, high up behind us.

He was breathing harshly, the grating of each breath of air like screeching on glass.

‘No excuse,’ he shuddered.

I had to hold him up before he lost his support against the tree; he recovered his position but without being aware of his muscles’ movement.

‘Feeling better, sir?’ I asked softly.

‘Oh, it’s you. Tell me I’m not here. Vanish: make me feel like I’m not here,’ he said through his teeth.

I saw Sara get up, tiptoe cautiously, gently to our tree, a finger to her lips, having overcome any uncertainty.

She sat down next to him.

The gentleness with which she managed to bend his shoulder, soften the remaining tension of his frame until she was able to cradle that head in her lap, made my heart almost painfully skip a beat. His right hand rose a moment to object, but quickly dropped back ineffectually.

‘No,’ he moaned, ‘no.’

‘Hush,’ Sara silenced him in a soft singsong voice. ‘Hush. Don’t think any more. Not a thought.’

She smoothed his hair with brief, fearful touches, brushing his forehead as if he were a sick child. Finally, very pale, she encircled his head in her arms.

I moved over on the grass to put some space between us.

‘No, not this,’ he was still moaning. ‘No.’

‘Hush,’ she whispered, her gaze lost in the distance. ‘Hush. Why suffer? No more. Not any more.’

And she rocked him gently.

‘Life is draining away. Feel it? Draining away.’ His broken words intermingled weakly with Sara’s hushes. ‘It hurts. But it’s right. Right… I’m a coward, a—’

‘Hush,’ she kept saying softly, prevailing over him. ‘You mustn’t think. You mustn’t.’

‘I was afraid…’

‘We’re all afraid, all of us. Hush. Rest, my angel,’ Sara went on. For a moment her dark eyes strayed to me, quickly passing over me like some annoying obstacle.

I was no longer moved now, just scared, helpless. I went back to the step in front of the house. The sun was already beating down fiercely.

They were a single pale spot, dappled with the gentle brush strokes of the tree’s shadow. And I was outside, driven away, overwhelmed by need.

Shortly afterwards I went back in to put on my uniform.