Scent of a Woman

2

‘If only it would rain. Damn it. A million bucks for a deluge,’ he kept muttering.

We were sitting opposite each other on the shaded side of the compartment. The wind drove scorching breaths through the lowered windows. Another hour to go, then Genoa. The flat countryside, at times swelling abruptly with bristling hills, whirled by in the morning light as though under an ashen umbrella.

He had been complaining and disparaging from the beginning: the vile, odious summer, the scratchy velvet seats, the deserted coach. The high speed of the express train, which shook the cars, prevented any attempt at walking in the corridor.

He sat motionless, smoking one cigarette after another, his gloved hand on the armrest, a faint layer of perspiration on his forehead. In the bright light the marks on his face no longer seemed like real scars but like blotches and traces of smallpox. And yet, during certain imperceptible movements, that head appeared more than handsome: a prism that picked up and fashioned not so much the external luminosity as the leaps and moods, the odd angles of his thoughts.

He held out his right hand.

‘Do you have a wallet? Let me feel it.’

I took it out, surprised, and placed it in contact with his fingers. He slid it into the palm of his hand.

‘How much money?’

I told him the amount.

With a single gesture he opened it, took out the few bills and handed them to me.

‘Here. Are your ID cards and driver’s licence in here?’ he continued brusquely.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’ll hold on to it.’ He smiled, satisfied, relaxing and slipping the wallet into his pocket. ‘You can depend on me more. Right? I’ll give you a new one, at the end. Don’t worry. If you’re angry now, say so.’

‘No, sir,’ I replied.

‘Don’t give me that cock and bull.’ He chuckled softly. ‘I know very well you’re angry. Anyone would be. You might as well admit it.’

‘Okay. If it matters to you. I am.’

He laughed more heartily.

‘Finally,’ he coughed. ‘But you have to admit that I also have to try and protect myself. You could get fed up, leave me high and dry in the middle of a street, a café, maybe here in the train. I don’t know you, after all.’

‘I’m not that type,’ I protested.

‘Maybe not. Who knows. And then you’d be punished. A nice stint in solitary confinement, as you know,’ he said, the cigarette wobbling between his lips. ‘So at least allow me the illusion of being able to protect myself. If you look at it that way: is it okay with you?’

‘Whatever you say, sir.’

‘It’s not at all okay with you, yet your “yessir” flows out easily just the same. You’re made of rubber, Ciccio. You take it and snap! you spring back the way you were. I bet your father was a peasant. Right?’

‘He’s a clerk,’ I said.

‘Then your grandfather was.’

‘He had a shop, my grandfather.’

‘Well, your great-grandfather then. Let’s not go on and on,’ he said irritably. ‘You’re too cautious. Too many peasant-like “yes, sirs”, I can tell. Peasants in fact always say yes, and while they’re digging for potatoes they’re also digging their grave. Forever complaining about it, of course.’

I kept quiet, and for a long moment busied myself choosing, fingering and lighting a cigarette.

‘You’re not speaking any more? Good boy,’ he went on. ‘Tell the truth: if there had been someone else in this idiotic compartment, would you have said “yessir” and “nossir” like you did before, about the wallet? Or not?’

‘Why not? Other people mean nothing to me,’ I replied.

He indulged in a broad, tolerant laugh, nodding spiritedly.

‘You’re opening up. Good for you.’ He coughed again. ‘So then, tell me, tell me: you’ve decided that it’s better to feel sorry, and so on, for this poor devil here. Right?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Look, look at me: don’t you pity me?’ He smiled, pouting ironically.

‘I don’t know, sir. I don’t think so.’

‘You see, I told you you’re made of rubber,’ he retorted, satisfied. ‘C’mon: you don’t feel sorry for me, sorry in the sense of pitying me, I mean, and besides that, you obey, you do your duty, you’re ready with a “yessir”, et cetera, et cetera, therefore you feel you’re doing the right thing. Is that it?’

‘What I meant was: you don’t make me feel sorry or pity you in some stupid way,’ I tried to explain.

‘Of course. Naturally. Let’s see then. Earlier I said: a million bucks for a deluge. What did you think I meant?’ He leaned forward a little, smiling curiously.

‘I thought you meant what you said. Something to relieve this heat,’ I replied.

‘Not at all, genius. Aside from the fact that a deluge, the deluge, would always be good. Aside from that I meant the light, not the heat. The heat is only a result. It’s the light I was talking about,’ he explained, stressing each syllable, ‘light is silent, horribly silent. Whereas rain produces sounds. With rain, you always know where you are. Shut up at home or huddling in some doorway. Do you get it? Now don’t you feel sorry for me?’

‘Yes, sir. For that, yes,’ I forced myself to respond.

My head was spinning from those rapid-fire words of his. I could still hear them buzzing.

He had relaxed against the padded seat back, suddenly bored.

‘Right. Drop dead,’ he then said slowly. ‘I meant me, not you. Why do I bother talking. I should cut out my tongue.’

Again he cheered up in that wicked way of his, stuck his tongue out a little and with his right hand forming a scissor, made as if to snip it off, laughing the whole time.

He stopped and made a face.

Then: ‘Your hair, is it black?’

‘Not actually black. Brown.’

‘See how black mine is? A raven,’ he said proudly. ‘And women like black hair. It’s virile, they say.’

Suddenly he bent his forehead down.

‘Hey. No white hairs by any chance?’

‘Not even one, sir.’

I felt nauseous from the cigarettes I’d smoked and a little hungry too. I thought about the sandwich in my duffel bag, but I didn’t dare stand up, take it out and eat it there in front of him. He on the other hand took a slim metal and leather flask out of his breast pocket, unscrewed the cap, and drank.

‘Horrible at this hour.’ He shuddered. ‘If you see one of those railway bozos pass by, call him.’

He leaned his temple to one side to rest, but instead a range of expressions flitted across his face.

We passed through a succession of tunnels. The compartment was swept with currents of damp air. A large oily drop left a mark on my pants, another one grazed his forehead.

‘We’ll get off at Genoa. You can go nuts in here,’ he grumbled, still leaning sideways. ‘And you will also do me a blessed favour and take off your uniform. I mean, you must have civilian clothes.’

‘No, sir.’

‘I’ll buy you some.’ He snorted. ‘I don’t want to appear to be in the care of the nation’s charitable hands.’

He took out his watch, opened it and fingered it.

The sea reappeared on the right, a thin layer of metallic grey beyond a jumbled group of houses.

‘A conductor,’ I told him.

He raised his hand to stop him.

The man stepped forward with a long, sad face. A gold stripe ran around his cap. He gave a sympathetic smile.

‘Mr Whatever-your-name-is,’ he assailed him in a quiet cutting voice, ‘is it obligatory to listen to this crap? Have they passed a law requiring it?’

‘Pardon me, sir?’ The man blinked.

‘I repeat: this crap. This public nuisance.’ With his gloved hand he gave a sharp blow to the padded seat near his temple.

‘The radio, sir?’ The man figured it out.

‘Loathsome. Turn it off right now,’ came the reply.

‘Of course. But you see, you have to turn them all off. The controls are in the dining car and at this hour…’ the man stammered.

‘Do you want me to shoot a pistol in it?’ He stretched out his neck, his voice a strangled hiss. ‘What does turn it off mean? It means off. So hurry it up.’

‘Certainly, sir, but at this hour…’ The man was dismayed. He tried in vain to meet my eyes to find some support.

I felt myself blush. I remained rigid against the seat back.

‘I lost my eyes and a hand for the honour of this rotten country. Did I or didn’t I? Now you want me to lose my hearing too?’ he shouted suddenly.

He had become livid, two saliva bubbles at the corners of his mouth.

‘Right away, sir, right away.’ The conductor fled, his fingers touching his cap in an awkward salute.

Then he relaxed with pleasure, his right hand carefully assuring that the left one lined up precisely with the armrest. He was laughing quietly, in abrupt, self-satisfied little fits that finally erupted into short bursts of coughing.

‘Bastard that I am. The greatest one-of-a-kind bastard,’ he said, enjoying himself. ‘Who knows what he’ll tell them at home tonight, that poor devil.’

I leaned my head back myself to absorb the sounds from the velvet that I had not noticed until then. Barely a wisp of music came out, which I could hear only by pressing my ear forcefully against it. Until I heard nothing more.

Almost without being aware of it, I opened my mouth wide, savouring the syllables of the words I mutely swore at him.

‘Who knows how nervous the Baron must be.’ He cheered up again. ‘Without me in that house, they all immediately get addled.’

Taking a long curve, the train slowed up as it came into Genoa. The sun flashed off the junctions of the tracks, and off the sidewalks of the station. Dusty pots of geraniums clustered along a wall.

As I took down the suitcases, I saw him recompose himself, his hand feeling the knot of his necktie, then a handkerchief to wipe his forehead.

He gave me some final orders.

‘You’re not with me to be a porter. Get one outside: that’s what they’re there for. We’re off to the hotel right opposite the station. The one with the palm tree. One of the few that still has connecting rooms. You’ll have to plug your ears to sleep. You can hear a few thousand trains go by.’