Authors: Cesare Pavese
The conversation turned to her friends, to the latest doings in Turin. Momina said at one point that the play was in deep trouble (she was smoking, eyes half closed in the smoke).
"Why?" Rosetta asked coldly.
"They don't want to embarrass you..." Momina said. "You know the play ends unhappily..."
"Nonsense," Rosetta cut in. "What does that matter?"
"Do you know who's in favor of the original version?" the other said. "Mariella. Mariella wants to give it and doesn't see any allusion in it. She says it doesn't matter to you..."
Rosetta glanced at me quickly. Getting up, I said: "Excuse me. I'm going to the ladies' room."
They both looked at me, Momina with amusement.
I had a feeling that I had said something one doesn't say. While I walked the corridors to calm down, I kept thinking: you stupid oaf. This is how you betray yourself. I imagine I was blushing.
I stopped in front of a mirror and noticed Febo coming out of one of the game rooms. I didn't turn until he had gone back.
When I returned, I said: "Excuse me." And Rosetta, with those steady eyes: "But you can stay. You don't bother us at all. I'm not ashamed of what I did."
Momina said: "You saw Rosetta that night. Tell us how she was. The waiters hadn't undressed her, I hope..."
Rosetta had a pained expression, as if trying to laugh. She even blushed. She realized it and her eyes hardened, looking intently at me.
I said something or other, that her mother and the doctor were standing around.
"No, no. I mean how Rosetta was," Momina said, not giving up. "The effect she made on a stranger. You were a stranger then. If she looked ugly, distorted, like someone else. The way one is, near death. After all, that's what she wanted."
They must have known each other very well to talk like that. Rosetta looked at me out of her deep eyes, attentive. I said that I'd only been there an instant but that her face seemed swollen, she was dressed in blue and didn't have shoes on. Of that I was certain. Everything was so in order and so little disturbed, I said, that I had looked under the stretcher to see if there was blood. It looked like an accident, an ordinary accident. After all, a person unconscious is very like a person asleep.
Rosetta breathed heavily, not attempting to smile. Momina said: "When did you take the pills?"
But Rosetta didn't answer. She shrugged her shoulders, looked around, and then asked in a low voice: "Did you really believe I had shot myself?"
"If you really wanted to do it," Momina said, "shooting would have been better. It worked out badly."
Rosetta gave me a deep look, intimidated—at that moment she seemed to be someone else—and she whispered: "Afterwards you feel worse than before. That's what's frightening."
13
There was no more time to talk about it. The girls saw us and came over, and common acquaintances, even some from my hotel, showed up. Now that they knew we were here, Febo, Nene, and that fellow Pegi shuttled between the game rooms, where they carelessly played and lost, and the bar, where they downed one drink after another. It ended with Nene and the boy Pegi, half drunk, squabbling so much that the old painter and Momina intervened because the rest of us were leaving. "We're coming, too," Momina said.
Meanwhile I wandered through the rooms, but the people packed around the tables got on my nerves, and there were big landscapes and nudes on the walls, almost as if to say that the aim of all the gamblers was to live well and keep nude women in furs. What makes you boil is that you have to admit that everything really does come down to this and the gamblers are right. They are all of them right, even those who live by it, even the impoverished old ladies whose avid eyes seem to cash in the other gamblers' winning chips. At least everybody is on a level, gambling—wellborn or low-born, whores, pickpockets, fools or geniuses, they're all after the same thing.
The moment came when Nene, desperate, threw herself on a chair and cried: "Take me away, take me away." Then we went to the cars and piled the others in. It was only then that Nene noticed Rosetta and began calling her and wanted to kiss her. Rosetta obligingly calmed her by lighting her cigarette through the car window.
They left. Now it was our turn. But, looking at each other, we burst out laughing. "Let's have dinner at Ivrea," Momina said, relieved. "Then we'll go back to Montalto."
We returned to the rooms for a last look. Momina said she wanted to try to win the expenses of the trip, now that the jinxes had gone. "Stick with me," she said to Rosetta. "You're loaded with luck, like the rope from a hanged man's neck." Very solemnly they sat down at a table. I stood by, watching. In a couple of turns Momina had lost ten thousand lire. "You try," she said to Rosetta. Rosetta lost another five thousand. "Let's go to the bar," Momina said.
Here we are, I thought; now it begins. "Listen," I said as I was drinking my coffee, "I'll take you to dinner, but leave off."
"Lend me another thousand," Momina said.
"Let's go," Rosetta said. "There's no point."
I gave her the thousand, and we lost that too. While we were in the foyer and Momina was going on about her losses, who should show up but hard-nosed Febo, looking sly.
"And where are the beautiful ladies going?" he grinned.
He hadn't left. No one had thought of him. He had been in the room when we were playing. "You see," Momina said, "it's your fault. Go away, go away."
Instead, all four of us crammed into the Topolino. It wasn't easy to get rid of him, the more so because he joked bitingly about the common jinx and said: "You owe me something. We'll spend the night together."
Febo knew Ivrea well and took us to a place carters went to. "Nice," Momina said when we entered. We went on through to a sort of back room which had a large, hot terra-cotta stove, and the owner, a big man with hair in his ears and a big apron, came and helped us out of our coats, very attentive. "Be careful there," Febo said.
I was watching Rosetta throwing off her leopard jacket. "Put all your furs together and this man's hair would still be more than a match for them," Febo whispered.
"Our architect's not so bad either," Momina said.
"I'm not the only one," he came back. "How about Loris's hair?... How come he wasn't along?"
Momina turned to Rosetta: "You used to like Loris once. He was so amusing."
"In my opinion," Febo said, "hair's a great thing. Suppose Loris was
merely
degenerate? He would have had to give up his trade long ago. But with all that hair of his he gets off scot-free..."
"It's not funny," Rosetta said quietly. "It's not funny and it's not kind. You were friends once."
"Make her drink, make her drink," Febo shouted. "Then Rosetta can tell us about when everybody was friends with everybody..."
We ate the way you eat in such places, and drank likewise. The host suggested mysterious old wines from those regions,- he and Febo winked at each other,- after each dish he asked if it had been to our taste. Even Rosetta livened up and joked; there was no more talk about Loris. Instead we made fun of the alpinists, who at that moment were eating cold canned meat in the hut Febo had designed, and Febo said with his mouth full: "At least they're eating in tasteful surroundings."
"I wish Morelli were with us," Momina said. "He enjoys this kind of thing."
"Who's Morelli?" Rosetta asked.
"He's an old gentleman who's got his name linked with Clelia's," Momina said gaily. "But of course you know him."
"Oh, in other words," Febo said, "the handsomest aren't here. Take what you've got."
Closing time came, and with many smiles the host put us out. One good thing: we left it to Febo to pay him, by promise. I wanted to pay, but Momina said: "Nothing doing. He's already cost us too much, that character."
We took Rosetta to Montalto. Her mother was still up, waiting for her. She met us tearfully, and while Febo kept trying to pull me into the back seat, Momina stood outside arguing and made her promise they would return to Turin the next day. I said goodbye to Rosetta, who gave me her hand through the window and shot me a glance at once rebellious and grateful. We left.
"Why," Febo said, pushing his head forward between our shoulders, "why didn't they ask us to sleep at the villa?"
"Too many women for only one man," Momina said.
"Why be stingy?" he said. "Let's stop at Ivrea at least. I know a hotel..."
I was surprised when Momina accepted. "Tomorrow we're going back to Montalto," she said. "And if we'd gone to the hut, we would have slept outdoors, wouldn't we?"
When he was arranging for the rooms, Febo said: "Too bad they can't give us one for three."
Momina said: "They'll give one for Clelia and me."
We had hardly taken off our furs and washed (Momina had cold cream and perfume in her bag) when the door opened and Febo came in with a tray of liqueurs.
"Service," he said. "On the house."
"Put it down there," Momina said. "Good night."
We couldn't get rid of him. After a while Momina sat on the bed and I lay down on the other side and wrapped myself in the covers. Febo, seated beside Momina, talked away. They discussed women, nightclubs in Turin. They said everything—absolutely everything —with a freedom strange in two people who still used the formal "you" and had only met that day. Febo, with great bursts of laughter, had thrown himself on the bed two or three times and ended by staying there. Momina stretched out beside him. Resigned, I drowsed off a couple of times, and each time I woke there they were, chattering together. Then I realized they were wrapped in the same blanket. At one point, after a sudden spasm from Febo, I aimed a kick at him that got tangled in the covers. Then I sat up on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette. Momina hurried to the bathroom; Febo, his hair mussed, handed me a glass from the almost empty bottle.
He was on me like a devil and tore off the covers. He squirmed a bit and it was soon over. Momina hadn't yet come back when Febo was on his feet beside the bed with his hair up like a dog's; he brushed it down with his hand.
"Now will you let us sleep?" I said.
When he was gone, I took off my dress and wrapped myself in the blankets. I drowsed off before Momina returned.
14
The next morning I was already downstairs drinking my coffee when Momina came down. I had left her with her face sunk in the pillow and her back bare as I had seen her the evening of the first party. She came down all fixed up, but dark around the eyes. She seated herself smiling, put down her bag, and said quietly: "We're a couple of early birds."
She had some coffee and looked at me. "Shall we go?" she said, putting down the cup.
"Shouldn't we pay first?"
"It would be sweet, but do we have to?" She squinted at me with an absent air. "It would be a nice surprise when he wakes up. Brat."
So we left. She said no more. We got into the car in the garage and were immediately in the country.
"It's early to go to the Molas. Let's have a breath of air. Do you know the Canavese?"
So we drove around a Canavese completely hidden in fog and passed through two or three villages.
Her eyes on the road, she said suddenly: "A good girl, Rosetta, isn't she?"
"What's this story about Loris?"
"A year ago," Momina said, "when Rosetta was painting. She took lessons from him. Then she quit. Loris was in the house all the time... You know Loris."
"Like our friend last night," I said.
Momina smiled. "Not exactly."
"You don't mean he's... ?" I ventured.
"What?" Momina exclaimed, looking at me closely. "Oh, that... No. Old gossip. I would know."
"A difficult girl... Suppose a farce like last night had happened to her."
"But she went to the hotel alone," Momina said. "She told me. She doesn't fake with me. Only Adele sees love at the bottom of everything... Rosetta understands these things."
"Well, what did she poison herself for?" I asked. "At her age?"
"Not for love, I'm sure of that," Momina said, frowning. "She lives the same life I used to lead, the same all of us lead... We know all about the Febos..."
She was silent awhile, intent on the road.
"I don't know," I said, "but they make a lot of trouble. It would be better if there weren't any."
"Maybe. But I'd miss them. Wouldn't you? Imagine it. All of them sweet and dignified, all nice and respectable. No moments of truth. Nobody would ever need to come out of his den, to show what he really is, ugly and piggish as he is. How would you get to know men?"
"I think you like to enjoy them." I got that far and then stopped. I saw that I was being a fool, that Momina was worse off than I and laughed at these things.
But she didn't laugh now; she whistled, a light, contemptuous whistle. "Shall we go back?" she said.
The humming of the motor was making me drowsy and I thought about the night, about Febo's red hair. The light mist under the sun gave me a sense of freshness, and suddenly there came into my mind the tiled dairy bar I had entered alone so many mornings before hurrying to the shop, while Guido was sleeping satiated in my bed.
"Well, why do you think Rosetta did it then?" Momina suddenly asked.
"I don't know," I said. "Perhaps ..."
"It just doesn't make sense," she said curtly. "She looks at you with those frightened eyes... keeps closed up ... She's never discussed things with us. You know what I want to say..."
When we got to Montalto the shutters were still closed, but a chilly sun was flooding the garden. Momina was telling me how strongly she was overcome at times by disgust—not just a nausea from this or that person, from an evening or a season, but a disgust with living, with everything and everyone, with time itself that goes so fast and yet never seems to go. Momina lit a cigarette and sounded the horn.
"We'll discuss it another time," she said, laughing.
The gardener opened the gate. We rolled up on the gravel. When we got out in front of the steps, the mother, frightened, appeared at the door.