Two Friends Read online

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  and wide, her waist slender. Rising from this waist, her bust sloped upward, like two large round fruits about to burst. Her breasts were round and firm, and the wool of the suit stretched across them, almost painfully. Nella’s hips were almost as wide as her shoulders, giving her body the singular appearance of a vessel, narrow in the middle and flaring outward at either end. Her legs touched, without the slightest space between them, and her thighs were full. The skin of her legs was hairless, amber-colored, and taut. Her legs were longer than he had imagined, and elegantly tapered. But most of all, the color, the healthy, innocent glow that her body emanated, made a deep impression: it was like the morning sunlight shining upon the objects in a room and the faces of those who have rested in a deep slumber and bathed in clear, fresh water. She had the sweet, limpid, healthy, and almost child-like flesh of a woman who had never known passionate love. But neither was she a virgin, he thought. Her virginity must have been taken almost by chance, perhaps in a single embrace by a fortuitous lover, an act of convenience, almost a means to release her vitality, so impetuous and fresh. Taken without pain and without love, as in nature, without a trace, without regret or shame, nor any other sentiment.

  Nella strutted around the store, watched by the exhausted shopgirl. As a matter of professional obligation, she felt compelled to comment: “Signorina, that one really suits you.” Finally, Nella said with conviction, “I’ll take it.” The two women returned to the folding screen, leaving Sergio alone.

  Once again he felt the impulse to pay for the bathing suit and realized that if he did not do so he would feel shame and regret. When the two women emerged from behind the screen, Sergio pulled his wallet from his pocket almost without thinking and asked: “So how much is it?”

  He was surprised to see that Nella did not protest and instead stood there calmly with a self-possession that did not exactly irritate him

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  but troubled him more than if she had openly asked him to pay for the suit. As he paid he realized that he had only a few bills left in his wallet, just enough to pay for transportation. Holding the package under her arm, Nella said, “Thank you,” in a simple, uningratiating manner that pleased him. They returned to the cab, which took off at a trot.

  A few minutes later they arrived at the address on Via della Vite which Nella had pointed out before. She descended and waited calmly for Sergio to pay for the cab with his last remaining bills. Once again, she seemed ready to take her leave, and once again Sergio reacted by offering to carry her suitcase. Again, she accepted without any hint of embarrassment and preceded him up the staircase.

  It was a modest old building, with a gloomy, steep staircase and vaulted ceilings. They climbed up four floors and Nella stopped at a door with the name Ginori written on a plaque and rang the bell. A scantily dressed woman came to the door, holding a baby in one arm; they could hear music from a radio and smell cooking. Nella said: “I saw a room this morning … I’ve come back with my suitcase.”

  Without a word or any sign that she had understood, the woman disappeared and then reappeared with a large key. It turned out that the room had its own entrance. The woman unlocked the door and said, “Here you are,” and led them into a long, narrow room with a single window facing a courtyard. Someone called out from the apartment: “Adalgisa … Adalgisa …” She excused herself and ran out, closing the door behind her. Sergio and Nella were left alone.

  Sergio realized that he absolutely had to leave. He had already paid for the bathing suit and the taxi, and if Nella decided that she wanted to go down to eat, he would be unable to pay for lunch. And yet the

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  thought of leaving made him unhappy. He wasn’t sure whether he was attracted to her or not; he only knew that he did not want to leave. After a moment, he asked awkwardly: “Where should I put the suitcase?”

  “Right here on the bed, that way it will be easier to un.” He carried the suitcase over to the bed and s down next to it, almost mechanically. Nella had retreated behind n hiding the sink; he heard running water, and assumed that she was washing up. She reappeared, looking happy. “What do you think of the room?”

  Sergio looked around. The place was utterly squalid; long and narrow as a corridor, with a bed at one end and a dresser and chest at the other. The heat was oppressive and the furniture was seedy, of the type found in most boardinghouses. With some effort, he said: “It’s a bit hot.”

  “Yes, but it’s in Rome.”

  She went to the window and opened it wide, looking out. She seemed so satisfied with her room and happy to be in Rome that Sergio could not help adding: “Well, at least it has its own entrance.”

  “Is that a good thing?” she asked, distractedly.

  “Well, you can invite whomever you like.”

  She went over to the suitcase and said, in a dreamy voice: “I wouldn’t know whom to invite … I don’t know anyone here … You’re the only person I know.”

  Almost teasingly, he said, “Well, you can invite me.”

  “I already have.”

  He held out his hand and said, as he held hers, “I’m sorry that this visit must end so soon, but I have to go.”

  “Why? Why don’t you come have lunch with me?”

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  It seemed natural, he thought, to join her for lunch; and just as natural that he should pay. But he couldn’t pay. He was about to say that he really had to go, when an idea occurred to him. They would go for lunch, and he would call Maurizio from the restaurant and ask him to join them. He would ask Maurizio to pay the bill, as a favor. He knew that Maurizio would not leave Rome that afternoon, and also that Nella was the reason, but for some reason he felt neither jealousy nor any scruples about asking him for a loan. “All right, then, let’s go … but where?”

  “Somewhere not too expensive and close by.”

  “We can go around the corner … to La Pergola.”

  “All right.”

  Nella locked the door with an air of satisfaction, holding up the key to show Sergio. He smiled and began to descend the stairs ahead of her. They sat down at one of the few empty tables at the trattoria. It was crowded, mostly with men, but, as they soon found out, almost nothing on the menu was available. Sergio explained to Nella that it was the same everywhere; between the bombings and the German occupation, food was growing increasingly scarce. They ordered rice and a focaccia with a bit of meat that the owner called steak. Nella eagerly ate this paltry lunch and Sergio, who wasn’t hungry, nibbled on a bit of rice. He was thinking about Maurizio and realized he had begun to feel a kind of anticipatory jealousy at the idea of his friend’s paying for lunch. But someone had to pay, and he had no money. He got up, mumbled an excuse, and went off to find a phone.

  But when he dialed Maurizio’s number, he had an unpleasant surprise: Maurizio wasn’t home. Sergio returned gloomily to the table […]

  Version B

  [I]

  That winter, Sergio became friendly with a young

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  man his age by the name of Maurizio. In many ways, Maurizio was Sergio’s opposite. Sergio was poor; he lived in a furnished room in central Rome and survived on a meager income from tutoring and writing for various newspapers. Maurizio was well off and lived with his parents in their villa on the outskirts of town; he was slowly studying toward a still-distant degree. Physically, Sergio was rather slight and very pale, with a grayish complexion and a long, thin face framed by black hair, small, intense eyes, a sharp nose, and a large mouth with extremely thin lips, curled at the corners. It was the face of a hunchback, long-suffering and always on edge. Maurizio, on the other hand, was tall and well proportioned, with regular, harmonious features, curly brown hair, tranquil, open eyes, and a robust, slender frame. Sergio felt a kind of attraction toward Maurizio and envied these qualities—his serenity, his quiet sense of humor, his pleasant nature or even goodness, his vigorous good health—which seemed to augment his own flaw
s. Sergio was a Communist and he considered Maurizio bourgeois, even though he also had certain non-bourgeois characteristics. But Sergio also realized that because he was poor and came from a poor family, he envied Maurizio’s comforts and wealth or at least coveted them. He was attracted by the nonchalance with which Maurizio had become his friend, unfazed by the difference in their social status and their contrasting ideologies. Sergio was convinced that this nonchalance was born not of indifference but rather out of a secret yet clear sympathy that Maurizio, despite his wealth and social station, felt toward Sergio’s Communist ideals and toward people who were simple and poor and different from him. Sergio could not help expressing his thoughts to Maurizio. He told him: “You are bourgeois because you were born into a wealthy home, from wealthy parents. But your sympathies lie with us and underneath it all you probably share our ideas.” Maurizio laughed but after further discussion he did not completely contradict Sergio’s claim. A friendly struggle had emerged between them, a struggle which, in Sergio’s case, had a precise goal. He wanted to convert his friend and convince him to join the Party. Maurizio, who still denied having the Communist sympathies

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  that Sergio attributed to him, or even a hidden desire to adopt them, did not completely close the door. On the contrary, he lured Sergio on with an attentive attitude that was both facetious and evasive. That winter, Sergio felt particularly oppressed by a sense of inferiority toward life and other people, a feeling that had tormented him since childhood. Even more than in the past, he felt that he needed some sort of personal victory in order to believe in himself and in his own destiny, a destiny that had never seemed clear. Almost without realizing it, his desire to find affirmation became increasingly focused on one specific goal: converting Maurizio to Communism. To compensate for his own shortcomings, he had a tendency to consider the life of the Party as his own, its victories as his. While he felt that without the Party he would be nothing, he was continually reassured that at least he could say to himself: “I am a Communist, and this is already a lot.” The idea of winning Maurizio over to the cause pleased him to no end: firstly, because he was vaguely worried by his attraction to Maurizio and thought that once his friend became a Communist this attraction would become more licit and justified; and secondly, because Maurizio’s conversion would reaffirm his own ties to the Party, which was an integral part of his life and had increasingly become the very matter of his life itself.

  None of this was clear in his mind, however, and the only thing he was sure of was the obsessive, driving, and omnipresent desire to guide Maurizio toward his way of thinking. He felt that he needed this victory, or rather that the Party needed it—given that he and the Party were one and the same—and to this end, he carefully studied the best means to achieve his goal, with all the shrewdness and rationality he could muster. Even though he was convinced that Maurizio was ripe, like a fruit about to drop from the branch, he realized that it would not be easy, in part because of this ripeness. It was perhaps easier to convert an enemy in a moment of weakness, by simply vanquishing his point of view, than a sympathizer; a sympathizer could always defend himself from taking the leap with the comforting alibi of his sympathy.

  Sergio’s almost obsessive desire to convert Maurizio

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  to his fervently held ideas was no secret. Sergio had a girlfriend, Lalla, with whom he had been living for almost two years. Sergio had spoken to her about his aspirations regarding Maurizio from the very beginning of their relationship. As for Lalla, though she was not a Communist, she was able to comprehend and appreciate Sergio’s ideas; all of their friends were Communists, and she herself professed to be a sympathizer. After a few discussions with Maurizio, Sergio told his lover that he felt that if he could not convince Maurizio, he could no longer consider himself a man. This desperate declaration expressed the anxiety and insecurity that Sergio felt at the time. One day, after going to see Maurizio, Sergio confidently told Lalla that he felt close to his goal. She observed, calmly: “In my opinion you’re wasting your breath … He’ll never come to a decision … Just wait and see.”

  “Why do you say that?” he asked, surprised. They were at a café downtown, just the two of them at an isolated table, after having dinner at a modest trattoria.

  She did not answer him right away. “You know,” she said, “sometimes a large boulder sits precariously on the edge of a precipice … It looks like it would only take the slightest push to send it tumbling down … but in reality it is so perfectly balanced that nothing in the world could make it fall. Maurizio is like that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” she said, “that Maurizio sympathizes with our ideas … he does not approve of the world he was born into … he can see its faults … he understands that there is no other way … and yet, he won’t cross over to our side.”

  She seemed so convinced that Sergio suddenly had an inkling that she knew more about Maurizio than he did. Perhaps Maurizio had discussed the situation with her. After a short pause, he asked, “Why do you say that? Has Maurizio said something to you?”

  “Of course not,” she said calmly, “he hasn’t said anything … it’s just a hunch.”

  “I have the opposite impression.”

  “Well, I guess we’ll see who’s right.”

  She didn’t seem to attribute much importance to the matter, Sergio reflected, but even so, he was irritated by his lover’s tone. It was a sign that she lacked confidence in him and did not respect him. He changed the subject: “So, what shall we do? … Do you feel like going to the movies?”

  Without looking at him, she answered: “No, I don’t

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  feel like it … In any case, we can’t afford it … For once, let’s just go to bed.”

  Once again he noticed the lack of enthusiasm and confidence reflected in the dryness of her tone. Again, he felt irritated, as he always did when she complained about their poverty, even indirectly: “You’re mad at me because I don’t make enough money … You wish I were rich, like Maurizio.”

  “That’s not true,” she said, with a note of resignation, “you know I like you just as you are …”

  “So why are you using that tone of voice?”

  She hesitated: “Well, yes, to be honest I’m a bit tired of it all: of eating half portions at Paolone’s, of mending my own stockings, of looking for work and not finding it, of living in furnished rooms, of standing in line for the bathroom in the morning, of counting every penny … What’s wrong with that? But it’s not your fault.”

  Sergio said nothing. He was intensely irritated, but he realized that it was unreasonable to take it out on Lalla. After a moment, he said, “Let’s go home.”

  “Yes, let’s go.”

  They left the café and headed down the narrow streets of central Rome toward the alley where they lived. Sergio walked next to his lover, who was almost a head taller than he. She was wearing a light, threadbare brown coat, clutching her collar to protect herself against the wet, weak February wind. He looked at her legs. He could see the spots where she had mended her stockings. Her calves were plump and round. She hadn’t mentioned the state of her shoes, but it surely annoyed her even more than her stockings; they were worn out, deformed, muddy, and extremely old. Lalla walked briskly, crumpling her face in the wind. She had a mane of fine, frizzy hair; beneath it her face looked tiny, with a delicate nose, childlike lips, and big, <…> eyes under a prominent forehead. Her neck was long and her whole body was strangely proportioned; she was not beautiful, but there was something expressive about her. Her shoulders were narrow but she had a large, sagging chest, a thin waist accentuated by a wide, shiny belt, and ample, even opulent hips. Once again he said to himself that she reminded him of a strangely elegant, awkward reptile from a prehistoric age, with a long, rippling neck, a tiny head, and a powerful, massive

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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 …”