Difficult Loves (15 page)

her, a big, strong, gentle hand. Before her was standing the giant with the apple cheeks, his teeth gleaming like the whites of his eyes.

"Please ..." she begged softly, trying to loosen his hand, and called out to Emanuele, "Just coming..." Instead she stayed there in the middle of them.

"Please," she kept on repeating. "Please."

Felice put a glass under Emanuele's nose.

"What can I get you?" he asked, lowering his head in its chef's hat and leaning on the bar, his ten fingers splayed out.

Emanuele was staring into space. "Wait ... I've got an idea. ... Wait," he said and left.

Outside, the street lamps were already lit. Emanuele ran across the street, went into the Café Lamarmora and looked all around. Only the regulars were there, playing cards. "Come and join us, Manuele," they called out. "What's up, Manuele?" But he had already hurried out; he ran on without stopping till he reached the Paris Bar. There he made a round of the tables, beating a fist against the palm of his hand. Finally he whispered in the bartender's ear. The man said, "Not here yet—later tonight, maybe." Emanuele hurried out. The bartender burst out laughing and went over to tell the cashier.

At Giglio's La Bolognese, the old tart from Bologna had hardly stretched out her legs under the table—her varicose veins were beginning to hurt—when Emanuele arrived, with his cap on the back of his head, panting so hard she could not understand what he wanted.

"Come on," he cried, pulling her by the hand. "Come on, quick, it's urgent."

"Manuelino, kid, what's up with you?" asked La Bolognese,

opening wide eyes surrounded by latticed wrinkles under a black fringe. "After all these years. ... What
is
up with you, sweetie?"

But he was already pulling her along by the hand, and she was hobbling behind, her swollen legs hampered by the tight petticoat halfway up her thighs.

In front of the movie theater they ran into Mad Maria accosting a corporal.

"Hey, you come along, too. I'll take you to some Ameri-cans.

Mad Maria did not need telling twice; she left the corporal with the flick of a finger and started running along beside Emanuele, her red hair flying in the wind and her eyes piercing the darkness with anticipation.

The situation had not changed much in The Tub of Diogenes. There were several empty bottles on Felice's shelf, the gin had all gone, and the pizzas just being finished. The two women bustled in, Emanuele urging them along from behind; when the sailors found them suddenly pushed into their midst, they shouted cries of greeting. Exhausted, Emanuele slumped onto a stool. Felice poured him out a stiff drink. One of the sailors broke away from the group and came and slapped Emanuele on the back, while the others gave friendly glances in his direction. Felice began telling them something about Emanuele.

"Well," asked Emanuele. "How am I doing?"

Felice gave his eternally sleepy grin.

"Oh, you'll need at least six. ..."

Things were not improving, in fact; Mad Maria was hanging around the neck of a lanky sailor with a face like a fetus, and squirming in her green dress like a snake trying to change

its skin; La Bolognese had the short Spaniard buried in her bosom and was cosseting him in a motherly way.

But Jolanda did not appear. That enormous back, always in front, prevented anyone from seeing her. Emanuele made nervous signs to Mad Maria and La Bolognese to keep moving around, but they seemed oblivious of everything.

"Oooh..." said Felice, glancing over Emanuele's shoulders.

"What's that for?" Emanuele asked, but the bartender was busy scolding the boy for not drying the glasses quickly enough. Emanuele turned around and saw more sailors arriving. There must have been fifteen of them. The Tub of Diogenes was soon full of drunken sailors. Mad Maria and La Bolognese flung themselves into the middle of the melee— Maria jumping from one sailor's neck to the other, swirling her monkey legs in the air, and the other, with a constant false smile painted in lipstick, gathering the lost ones to her breast like a broody hen.

Once Emanuele caught a sudden glimpse of Jolanda milling about in the midst of it all; then she vanished again. Every now and then Jolanda felt she was going to be trampled underfoot by the crowd around her, but each time she found beside her the giant sailor with the flashing white teeth and eyes, and each time she felt safe without knowing why. Moving gently, the man always kept beside her; his big body in its tight white uniform must have had muscles as smooth as a cat's; his chest rose and fell slowly, as if full of the great air of the sea. Suddenly that voice of his, booming like a buoy, began producing words one by one in a peculiar rhythm; he burst out into song, and they all began swaying and turning as if to a dance band.

Meanwhile, Mad Maria, who knew every corner of the

place, was pushing and kicking her way toward a small door at the back of the bar, arm in arm with a sailor who had a mustache. At first Felice did not want this door to be opened, but the whole mass of them were pushing behind and finally rammed it in.

Emanuele, crouching on top of his stool, was following the scene with misty eyes.

"What's in there, Felice? What's in there?" But Felice did not reply; he was worrying because there was nothing more to eat or drink.

"Go to Valkyria's and ask 'em to lend us something to drink," he said to the onion-faced boy. "Anything, even beer. And cakes. Hurry, now."

While this was happening, Jolanda had been pushed through the little door. Inside was a small room, curtained and clean, containing a bed all made up with a blue coverlet, a wash basin, and so forth. The giant began
to
turn the others out of the room, calmly and firmly, pushing at them with his big hands, and keeping Jolanda behind his shoulders. But for some reason or other all the sailors wanted to stay in the little room, and for each wave that the giant sailor repulsed another wave returned—lessening each time, though, as some tired and stayed outside. Jolanda was pleased that the giant was doing this, because she was able to breathe more freely and also hide the straps that kept popping out of her brassière.

Emanuele was watching it all: he saw the giant's hands pushing the others out of the door, and his wife vanishing so that she must certainly be inside, and the other sailors returning again and again, in waves, with one or two less in each wave, first ten, then nine, then seven. How many minutes would it take the giant to succeed in shutting the door?

Then Emanuele hurried outside again. He crossed the square in hops, as if in a sack race. There was a line of taxis in the rank with all the drivers asleep. He went from one to another, waking them and explaining what he wanted them to do, furious when they didn't understand. One by one the taxis drove off in different directions. Emanuele went off in a taxi, too, standing on the running board.

The noise woke Baci, the old cabman on top of his box, and he hurried down to see if there was any fare to take. He quickly grasped the situation, like the old hand at the job he was, clambered back on his box, and woke up his old horse. When Baci's cab had gone creaking off, the square was left deserted and silent, save for the noise coming from The Tub of Diogenes in the middle of the rubble patch.

At Iris's the girls were all dancing; they were very young, with budlike mouths and tight jerseys molding their jutting breasts. Emanuele was in too much of a hurry to wait till the dance ended. "Hey, you," he called to a girl dancing with her back pressed against a man whose hands were around her. The man turned toward Emanuele; he was a porter with hair low on his forehead and an open shirt. "What d'you want?" he exclaimed. Another three or four stopped around him: boxers' faces, breathing hard through their noses. "Let's get out," muttered Emanuele's driver, "or there'll be another row here, too."

They went off to the Panther's place: but she didn't want to open up since she already had a client. "Dollars," shouted Emanuele, "dollars." She opened then, wrapped in a dressing gown, looking like an allegorical statue. They dragged her down the stairs and pushed her into the taxi. Then they picked up Babilla walking along the sea front with her dog on a

leash, Belbambin at the Traveler's Café with her fox fur around her neck, and Bekuana at the Hotel Pace with her ivory cigarette holder. At the Ninfea they discovered the proprietress had three new girls, who were giggling away and thought they were being taken for a ride in the country. They were all loaded in. Emanuele was sitting in front, rather overcome by the uproar made by all those women crushed in at the back; the tax driver was only worrying if the springs would hold.

Suddenly a figure ran into the middle of the road as if wanting to be run over. He signed for them to stop; it was the onion-faced boy, laden with a crate of beer and a tray of cakes, wanting a lift. The door flew open and with a gasp the boy vanished inside, beer, cakes, and all. Off the taxi started again. Passers-by stopped and stared after this taxi racing along as if it were going to an emergency room, with those screams and high voices coming from inside. Every now and again Emanuele heard a long squeak and said to the driver, "Something's broken—can't you hear that noise?"

The driver shook his head. "It's the boy," he said. Emanuele wiped the sweat from his brow.

When the taxi pulled up in front of the Tub, the boy jumped out first, holding the tray above his head and the crate under his other arm. His hair was standing on end, his eyes were open so wide they took up half his face, and he hopped away like a monkey.

"Felice," he cried, "everything's safe! I didn't let them take a thing! But, oh, if you knew what they did to me, Felice!"

Jolanda was still inside the little room, and the giant was still busy pushing sailors away from the door. But by now there was only one left who insisted on trying to get in; com-

pletely drunk, he kept bouncing back on the giant's hands. When the new arrivals made their entry, Felice, wearily surveying the scene from the top of a stool, saw the sea of white caps part and a plumed hat, a shoulder covered in black silk, a fat haunch like a pig's, a breast draped with artificial flowers, swirling up to the surface and vanishing again like bubbles of air.

There was a sound of brakes outside, and four, five, six— an entire line of taxis arrived; from every taxi emerged women. There was the Wriggler, with her ladylike hair style, advancing majestically, screwing up her shortsighted eyes; there was Spanish Carmen, swathed in veils, her face hollow as a skull, twisting her bony hips like a cat; there was old Lame Joan, hobbling on her little Chinese umbrella; there was the Black Girl of Long Alley with her black-woman's hair and furry legs; there was the Mouse, in a dress covered with the designs of cigarette brands; there was Milena the drug addict, in a dress patterned with playing cards; there was Lollypop, with her face covered with spots; and Inés the Femme Fatale, in an all-lace gown.