The Empty Canvas (33 page)

'Then forget about it, Professor, forget about it.'

'One moment,' I insisted; 'just now you made a certain allusion. Why, in point of fact, should I acquire this picture as a souvenir? A souvenir of whom, in any case?'

She opened her fine black eyes very wide and stared at me. 'Of that model, of course,' she said.

'And why?'

'Professor, you know why.'

'Signora Balestrieri, I don't understand you.'

'Well, Professor, you know what people say? That that girl is your mistress.'

'Who says so?'

'Everyone. ... The caretaker, to begin with.'

I pretended to be disconcerted. Then, slowly and firmly, I said: 'Ah, so that's the reason. Then you're mistaken. That girl is nothing to me.'

She gave a little laugh of indulgent complicity. 'Ah, Professor! Ah, Professor!' but I interrupted her, raising my voice in a conventional show of annoyance: 'If I say a thing, I mean it! '

Again she withdrew into her shell, like a frightened snail. But next moment she peeped out again, so to speak, with the remark: 'I believe you, Professor. Well, you know what I say? For your sake, I'm glad.'

'Why?'

'I told you: that girl is beautiful but she isn't good.'

'In what way?'

She sighed. 'My husband could have told you better than I can,' she said. 'But my husband is dead. I don't know anything precise, you must understand. I know only one thing: my husband owned a five-roomed flat in the neighbourhood of Piazza Bologna, worth several million lire. But when he died, it was discovered that he had sold the flat. However the millions were not to be found. What
was
found was an account-book in which my husband, who was an orderly man, noted down his expenses. On almost every page there was an entry: Cecilia, so much and so much.'

'You mean to say that this girl exploited your husband?'

'Exactly, Professor.' She sighed again and then went on in a low voice, very hurriedly: 'She's a deep one, that girl, Professor. Heartless, false, mercenary. And she was unfaithful to him, into the bargain; she took money from him and gave it to another man.'

'Gave the money to another man?' I could not help exclaiming.

'Certainly she did—a miserable creature that she went to see every evening after she'd been with my husband during the day.'

'But who was this man?'

'A saxophone player. He played in a night club. They spent my husband's money together. He even bought a car.'

'Then your husband gave this girl a great deal of money?'

'Millions, Professor. It's all noted down in the account-book. But, do you know, Professor?'

'What?'

'Although we were separated, my husband and I remained friends, so to speak. Well, he used to come and see me sometimes and he always talked to me about this girl. It was too much for him, he couldn't help it, and he took me into his confidence. And do you know? A man like him, who had had so many women, a man with his experience and intelligence—he used to cry.'

Recalling that Cecilia, too, had spoken to me of Balestrieri's tears, I said: 'But he cried easily, your husband.'

'Easily?—don't you believe it. We were together for years and I never saw him shed a tear. He cried because this girl had reduced him to despair. D'you know what he used to say? That this girl would be the death of him. He had a presentiment about it.'

'What was the name of the saxophone player to whom Cec ... to whom the girl gave the money?'

She understood that I was interested and she wished to make me understand that she had understood. She drew herself up with dignity. 'Call her by her name, Professor, call her Cecilia,' she said. 'The name of the saxophone player was Tony Proietti. He plays at the Canarino, a club in the neighbourhood of Via Veneto. Well, Professor, I must go. Again, please excuse me. If, however, the pictures interest you, you can always find me at home. I'm in the telephone book: Assunta Balestrieri. Or possibly you might even make your mother buy one—eh, Professor? Are you staying, or are you coming out with me?'

I did not stay, but said good-bye to her and went back to my own studio, where I threw myself on the divan and fell into deep meditation. The proofs of Cecilia's venality were multiplying, but, strangely enough, these proofs did not prove anything. In fact, no sooner was her venality demonstrated than something came to light to contradict it: Balestrieri's money, according to the widow, was passed on by her to her lover, to Tony Proietti. And the truth of this seemed to be proved by the poverty of Cecilia's wardrobe and by the fact that she did not possess even the smallest piece of jewellery. If she had not given it to Proietti, where had Balestrieri's money gone?

The day after the widow Balestrieri's visit, as soon as Cecilia appeared at my studio I asked her point-blank: 'Who is Tony Proietti?'

Without hesitation she replied: 'A saxophone player who plays at the Canarino.'

'Yes, but what has he been to you?'

'I was engaged to him.'

'You were engaged?'

'Yes.'

'And then?'

'Then what?'

'Then what happened?'

Reluctantly she answered: 'He left me.'

'Why?'

'He liked someone else.'

'Did Balestrieri know you were engaged?'

'Of course he knew; I was engaged to Tony when I was fourteen, a year before I met Balestrieri.'

I was astonished. 'But you told me,' I stammered, 'that Balestrieri knew nothing and was jealous and for that reason employed a private detective agency.'

She answered simply: 'Balestrieri wasn't jealous of Tony, because he came after Tony and knew at once that I was engaged to him. He was jealous when he thought I was being unfaithful to him with someone else.'

'But did this "someone else" really exist?'

'Yes, but it was a thing that only lasted a short time.'

'Was that at the same time as Tony?'

'No, it was immediately after Tony and I parted.'

'Did Tony know about Balestrieri?'

'What are you thinking about? If he'd known he'd have killed me.'

'Who, actually, was the first, with you?'

'What d'you mean, the first?'

'The first you made love with.'

'Tony.'

'At what age?'

'I've told you already, I was fourteen.'

'And d'you ever see Tony now?'

'We meet sometimes and greet each other.'

'Tell me another thing: did Balestrieri give you money?'

She looked at me for a moment and then replied with her usual mysterious reluctance: 'Yes, he did.'

'Much or little?'

'That depended.'

'Depended on what?'

She was silent again; then she said: 'I didn't want it, but he insisted on giving it to me.'

'How d'you mean?'

'He insisted. He knew that Tony hadn't a penny and that in the evening, when Tony and I went out together, we couldn't even go to the cinema; so he insisted on my accepting the money and giving it to Tony.'

'It was he who made you give, it to Tony?'

'Yes.'

'What happened the first time?'

'I told him that as we hadn't any money we spent the evenings in the streets. Then he took out a ten-thousand-lire note and put it in my hand and said: "Take this, then you can go to the cinema.'"

'And what did
you
do?'

'I didn't want to take it, but he forced me to. He threatened, if I didn't take it, to tell Tony that I made love with him, so I took it.'

'And then he went on giving you money?'

'Yes.'

'Did he give you bigger sums, too?'

'As he knew that Tony and I were going to get married and set up house, he insisted on my buying furniture for it with his money.'

'What happened to the furniture in the end?'

'Tony has it in his house, I left it for him.'

'And the car?'

'What car?'

'Didn't Balestrieri pay for Tony's car, too?'

'Yes, he did—a small car. Who told you that?'

'Balestrieri's widow.'

'Oh, that woman.'

'D'you know her?'

'Yes. She came to see me, she wanted the money back.'

'And what did you say to her?'

'I told her the truth. I told her that her husband had insisted on my accepting the money and that I had nothing, because I had given it all to Tony, as her husband wished.'

'How long did Balestrieri go on giving you money?'

'For almost two years.'

'And with Tony—how did you explain the money you gave him?'

'I told him I had a rich uncle who was fond of me.'

'And after Tony had left you, did Balestrieri go on giving you money?'

'Yes, now and again, when I asked him.'

'But that other man who came afterwards—the one that Balestrieri was suspicious of—didn't you give him money?'

'No, he didn't need it. He was the son of an industrialist.'

'And did he leave you too?'

'No, it was I who left him, because I had stopped being fond of him.'

'Who were you fond of, then?'

'You. You remember when I used to meet you in the corridor and look at you? Well, it was then that I left him.'

'Did Balestrieri ever realize that you were fond of me?'

'No.'

'Did you ever talk about me to Balestrieri?'

'Yes, once. He couldn't bear you.'

'What did he say about me?'

'That you were very conceited.'

'Conceited?'

'Yes, he hated your painting. He said you didn't know how to paint.'

This conversation left me with the conviction that my attempt to prove to myself that Cecilia was venal might now be said to have failed: Cecilia was not venal; in other words, her character could not be said to be merely acquisitive. It was clear, in fact, that Balestrieri had tried to assert his own superiority over Tony by supporting him through the medium of Cecilia, without the saxophone player being aware of it; and that Cecilia, on her side, had lent herself to Balestrieri's psychological manoeuvre without sharing in it or understanding it. As in my case, therefore, Cecilia had succeeded instinctively in keeping the two worlds of money and of love separate and apart. Balestrieri and I could have certainly affirmed that we had given her money; but she, on her side, could have always made it clear that she had not been paid. And my behaviour towards Cecilia tended increasingly to resemble Balestrieri's; with this difference, however, that the old painter had gone further than I had. To counterbalance that, my folly was greater than his; for he had had no predecessor to serve him as a mirror, so that it was more or less understandable that he should not have been able to stop. I myself, on the contrary, had his example to warn me, at every step, of the risks I was running; yet in spite of this I was repeating the same mistakes that he had made, and in fact almost taking pleasure in doing so.

9

In the meantime Cecilia went on seeing Luciani every day, including the days when she came to see me; so that her elusiveness, after being for a long time a mere hypothesis, had become a certainty, something similar to a fixed character with which I had, one way or another, to settle accounts and to which I had to adapt myself. And I felt, in fact, that my love for her, originating from my inability to possess her, was now, after oscillating violently between boredom and misery, gradually assuming the aspect of a species of vice with four successive phases: the attempt to possess her otherwise than by sexual means; the failure of the attempt; the angry, futile relapse into the sexual relationship; the failure of this also; and then the same thing all over again. But the only thing of which I was not capable was resigning myself to Cecilia's elusiveness, accepting it, and, in short, calmly sharing her favours with Luciani. I remember that, much as Balestrieri had not been jealous of Tony Proietti because he imagined that Cecilia had been unfaithful to Tony with him, so did I seek to console myself by telling myself that, while I knew that Cecilia went to bed with the actor the latter did not know that she went to bed with me. In other words, I now found myself, in relation to Luciani, more or less in the position of a lover in relation to an ignorant husband; and no lover was ever jealous of a husband, precisely because knowing, in certain cases, means possessing and not knowing means not possessing. It was a wretched consolation, but it helped me to pass the time with calculations of the following kind: I knew about Luciani and Luciani did not know about me, therefore Cecilia was unfaithful to him with me and not to me with him. On the other hand, he had come after me, consequently Cecilia had been unfaithful to me with him and not to him with me. Finally there was the question of the money, as there had been with Balestrieri: I gave her money and Luciani not merely did not give her any but spent my money with her: therefore she was making me, not him, pay her, and consequently was, in a way, unfaithful to him with me. However it was not impossible that she was going with Luciani for love and with me for money, therefore she was being unfaithful to me with Luciani. But Cecilia, as I had now ascertained, attributed no importance to money. Money, therefore, had perhaps a sentimental significance between her and me, and since the actor did not give her any money, perhaps she was being unfaithful to Luciani with me. And so on,
ad infinitum.

After these agreeable reflections there remained always the bare fact, unalterable and indestructible, that Cecilia went to bed with Luciani and that, as long as she went on doing so, I should not be able to possess her because incomplete possession is a contradiction in terms. At least Cecilia might have tried to make me forget the incompleteness of my possession! But, confident that she had found a final solution to the problem of the simultaneous presence of two men in her life, not only did she talk to me freely and casually about her relations with the actor, but she did not even trouble to conceal from me the physical traces that Luciani's love-making left upon her. There was no particular self-satisfaction or cruelty in her voice, when, in answer to my question, she replied indifferently: 'Oh, that was Luciani, he gave me a bite '; or again: 'Luciani made this white mark on my dress; we made love without undressing'; there was rather the serenity of a person who finds it easier and more convenient to tell the truth than to invent lies. Cecilia was so entirely convinced that this sharing of her favours had now ceased to cause me any pain that she went so far as to make appointments with Luciani on the telephone in my presence, and then asked me to go with her to his house. In the end, one day when I was in fact taking her in the car to Via Archimede, where Luciani was expecting her, she actually said to me suddenly: 'I should so much like you and Luciani to meet and make friends.' I said nothing; but I reflected that a world made according to Cecilia's notions would be very different from the one in which we lived – a promiscuous world, without boundaries or contours, shapeless, casual and unreal, in which all the women belonged to all the men and no woman had only one man.