The Young Bride (12 page)

You see, I am afraid I have to inform you that, the day after you left Argentina, your father was found in a ditch, drowned in a foot of mud and water.

The young Bride didn't move a muscle. The Father continued.

He was returning from an evening I don't know where, probably he was drunk, or I'd rather think that his horse shied and threw him to the ground. Probably a fatal accident, a piece of bad luck.

It's not a ditch, said the young Bride. It's a river, a wretched river, the only one in that area.

The Father had in mind a different type of reaction, and for that he had been prepared. The letter fell from his hand and he had to lean over to pick it up.

Not a piece of bad luck, continued the young Bride. He promised to do it and he did. He must have gotten drunk as a brute and then jumped.

Her voice was very hard, and calm. But the Father saw tears in her eyes.

Do you know anything else? the young Bride asked.

He left a peculiar will, written the very day of his death, the Father said cautiously.

The young Bride nodded.

The train rattled.

He left half his possessions to his wife, and the other half to his children.

All
his children?

There, that's the point, if you like.

I'd like.

I have to inform you that you are not mentioned, signorina.

Thank you for your care, but I would prefer to avoid euphemisms; I know what I can expect.

Let's say that you are mentioned, but in a context that's rather . . . I would say
harsh
.

Harsh.

There's only one sentence devoted to you.

A sentence that says?

Apparently your father wished you to be cursed, for all the days that you have still to live. I quote from memory, and I apologize profoundly.

The tears began to drip down her face, but she sat with her back straight and her eyes fixed on the Father.

Is there more? she asked.

That's all, said the Father.

How do you know all these things?

I keep myself informed, any businessman does.

Business with Argentina?

It happens.

The young Bride didn't even try to hide her tears, or dry them in any way. And yet in her voice there was no hint of grief, or surprise.

Would you mind if we were silent for a while? she said.

Of course, I understand very well.

A lot of countryside went by, through the windows, unchanging, while the young Bride sat in a steely silence, and the Father stared into the emptiness, reviewing his thoughts. They passed through small stations with poignant names, fields of grain ripening in the heat, farmhouses without poetry, silent bell towers, roofs, stables, bicycles, indifferent humans, curves in the road, rows of plants, and once a circus. Only when the city was looming did the young Bride take out a handkerchief, dry her tears, and look up at the Father.

I'm a girl without a family and without a cent, she said.

Yes, the Father agreed.

Does the Son know?

It didn't seem to me of particular urgency to inform him.

But he will know.

It's inevitable, the Father lied, aware that the matter was a bit more complicated.

Where are you taking me?

I beg your pardon?

Are you taking me away?

The Father chose a firm tone; he wanted the young Bride to know that he was truly master of the situation.

Absolutely not, for now you will stay with the Family, signorina, about that there is nothing to discuss. I wanted to be alone with you in order to communicate the news that concerns you. I'm not taking you away.

Where, then?

To the city, signorina. I ask nothing other than that you follow me.

I'd like to go home. Is it possible?

Naturally. But may I ask you not to?

Why?

The Father assumed a tone that he seldom resorted to, and which he had never used with the young Bride. It implied admission to some intimacy.

You see, I was sorry to have to concern myself with things that regard you, and I wasn't happy to hear before you news that is mine only marginally. I had the vexing sensation of having robbed you of something.

He paused briefly.

So I thought I would be relieved at the idea that you, too, might learn about some circumstances that you are unaware of, and yet that have had and still have a great influence on the life of the Family, and in particular on mine.

The young Bride looked up, displaying an amazement that she had shown no hint of in hearing about her father.

Are you about to tell me a secret? she asked.

No, I wouldn't be able to. And then I tend to avoid situations that are too emotionally demanding, for reasons of medical prudence, as you can perhaps understand.

The young Bride gave a slight nod of agreement.

The Father continued.

I believe that the best system is for you to come with me where I'm taking you; it's a place where someone will be able to tell you what I feel is important for you to know.

Concentrating on a cuff link, he sought the exact words.

I must warn you that at first it will appear to you a less than appropriate place, especially after the news you've just received, but I've thought about it for a long time and I have the presumption to believe that you are a girl not much inclined to cliché, and so I'm sure that it won't disturb you, and in the end you'll see that there was no other way.

The young Bride seemed for a moment to have something to say, then she merely turned her gaze to the window. She saw that the big station was swallowing them up with its palate of iron and glass.

 

And what do you do in all this solitude? L. asked me, while she inspected, horrified, the maniacal orderliness of my house.

I'm writing my book, I answered.

And what did you come to do in this solitude of mine? I asked her, noting that her lips were the same as before, lips difficult to understand.

To read your book, she answered.

But with that look I know. Everyone has it, a little, everyone around you, when you've been working on a book for months, maybe years, that no one has read yet. Deep down they all think that you're not
really
writing. What they expect is to find a mountain of pages stuck in a drawer with
The morning has gold in its mouth
written on them thousands of times. You should see their surprise, when they discover that you've written the book, seriously. Assholes.

I handed her the printed pages, she stretched out on a sofa and, smoking, began to read.

I had known her, years ago. Once she had intimated that she was dying, but maybe it was only unhappiness, or incompetent doctors. Now she has two children and a husband. She said intelligent things about what I was writing, while we escaped into hotel rooms to love each other, devious but obstinate. She always said intelligent things, too, about people who live and sometimes about how we lived. Maybe I expected her to reopen the map of the Earth and show me where I was—I knew that, if she did, she would do it with a particular beauty in her gestures, because that was inevitable with her. That was why I answered her, when she wrote, re-emerging from the void into which she had disappeared. It's not something I've done, lately. I don't answer anyone. I don't ask anything of anyone. I mustn't think about it, otherwise I become unable to breathe, for the horror.

Now she was lying on the sofa reading what was printed on those pages, instead of
The morning has gold in its mouth
. It must have taken an hour—a bit more. I looked at her the whole time, searching for a name for that film that remains on women we have loved when time has passed, and we haven't ever really left each other, or hated each other, or fought—we simply separated. It shouldn't matter to me much, now that I hardly have names for anything, but the truth is that I have a score to settle with that name, it's been escaping me for years. When I'm a hairsbreadth from catching it, it enters an invisible crack in the wall. Then there's no way to make it come out. It remains the fragrance of a nameless attraction, and what is nameless is unnerving.

Finally she stretched, placed the sheets of paper on the floor, and turned on her side to look at me carefully. She was still beautiful, about this there was no doubt.

Where the hell does he take her?

She wanted to know about the Father and the young Bride.

I told you where he took her.

To a brothel? she asked, not convinced.

Very elegant, I answered. You have to imagine a large room, lit by dim and artfully placed lamps, and a lot of people standing around or sitting on couches, waiters in the corners, trays, crystal, you might have taken it for a very respectable party, but the normality was marred by the fact that there was often so little distance between the faces—the hands initiated inappropriate gestures, like a palm sliding under the hem of a skirt, or the fingers moving to play with a curl, an earring. They were details, but they clashed with the rest, and no one seemed to realize it, or to be disturbed by it. The necklines did not conceal, the couches were tilted in precarious positions, the cigarettes traveled from mouth to mouth. One would have said that some urgency had brought back to the surface traces of a shamelessness that usually lay buried beneath conventions: just as an archeological dig might have brought to the surface patches of an obscene mosaic in the pavement of a basilica. The young Bride was dazzled by the sight. From the fact that some couples rose, and from the fact that they disappeared behind doors that opened and closed behind them, she sensed that the big room was an inclined plane and the destination of all those gestures a labyrinthine elsewhere hidden somewhere in the building.

Why did you bring me here? she asked.

It's a very particular place, the Father said.

I understand. But what is it?

A sort of club, let's say.

Are all the people real?

I'm not sure I understand the question.

Are they actors, is it a play, or what?

Oh, if that's what you meant, no, absolutely not. That's not the purpose.

So it's what I think.

Probably. But do you see that very elegant woman who is coming toward us, smiling? There, I'm sure she'll have a way of explaining everything to you and of putting you at your ease.

The elegant Woman was holding a champagne glass in her hand, and when she reached them she leaned forward to kiss the Father, murmuring something secret in his ear. Then she turned to the young Bride.

I've heard a lot about you, she said, and then she leaned forward to kiss her once, on one cheek. She had evidently been very beautiful, when she was young, and now she seemed to have no need to demonstrate anything anymore. She was wearing a gorgeous dress, but high-necked, and in her hair she wore jewels that to the young Bride seemed ancient trophies.

Because I imagined—I said to L.—this elegant Woman and the young Bride, at that big ambiguous party, sitting on a small divan, a little apart from the others, and sheltered by subdued, indirect lighting, as if enclosed in a special bubble, near the reckless joy of the others, but blown in the glass of their words. I always saw them drinking something, wine or champagne, and I know that every so often they cast a glance around, but without seeing. I know that it would not have occurred to anyone to approach them. The elegant Woman had a job to do, but she wasn't in a hurry, and a story to tell, but carefully. She spoke slowly and pronounced the names of things without embarrassment, because that was part of her profession.

What profession? L. asked me.

The elegant Woman laughed, with a lovely, crystalline laugh. What do you mean,
what
profession
, girl. The only one practiced here.

What's that?

Men pay to go to bed with me. I'm simplifying a little, obviously.

Try not to simplify.

Well, they can also pay to
not
go to bed with me, or to talk while they touch me, or to watch me fuck, or to be looked at, or . . .

I understand, that's enough.

It was you who asked me not to simplify.

Yes, of course. Incredible.

What's incredible, my dear?

That there are women who practice a profession like that.

Oh, not only women, it's something men do, too. If you observe with some attention you'll find around you women of a certain age who seem to spend their money with careless originality. Over there, for example. But also that girl, the tall one, who's laughing. The man she's laughing with, not bad, is he? I can assure you that she is paying him.

Money.

Money, yes.

How does one end up making love
for money
?

Oh, there are many ways.

Like?

Out of hunger. Out of boredom. By chance. Because you have talent. To get revenge on someone. For love of someone. You merely have to choose.

And it's not terrible?

The elegant Woman said that she didn't know anymore. Maybe, she said. But she added that it would be stupid not to understand that there was also something very intriguing about being a prostitute, and that is the reason that, sitting opposite L., who lay on her side on the sofa, looking at me, I ended up asking if it had ever occurred to her that there might be something very intriguing about being a prostitute. She answered yes, that it had occurred to her. Then we were silent for quite a while.

For example, undressing for someone you don't know, she said, must be nice. And also other things, she said.

What things?

I asked her because I remembered this lovely thing about her, that she had no shame about naming things.

She looked at me for a long time; she was searching for a limit.

The minutes before, or the hours, waiting. Knowing that you're about to do it, but without knowing with whom you'll do it.

She said it slowly.

Getting dressed without embarrassment.

Curiosity, discovering bodies that you would never have chosen, taking them in hand, touching them, being able to touch them.