Train to Budapest (18 page)

When Amara turns again to look at the seat opposite, the boy Emanuele has vanished. Only the book is still there, open face-down on the seat. Amara picks it up and reads the title:
Pinocchio
. In a German translation. She wants to laugh. When she and Emanuele used to read together, the books they found in his father’s library were never in German. When can he have changed one language for another? Though that very book in German seems to be there to remind her that a language now divides her from their common past. German, a language she doesn’t know
well, has snatched him away from her and projected him into that distant future for which she is fishing among the roots of the past.

Amara gently replaces the upturned book on the empty seat and goes back to reading about the voyages of Captain Marlow.

21

The empty house has a stuffy smell. Amara opens all the windows. Late September, but it’s still hot.

She decides not to unpack her things but to go straight to the hospital. But to which department? Which ward? She phones Luca’s sister Susanna, known as Suzy, even though they have had no contact for years. Surely urgency will justify her!

‘Is it true Luca’s in hospital?’

‘He is.’

‘How is he?’

‘Had a minor heart attack. But now he’s better. No chance of that killing him!’ She can hear Suzy laughing at the other end of the line. A strange woman, her sister-in-law. Wild red hair, face puffy with drink, trembling hands. Intelligent, ironic eyes.

‘He’s written to say he wants to talk to me before he dies.’

‘Dies my foot! He’s in better health than I am.’

‘People can die of heart attacks.’

‘Not always. He’s had a fright … That’s true enough.’ She laughs again. She likes to seem more cynical than she really is. Though she usually likes to shrug her shoulders at anything in her own life that hasn’t worked out as she would have liked. Three men – one of them Indian – two miscarriages and a sickly son. She once said, ‘I’m a failure, Amara, and I boast about it.’ But who knows what she meant by ‘failure’? And why should she be proud of it? Just to be seen to be brave? Obstinate and fearless? Yet she and Luca both knew how to fascinate others. They were both more loved than loving. Even to the extent of causing a suicide: a twenty-year-old girl who when she felt rejected by the man of the caresses, pulled a plastic bag over her head and tied it tightly round her neck. Both were good at stimulating the senses of others, if unable to carry through any relationship, whether of love or friendship.

‘Can you tell me where to find him? Which ward is he on?’

‘Cardiology department. Ward 16. You’ll see a gardenia on the wall. Each ward is named for a particular flower. He’s on Gardenia. But it smells of disinfectant.’ She laughs again. Amara can almost see her red curls shaking.

‘That’s where I’ll go, then.’

‘He’ll probably have nothing to say to you. All he likes is being cuddled. You know him, don’t you.’

‘He sent me a desperate letter.’

‘His last flame has left him, he’s feeling lonely.’

‘What’s that to do with me?’

‘You’re still his wife.’

‘We split up two years ago.’

‘But he still thinks of you as his wife. Perhaps the only woman he can rely on in the midst of all the coming and going of those little flushing devices he’s been having.’

‘Flushing devices!?’

‘Well, yes, little beach girls, all plunging necklines and make-up. It’s reached a point where real beauties avoid him. He’s getting old, Amara dear. No longer so easy for him to find ladies to deceive.’

‘You’re hard on your brother, Suzy.’

‘He’s hard on me. Do you think he gave me any help when Vannino was in hospital and seemed to be dying? Or when I had to move house? Do you think he’s ever been there for me when I needed someone to complain to? I know he can’t stand people who grumble, but when your husband leaves you in the lurch with a disabled son and you find yourself on your own with no job at forty, what use is a brother who can’t lend you a helping hand?’

‘Listen, I’m off now. I could call you again this evening.’

‘Why not come to supper? I’ve made pasta al forno and I’m on my own. Do come, it’ll be nice to see you. Years since we last met. Let me remind you of the address: Via Guelfa 3, remember? Near Piazza di Crocifisso. Will you come?’

‘Well, thank you … Actually I’ve only just arrived and haven’t yet …’

‘Alone, aren’t you? I didn’t suppose you’d be with a man. Well then. No need to worry about anyone. I’ll expect you at eight-thirty. Anyway, they’ll throw you out of the hospital at seven. Ciao.’

‘Shall I bring anything?’

‘A bottle of wine, red, ciao.’

The hospital. Splintery floors, windows that won’t close. Despite the flowers on the doors, an aggressive stench of disinfectant, sick bodies, sour breath and foul air. She recognises the ward from the painted and framed gardenia on the door of Room 16.

She can make out three beds in the half-light. It’s difficult to tell them apart, but an arm rises from the bed at the far end, near the window. She too lifts a hand. She goes over. The man she had married, Luca Spiga, is stretched on crumpled sheets in pyjamas, with red socks on his feet, hair stuck to his cheeks, eyes swollen and face unshaven. Where’s that beautiful Luca, once so full of seductive caresses? He’s developed a little round stomach, like a craving for pregnancy. His long beard gives him an unkempt and sickly air. But he’s not as pale as she had imagined he would be; two red knobs on his cheeks give him the look of a farm worker who has been hoeing in the sun.

‘Well, you look fine.’

‘I’ve been near death, Amara. I’ve been waiting for you.’

‘What was it you wanted to tell me?’

‘I can’t talk here just like that in front of everybody.’

‘Whisper in my ear. I’ve come here especially from Vienna.’

‘You’ve really come especially to see me?’

‘Yes, especially for you.’

‘Good lord, what an honour!’

It’s obvious he has nothing in particular to say, as his sister rightly guessed. All he wanted was attention and a little affection. Taking an iron chair, Amara sits down beside him and prepares herself to be patient. As always, his eyes caress sweetly, like his soft persuasive voice.

‘Your sister says you’ve made me come here for nothing.’

‘Suzy hates me.’

‘Maybe she knows you better than I do.’

‘She’s always written me off as a good-for-nothing.’

‘How’s work?’

‘Going badly. I don’t feel at home in this architectural studio. But I have to work.’

‘Can’t you set up on your own?’

‘Too much to worry about, too many arguments, I couldn’t face it. Perhaps better to be paid a monthly salary, even a small one,
than to spend my Saturdays and Sundays drawing up little plans for horrible apartments to pay the taxman and the rent. I don’t want trouble.’

‘You never change. All you want is freedom without responsibility.’

‘Have you come here to criticise me?’

‘I’ve come because you said it was urgent, that you needed to talk to me.’

‘And who says that’s not the truth!?’

‘All right. Talk to me when you feel up to it. How are you feeling? I haven’t even asked you that. What bad manners.’

‘Not so much bad-mannered as slipping off. There’s something else on your mind. Have you got a man?’

‘No.’

‘I’m glad.’

‘On the contrary, you ought to be sorry I haven’t got a man to travel with me and make love to me.’

‘You know what I think, Amara …’ but the sentence stays unfinished. Silence descends between their two tense bodies.

‘What did you want to tell me, Luca?’ Amara asks after a long pause during which he takes her hand and squeezes it between his own.

‘I wanted to say we should come together again, you and me. You need a man to love and look after. I need a woman …’

‘To look after you, I know. Luca, you’re too explicit. You can’t even lie elegantly.’

‘You were born to look after people, you were. You’re a failed mother.’

‘Failed? I intend to marry again and have at least two children.’

‘You never will, Amara, you’re too fond of dreaming. Dreaming and caring for people.’

‘Dreaming and caring for people? Wrong. I shall find myself a husband, as I say, and start a family.’

As she speaks she can feel the warmth of those hands she has loved: large, smooth and tender. She closes her eyes. A moment of reckoning. This man who caresses really does know how to caress. It’s as if he’s pulling her by the arm along a very smooth chute or slide towards an obscure garden of delights. She pulls back her hand with an abrupt gesture that irritates her ex-husband.

‘Your hands are as wonderful as ever, but stop trying to seduce me. It won’t work.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Very sure.’

‘Then listen: you shall have complete liberty. I’m not thinking of a typical husband and wife situation, but an agreement between equals. You in your part of the house, I in mine. You can even have lovers; I shan’t say a word. You’ll be free to do whatever you like. In exchange all I ask of you is your company. Just a bit of company. A presence. Eating together and chatting about this and that. To touch your hand, that’s all I ask of you, every now and then maybe to make love; d’you remember we used to be rather good at that, us two? I don’t think it’s too much to ask. What do you say?’

‘I’d like to remind you that it was you who told me you’d fallen in love with another woman, even younger than me.’

‘I know, I know. But then you went away. We could so easily have gone on living together without making love. But now everything’s different, I’ve discovered how weak I am and how fragile my body is, that I need rest and good company. I’ve had enough of sex. Can you believe that? It nauseates me. I want to dedicate myself to painting, you know I’ve always been a painter.’

‘All this because you’ve had a minor heart attack and it’s scared you.’

‘Nature has given me a warning. And I want to stop drinking, stop smoking and stop searching for young bodies. My life will change completely, in fact it has already changed, do you believe me?’

‘No.’

‘Why are you so distrustful?’

‘I’ve heard you talk like this before. I’m not saying you don’t mean what you say. But then you forget. The problem is, I don’t love you any more. I’m no longer interested in descending to pacts.’

‘I thought you had another man and were hiding that from me. Can you understand that it offends me that you no longer think me worthy of your confidence?’

‘The simple fact is I don’t love you. Does that seem so absurd?’

‘I may be a megalomaniac but I need to feel the women I’ve loved can never forget me. I shall put it even more strongly: I know you still love me. I’m certain of it or you wouldn’t have hurried so quickly to my side.’

‘Haven’t you just told me that I’m motivated by dreams and a need to care for others? Well, this need to care for others is what brought me here. A need that I accept is archaic and profoundly unfashionable.’

‘But the point is: you are here. That’s all that matters now. I don’t want to argue. Please give me your hand again, I shan’t ask anything more of you. Not even to come back tomorrow. When are you leaving?’

‘I thought you were dying.’

‘Not yet. Aren’t you pleased?’

‘Let’s just say you deceived me with that urgent letter.’

‘Okay, let’s say I deceived you. So what? I wanted to see you, that’s the point. I believe I still love you, very much. And do you know something? Love is contagious. When you love someone, you end up infecting the other person like with an illness.’

‘I shall stay three days. Time to see you out of hospital. Then I’m going back to Vienna.’

‘But what on earth can there be for you to do in Vienna, that ugly half-dead city?’

‘You could say Florence is half-dead too. But it isn’t.’

‘I’m jealous. Are you in love with an Austrian?’

‘I’m looking for a child.’

‘A child?’

‘A child who disappeared in 1943.’

22

Suzy comes to the door dressed in black, carrot-coloured curls round her neck and forehead. Amara can’t remember her looking so beautiful and vivacious before. Her radiant eyes are the colour of cocoa. She’s in high-heels, her manicured nails varnished with oxblood. They embrace. Suzy hands her a mauve-coloured aperitif with an olive in it and invites her to sit down at table. She hurries into the kitchen and immediately reappears, holding high in gloved hands a blue ceramic baking-dish that she places carefully on the tablecloth, but not before slipping a wicker mat under it. The promised pasta al forno.

‘This is all there is, help yourself.’

She smiles with satisfaction. Amara notices two of her front teeth have been rebuilt. Seen close to, her eyes look tired and slightly drunk.

‘Vannino?’

‘With his father. Every so often he agrees to do his duty and take him for a day or two. Then he brings him back worn out.’

‘So the two of you are on good terms?’

‘Every month he forgets to pay the maintenance he owes. I have to write, phone him, insist the boy is also his. He delays and delays and sometimes misses a whole month. Children need a father as well as a mother, don’t you think? Luckily, even in the worst moments, I’ve never spoken badly of his father to Vannino. I’m not stupid. The child’s growing up nicely, well-balanced if a bit sickly but that’s not my fault. He was born at seven months and has never fully made up for the two months he lost. But what did that madman Luca tell you?’

‘He wants me to go back to him.’

‘A sensible idea at last. And you?’

‘I said no.’

‘No, absolutely no?’

‘No.’

‘Wouldn’t you like him to give you a child? He’d be an excellent father.’

‘I don’t want that.’

‘Pity. I would have liked to keep you in the family. You know I like you.’

‘I like you too.’

‘But we’ll stay sisters-in-law?’

‘Of course.’

‘Have you found a new love?’

‘Is it impossible even for you to understand that a woman might want to live on her own?’