Boredom - Alberto Moravia [100]
I stopped the car abruptly in front of her—she was at that moment fumbling in her bag with her head down—threw the door open and said to her in my normal voice: “Want to get in?” She looked up and saw me, appeared to be on the point of speaking, then changed her mind and got into the car in silence. I started off and asked her: “How do you come to be in these parts?”
“I’ve been to see that film producer,” she replied.
“But isn’t his office in Via Montebello?”
“His private house is near here.”
I threw her a sideways glance and observed, in spite of being troubled myself, that Cecilia was troubled too, however inappropriate that word may seem when used of a person so expressionless. I saw this from a very slight contraction of her eyebrows, which I knew to be a sign of worry and perplexity. I decided to attack her with a combination of reason and severity, as if this had been a police interrogation. “What’s this producer called—quickly now, his name and surname?”
“He’s called Mario Meloni.”
“Where does he live—quickly, his street number, which floor, and the number of his flat?”
“He lives here, in Via Archimede,” she replied, in a grudging tone of voice, like a little school girl being questioned by her teacher, “at number thirty-six, flat six, third floor.”
This was the number of Luciani’s house, but not his floor nor yet the number of his flat. I realized that Cecilia gave me this number to protect herself from the possibility of my contesting her statement, in case I said I had seen her coming out. But how was she going to explain the presence of the actor at her side? I wanted to see how she justified herself. “I saw you just now,” I said, “coming out of number thirty-six, but you weren’t alone, you were with Luciani.”
“He was at the producer’s too. We went there together.”
“What for?”
“He wanted to speak to us about a job.”
“What job?”
“A film.”
“What’s the title of this film?”
“He didn’t tell us.”
“Where did Meloni receive you?”
“In his living room.”
“Describe this room, then—quickly—beginning with the furniture and how it was arranged.”
I knew, of course, that Cecilia did not notice things nor, generally, places in which she had been. I thought therefore that if, in order to reassure me, she described the furnishings of Meloni’s living room with a wealth of detail—that room in which she had never been because it did not exist—I should have a further proof that she was lying to me. But I had not counted upon her unconquerable, negative laziness. She said dryly: “It’s a room like lots of other rooms.”
Disconcerted and somewhat surprised, I insisted: “Meaning what?”
“A room with armchairs, sofas, little tables and chairs.”
These were the same words that she had used to describe the sitting room in her own home. I continued to press her. “What color were the armchairs and sofas?”
“I didn’t look at them.”
“What color were Luciani’s underpants; you must have looked at them, anyhow.”
“There you are, I knew you’d begin making insinuations.”
By this time we had arrived at Via Margutta. I drove into the courtyard, stopped and jumped out and then, faithful to my plan of systematic intimidation, seized Cecilia by the arm and pulled her violently out of the car. “Now we’ll see,” I cried.
“What?”
“Well see if you’ve told the truth.”
I grasped her tightly by her thin, childish arm and realized that I was running purposely in order to be able to give her a violent tug to cause her to stumble and almost fall. “What a way to behave!” she said once, and then: “What’s wrong with you?” yet she did not appear to be either surprised or irritated or frightened. I pushed the key into the lock, turned it and kicked the door open, then turned on the light and, with a last, violent shove, hurled Cecilia on to the divan. She fell, her head lowered; I rushed to the telephone and started furiously turning over the pages of the street directory. I fumbled and searched, found