Boredom - Alberto Moravia [116]
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?”
“And 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 do 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 pictures; 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 pictures.’”
“And what did you do?”
“I didn’t want to take it, but he forced me to. He threatened to tell Tony that I made love with him if I didn’t take it, so I took it.”
“And then he went on giving you money?”
“Yes.”
“Did he give you bigger sums, too?”
“He knew that Tony and I were going to get married and set up house, so he insisted on my buying furniture for it with his money.”
“What happened to the furniture?”
“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.”
“Do 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 afterward—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