Boredom - Alberto Moravia [125]
“Very well,” I said. But at the same time I could not help wondering about the reason for this sudden desire to go and see my mother, when a little while before, Cecilia had shown what amounted almost to repugnance at the idea of the visit. It seemed to me, on reflection, that she was suggesting that we should go and see my mother in order to escape a conversation which made her feel uneasy. I knew that she did not like one to talk about her, but I did this continually, and it occurred to me that her stubborn reticence derived from her antipathy to the kind of conversation which I forced upon her. Always ready at any moment and in any situation to surrender herself physically, Cecilia, when it came to a conversation about herself, could be compared to a closed, obstinate oyster which tightens its valves all the more firmly the more one struggles to open them. Usually, as I knew, she contrived to break off this type of conversation by suggesting that we should make love: she would take my hand and bring it to her belly, then close her eyes. Thus she offered me her body in order to distract me from everything else. But that day we could not make love, and so, in her desperate desire not to hear herself talked about, she suggested the first thing that came to hand, the distasteful visit to my mother.
I drove on in silence for a time, thinking about these things, then I asked her: “Did Balestrieri ever talk to you about yourself?”
“No, never.”
“What did he generally talk about?”
“About himself, generally.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he loved me.”
“What else?”
“Nothing else. He went on talking about himself—that is, about what he felt for me. You know, the usual speeches that men make when they’re in love.”
I could not help thinking that at last I had found one difference between myself and Balestrieri: I was always talking to Cecilia about herself, while Balestrieri, like all erotics, talked about himself all the time. In fact, I decided, Balestrieri had never really loved Cecilia. “And did you like him to talk about himself?” I asked her.
“When he told me he loved me, I liked it for a bit, but then he went on repeating the same things and so I gave up listening.”
“Would you have preferred him to talk about you?”
“No.”
“Don’t you like people to talk about you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I’m continually asking you questions about yourself—you don’t like that?”
“No.”
This decided monosyllable almost took my breath away. “Perhaps you reach the point of hating me when I talk to you about yourself?” I asked.
“No, I don’t hate you, but I long for you to stop as soon as possible.”
“What do you feel when I question you about yourself?”
She thought for a moment and then replied: “I feel I don’t want to answer you.”
“To stay silent, you mean?”
“Yes, or to tell you something that isn’t true, just to satisfy you.” She paused for a moment and then went on, with sudden volubility: “Imagine, when I was at the convent and had to go to confession, in order not to talk about myself I used to invent sins I hadn’t committed. Then the priest was satisfied and told me that I must repent and say I don’t know how many prayers to the Madonna and Saint Joseph, and I said yes, I always said yes, although afterward I never did anything he told me to do, because I hadn’t done anything wrong and so there was no need for me to repent.”
It occurred to me all at once that this indiscreet priest had wished to do the same thing, fundamentally, that I had so often tried to do—to catch Cecilia, to imprison her in some sin or other, to nail her down to a penalty. I asked in alarm: “Then with me too you’ve invented things you never did?”
She answered vaguely: “Yes, perhaps I have, sometimes.”
“But what do you mean? That you’ve lied to me? And when?”
“It may be so, but I don’t remember now.”
“Try and remember.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Did you lie