Boredom - Alberto Moravia [77]
I stood aside, and she took from the shelf a brush that had lost most of its bristles and a dirty comb from which several teeth were missing, and began energetically doing her hair. I said casually: “Your father is really very ill; I’m afraid the doctors are right.”
“What d’you mean?”
“That he hasn’t long to live.”
“Yes, I know.”
“How will you manage?”
“How will we manage what?”
“When he’s dead.”
“In what sense?”
“What will you live on?”
She answered hurriedly, passing a lipstick over her mouth: “We’ll manage as we’ve always done.”
“And how have you managed?”
“We have a shop. That’s what we live on.”
“A shop? You never told me.”
“You never asked.”
“What do you sell in the shop?”
“Umbrellas, suitcases, bags, leather goods.”
“And who is there in the shop?”
“My mother and my aunt.”
“Does this shop pay well?”
She finished painting her lips, then answered conclusively: “No, it pays very little.”
I put my arm around her waist and pressed myself against her, my belly close against her back. She threw me a brief glance, whether of understanding or of surprise I could not tell; then she took a black pencil and began touching up her eyebrows. “D’you ever think of death?” I asked her.
I was clasping her tightly and she started moving her hips, slowly and vigorously, from right to left. “No,” she said, “I never think about it.”
“Not even when you see your father in such a bad state?”
“No.”
“Surely anyone in your position would think about it.”
“I’m quite well; why should I think about death?”
“But there are other people.”
“So they say.”
“Why, aren’t you sure?”
“No, I was only talking.”
“And your father—do you imagine he thinks about death?”
“Yes, he does.”
“Is your father afraid of dying?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“Does he know he’s going to die?”
“No, he doesn’t know.”
“And do you never think about his dying?”
“As long as he’s alive, even if he’s sick, I don’t think about his death. I’ll think about it on the day he dies. All I think about now is that he’s sick.”
Abruptly I let go of her, saying: “Do you know, I want you?”
“Yes, I realized that.”
She finished touching up her eyebrows, put the pencil back on the shelf and pushed me toward the door. “Come on,” she said, “Mother must be back by now.”
And in fact she had come back. As we came out into the passage, a shrill, discordant voice, like the tinkle of chimes let loose when you open the door of a shop, started shouting: “Cecilia! Cecilia!”
Cecilia started off in the direction of this voice and I followed her. The kitchen door was open, and her mother, still wearing her coat and hat, was standing in front of the stove, spoon in hand, stirring a pot. The kitchen was dark and smoky and of an unusual, triangular shape: the stove stood on the longest side, underneath a hood; the sharp point of the triangle ended in a high, narrow window, a half-window, actually, and obscured by clothes hung up to dry. The room was dirty and extremely untidy, with peelings scattered on the floor, the marble table covered with parcels and paper bags, and piles of dirty plates heaped up in a jumble in the sink near the window. Without turning around, Cecilia’s mother said: “The dishes, the dishes have got to be washed.”
“I’ll wash the whole lot this evening,” replied Cecilia, “today’s and yesterday’s as well.”
“And the day before yesterday’s too,” said her mother. “That’s what you say every day and soon we won’t have any plates left. I washed the breakfast dishes this morning, but you’ll have to wash the dinner dishes because I have to go to the shop.”
“Let me introduce Dino, Mother.”
“Oh, Professor, excuse me, it’s a pleasure, a pleasure, excuse me, excuse me, it’s a pleasure.” The clanging sound of her voice went on for some time, chiming the words “pleasure” and “excuse me” while I was shaking her hand. I looked at her. She was a woman of small stature, with a minute, wasted face which seemed, however, to have blossomed belatedly into a kind of uproarious youthfulness. Her eyes, black, unsophisticated, and surrounded with fine