Boredom - Alberto Moravia [81]
Lunch ended in an unexpected way. After we had each eaten a small red and green apple, Cecilia’s father suddenly rose to his feet and, working his unsteady legs in trousers so wide and loose that they appeared to have nothing inside them, went out of the room, to reappear a moment later wearing an overcoat too big for him, and with his face half hidden by the brim of a hat which looked as if it did not belong to him. He waved his hand to me from a distance, then added some remark or other, pointing to the windows which were now brightened by a feeble round ball of a sun. “He says he’s going for a walk,” explained his wife, rising in her turn, “and I must go with him. We’ll take a little turn and then I’ll go with him to the pictures and leave him there, because the shop opens at four. Ah, it’s a heavy cross to bear, Professor, a man reduced to such a state.” She added a few more remarks of the same kind on the subject of her husband, who meanwhile was waiting for her in the doorway at the far end of the room, looking like a scarecrow. She said good-bye to me, told Cecilia to be careful and shut the door properly when we left, and went out with her husband. After a moment I heard her voice in the hall saying something I could not catch, then the door closed and there was silence.
Cecilia and I had remained in our places, some distance from one another, at the untidy table. After a moment I said: “So these are the parents who, according to you, complained because we saw each other every day?”
She got up and started clearing the table without saying a word. It was her way of answering embarrassing questions. I persisted. “How can you expect me to believe that a father and mother like yours really made trouble?”
“Why, what is there special about my father and mother?”
“Nothing special. If anything, it’s something very ordinary.”
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean that they’re parents who don’t seem to me to be too severe.”
“And yet it’s true, they did complain because we saw each other too often.”
“Perhaps your father did, but not your mother.”
“Why not my mother?”
“Because your mother knew about Balestrieri. And if she didn’t complain on his account, why should she on mine?”
“I’ve already told you she knew nothing.”
“Well then, if she knew nothing, why did she change the words your father said today?”
“Why, when?”
“Do you think I didn’t notice? What your father actually said was that he didn’t like Balestrieri because he made love to you, but your mother tried to make me believe that Balestrieri was making love to her. Isn’t that so?”
She hesitated, then admitted reluctantly: “Yes, it is.”
“Then let me ask you again: if your mother really knew nothing of your relations with Balestrieri, what need was there for her to make me think that Balestrieri was making love to her?”
“Because it was true,” she answered simply.
“What was true?”
“I myself told Balestrieri to make love to Mother. In that way she wouldn’t notice that he was in love with me.”
“Very correct, and very ingenious too. And did your mother believe in Balestrieri’s lovemaking?”
“She certainly did.”
“But your father—he didn’t believe in it, did he?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Why?”
“One day he saw us, Balestrieri and me.”
“What did he see?”
“He saw him kissing me.”
“And he didn’t tell your mother?”
“Yes, he told her, but she didn’t believe it, because Balestrieri was making love to her all the time; so she told my father he had invented it because he was jealous.”
“Did Balestrieri go on coming to your house after that?”
“Yes, he went on coming, but we were more careful. So much so that in the end Dad almost thought he had made a mistake. But he went on hating Balestrieri. When he saw him arrive, he went out.”
The table was cleared by now, and Cecilia was putting the chairs back in their proper places. As she passed close to me, I pulled her to me by the arm