Boredom - Alberto Moravia [87]
“She’s gone out.”
“How long ago?”
“Oh, it must be more than an hour. Who wants her?”
I threw down the receiver and then again dialed Cecilia’s number. As soon as I heard her voice, I shouted: “You told me a lie.”
“What do you mean?”
“You told me Gianna had telephoned you a minute ago. Well, I’ve just telephoned her and been told she went out an hour ago.”
“That has nothing to do with it; Gianna was telephoning from outside. From a public telephone.”
This took my breath away. So I was no longer capable, in my present state of fatigue, of orderly, lucid reflection; and I had thought to catch Cecilia in a trap from which, in point of fact, it was perfectly easy for her to escape. “I’m sorry,” I said, with a kind of astonishment, “I hadn’t thought of that. For some time now I don’t seem to understand anything.”
“It seems so to me, too.”
This incident, although of minor importance, convinced me that I could no longer trust my own tired, confused mind; and that I must spy upon Cecilia in a direct way, with my eyes. At first this seemed to me the easiest thing in the world. But as soon as I set about doing it in earnest, I became aware that it was not so.
My idea was to telephone to Cecilia from a public telephone as near as possible to the building in which she lived; and, after assuring myself that she was at home, to go and mount guard opposite her door and wait for her to come out, as she usually did, about three o’clock. I was convinced, from a number of clues, that she went to visit the actor at about that time: I would follow her, I would watch her go into Luciani’s house, I would wait for her to come out, I would stop her. Of course it was by no means inconceivable that Cecilia, even at that moment and in that place, would find some means of lying to me, or rather, as was more probable, of admitting only a part of the truth—and precisely that innocent part which is never lacking in any guilty action; but I counted on the fact of surprising her and catching her in the act to undermine her duplicity and oblige her to confess. Once I had obtained this confession, I was convinced that the devaluation of Cecilia and my consequent liberation would follow of themselves.
I had noticed that the street in which Cecilia lived was intersected two blocks farther down by a side street, and that at the corner there was a bar. One afternoon I stopped my car in front of the bar, went in and rang Cecilia’s number. I realized while the telephone was ringing that I had no excuse for speaking to her. We had already talked on the telephone that morning and had made an arrangement to meet the following day; what then could I say to her? Finally I decided that I would beg her to come to the studio that same day, in spite of our previous agreement, and I also decided that if she accepted I would give up spying upon her once and for all.
The telephone went on ringing for a long time; then at last came Cecilia’s voice, neutral, colorless: “Is that you? What is it?”
“I’ve been thinking it over; I’d like to see you today.”
“Today’s impossible.”
“Why is it impossible?”
“Because I can’t.”
“Do you have to go and see that film producer again today?”
This time she was silent, as though she were waiting for me to ring off. I waited too, hoping that she would be hypocritical enough to give me a word of affection, as any other woman would have done, seeing herself to be, quite rightly, suspected. But Cecilia had no imagination and never said a word more than was necessary. After a long silence, she concluded: “Till tomorrow, then; good-bye.”
I left the bar, got into my car and parked two blocks farther on, in front of Cecilia’s door. It was the first time in my life that I had spied upon anyone, and, as I have said, I was under the illusion that it was an easy thing to do.