Men without women
“He must have got mixed up in something in Chicago.”
“I guess so,” said Nick.
“It’s a hell of a thing.”
“It’s an awful thing,” Nick said.
They did not say anything. George reached down for a towel and wiped the
counter.
“I wonder what he did?” Nick said.
“Double-crossed somebody. That’s what they kill them for.”
“I’m going to get out of this town,” Nick said.
“Yes,” said George. “That’s a good thing to do.”
“I can’t stand to think about him waiting in the room and knowing he’s
going to get it. It’s too damned awful.”
“Well,” said George, “you better not think about it.”
CHE TI DICE LA PATRIA?
THE road of the pass was hard and smooth and not yet dusty in the early
morning. Below were the hills with oak and chestnut trees, and far away
below was the sea. On the other side were snowy mountains.
We came down from the pass through wooded country. There were bags of
charcoal piled beside the road, and through the trees we saw
charcoal-burners’ huts. It was Sunday and the road, rising and falling,
but always dropping away from the altitude of the pass, went through the
scrub woods and through villages.
Outside the villages there were fields with vines. The fields were brown
and the vines coarse and thick. The houses were white, and in the
streets the men, in their Sunday clothes, were playing bowls. Against
the walls of some of the houses there were pear trees, their branches
candelabraed against the white walls. The pear trees had been sprayed,
and the walls of the houses were stained a metallic blue-green by the
spray vapor. There were small clearings around the villages where the
vines grew, and then the woods.
In a village, twenty kilometres above Spezia, there was a crowd in the
square, and a young man carrying a suitcase came up to the car and asked
us to take him in to Spezia.
“There are only two places, and they are occupied,” I said. We had an
old Ford coupé.
“I will ride on the outside.”
“You will be uncomfortable.”
“That makes nothing. I must go to Spezia.”
“Should we take him?” I asked Guy.
“He seems to be going anyway,” Guy said. The young man handed in a
parcel through the window.
“Look after this,” he said. Two men tied his suitcase on the back of the
car, above our suitcases. He shook hands with every one, explained that
to a Fascist and a man as used to travelling as himself there was no
discomfort, and climbed up on the running-board on the left-hand side of
the car, holding on inside, his right arm through the open window.
“You can start,” he said. The crowd waved. He waved with his free hand.
“What did he say?” Guy asked me.
“That we could start.”
“Isn’t he nice?” Guy said.
The road followed a river. Across the river were mountains. The sun was
taking the frost out of the grass. It was bright and cold and the air
came cold through the open wind-shield.
“How do you think he likes it out there?” Guy was looking up the road.
His view out of his side of the car was blocked by our guest. The young
man projected from the side of the car like the figurehead of a ship. He
had turned his coat collar up and pulled his hat down and his nose
looked cold in the wind.
“Maybe he’ll get enough of it,” Guy said. “That’s the side our bum
tire’s on.”
“Oh, he’d leave us if we blew out,” I said. “He wouldn’t get his
travelling-clothes dirty.”
“Well, I don’t mind him,” Guy said—“except the way he leans out on the
turns.”
The woods were gone; the road had left the river to climb; the radiator
was boiling; the young man looked annoyedly and suspiciously at the
steam and rusty water; the engine was grinding, with both Guy’s feet on
the first-speed pedal, up and up, back and forth and up, and, finally,
out level. The grinding stopped, and in the new quiet there was a great
churning bubbling in the radiator. We were at the top of the last range
above Spezia and the sea. The road descended with short, barely rounded
turns. Our guest hung out on the turns and nearly pulled the top-heavy
car over.
“You can’t tell him not to,” I said to Guy. “It’s his sense of
self-preservation.”
“The great Italian sense.”
“The greatest Italian sense.”
We came down around curves, through deep dust, the dust powdering the
olive trees. Spezia spread below along the sea. The road flattened
outside the town. Our guest put his head in the window.
“I want to stop.”
“Stop it,” I said to Guy.
We slowed up, at the side of the road. The young man got down, went to
the back of the car and untied the suitcase.
“I stop here, so you won’t get into trouble carrying passengers,” he
said. “My package.”
I handed him the package. He reached in his pocket.
“How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Then thanks,” the young man said, not “thank you,” or “thank you very
much,” or “thank you a thousand times,” all of which you formerly said
in Italy to a man when he handed you a time-table or explained about a
direction. The young man uttered the lowest form of the word “thanks”
and looked after us suspiciously as Guy started the car. I waved my hand
at him. He was too dignified to reply. We went on into Spezia.
“That’s a young man that will go a long way in Italy,” I said to Guy.
“Well,” said Guy, “he went twenty kilometres with us.”
A MEAL IN SPEZIA
We came into Spezia looking for a place to eat. The street was wide and
the houses high and yellow. We followed the tram-track into the centre
of town. On the walls of the houses were stencilled eye-bugging
portraits of Mussolini, with hand-painted “vivas,” the double V in black
paint with drippings of paint down the wall. Side-streets went down to
the harbor. It was bright and the people were all out for Sunday. The
stone paving had been sprinkled and there were damp stretches in the
dust. We went close to the curb to avoid a tram.
“Let’s eat somewhere simple,” Guy said.
We stopped opposite two restaurant signs. We were standing across the
street and I was buying the papers. The two restaurants were side by
side. A woman standing in the doorway of one smiled at us and we crossed
the street and went in.
It was dark inside and at the back of the room three girls were sitting
at a table with an old woman. Across from us, at another table, sat a
sailor. He sat there neither eating nor drinking. Further back, a young
man in a blue suit was writing at a table. His hair was pomaded and
shining and he was very smartly dressed and clean-cut looking.
The light came through the doorway, and through the window where
vegetables, fruit, steaks, and chops were arranged in a show-case. A
girl came and took our order and another girl stood in the doorway. We
noticed that she wore nothing under her house dress. The girl who took
our order put her arm around Guy’s neck while we were looking at the
menu. There were three girls in all, and they all took turns going and
standing in the doorway. The old woman at the table in the back of the
room spoke to them and they sat down again with her.
There was no doorway leading from the room except into the kitchen. A
curtain hung over it. The girl who had taken our order came in from the
kitchen with spaghetti. She put it on the table and brought a bottle of
red wine and sat down at the table.
“Well,” I said to Guy, “you wanted to eat some place simple.”
“This isn’t simple. This is complicated.”
“What do you say?” asked the girl. “Are you Germans?”
“South Germans,” I said. “The South Germans are a gentle, lovable
people.”
“Don’t understand,” she said.
“What’s the mechanics of this place?” Guy asked. “Do I have to let her
put her arm around my neck?”
“Certainly,” I said. “Mussolini has abolished the brothels. This is a
restaurant.”
The girl wore a one-piece dress. She leaned forward against the table
and put her hands on her breasts and smiled. She smiled better on one
side than on the other and turned the good side toward us. The charm of
the good side had been enhanced by some event which had smoothed the
other side of her nose in, as warm wax can be smoothed. Her nose,
however, did not look like warm wax. It was very cold and firmed, only
smoothed in. “You like me?” she asked Guy.
“He adores you,” I said. “But he doesn’t speak Italian.”
“Ich spreche Deutsch,” she said, and stroked Guy’s hair.
“Speak to the lady in your native tongue, Guy.”
“Where do you come from?” asked the lady.
“Potsdam.”
“And you will stay here now for a little while?”
“In this so dear Spezia?” I asked.
“Tell her we have to go,” said Guy. “Tell her we are very ill, and have
no money.”
“My friend is a misogynist,” I said, “an old German misogynist.”
“Tell him I love him.”
I told him.
“Will you shut your mouth and get us out of here?” Guy said. The lady
had placed another arm around his neck. “Tell him he is mine,” she said.
I told him.
“Will you get us out of here?”
“You are quarrelling,” the lady said. “You do not love one another.”
“We are Germans,” I said proudly, “old South Germans.”
“Tell him he is a beautiful boy,” the lady said. Guy is thirty-eight and
takes some pride in the fact that he is taken for a travelling salesman
in France. “You are a beautiful boy,” I said.
“Who says so?” Guy asked, “you or her?”
“She does. I’m just your interpreter. Isn’t that what you got me in on
this trip for?”
“I’m glad it’s her,” said Guy. “I didn’t want to have to leave you here
too.”
“I don’t know. Spezia’s a lovely place.”
“Spezia,” the lady said. “You are talking about Spezia.”
“Lovely place,” I said.
“It is my country,” she said. “Spezia is my home and Italy is my
country.”
“She says that Italy is her country.”
“Tell her it looks like her country,” Guy said.
“What have you for dessert?” I asked.
“Fruit,” she said. “We have bananas.”
“Bananas are all right,” Guy said. “They’ve got skins on.”
“Oh, he takes bananas,” the lady said. She embraced Guy.
“What does she say?” he asked, keeping his face out of the way.
“She is pleased because you take bananas.”
“Tell her I don’t take bananas.”
“The Signor does not take bananas.”
“Ah,” said the lady, crestfallen, “he doesn’t take bananas.”
“Tell her I take a cold bath every morning,” Guy said.
“The Signor takes a cold bath every morning.”
“No understand,” the lady said.
Across from us, the property sailor had not moved. No one in the place
paid any attention to him.
“We want the bill,” I said.
“Oh, no. You must stay.”
“Listen,” the clean-cut young man said from the table where he was
writing, “let them go. These two are worth nothing.”
The lady took my hand. “You won’t stay? You won’t ask him to stay?”
“We have to go,” I said. “We have to get to Pisa, or if possible,
Firenze, to-night. We can amuse ourselves in those cities at the end of
the day. It is now the day. In the day we must cover distance.”
“To stay a little while is nice.”
“To travel is necessary during the light of day.”
“Listen,” the clean-cut young man said. “Don’t bother to talk with these
two. I tell you they are worth nothing and I know.”
“Bring us the bill,” I said. She brought the bill from the old woman and
went back and sat at the table. Another girl came in from the kitchen.
She walked the length of the room and stood in the doorway.
“Don’t bother with these two,” the clean-cut young man said in a wearied
voice. “Come and eat. They are worth nothing.”
We paid the bill and stood up. All the girls, the old woman, and the
clean-cut young man sat down at table together. The property sailor sat
with his head in his hands. No one had spoken to him all the time we
were at lunch. The girl brought us our change that the old woman counted