Difficult Loves

  And more and more the thought of that cursed apartment building nagged at him.

  As soon as he had a few days off, he went home. I’m going to take the affair in hand and settle everything in quick order, he said to himself. He felt he had adopted the style of the movie world. But one look at that muddy, cluttered site, at that squalid cement structure standing there half finished, and he felt his bustling efficiency draining away. He didn’t even know where to start. He listened to his mother listing the principal subjects of dispute (for example, the interminable argument as to whose responsibility the drinking water and electricity connections were), and then to Caisotti, who no longer troubled to conceal his contempt for partners so helpless and distracted.

  The man was now selling or leasing apartments, in defiance of the contract, which gave him no rights on the property until he had delivered their part of the building to the Anfossis. He would finish an apartment hurriedly and still be putting in the fixtures and giving it the last coat of paint when the occupants were due to arrive.

  “You can finish your apartments when you want, but we have to wait for ours! Is that it, Caisotti?”

  “You don’t even have any tenants waiting to come in.”

  Quinto had expected this answer. He had looked for tenants and put the matter in the hands of the agencies, but it was quite clear that nothing was going to be ready in the summer. Someone did come up the hill to have a look, but finding the building still under construction and the whole place covered with mud, went back to the agency to complain that he had been given the wrong address. The only thing ready was a shop on the ground floor, a kind of storeroom, which he hoped to rent to a flower shipper, since the flower market was nearby. He went there early one morning, when business was at its briskest, to explore the possibilities, but the season was already in full swing and no one was going to think of moving at such a time.

  One Sunday, the day before he was due to return to Rome, he was passing by the site when he saw someone examining it with interest and then walk inside. Quinto followed him. He was a small, elderly man wearing an overcoat and a hat. He went up the cement steps (still without marble) to the second floor and peered through the black doorways. “Excuse me, is there someone you want to see?” Quinto shouted up the stairwell. The old man passed from one apartment to another, taking care not to trip over the cans lying around. “No, no, I’m just looking.”

  Quinto went up to the second floor himself and looked everywhere for him; finally he saw him come in from a balcony. “Do you want a place to rent?” Quinto asked. The old man was already on the way to the next floor. “No, no, just looking.” Quinto went up to the third floor. “If you want an apartment, the ones to the right are ours. We can discuss terms,” he shouted into space, for the man had disappeared again. “We’ve got three-room and four-room apartments –” Realizing that the visitor was on the floor above, he ran up. “Three-room and four-room apartments,” he repeated.

  Even if he decided against doing so, the fact remained that the man had come to look for an apartment. Otherwise, why should he be sticking his nose in everywhere as though he wanted to examine every room and every detail of the construction? Everything depended on being able to persuade him now, so that he did business with them and not with Caisotti. “It’s a mess just now,” Quinto said, “but if you want an apartment, we can have it ready in a matter of days. You can start putting your furniture in . . .”

  But the old man wasn’t even listening. He was checking the washbasins and the sewer lines. Perhaps he was deaf? But no, he had answered promptly enough at the beginning. “If we agree on terms now, you can move your furniture the first of the month,” he cried, but the man was gone again – and the stairs joining the fourth and fifth floors weren’t yet in place. Quinto had a fright. He was such a nosy old devil. Had he managed to fall down the elevator shaft?

  But no, there he was, balancing on the cornice of the flat terrace roof, which as yet had no parapet. He had climbed up there on the planks that the workmen used, and was inspecting the water tanks. He was coming down now, keeping his balance carefully, knees slightly bent, arms thrust forward.

  Quinto went to give him a hand. “Look, will you please tell me. If you don’t want to buy or rent, why exactly are you so interested in this place?”

  The old man, refusing his help, had now reached the landing and was starting to go down the stairs. “It’s nothing. I was just taking a look at the building because I have to foreclose.”

  20

  During the spring the film company moved to Cannes for the outside scenes. Quinto went to and fro between Rome and Cannes and sometimes stayed at the French producer’s villa at Juan-les-Pins. The journey took him near home, but he didn’t stop; he couldn’t spare the time, and the transition from the rhythm of moviemaking to that of Caisotti’s building firm was too much for him. Financially and intellectually, he was used to living a quiet, modest life and he was finding this new and in every sense of the word extravagant existence a continual strain. The French girl was proving difficult. He was leading a life that seemed to carry every possibility of happiness; and yet he felt miserable.

  The situation at home was more and more involved. Someone had bought a garage in Caisotti’s part of the building, and then hearing that his ownership was liable to be challenged, had rushed off to Signora Anfossi to ask what the situation was. She advised the man not to buy from Caisotti until he had fulfilled his obligations. There was a fearful squabble when Caisotti heard about this, and he was threatening to sue the Signora for defamation. How could he meet his obligations with the Anfossis slandering him and doing their best to ruin his business? Canal, meanwhile, had drawn up a claim against Caisotti for failure to fulfill the terms of the contract, for damages sustained by his clients due to loss of rents, and for his violation of the clause relating to the height of the building. Unless Caisotti gave satisfaction within a month, he was going to prosecute. But Caisotti now had a lawyer of his own and he too was drawing up a claim: he accused Signora Anfossi of repeated defamation of character, of violation of the contract (failure to drain the cesspool within the agreed time), and even of theft. This referred to the business of the pipes the year before; it continued to crop up whenever there was a quarrel. Caisotti’s charges made no sort of sense, but if Canal presented his claim, Caisotti would answer with his. It would at least serve to confuse the issue and drag the thing out. They were at present negotiating in order to try and find some way of reaching an agreement.

  In the thick of all this, Quinto was catapulted from Cannes back to Rome. The French producer was withdrawing, the Italian company was neck deep in debts. They shot a few inside scenes at Cinecittà, then the crisis took a turn for the worse and the whole project was suspended. Signora Anfossi wrote to say that she had at last been able to find a tenant for the shop: a certain Signora Hofer, a florist, who exported gladioli to Munich.

  In September the Italian producer went bankrupt and the movie was bought by a new company, belonging to a big building-site speculator, which finished it rapidly on a shoestring budget. Quinto was no longer needed, since his job of “production assistant” was considered superfluous. He thought he still had some money due to him, but they were able to show him that according to the terms of his contract they didn’t owe him anything. He had already broken off with the French girl at Cannes. He came home without a job and without a penny.

  His mother was now mainly involved with Signora Hofer. She didn’t pay her rent, she didn’t answer letters, and she was nowhere to be found. Apparently she had gone to Germany. She turned up, finally, when Quinto was at home. She was nearly six feet tall, an energetic, handsome woman, a little heavy perhaps, but well built; her suit did not conceal the generous breasts; her legs were a shade masculine, but slender and shapely. She had a hard, plain face, but it showed a kind of pride, the pride of a woman who knows her business. Her blond, curled hair was fastened in back by a quite inappropriate pink ribbon. Qu
into was instantly drawn to this heavy German body and he couldn’t take his eyes off her, but she addressed herself, impassively, to Signora Anfossi. She had a strong accent, but her Italian was coldly fluent. She told the Signora that she had had to remain in Germany longer than she had anticipated and had therefore not been able to pay the rent. But her affairs were now in order and she would return with the money within the week. And off she went, treading firmly in her mannish shoes. Quinto had not managed to catch her eye.

  Toward the end of the week, his mother began saying, “No sign of Signora Hofer.” He was stretched out on a chaise longue reading The Confessions of Felix Krull. “Signora Hofer, eh? Signora Hofer . . . We’ll make Signora Hofer pay up all right!” He went on playing, obsessively, with her name and her image until gradually he found himself summing up in her person everything he had missed, everything he had failed to bring off – his real estate plunge, the movies, the French girl. “Signora Hofer,” he sniggered to himself. “I’ll deal with Signora Hofer.”

  She was only in her shop first thing in the morning, with a couple of packers; this was when the flowers arrived from the market. She supervised the packing of the gladioli into baskets, which were then taken to the agent who made the trip to the airport at Milan. This done, she pulled down the shutters and left. Quinto got up late and he never saw her. She had, however, left her home address.

  When a week had passed, he said to his mother. “Let me have the receipt form, signed, and the revenue stamps. I’m going to call on the Hofer woman and make her pay up.”

  She was living in an old house on the sea front. She opened the door herself. She was wearing a blouse with short sleeves and her arms were a little softer than Quinto had expected. Her expression was doubtful, as though she didn’t recognize him. Quinto at once pulled the receipt out of his pocket and said that since she hadn’t been able to find the time to visit them, he had come to her in order to settle their account. She opened the door and let him in. Her room, with its embroidered cushions and dolls, suggested a furnished apartment. On a chest of drawers there were photographs of two men, with some flowers in front of them. One was a German airman, the other was an Italian officer who, thought Quinto (always ready to suppose the worst), looked as though he were wearing the uniform of the Republic of Salò.*

  “You really needn’t have troubled, Signor Anfossi,” she said. “I was coming to see you tomorrow or the day after.” Quinto’s glance was shuttling between her eyes, still remote and distracted, and the firm, full flesh of her body.

  “But why don’t we settle the account now? I’ve brought the receipt. . . .” Quinto’s voice was trying to sound a little playful, a little suggestive – anything to get away from this dry, business-like relation. But it was no good; these delicate vibrations were wasted on Signora Hofer. “If I say that I am coming to see you tomorrow or the day after, Signor Anfossi, it means that it isn’t convenient for me to pay until tomorrow or the day after.” A fine nerve the woman had, taking this high tone when she was already a week late. It was not, however, on the field of finance that Quinto was resolved to conquer.

  He gave a little laugh and said, firmly, “Signora Hofer, I don’t like quarreling with a good-looking woman like you.”

  Plainly she was not expecting this approach, and there was a momentary glint in her eyes that was on the edge of irony. But Quinto, quick as a sexual maniac, was already reaching out to unbutton her blouse. She started back, indignantly, then stopped. “Signor Anfossi, what in the world do you think you’re doing?” But his arms were already around her.

  The woman was a tigress; he was no match for her. They lurched violently from one end of the room to another, but he never succeeded in getting her off her feet. He had no idea what he was doing; he wanted his revenge for everything – and this was it. In this state of frenzy, he almost passed out at one point and found himself lying exhausted, surrounded by dolls, on the couch. Signora Hofer was standing looking at him with a faint air of contempt. Not once had she smiled.

  Quinto straightened himself, trying hard to keep his mind blank. She showed him to the door. Simply for the sake of something to say, he took the receipt out of his pocket. “Then you’ll be coming . . .”

  She reached out for the receipt, went to the bureau, opened her purse, put the receipt into it, went to the door and opened it. “Good evening, Signor Anfossi.”

  Quinto left. The days were drawing in. It was dark.

  21

  The woman whom Caisotti employed as his lawyer didn’t seem quite to understand the nature of the dispute. He had to decide everything for himself and she merely tried to give a legal color to what he was saying.

  “Come off it,” said Canal from behind his desk. “Are you seriously proposing to accuse Signora Anfossi of theft? The judge is going to laugh in your face. You ought to advise your client not to play the fool,” he added, turning to the lawyer.

  Caisotti was sitting in an armchair, fists clenched, face dark and savage. The lawyer turned over some pages. “Let me see . . . Yes, here it is. On the eighteenth day of June, nineteenth fifty-four, four metal drain pipes measuring . . .”

  Canal did his best. He spoke sensibly, like a practical man, without flights of rhetoric, though there were moments when he had difficulty in controlling himself. He was fed up with all this deception and disgusted by the way the law could be used by scoundrels to protect themselves. But this was how things went and his job was to adjust them as best he could, and repair the damage done by swindlers who think they are smart and by starry-eyed dreamers who think everything should be done for them. They both end up by making the same sort of mess, he reflected. So he just went on trying to persuade the other side that there was really no point in dragging the affair out by introducing legal quibbles: the debt had to be paid, the apartments had to be completed and handed over. As for the exact amount of the sum owed, here there was room for compromise since his clients were aware that they had nothing to gain by running Caisotti’s business. They therefore proposed a final figure. The alternative was to go to court – and this time they meant it.

  It was Canal who had proposed these conciliatory tactics to Quinto. “What are we trying to do?” he said to him the day before the meeting. “You’ve lost interest in the whole affair, that’s perfectly obvious. You’re practically never here, you leave all the dirty work to your mother. She has every right to wash her hands of it, but instead she takes the thing seriously. As for Caisotti, it doesn’t matter to him what happens; he’s got no reputation to lose. He arrived here in patched pants, he lives like a beggar and carries on like a petty crook. It’s impossible to corner him. You can’t ever tell what he’s going to do next. This is his system and he makes it work. He keeps his head above water; he’s a person you’ve got to reckon with.”

  Canal announced the figure that he and Quinto had agreed on. The woman turned toward Caisotti, who screwed up his lips, then shook his head. “My client feels that this figure does not offer a basis for discussion,” she said. Caisotti got up; she too got up, and stubbing out her cigarette, she gathered the papers into a brief case. Then she picked up her handbag, shook hands with Canal and Quinto, and hurried after her client, who walked out with his hands in his pockets.

  “Oh, I know!” Canal said to Quinto when they were alone. “He’s just a peasant, that’s the trouble, and he’s an idiot. Heaven knows what he thinks he gains at this stage by refusing to pay and dragging the affair out like this. But that’s the way he is.” And he stretched out his hand to Quinto to say good-bye.

  Quinto would have liked to stay a while and talk about his experiences with the movies, but Canal was busy and he had to go. At last he could talk about something that everyone was interested in – Cinecittà, French actresses, and so on – unlike the days when he could discuss only politics and literature and never knew what to say to his old friends. But now the only subject of discussion was Caisotti.

  Caisotti, Caisotti, Caisotti . . . He co
uldn’t take any more of the man; he was through. Sure, he knew what sort of guy he was, he knew he’d win every round, he had known this before any of them! But how did they all manage to accept Caisotti as something normal? Oh, they criticized him, of course, but only verbally; they weren’t concerned to destroy him, to deny him. All right, he, Quinto, had been the first to praise Caisotti – against the opposition of all the stuffed shirts in town. But at that time he had appeared in a different light; he had been one of the terms of an antithesis, part of a vital process. But now he was simply one aspect of a gray, uniform reality, of a reality which had either to be denied or accepted. For his part, he was not going to accept it!

  The notary, Bardissone, for example, delivered a kind of panegyric of the man when Quinto went to see him. “He’ll pay all right, believe me. Don’t go by appearances; he’s not a bad man. He’s altogether self-made, remember, and now he’s head of a considerable firm. It’s a hard moment for everyone; we all have our ups and downs, you know. . . . But try and get on with him; he’s a decent fellow, believe me.”

  Travaglia was much occupied with politics. The local elections were due the next year and it was said that he wanted to run for mayor. Quinto met him one day in the street and told him something of what went on behind the scenes at Cinecittà; he did his man-of-the-world act. In front of the Caffè Melina they ran into Caisotti. Since the meeting at the lawyer’s, he and Quinto no longer spoke to each other, but Travaglia stopped and shook him by the hand. After a while, he said, “And what about this business with the Anfossis?”

  Caisotti started to talk in his self-pitying whine, but he didn’t go into details and Quinto made no comment beyond shrugging his shoulders now and then, Travaglia, however, tried to argue with him and convince him, but he put forward the Anfossis’ case as though it were patently childish; one had to try to understand it, he implied, but there was no use pretending it made any sort of sense. Caisotti in due course came up with a proposal: he would pay the Anfossis a part of what he owed them, but they would have to let him run the apartments. Obviously they weren’t going to be able to handle them. He would make it his business to look for tenants and collect the rents, and at the end of the year he would hand over a fixed sum.