Read Online A Private Venus by Giorgio Scerbanenco - Free Book Online
Authors: Giorgio Scerbanenco
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said that clearly.
Davide’s voice came to him suddenly, in that great heat and sadness, Duca hadn’t expected him to be the first to speak. ‘I’d like to visit a grave, too.’
Duca nodded, continuing to look at his father.
‘But I don’t know where it is. It must be here, but I don’t know where.’
‘There must be an office somewhere,’ he said to Davide. He looked at him, only his face was shiny with sweat. ‘Just give them the name of the person and they’ll tell you the section and the number of the grave.’
Davide’s voice remained even. ‘It’s the woman I killed last year. Her name was Alberta Radelli.’
5
On that stretch of avenue that goes from the Arco della Pace to the Castello Sforzesco, even just after ten in the morning, the sides of the road are lined with alluring female figures, wearing scanty but tight-fitting clothes in summer, who know how to operate in a large metropolis where there are no provincial limits to timetables or conventional divisions between night and day, and at any hour of the day, from midnight to midnight, a citizen can slow down in his car, hail one or other of these ladies, and ask for their co-operation.
A blue Giulietta appeared that morning on the right-hand side of the arch and slowed down, and a woman of forty dressed like a teenage Beatles fan stepped down into the road almost as if to bar the way, but the Giulietta swerved and accelerated, not because Davide Auseri had seen the kind lady and hadn’t seen fit to accept what she was offering, but simply because, just as he was about to realise his plan, something inside him almost always drove him to flee. Further on, from behind a tree, a genuine teenager, at any rate a girl no more than twenty, waved him down, as if she had an appointment to present the papers for her marriage. She was blonde, she looked like a gangster’s moll in a Hollywood film, or better still, like one of those little girls who, at carnival time, dress up as eighteenth-century ladies for the neighbourhood dance, painted, powdered and completely unaware of the historical aspect of their costumes, concerned only with the fact that they’ll be able to eat a lot of sweet things and play a lot of games during the day. ButDavide Auseri swerved away from the blonde, too, as if afraid, even though what he most wanted was to stop. It was almost always like this at first, he was afraid; later, if the girl had managed to get in the car, he wasn’t.
But that morning none of the willing ladies standing in the avenue managed to intercept the Giulietta: the fear was stronger, and Davide headed towards the centre, and drove for a long time, feeling quite sad, through the Foro Bonaparte, the Via Dante, the Via Orefici, the Piazza del Duomo, the Corso Vittorio, San Babila, the Corso di Porta Venezia, having no other plan, beyond that failed one, then returned to the Via Palestro, reached the Piazza Cavour and decided to go to the Alemagna in the Via Manzoni to eat something. One instinct having failed him, the instinct for food had returned even more strongly.
He got to the Via dei Giardini and had no difficulty finding somewhere to park the Giulietta because during those scorching August days the metropolis was considered uninhabitable by a large number of its citizens, who, for some reason, found it perfectly habitable in fog, smog, and snow. Even at the Alemagna, he had the place—the bar counter a few dozen metres long for the drinks, a counter a dozen metres long with sandwiches of egg, salmon, caviar, the two counters of pastries and ice cream in quantities reminiscent of Versailles and the Tuileries—almost completely to himself, apart from two other customers who floated like him in the mountain-cold yet unrefreshing air conditioning.
He ate three substantial sandwiches and drank a beer, without daring to look too closely at the five assistants andtwo cashiers, all women, just as he never looked too closely at anyone, only at
Davide’s voice came to him suddenly, in that great heat and sadness, Duca hadn’t expected him to be the first to speak. ‘I’d like to visit a grave, too.’
Duca nodded, continuing to look at his father.
‘But I don’t know where it is. It must be here, but I don’t know where.’
‘There must be an office somewhere,’ he said to Davide. He looked at him, only his face was shiny with sweat. ‘Just give them the name of the person and they’ll tell you the section and the number of the grave.’
Davide’s voice remained even. ‘It’s the woman I killed last year. Her name was Alberta Radelli.’
5
On that stretch of avenue that goes from the Arco della Pace to the Castello Sforzesco, even just after ten in the morning, the sides of the road are lined with alluring female figures, wearing scanty but tight-fitting clothes in summer, who know how to operate in a large metropolis where there are no provincial limits to timetables or conventional divisions between night and day, and at any hour of the day, from midnight to midnight, a citizen can slow down in his car, hail one or other of these ladies, and ask for their co-operation.
A blue Giulietta appeared that morning on the right-hand side of the arch and slowed down, and a woman of forty dressed like a teenage Beatles fan stepped down into the road almost as if to bar the way, but the Giulietta swerved and accelerated, not because Davide Auseri had seen the kind lady and hadn’t seen fit to accept what she was offering, but simply because, just as he was about to realise his plan, something inside him almost always drove him to flee. Further on, from behind a tree, a genuine teenager, at any rate a girl no more than twenty, waved him down, as if she had an appointment to present the papers for her marriage. She was blonde, she looked like a gangster’s moll in a Hollywood film, or better still, like one of those little girls who, at carnival time, dress up as eighteenth-century ladies for the neighbourhood dance, painted, powdered and completely unaware of the historical aspect of their costumes, concerned only with the fact that they’ll be able to eat a lot of sweet things and play a lot of games during the day. ButDavide Auseri swerved away from the blonde, too, as if afraid, even though what he most wanted was to stop. It was almost always like this at first, he was afraid; later, if the girl had managed to get in the car, he wasn’t.
But that morning none of the willing ladies standing in the avenue managed to intercept the Giulietta: the fear was stronger, and Davide headed towards the centre, and drove for a long time, feeling quite sad, through the Foro Bonaparte, the Via Dante, the Via Orefici, the Piazza del Duomo, the Corso Vittorio, San Babila, the Corso di Porta Venezia, having no other plan, beyond that failed one, then returned to the Via Palestro, reached the Piazza Cavour and decided to go to the Alemagna in the Via Manzoni to eat something. One instinct having failed him, the instinct for food had returned even more strongly.
He got to the Via dei Giardini and had no difficulty finding somewhere to park the Giulietta because during those scorching August days the metropolis was considered uninhabitable by a large number of its citizens, who, for some reason, found it perfectly habitable in fog, smog, and snow. Even at the Alemagna, he had the place—the bar counter a few dozen metres long for the drinks, a counter a dozen metres long with sandwiches of egg, salmon, caviar, the two counters of pastries and ice cream in quantities reminiscent of Versailles and the Tuileries—almost completely to himself, apart from two other customers who floated like him in the mountain-cold yet unrefreshing air conditioning.
He ate three substantial sandwiches and drank a beer, without daring to look too closely at the five assistants andtwo cashiers, all women, just as he never looked too closely at anyone, only at
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