CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

I never should have told him I had money. I could see it all now, the plot was clear. They’d always intended it, from the very first. The old man of the artichokes was a spy, he was Mr. Vitroni’s father, he’d been sent to watch me, and as soon as he’d seen me without my disguise they’d conspired. If I agreed to hide in the secluded house I would become a prisoner. It would be folly to go to anyone and ask for gasoline. They would know then that I meant to leave. Also, no one in the town sold it, they would have to send out for it, and then Mr. Vitroni would be sure to hear of it. He would come and tell me none could be had. I would beg, and he would say, “Gasoline, that is very expensive.”

The soldiers or police were in on it, too, they would help him, and there would be no one to stop them. I’d virtually told him that no one knew where I was; it was an open invitation. When Arthur arrived they would tell him I’d gone away, they had no idea where. Meanwhile I’d be roped and helpless, they’d want me to send away for money, and when none arrived, what would they do then? Would they kill me and bury me in a gravelly grave among the olives? Or would they keep me in a cage and fatten me up as was done among primitive tribes in Africa, but with huge plates of pasta, would they make me wear black satin underwear like the kind advertised at the back of the fotoromanzi, would they charge admission to the men of the town, would I become one of those Fellini whores, gigantic and shapeless?

This is serious, I told myself. Pull yourself together. Perhaps I was becoming hysterical. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in a cage, as a fat whore, a captive Earth Mother for whom somebody else collected the admission tickets. I would have to think of some plan. I had two days though, so I went to bed. There was no use trying to run away in pitch darkness, I’d only get lost. Or caught: doubtless I was being watched.

I woke up in the middle of the night. I could hear footsteps outside my window, on the terrace down below. Now there was a scraping noise: someone was climbing the trellis! Had I locked the window or not? I didn’t want to get out of bed to see. I backed against the wall, staring at the window where the outline of a head, then the shoulders, was looming into view.… By the light of the moon I could see who it was, and I relaxed.

It was only my mother. She was dressed in her trim navy-blue suit with the tight waist and shoulder pads, and her white hat and gloves. Her face was made up, she’d drawn a bigger mouth around her mouth with lipstick, but the shape of her own mouth showed through. She was crying soundlessly, she pressed her face against the glass like a child, mascara ran from her eyes in black tears.

“What do you want?” I said, but she didn’t answer. She stretched out her arms to me, she wanted me to come with her; she wanted us to be together.

I began to walk towards the door. She was smiling at me now, with her smudged face, could she see I loved her? I loved her but the glass was between us, I would have to go through it. I longed to console her. Together we would go down the corridor into the darkness. I would do what she wanted.

The door was locked. I shook at it and shook until it came open.

I was standing on the terrace in my torn nightgown, shivering in the wind. It was dark, there was no moon at all. I was awake now; my teeth were chattering, with fear as well as with cold. I went back into the flat and got into bed.

She’d come very close that time, she’d almost done it. She’d never really let go of me because I had never let her go. It had been she standing behind me in the mirror, she was the one who was waiting around each turn, her voice whispered the words. She had been the lady in the boat, the death barge, the tragic lady with flowing hair and stricken eyes, the lady in the tower. She couldn’t stand the view from the window, life was her curse. How could I renounce her? She needed her freedom also; she had been my reflection too long. What was the charm, what would set her free?

If someone had to come back from the Other Side to haunt me, I thought, why couldn’t it be Aunt Lou? I trusted her, we could have a good talk, she could give me some advice and tell me what to do. But I couldn’t imagine Aunt Lou doing this. “You can handle it,” she’d say, no matter how much I protested that I couldn’t. She would refuse to see my life as the disaster it was.

Whereas my mother.… Why did I have to dream about my mother, have nightmares about her, sleepwalk out to meet her? My mother was a vortex, a dark vacuum, I would never be able to make her happy. Or anyone else. Maybe it was time for me to stop trying.