The Temptation to Be Happy Read online

  ‘Why don’t we do it like this?’ I say. ‘We get up, we go into the kitchen, you make me an omelette and we talk about it.’

  She turns round and shows me her face, now smeared with running make-up. She looks like a carnival mask, but not the kind that would make you laugh. I’m forced to shift my gaze to her pendulous breasts to remind me what I’m doing here. Then I look up again and find myself staring at my own image reflected in the mirror. Sitting on the bed – with my belly resting on my crotch, my arms flabby, my pectoral muscles that look like a cocker spaniel’s ears and the white hairs on my chest – I find myself disgusting. Yes, really disgusting. Then I turn round and find Rossana’s eyes staring into mine: she’s noticed my rapid eye movement, and she’s smiling.

  ‘Maybe I should change the mirror,’ she remarks.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply, ‘I think you should.’

  When we get up, the mirror goes back to reflecting only the unmade bed. The two circus performers have finished their sad spectacle, at least for today.

  Without her make-up and in her dressing gown, Rossana wouldn’t bring home ten euros, but basically all she needs is some decent lingerie to sort things out.

  ‘At your age you ought to eat a bit better,’ she says.

  ‘Yes, it’s true, but cooking is one of the few things that you should do for other people, not for yourself.’

  She smiles. It’s as if everything I say puts her in a good mood. I don’t think I’m particularly nice, and yet she makes me feel even sociable. It’s a particularly admirable quality of hers (apart from her knockers, obviously). Rossana makes you think you’re a better man. Maybe she’s pretending, but even if she is, dear Christ, she’s a great actress.

  ‘But you’ve got a family? You’ve got kids? You never told me about that! I just know you’ve been married.’

  It’s the table we’re sitting at that has given her the courage to ask me. And, in fact, sharing a kitchen is much more intimate than sharing a bed.

  ‘Yes, I’ve got two children,’ I stammer as I chew on a slice of bread.

  My reply is frosty, and yet she doesn’t let it go.

  ‘Two boys?’

  ‘Weren’t we supposed to be talking about your problem?’

  ‘OK, forget it.’

  ‘One male and one female. Or maybe I should say two females.’

  ‘In what sense?’

  ‘The male one is homosexual,’ I reply nonchalantly, and bring the glass to my lips.

  This time Rossana doesn’t just smile, she actually laughs.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You’re talking as if he wasn’t your son!’

  ‘And am I supposed to apologize?’

  ‘Has he got a partner?’

  ‘Yes. In fact, he hides him from me.’

  She gets up and takes the pack of cigarettes from the shelf above the sink. I take advantage of the action to ask for one, even though I shouldn’t smoke – I had a heart attack three years ago. Too frantic a life, the doctors said. Smoking, drinking, not enough sleep, bad diet. For a few months Sveva kept me at her place, on a strict regime, and woe betide me if she saw me deviating from it, then I got fed up with being my daughter’s son and went home to my flat, where I resumed my life as before. In any case, at my age a heart attack isn’t the worst way to go.

  ‘My son lost his job,’ Rossana says after a while.

  I take a drag and watch the smoke dispersing under the yellowish light of the little chandelier. The room is dark, the furniture is shabby and the tiles are cracked. In short, it’s a depressing environment. But at least it seems clean.

  ‘He has three children and a wife to keep and he doesn’t know how to do it. And he won’t take money from me – he won’t take a thing!’

  Rossana is a gentle woman, in spite of her aggressive face, her hard features, black shark-ish eyes, aquiline nose and fleshy mouth. It’s precisely that contradiction that makes her so attractive.

  ‘He doesn’t actually talk to me. When I go to see my grandchildren, he takes them and goes out. He won’t forgive me for what I do.’

  ‘Why did you tell him?’

  ‘He found out all by himself, not that long ago. Since then he doesn’t talk to me.’

  ‘Why, though? How long have you been doing it for?’

  ‘Thirty years, a whole life!’

  Good God, if she’d paid her pension contributions she’d have been able to retire soon. I try not to think about how many men have passed through this kitchen over the past thirty years and concentrate on her words. Not least because, as she speaks, I’ve already set my brain in motion in search of a solution.

  ‘His employer chucked him out all of a sudden one day, without even paying him off.’

  ‘How is that possible?’

  ‘He was working on the black – you know how things are here.’

  I do know, but I can’t get used to it. She starts articulating words again, and I start pouring wine into the glass. I’ve stopped listening to her; an idea has just come to me.

  ‘Perhaps there’s one thing we could do,’ I interrupt.

  She stares at me with a half-smile, trying to guess if I’m serious or joking.

  ‘You should ask your son if he has any proof that he’s worked there, and whether anyone’s willing to give evidence. He might be able to bring a good case against the man.’

  ‘Really?’ she says, her eyes lighting up.

  ‘I said maybe…’

  ‘How’s that, then?’

  ‘OK, trust me. You tell me the name of his employer and see if you can find any evidence that your son worked there.’

  She holds her hand out towards mine, but I instinctively draw back, before I’m gripped by a kind of remorse. But Rossana has already returned to the topic we were talking about.

  ‘What did you do for a living? Were you a lawyer or something?’

  Now it’s my turn to laugh. ‘Excuse me. My daughter’s a lawyer. I’m a quick-change artist!’

  ‘A quick-change artist? What’s one of those?’

  ‘A quick-change artist is someone who’s very good at disguises. A chameleon.’

  She gives me a bewildered look before she replies: ‘You’d be solving quite a big problem for me. It’s all I think about all day!’

  ‘I didn’t say the situation would definitely be resolved, but I’ll talk to my daughter Sveva about it. Heavens above, all she does in life is argue with other people! You’ll see, your son will get his job back, or at least what he’s entitled to.’

  Her hand rests on my arm. This time I can’t pull back – it would be too much.

  ‘And why are you doing this for me? Why are you helping my son? Why are you inviting me to dinner?’

  Too many questions make me nervous, particularly when I don’t know the answers. I don’t know why I wanted to help her, but suddenly it seems like the right thing to do. I get up without a word and head towards the bedroom to get my clothes.

  She appears in the doorway and observes me in silence for a while, then she comes out with another question: ‘Does your proposition still apply?’

  ‘Which one?’ I reply, looking vaguely at the clothes scattered around the room.

  ‘That invitation to dinner.’

  In fact, I no longer have any great desire for it. Perhaps because I’ve just devoured a three-egg omelette, or because at this time of night most old people are snoring peacefully in bed, but having dinner with Rossana and talking about Dante and Sveva no longer strikes me as all that fascinating. But now it’s too late to turn back.

  ‘Of course,’ I reply, and struggle to bend down and pick up my socks from the floor.

  Rossana comes over and hugs me from behind. The enormous weight of her chest makes me stumble, and for a moment I’m afraid I’m going to end up on the floor with my bones shattered, then I manage to straighten up and regain control.

  It’s the first time she’s put her arms around me, but then again it’s also the first tim
e that I’ve eaten at her house and told her about my children. The situation is getting out of hand. I turn round in the hope that she will understand and go away, but she doesn’t budge. We stay there hugging, faces a few inches apart, like a pair of teenagers on a bench outside school. She stares into my eyes; I at her chest. If I looked up, the most natural thing to do would be to kiss her. But an old man like me can’t kiss a woman. There’s a limit to everything.

  Luckily Rossana is a worldly woman – she knows when the time has come to break a spell. She has realized that I’m staring at her bosom, and comes out with the best question of the evening: ‘So, shall we have another go?’

  I think about it for a moment and nod seriously. In reality, I think my thing down there doesn’t really agree: keeping in training is one thing, but overworking the engine isn’t such a great idea. But I wouldn’t admit it even to Rossana. Then I reply, ‘OK, but first take a blanket and cover up that mirror!’

  Chapter Six

  Soya Burgers

  ‘Dad, open up. It’s me!’

  I push the button on the speakerphone and stare at the white wall, trying to give myself an answer to the question I’m puzzling over: what’s my son doing here? At this unusual time of day? Luckily I don’t have to, because when I open the door he’s already on the landing with two shopping bags in his hand.

  ‘Woah,’ I say. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Dante doesn’t reply; he closes the lift door with one foot, smiles and strolls past me straight into the house, or more precisely, into the kitchen. I walk behind him uncomprehendingly, waiting for an explanation.

  He sets the bags down on the table and smiles at me. It’s only now that I notice his clothes. He’s wearing tight beige trousers, some kind of studded black boots and a shirt the colour of salmon or coral, the shade I’ve only ever seen on old aunts or painted on the kind of pointless knick-knacks those same old aunts fill their houses with.

  ‘I had a job to do not far from here, and I thought I’d get you something from the supermarket downstairs. That way you don’t need to carry the bags.’

  ‘They do home deliveries’ is the only phrase that comes out of my mouth, and as soon as I say it I feel like a dick.

  Luckily Dante doesn’t seem to notice. He rolls up his shirtsleeves and starts getting the goods out of the bags.

  ‘So, how are you? Any news?’

  ‘Nothing new,’ I stammer as I watch him fill the table with products, most of which I don’t use.

  ‘I didn’t know what you needed, so I bought a bit of everything,’ he goes on as if nothing was wrong.

  If there’s one positive thing about my son’s visits it’s that I never have to pretend around him – I can just be the bad-tempered sod that I’ve always been. Dante, in spite of my evident sociopathy, goes his own way and doesn’t care what I do or say in his presence. It’s as if he’s developed a kind of armour so that every phrase of mine bounces off him and comes back to me.

  ‘How’s your sister? Have you heard from her?’

  This time he replies with a crisp ‘no’ that allows no further questions. By now I should know that the only thing Dante can’t bear is anyone talking to him about his sister. ‘Why are you always asking about her? Pick up the phone and call her!’ That’s his usual answer. Or at least it has been for years. Recently, however, he seems resigned, and answers with a simple monosyllable. He’s worked out that changing an old man’s habits is a pretty arduous business. I’ve been asking him about Sveva for ever, and I wouldn’t be able not to. In fact, I don’t really want to know about my daughter, who calls me assiduously, but I don’t really know what to say to Dante, so it seems natural for me to talk about Sveva. There’s always been her between the two of us; her presence is pressing, even in her absence.

  ‘I’ve bought you some diet foods, some iodine-free salt, rice mayonnaise…’ he goes on as he piles tins of tomatoes on top of one another.

  ‘I’ll be eating those for a year,’ I say and watch him finish the operation in silence.

  At last, he turns round and says, ‘I can see you’re on great form!’

  ‘You’re on good form too,’ I force myself to reply, trying not to look at his shirt.

  Luckily the time at his disposal to take care of his poor old lonely father is already over.

  ‘Fine, I’ll be off. Speak this evening or tomorrow!’ he exclaims and rests a hand on my shoulder.

  At this point an exemplary father would draw his son to him and hug him vigorously, before telling him he is his pride and joy. But, quite apart from the fact that such scenes only happen in American films, I’m a long way from being an exemplary father, so he too remains fixed to the spot.

  Turning round, he notices the pack of cigarettes on the mantelpiece. His expression changes immediately. ‘What are you doing with those?’ he asks.

  ‘With what?’ I pretend not to have understood to try to gain some time to come up with a plausible excuse.

  Since the heart attack, I haven’t smoked in front of my children, precisely to avoid the lecture that’s bound to come unless I can find a good way out.

  ‘They’re Marino’s,’ I say suddenly. ‘For when he comes up to see me.’

  ‘Didn’t you say he never left his flat?’

  Dante has one serious defect: he remembers everything you tell him.

  ‘Yes, he doesn’t go out into the street any more, but he can climb a flight of stairs.’

  He seems to believe the brazen lie, but then he says, ‘Don’t talk nonsense, Dad, please. I’m not a kid.’

  ‘Oh come on…’ I say, walking him towards the door.

  ‘Now, about Saturday…’ Dante begins, but the lift which has just arrived at my floor disgorges Emma, who doesn’t seem very happy about encountering us, says a hasty hello and closes her front door behind her.

  ‘Pretty neighbour you’ve got!’ my son exclaims, leaving me rather perplexed. It’s the first time he’s made a remark about a woman in my presence. For a very brief moment I almost doubt his homosexuality, but then my eye falls on his coral-coloured shirt again, and I realize there can be no uncertainty. And of course a gay man can find a woman attractive. And this woman, Emma, is certainly that.

  ‘Although she doesn’t seem very nice.’

  I grimace to indicate that I don’t greatly care whether my neighbour is nice or not, and he says goodbye and slips inside the cabin.

  ‘One last thing…’ I say.

  Dante pauses and looks at me.

  ‘Next time you treat me like an old imbecile who needs looking after, I’m not opening the door to you!’

  He bursts out laughing and presses the button.

  Dante is really handsome when he laughs. And luckily he does it a lot.

  The truth is, I’ve always preferred Sveva, but right now I couldn’t really say why.

  I ring the bell and hear Emma’s heels approaching the door. Then the spyhole darkens and I realize that the girl is staring at my face. So I smile and say, ‘Hi. It’s Mr Annunziata, your neighbour.’

  She opens the door and smiles politely. But in spite of her good manners it’s clear that she isn’t at all happy with my being there. Perhaps she thinks I’m one of those tiresome old men who are constantly trying to catch other people’s attention, accosting her before taking advantage of her goodwill.

  Calm down, dear. I have no intention of forcing a friendship with you and your husband. I couldn’t bear your invitations to dinner, your concern and your pious expressions. I just have to get these things off my chest, that’s all, and then we can go back to saying ‘hello’ and ‘good evening’ as far as I’m concerned. That’s what I’d like to say to her.

  Instead I say: ‘My son has brought me some diet and organic products that I don’t use. In my day we didn’t have any of this stuff.’ I take a box of soya burgers out of the bag. ‘I’ve always eaten hamburgers made of beef, and I’m still around,’ I go on with a smile, ‘so I’m not going to start worr
ying about my health now. I thought you might be able to use these things…’

  This time Emma gives a genuine smile and takes the bag that I hand to her.

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ she says.

  ‘I could have knocked on Eleonora’s door,’ I add, nodding towards the closed door beside us, ‘but I don’t think she’d know how to cook these peculiar objects.’

  She smiles at me again. I must say that my son, in spite of everything, has an eye; she’s really quite special, with smooth, dark hair that falls softly to her shoulders, her figure small but well proportioned, oriental eyes and full lips. And she has one defect that adds originality to her beauty: a broken incisor that gives her an aggressive, sensual touch. If I were half the age I am, I might waste some of my time chatting her up.

  ‘Was that your son?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply, then gauge her expression to work out if she’s worked it out – if a glance was enough to realize that Dante is gay.

  ‘I’ve got a pot on the gas,’ Emma says and distracts me from my absurd thoughts.

  ‘Off you go, off you go,’ I reply, and leave with a wave of the hand.

  A moment later I’m back on my landing. From the corner of my eye I notice a movement behind Eleonora’s door. Signora Vitagliano was engaging in one of her favourite activities: espionage.

  ‘Old fools,’ I murmur to myself as I go back into my flat. ‘Glued to your spyholes, watching the world go by.’

  I like excluding myself. It makes me feel different.

  Definitely better.

  Chapter Seven

  I Was Born Sweet and I Will Die Grumpy

  I’ve got this feeling that my neighbour, Emma, is being abused by her partner. Or her husband. Either way, that dick she lives with.

  I’m old, and old people are creatures of habit – they don’t like novelties. That’s why they always think things are getting worse rather than better, something that takes shape over the years. So when the young couple arrived here, I turned my nose up; I thought they would disturb my peace, organize banquets, dinners, birthday parties and all sorts of things. At their age any excuse is good enough to party, and birthdays are still seen as a goal to be put behind you straight away so that you can head for the next one. At their age they still haven’t worked out that yes, it’s important to reach your target, but there’s no rush, there’s no record to beat. It’s better to reach the finishing line slowly, enjoy the landscape, maintain a measured pace and regular breathing for the whole journey, finishing the race as late as possible. Because – but I don’t know if young people are aware of this – once you’ve crossed the line no one’s going to come and pin a medal to your chest.