But Angela had insisted on going to see Siamo Donne, of all things, because she’d been told she looked a little like the actress Alida Valli. Pierre couldn’t see it himself: Angela was more beautiful, with dark eyes and black hair.
Actresses playing themselves in everyday life. Wealthy, successful women pretending they missed the ‘simple life’ and envied the poor. Pierre couldn’t contain himself.
‘But this guy Zavattini who wrote the film, wasn’t he a comrade? What does that mean: “we were better off when we were worse off”?’
At the beginning, a girl called Anna was shown arguing with her mother and going to Cinecittà for a competition called ‘Four Actresses, One Hope’. Hundreds of girls from all over Italy were competing for four parts in a major film, which, as chance would have it, was this very same film, Siamo Donne.
Clearly the directors wanted to tug on the audience’s heartstrings. There was a girl from Mantua, by the name of Emma. It was her first visit to Rome, a note that was struck a few too many times: she missed her dad, she had never been so far from home, etcetera.
‘Oi, I’ve never been there either. Hardly anyone I know has ever been to Rome. So why does someone who’s never been to Rome have to be an innocent, somebody you have to feel sorry for? And that’s nothing like a Mantuan accent, either.’
Angela had been to Rome. With Odoacre, on their honeymoon. Odoacre went there at least two or three times a year, for the Central Committee. It almost turned Pierre’s stomach to hear talk of Odoacre, and he was mentioned in the bar day in and day out, worse luck: Montroni such a great comrade, Montroni has two great bollocks this size, and so on. The more time passed, the more cause for annoyance there was. He loved Angela, she certainly loved him, and the situation was getting difficult. If they had made love this afternoon, he might have tried to talk to her clearly about it, ask her what she really thought about things, how she felt, what she thought was the right thing to do. Instead they had come to the Imperiale.
What was that word that Fanti used to use? Oh, yes: ‘alienation’. In the first episode Alida Valli was feeling awfully alienated, poor thing, she never had time to do anything that made her happy, because she was forced to go charging from one posh party to another, meeting millionaires, what an effort it must have been, and how she complained, how unhappy she was in the world: she envied her masseuse, she envied the families of the proletariat, and so on and so on, until someone in the first few rows shouted, ‘Well go and work in a factory, then, off you go!’ and other people had suggested other trades typical of the ‘simple life’, from tomato-picking to tree-grafting, from labouring to street-walking.
The second episode was absolutely meaningless, it was unwatchable. It was directed by Rossellini, about whom Fanti had expressed a strong and clear judgement: ‘a dotard’. Ingrid Bergman was chasing a chicken that had eaten her roses. Pierre had seen hundreds of chickens, and never one that ate roses. Bergman called, ‘Come, come, little one, little one!’ caught the chicken and hid it in a chest of drawers, and then the owner found it and left her looking ridiculous.
‘What does that mean? What sort of nonsense is all this?’
Angela replied that she didn’t know either, and added, ‘Pierre, if you like, we can get up and go, but we’ve paid for our tickets, at least let’s try and see the other two episodes. But if we’re going to stay here, please try and control yourself.’
Third episode, bad to worse: Isa Miranda, overacting like mad, had the audience splitting their sides. Same tune as before: my life is empty, I am denied so many simple little pleasures, I’d be better off doing another job, but there’s no going back now, and then there was a little boy too, who had hurt his arm and was forever going ‘Ayayayayayay,’ and from the middle rows someone had shouted, ‘For Christ’s sake kill him somebody, put him out of his misery!’
Finally Anna Magnani appeared and got into a taxi carrying a sodding lapdog. Pierre would cheerfully have strangled her with his bare hands, the kind of woman who makes working people waste their time and doesn’t pay an extra penny for the fucking dog.
Pierre’s tone changed, and he murmured to himself in a low voice choked with indignation: ‘Go fuck yourself.’ It was his final comment. Pierre and Angela got up and sneaked out of the cinema. Anna Magnani hadn’t even finished singing.
In the centre of the city they never walked side by side: Angela was on the other side of the street, one of many things that left Pierre feeling bitter. Even from the opposite arcade you could see that she was sulking. At the end of Via Indipendenza, Pierre crossed over to her.
‘Listen, I’m sorry, I’m not blaming you. We’ve been unlucky: Brando caught the flu, we chose a rotten film, and ok, I wanted to be with you, but on our own. In the end my nerves got the better of me. I’m sorry.’
‘Pierre, you talk too much,’ said Angela, looking round. Another habit imposed by circumstances. What got on Pierre’s nerves more than anything else was that she was always giving sudden starts and jumping away, every time she heard footsteps in the corridor, keys in the lock, car horns down in the street. The atmosphere suddenly
worsened, passionate kisses were interrupted by a return to reality.
Angela took his hands. She never did that in public.
‘I know it’s not easy. It’s even harder for me, can’t you see that? Oh, and I nearly forgot, we’ve had a piece of good news.’
Pierre looked at her. Angela smiled at his surprise.
‘At the end of April Odoacre is going to be away from Bologna for at least two weeks, at a conference. We’ll have as much time as we like to be together, just think, more than we’ve ever had before! Are you pleased?’
Pierre nearly kissed her, right there, in front of everyone. Angela looked up a little and brushed the tip of his nose with her lips. Then she broke away from him and smiled again. ‘I love you so much! Well, bye, I’ve got to go, but promise me you’ll call me the day after tomorrow, I’ll be alone in the house all afternoon.’
‘I promise,’ said Pierre. Angela headed for home (‘Odoacre’s house’, as she called it), in Via Castiglione. Pierre thought that, however you looked at it, half a kiss on the nose wasn’t a fuck. He decided to go and have a hot chocolate, then he would go and see Brando. He already had his line ready: ‘You may be sick, but I’m the one who’s taken the medicine.’
Chapter 20
Bologna, Cirenaica district, an hour and a half later
‘I’ve got a temperature of thirty-eight and a half, my bones ache, I’ve got stomach pains and diarrhoea, I won’t be able to go to work for who knows how long, so just try and imagine how much I care that you haven’t been able to fuck Montroni’s wife today!’
Brando spat into the chamberpot at the end of the bed, and then continued: ‘. and by the way, if someone sees you going in or out of my house, the sky will fall, listen to me Pierre, it’s time to call it a day, he’s the big boss, everyone speaks well of him, if you’re caught no one, I mean no one, will be on your side, your brother will come after you with his Bren gun, and what can you offer Angela? She was an orphan, she was on her own with a brother you could hardly call normal, Montroni saved both their lives, he actually took the spastic in, and he’s looking after him at his own expense, whereas what are you? A part-time barman and the only thing you know how to do is a filuzzi pirouette! Then there’s the fact that Angela and Montroni have been married for so long, and you’re not as young as you were, and even I don’t want to act like an idiot any more, fuck, do you see yourselves hiding away in my house as though I had nothing to do with it, do you think things can drag on like that for ever? Pass me my dressing gown, come on, and let me make myself a cup of coffee. And wipe your mouth, you’ve got a chocolate moustache.’