God forbid, signora!
The guests were already beginning to come. The sentimental ones wore black, the sluts wore leopardskins, and there were any number of pseudo- and quasi-feline poseurs. Knowing what was expected, Leonor’s mama led Giovanna down through the easel into the place where the niches were inset with frozen faded figures as in old churches, the atmosphere thick with silence. Self-absorbed pale women were wading naked in dark water with their hair like veils. Giovanna loved it. She had never felt so free.
For this latest saturnalia, Leonor now dressed herself in the coarse gauzelike covering of a Roman mummy, painted with ocher figures of cats and high-breasted girls in profile. — Splendid! cried Giovanna.
Thanks, cara.
But where are all the men?
The men around me are dead, her hostess explained. They’re too limited in understanding, too brutal to survive. Well, except for Arturo, of course. Arturo, caro! You look fabulous in that pink dress! I mean to paint you with a tropical bird perched on your finger. Oh, and you brought cake! Is the Prince going to be late again? Do cut Giovanna a piece, and spoon-feed it to her, for the poor girl’s made of bronze. Now here come some men. I’ll make them entertain you; they’ll love it.
And Giovanna, who had never eaten or drunk anything before, sat behind a pastel cake as elaborate as a cathedral, hoping this would never end — for it was much superior to the eternity she knew at the Giardino Pubblico “M. Tommasini”—until Leonor laughed and said: Go ahead, cara! Don’t be a prude. Eat.
Do you like me?
That’s impertinent. No, don’t look at me like that! I prefer cats. They’re much wiser than we are. You wanted men, you said? All right, silly! They’re waiting for us in that room! — And opening a door, she showed the wide-eyed bronze girl a convocation of shining-eyed gymnasts whose chests gleamed with constellations of medals. — Fuck them all if you like; just don’t take orders. All right now. Come sit by me. The services are beginning.
Lilith and Giulia, the two most important cats of the hour, behaved very differently. Lilith stalked slowly about with her tail upraised, while Giulia was scarcely to be seen.
Here came the chief mourner, Leonor’s cat Sappho, who had a way of craning her head over her shoulder when she meowed for food, showing off her white breast; and when she raised her ears she was like an owl with round yellow-green eyes. Leonor opened her arms. Sappho came in, digging her claws into Leonor’s robe as she ascended. Giovanna did not know what to think. She had seen cats in the park before, but until now they had been nearly colorless to her; she never imagined that they could be so intriguing. Why they preoccupied her at Leonor’s can be explained from the simple fact that she had never been indoors before, nor had anyone treated her as a friend, although she remembered certain looks of Rossetti’s which she had, perhaps, overinterpreted; I suspect that almost anybody could have won her over. Wide-eyed, she watched all those nude women around her; they were as white together as all the skirts of a flock of nurses, titillating themselves for lustral purposes; and thirteen nude ballerinas danced in honor of the two dead cats while thirteen naked nuns sang feline cantatas. Beside Giovanna, applauding, sat a visitor from downstairs: a high-breasted mummy lady whose necklaces were faded in many colors and whose white belly was cracked right down to her mons veneris. With a sad fragrance of cypresses Our Lady now appeared to bless the funeral with tears which hardened into good luck pearls. She stretched out her hands, and Giulia crept into them unwilling-seeming, as if she could not help herself. Then the Madonna drew her in, cradling her against the Christ child’s cold stone head. Giulia began to purr. Then it was Lilith’s turn. So both were rewarded and consoled for being dead.
After the words of praise were sung, Leonor found Giovanna a gymnast with whom to waltz, but although she tried to dance, she was too stiff; Leonor laughed at her, saying she might as well have been a wooden skeleton made for processionals! Leonor was dancing with her mama and Arturo, giggling like a schoolgirl. Then she threw herself down by the shore of a bubbling black pool, her cat Salome lying across her lap with her white paws dangling, the claws flexing in harmony with her purrings.
Giovanna, she remarked, I feel quite sensual toward you — but you love Rossetti, so there’s good reason to keep my distance. Mama, should I teach her how women do it?
Lolo, you’re embarrassing her!
Am I? Arturo, let’s start drinking! Where’s that old man I like? You know, the one with the pet owl? Oh, and Gianluca arrives at last. How adorable he is!
Giovanna began to be homesick.
There was a certain lovely nineteenth-century Triestina in a high-collared white dress with a jungle of perfect leaves and flowers on her hat; she licked her lips at Giovanna, quite lustfully, but Giovanna was not interested. Leonor inquired reproachfully: Baby, wouldn’t you like to see femininity triumphing over a city? Play with us; don’t be a prude!
But before she could begin to bully the bronze woman, the Madonna said: Giovanna, everyone everywhere deserves happiness, even people in hell. Think of me as your mama who loves you. What would you like? Shall I ask Rossetti if he’s willing to be your husband?
I want love, mama, any kind of love! I don’t care anymore. And if he doesn’t love me…
Now Giulia came creeping toward Our Lady, craving to be petted by that loving stone woman with the bloodstained forehead, and Our Lady lifted her up, embraced her until the Christ child began to open his eyes, then gently handed her to Giovanna. The instant she began to hold the cat, Giovanna experienced a hot feeling both in her bronze heart and between her legs.
So that’s how it is, said the Madonna, smiling. Come downstairs with me. I’m going to introduce you to a lady who’s a seventh cousin of mine. Would you like to be a cat goddess?
Will you decide for me, mama?
Well, then I think it’s for the best. Leonor, darling…
But Leonor had already gone off to be pleasured by an ivory bird with a serpent’s head.
Our Lady held her hand as they began to descend the stairs, and Giovanna found herself loving the dead cats more and more, not to mention the live ones; at the first landing she felt joyful tenderness for a certain woman’s mummy which rested there upon her painted semblance within the white coffin; and the breath began to hiss within Giovanna’s bronze windpipe because she lusted to know all the Egyptian cat-women who folded their arms across their animal-painted wooden breasts; smiling, upraising her lapis-bangled arms, a snake in a headdress lifted her golden head to bless Giovanna, and Our Lady said: Do you see?
One morning Lina (who never had any more cats, because they made her bulldog jealous) said to Rossetti: Marry me or make an end of it. — So he went back to his plinth, only to discover that Giovanna had abandoned it. That was when he comprehended that she was the one he should have loved. — Lina’s heart was broken, naturally, so Our Lady wept for her; the grey-green tear-streams flowed through the gutters and temporarily quenched the flames of hell. Meanwhile Octavian had already deserted his plinth; Maria Theresa had run away with an Austrian mountaineer; Massimiliano had strayed several times to give himself to pretty Croatian tourists; even marbleskinned Winckelmann had eloped with the bellboy of the Hotel Brulefer, so that Trieste’s pantheon of park-heroes had begun evermore to resemble a fading fresco of apostles on the ceiling of a village church, the sky tarnishing toward a wintry blue-grey.
Entering the Caffè San Marco, whose twin brass coatracks might have been the skeletons of immense wine bottles, Rossetti rejoined the shadows of shutters and window-lines projected on the floor like eagles whose ribs were lyres. He wished to ascend the wide white steps of the Politeama with Giovanna at his side, although he might have wanted Giovanna solely because he did not know what else to want. At least his choices were as distinct to him as the opposing armies of spools and knobheaded cones in the ancient Egyptian senet game. Far away, across the length of the café, beneath the ceiling’s breasty light globes, stood a mirror in which he could see himself and the old waiter below the reflections of the bridal-lace curtains. Rossetti sat down in the corner, and the waiter brought him three grappas. Just then, in one of the narrow silver-frosted panes — a rectangle of real life — he saw Giovanna, or someone much like her, but taller and stiffer, promenading hand in hand with Leonor Fini.