“I thought he lived alone, and that he was taking me to his home. But in fact he was married, and he had a son about my age. He took me to a little apartment, a sort of pied-a-terre, and it all happened very naturally. When it was time to go, he gave me three hundred thousand lire.”
She paused and looked at me for a few seconds before continuing in a tone of voice with an almost imperceptible note of challenge to it.
“And you know what? I really liked taking that money. I felt as if I was taking control of my life.”
“It didn’t make you uncomfortable?”
“Incredible as it might sound, no. I’d been with boys, I even had a boyfriend then. But this was different, and it all felt very natural. We hadn’t talked about money beforehand, but, I can’t say why, I just knew right away that he was hiring me, giving me a kind of assignment. It wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t repulsive either.”
She paused again. I sat there, uncertain what to say, or for that matter what to think.
“After that night, I saw the gentleman in question a number of times. His name was Vito. I was sorry to hear that he died a few years ago. Going out with him wasn’t exactly like being a whore. I mean, we’d get together and go out for dinner, and then we’d have sex, and then he’d give me a gift. I haven’t been married myself, but I think that in many cases it works in the exact same way.”
Her words hung in the damp air for a few seconds. The clouds began to thin, and you could see patches of night sky here and there. I would have liked to have sat on a bench and continued talking, but everything was wet from the rain. So we just kept walking, with Pino beside us, though he didn’t have much to add to the conversation.
“Then things changed.”
“What happened?”
“One night, as we were leaving his pied-a-terre, Vito asked me if I’d do him a favor.”
“What favor?”
“He asked me if I’d go out with a man he knew. He was a businessman, and Vito was discussing a number of important deals with him. He was scheduled to come to town the following day. Vito told me he was a very distinguished, impeccable gentleman, and handsome, too. Vito wanted him to be in a good mood so he’d sign a big contract. I can’t remember if I said anything or not. In the next image in my mind, he’s smiling, pulling out his wallet, and counting out ten hundred-thousand-lire bills. He handed them to me, and then he pinched my cheek affectionately, like I’d been a good girl and behaved nicely.”
I was about to tell her I didn’t want to hear the rest. Then I realized that I didn’t want to hear it, and yet, at the same time, I did. I get that feeling sometimes with books or movies when they’re about subjects I find disturbing, things I’d prefer to ignore.
“After that, from time to time Vito would ask me if I felt like going out with some friend of his, but he wouldn’t pay. From there I started building a client list of my own. Word of mouth. There were a couple of judges on that list. One of them is dead now; the other is very prominent. Sometimes I see his picture in the newspaper. He always has a very serious expression on his face.”
She let that hang in the air for a moment, clearly implying that the judge in question wasn’t always as serious as he appeared to be in those photographs. She didn’t say his name, and I appreciated that, though it took a certain amount of self-control to keep myself from asking who it was.
“I know this all sounds depressing, and it probably is. But-how can I put this-it was hard to see that at the time. It was hard to tell the difference between my dates and real dates. Lots of my clients took me out to dinner, to the movies, to see shows, and lots of them wanted someone to talk to. As time went by, I realized that for some of them those other things were at least as important as the sex.
“One thing that you often hear prostitutes say is that many men want a woman they can fuck in peace and talk to in peace. Without being judged for one thing or the other. And from my own experience, I can say that’s true. But that’s always where the problems lie.”
“What problems?”
“Sometimes, a client got confused and mistook fiction for reality. In other words, he’d fall in love. When that happened, I cut them off immediately. It seemed like the fair thing to do, the ethical thing. Okay, I know it might seem odd to hear a whore talking about professional ethics, but I think everyone clings to a system of rules to keep things clear, no matter what profession they practice. Ethics aside, it was just smart to put a quick end to those relationships. You never know what goes on in people’s heads. A girlfriend of mine was stalked and practically beaten to death after she rejected a client who’d fallen in love with her.”
“Of course, you moved out of your parents’ apartment?”
“Of course. I told my parents the money came from a job I’d found selling clothing wholesale. I have no idea whether they actually believed me. In fact, I don’t know if my mother and father ever figured out what I really did. By the time I was arrested and the whole thing became a matter of public record, they’d both been dead for years.”
“So, how did it end?”
“The rest isn’t all that interesting, that is, if what I’ve told you so far was interesting at all. Anyway, what happened later is pretty unclear in my memory. For a while I made movies, but not for long. The pay was much better for prostitution. Then I started having other girls work for me, and that paid even better. I hadn’t worked as a prostitute in quite a while by the time they arrested me. Anyway, you know that part of the story, since you were my lawyer.”
She seemed to have finished, and I was about to say something, when she started talking again-as if she’d remembered an important detail.
“But there was something I never told you when you were my lawyer.”
“What’s that?”
“When they arrested me, I was almost relieved. I couldn’t take that life anymore, and things got a lot worse once I started running a prostitution ring. It was much easier for me to maintain my equilibrium when I was just a whore. Once I started to manage other girls, I had a better picture of how depressing it all was. I probably didn’t realize it-and in any case I can’t remember it clearly-but I think I wanted to find a way out. That wasn’t easy, though. The work paid so well, and I had no other skills.”
We’d walked a long way, from the waterfront to the neighborhood around the Teatro Petruzzelli. I couldn’t quite decipher Nadia’s story. I wasn’t sure of the emotions behind it. She’d described everything that happened to her in a neutral tone of voice, but it was obvious that there was something boiling just beneath the surface. I couldn’t figure out what it was. Pino continued walking close to his mistress’s left leg, and it occurred to me how nice it would be to have a silent, discreet companion on my nightly walks. I’d never thought of getting a dog before, but just then I decided I liked the idea.
Nadia’s voice broke into my thoughts. There was a slightly different tone in her voice than when she was relating her story.
“Can I tell you something silly?”
“I like silly things.”
“After my arrest, I asked a friend-not a customer-for a referral to a lawyer. He gave me your name. He said that you were a very good lawyer and a very respectable person, and from the way he said it, I pictured you as some old, chubby bald guy. Somebody’s uncle. But then you showed up in the prison visiting room.”
“I showed up, and then what?” Sometimes I can be really good at missing the point.
“Well, you’re not that old, and you’re not chubby or bald. Though you certainly were very serious and very professional.”
“You were very serious, too. An ideal client, actually-no pointless chitchat, no ridiculous demands.”
“I had to be serious. I didn’t want to seem like what I was, which was a whore, even if I was a high-end whore. I figured that any manifestation of femininity would be taken the wrong way.”