‘Don’t interrupt me,’ Mrs Workman interrupted him. ‘You were lucky I was half asleep and don’t really remember what you said. Or I probably don’t want to remember. Anyway, let me tell you something: I accept that you and Nancy don’t get along, you’ve had problems, but although I don’t blame you entirely, Nancy has been a tenant here longer than any other and has more right than you to stay here; furthermore, she’s never given me any reason to worry. I’d rather my tenants got along, but I assure you if I have one single further complaint about you or you start behaving strangely again I won’t have the slightest reservation about throwing you out.’
‘But Mrs Workman,’ Mario complained weakly. ‘It was you yourself who introduced me to Mr Berkowickz and —’
‘Look, Mr Rota,’ said Mrs Workman in a final-sounding tone of voice. ‘Stop talking nonsense. I don’t know who Mr Berkowickz is, nor do I care. I don’t want to discuss the matter further; it’s all been said. But I repeat for the last time: I hope I don’t have another complaint about you. And my advice to you is to give up drinking.’
Mrs Workman hung up. She went to the bathroom, washed her face and hands, looked in the mirror, put a bit of colour on her cheeks and lips, brushed her hair, then she dabbed a bit of perfume behind each earlobe. She returned to the room and picked up a beige handbag and a linen jacket that she put on in the kitchen as she took a last look around the house.
She drove out of the garage and took Ellis Avenue up to Green. At the intersection she stopped at the traffic lights. Then, as she waited abstractedly for the lights to change, she murmured, ‘Berkowickz.’
XXI
Sitting on the sofa in the dining room, Mario lit a cigarette; he inhaled the smoke contentedly. Then he dialled a telephone number.
‘Ginger?’ he said when a feminine voice answered. ‘It’s Mario.’
‘How are you, Mario?’ said Brenda. ‘Ginger hasn’t come home yet. Do you want me to give her a message?’
Mario hesitated, then he said, ‘Tell her I called and that. .’
‘Oh, you’re in luck,’ said Brenda. ‘Ginger’s just coming in. I’ll put her on, Mario. See you.’
Mario heard an indistinct murmur down the line.
‘Mario?’ said Ginger a moment later. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine,’ said Mario. ‘I was just wondering if you were doing anything this evening.’
‘Nothing special,’ said Ginger. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mario. ‘I thought you might like to come over here for a bite to eat.’
‘Sounds like a great idea,’ said Ginger. ‘What time do you want me to come over?’
‘Whenever suits you,’ said Mario. ‘Right now, if you want.’
‘I’ll be right over,’ said Ginger. And hung up.
Mario took a last puff of his cigarette and put it out in the ashtray. He looked at all the books and papers in a disorderly pile on the arm of the sofa; he thought about sorting them out, taking them through to the study to fill the time till Ginger arrived.
Then he got an idea. He stood up and stealthily opened the apartment door; he crossed the landing. Pressing his ear to the door opposite, he held his breath, listened in silence.
‘I’ve had it up to here with you, you Italian pig!’ he heard thundering behind his back. ‘Up to here!’
Weighed down with shopping, Nancy dragged the mass of her body up the stairs laboriously. Mario held out his hands, apologized clumsily while retreating into his apartment, then offered to help Nancy with her bags.
‘You little turd,’ answered Nancy, dropping her packages on the floor. She breathed heavily as she hunted around in a pocket of her very ample dress that in vain sought to sow confusion with respect to the true dimensions of what it hid. She took out a bunch of keys, adding, ‘That’s far enough, you Italian swine. I’m phoning the old lady right now.’
‘No, Nancy, please,’ begged Mario, stepping towards her, his arms outstretched in an almost imploring manner. ‘Not Mrs Workman.’
Nancy had opened the door. She turned to confront Mario: he noticed the drops of sweat pearling on the woman’s brow.
‘But what the fuck were you doing there?’
‘The new tenant,’ Mario mumbled. ‘I just wanted to see if Berkowickz. . was. . um.’
Mario smiled without finishing his sentence. Nancy regarded him with resignation, almost with pity.
‘You’re not just a pig,’ she diagnosed, shaking her head gently from left to right. ‘You’re also going crazy.’
Nancy slammed the door. Mario returned to his apartment, closing the door softly.
After a short time Ginger arrived. She was wearing a blue sweater with red buttons, a black miniskirt and slightly worn black shoes; her eyes shone. Mario thought: She looks lovely. They sat down on the sofa in the dining room. Mario offered a whisky. Ginger accepted. Mario poured whisky over ice in two glasses in the kitchen and went back into the dining room.
They talked animatedly, laughing and drinking.
‘I’m pleased,’ said Ginger at one point, after a silence, looking at Mario with serious, blue, love-struck eyes.
‘What about?’ asked Mario, sipping his whisky.
‘I don’t know,’ said Ginger. She smiled weakly. She added, ‘You’ve been so strange this week.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Mario.
There was a silence.
‘I thought we were through,’ declared Ginger after a while.
‘Me too,’ said Mario.
He set his glass of whisky down on the floor, he moved closer to her, put his arm around her neck, stroked the nape of her neck and her hair, kissed her softly on the lips. Lengthening the kiss they slid over to rest against the right arm of the sofa, and laughed as they heard the books and papers heaped there fall on to the floor: an Italian — German dictionary, outlines for lectures, notes, a phonology manual and a photocopied article entitled ‘The Syllable in Phonological Theory, with Special Reference to the Italian’, by Daniel Berkowickz.
The Motive
Il y a une locution latine qui dit à peu près: ‘Ramasser un dénier dans l’ordure avec ses dents’. On appliquait cette figure de rhétorique aux avares, je suis comme eux, je ne m’arrête à rien pour trouver de l’or.
I
Álvaro took his work seriously. Every day he got up punctually at eight. He cleared his head with a cold shower and went down to the supermarket to buy bread and the newspaper. When he returned he made coffee and toast with butter and marmalade and ate breakfast in the kitchen, leafing through the paper and listening to the radio. By nine he was sitting in his study ready to begin the day’s work.
He’d made his life subordinate to literature: all friendships, interests, ambitions, possibilities for professional or economic advancement, days or evenings out had been displaced in its interest. He disdained anything he didn’t consider an impetus to his work. And, since the majority of well-paid jobs he could have had with his law degree demanded almost exclusive dedication, Álvaro preferred a modest position as consultant in a modest legal agency. This job allowed him to have the whole morning at his disposal to devote to his labours and freed him from any responsibility that might distract him from writing; it also gave him indispensable economic peace of mind.
He considered literature an exclusive lover. She must either be served with dedication and devotion or she would abandon him to his fate. Tertium non datur. As with all arts, literature is a matter of time and toil, he’d say to himself. Remembering a severe French moralist’s celebrated maxim on love, Álvaro thought it was with inspiration as it was with ghosts: everyone talked about it, but no one had seen it. And so he accepted that all creation consisted of one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. The reverse would mean leaving it in the hands of the amateur, the weekend writer; the reverse would mean improvisation, chaos and the most despicable lack of rigour.