Lucca Read online

  She pushed her way over to them. When he caught sight of her she could see how he swallowed before smiling, but otherwise there was not much left of his old uncertainty. He introduced Lucca and the inflated beauty to each other. Her name was Barbara, and she widened her nostrils as she smilingly took Lucca’s measure with her large dramatic eyes. They had just come back from a festival of new music in Munich, where he had conducted one of his works. He had even been interviewed by the Süddeutsche Zeitung. He managed to make quite a story of it. She said it was nice to see him and kissed his cheek before going on to the toilets.

  She held her hands under the cold tap for a long time. The water splashed up on the mirror and she met her own eyes behind the trickling drops as she pressed her hands to her sore red cheeks. She shouldn’t have stayed so long in the sun. Did Daniel also read Omar Khayyam’s love poems to Barbara with the big breasts? Did she drink Chinese tea from a cup with romantic dreamers in the moonlight, while he entertained her with his twelve-tone serenades? And if he did? When she forced her way back through the crowd and the fog of cigarette smoke again, Daniel and Barbara had left. Otto followed her with his eyes from the end of the bar. Lucca smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back, merely looked at her as if he had caught sight of something she was not aware of. She said she was tired. He could stay on if he liked.

  It was warm, the window was open and she lay naked under a sheet, listening to the sounds of the city, the voices from other apartments, and the hollow rattling from the container in the yard when the chef of the Egyptian restaurant took the rubbish out. An Arabian song came from the restaurant kitchen, a woman’s wailing voice accompanied by abrupt drums and strings. She pondered on Otto’s calculating expression when she returned from the toilet. She lay absolutely still, listening. At last she heard the street door slam downstairs and recognised his quick step as he climbed. She closed her eyes. The sound of steps came closer and stopped suddenly. Then she heard the rattle of his keys, the lock clicked and the door opened. The floorboards in the hall creaked and a moment later she heard him peeing into the lavatory pan and the explosion of water when he flushed it away.

  He came into the bedroom. She felt the soft air on her breasts, stomach and thighs when he lifted the edge of the sheet. She imagined his hands, their dry warmth and firm grip. She didn’t move, holding her breath as she waited, tense and excited. Her nipples gathered into two small hard spikes and she felt her pores open wide like so many baby birds’ gaping beaks, stretched in the air, hungrily piping.

  Nothing happened. Afterwards she couldn’t tell how long she had been lying there waiting before she felt the mattress give under him as he sat up on the edge of the bed. She heard the metallic click of his lighter and breathed in the smell of cigarette smoke. She opened her eyes. He was still in his jacket. He sat with his back to her looking out into the courtyard. She asked for a drag. He turned and passed her the cigarette. She could not see his face, he was just a dark outline against the open window. He took back the cigarette and knocked off the ash into the ashtray on the floor between his feet. There was something they needed to talk about.

  It was quiet down in the courtyard. He inhaled deeply and blew out the smoke in rings that hovered like soft zeroes in front of the lavender blue sky. Yes? She tried to sound relaxed but was unsuccessful. Her stomach contracted. Maybe he had found the letter from the Royal Theatre in her pocket. But after all, it was only an offer of a job. Nothing had happened between her and the Gypsy King. She had told him all there was to tell, and as she spoke he had looked at her in a disinterested way that reassured her. They had even made a joke of it. How had it come to be a problem? Why hadn’t she just shown him the letter?

  She cleared her throat. What was it? Her voice was faint and dry. She propped herself on an elbow and looked at his dim silhouette. It was no good, he was sorry. She sat up in bed and pulled the sheet around her. What was no good? He turned towards the window. It would be best if they stopped here. The bluish light from outside fell on one side of his face. She could hardly recognise him. Was there someone else? He stubbed out his cigarette and stood up. If she really wanted to know . . . She looked up at him. Was it someone she knew? He went over to the door. He would spend the night somewhere else. It would probably be best if she moved out tomorrow.

  The knife point had barely touched the white belly of the fish before it opened out in a long slit around the red and mauve entrails that gushed out onto the marble counter. She remembered how the sight had made her press her face against her father’s stomach in the soft checked shirt he always wore when they were in the country. She hadn’t seen him for years and sometimes was afraid of forgetting what he looked like, just as she had been when he went away. She lay in bed at night with a pocket torch, frightened of her mother surprising her with the faded black and white photograph she had eased out of the album from the desk in his study without her discovering. In the picture Giorgio was young, about her age. It had been taken on a square in his home town, the town she was named after. She had never been there. He had black hair and a smooth chin, he sat rocking on a café chair in front of a church wall where low-flying swallows cast their shadows.

  Fascinated, she watched the fishmonger’s knife severing the head of the fish, then discarding it, gaping with astonishment, among the blue veins of the counter. The knife scraped the slimy scales from the green and brown body covered with black freckles. She thought of the red neon sign in Otto’s window. She had always hated fish. Outside she could hear the hollow thumping sound of a cutter’s motor and the cars driving ashore from the little ferry with varnished wooden rails. She had leaned her cheek against them so as to feel the vibrations through the hull as she saw the fishing village disappear behind the fan of wake, as if they were sailing far away and never coming back. She’s shot up all right, said the fishmonger, smiling knowingly. He said that every summer. His short nails were bloody at the roots.

  They cycled through the plantation as usual. Lucca rode behind her mother on Giorgio’s old bicycle. The plastic bag of fish dangled from the rusty handlebars, it kept almost sticking between the spokes of the front wheel. Else was still slim, but each summer the veins behind her knees stood out more, and her hair had gradually turned completely grey. You could hear the distant roar of the sea behind the rows of dark pine trees. The house, built of tarred planks, was the last one on a path with wooden fences around the small gardens of fir and birch. The sun only reached down for a few hours in late afternoon. For the rest of the day their garden was a shadowy morass of tree trunks, tall grass and raspberry bushes completely hid the stone wall dividing the garden from the woods.

  The sun shone almost vertically on the planking wall. They lay in deck chairs, the smell of tar blended with the fusty odour from the damp-stained canvas. There was no telephone in the house, Otto would not be able to call even if he guessed where she was. Else lay with closed eyes, arms outstretched so the sun could shine on their paler undersides. The skin in the low neck of her dress was lobster-red and swollen, with deep lines between her flabby breasts. She did not talk much, perhaps she wanted to seem considerate, it was understandable for Lucca to be quiet. Although she should be glad it had happened now and not later, as Else had said when she met her off the ferry. Imagine if they had actually had a child! Lucca thought of Miriam, dreaming of having her own little baby.

  She had called Miriam after Otto had left. Suddenly everything seemed very clear, and half an hour later she had finished packing her clothes and other things. It all went into two suitcases and four plastic bags, that was all she had contributed to Otto’s life. She waited down on the corner to hail a taxi. A prostitute stood smoking, a little round-shouldered as if cold. She held the cigarette away from her body and bent first one leg in tight jeans, then the other. Lucca greeted her, they passed one another every day. Hey, was she off travelling? You could say that. Where? She didn’t know yet. The prostitute nodded sympathetically. She knew all about that.

>   Miriam looked at her with a tragic face when she opened the door. She was a head shorter than Lucca, who had to bend down to let her friend embrace her. They stood there locked in each other’s arms, rocking from side to side. Lucca began to cry, simultaneously asking herself why she had only begun to cry now. Was it Miriam’s sympathy that had set her off, rather than grief at Otto ditching her? Miriam was alone at home, her boyfriend was a jazz musician and had a gig that night. They sat in the kitchen drinking vodka, turning the glowing ends of their cigarettes around in the ashtray so they grew as sharp as flaming spears. Miriam had always thought Otto was a shit, Lucca wasn’t the first one to be dropped like that. But she couldn’t well have said that while they were together. Incidentally, Miriam’s boyfriend had seen him in town recently with a mulatto, a photographer’s model, as far as she knew. Miriam hadn’t wanted to say anything about that to Lucca, so as not to upset her.

  She went on heaping scorn and condemnation over Otto until Lucca interrupted her. Were they going to have a child or what? Lucca was not really interested, but Otto had been slated enough for the time being. She felt battered by her friend’s vicious words. Miriam changed channels promptly and lowered her voice, modest but also flattered at being able to share her dream of happiness with her sorrowing friend. Her beloved couldn’t make up his mind, he had mumbled something about his freedom. What did he want that for? They had had a row. But Miriam herself was ready, it was a feeling in her body, she just wanted to have this child, besides, it would strengthen their relationship. If only he would understand. What else was there to look forward to? A gig and a cabaret here and there, like that comic one. She could actually sing very well, but no better than a lot of others. She was not the one Harry Wiener had invited to supper! She saw the little flicker in Lucca’s eyes and laid a hand on her shoulder. The Royal Theatre, that was quite fantastic! She was really happy for Lucca.

  Later they lay in bed with their arms around each other, the jazz man would have to sleep on the sofa, but Lucca could not fall asleep. She cautiously wriggled free of Miriam’s heavy embrace and sat on the edge of the bed. The grey morning light was already penetrating the blind. Plastic baskets full of briefs, underpants and socks sat among the few books on the backless bookcase. Once they had been white but had faded into pale pink or pale blue shades after all the times they had been through the washing machine. The walls were adorned with photographs of sweaty, exhausted jazz musicians fastened with drawing pins, and ranged along the wainscot were Miriam and her boyfriend’s trodden-down shoes in rows amidst the dust. On the bedside table a foot file and a pessary sat beside the alarm clock. It was only just past five.

  Miriam turned over on her side, she had a heavy face, in sleep she almost resembled a man. None the less she always wore close-fitting tops that emphasised her full bosom, and leggings despite her hefty thighs. There was something brash about Miriam. When she made a real effort she could look quite good, but she was particularly noisy and coarse if she was in the company of women better looking than herself. As if she was secretly offended by their genes. Several times Lucca had been taken aback by the way she bossed her man about, the tall, skinny guy with a ring in his ear, only to sit the next moment on his lap and start tongue-kissing. She had told Lucca with a grin that she had practically had to rape him the first time they made love. Miriam used her initiative when things did not develop of their own accord. In her opinion to be desired was a simple human right.

  Lucca felt a tickling sensation on one foot. A wood ant was on its way along the vein protruding under the thin skin of the arch. The deck chair creaked as she bent down. The mouldy canvas tore underneath her as the ant curled up and fell through her fingers. It was hot, she rose, and everything went black for a moment.

  She retreated into the shade at the end of the garden, where the wild growth around the stone wall made a chaotic barrier facing the woods. In some places dusty broken rays of sunlight broke through the thicket and touched a reddish trunk or a tuft of dark green needles, disorientating the eyes in a confused web of golden light surrounded by soft formless shadows. Everything had been in movement, the heavy tree trunks and the shadows and beams of sunlight, when she clamped her legs around his neck. His beard tickled the sides of her knees as he walked over the domed forest floor covered by dead needles with a firm grip of her ankles. He stumbled and almost lost his balance every time she threw out her arms because she caught sight of a squirrel or a pigeon that flew up and flapped against the branches, but then the trees opened out and gave way to the sand dunes covered with marram grass waving smoothly in the wind, and there was the sea, vast and very, very blue.

  She turned round and sat down on the grass. Else’s deck chair was empty. She hadn’t seen her get up. Her stomach tied itself into a knot and she lay down on the grass, thinking of Otto’s eyes and his broad hands. The earth was cool and damp through her dress. Maybe he was lying looking at his hands right now as they explored a delicious mulatto girl’s body, infatuated by the difference between his own pale skin and hers. The sizzling of butter in the frying pan blended with the grasshoppers’ song. Lucca got to her feet. The top of the stable door to the kitchen was open. She stood watching Else coat the fish fillets in egg and breadcrumbs before putting them into the pan. She stood with one hand on her side as she turned them. Her grey hair was gathered into a careless, girlish knot and she had tied a pink sash round her waist as a skirt, indomitably feminine, thought Lucca.

  There is more to life than love, she said, pouring out white wine. They sat at the garden table in the last golden light. You’ll discover that sooner or later. She looked down into her glass and up again at Lucca. Work, for instance . . . Strindberg, wasn’t it? They drank a toast to that. And children, what about children? Else thought about that as she parted flesh from bone. Children were a trap. Not you, she hastened to add with a reassuring pat on Lucca’s hand. Lucca had been so easy. Else removed a tiny bone from the corner of her mouth and put it on the edge of her plate. But you look like a cow, she said, and you feel like a cow, and you turn into a cow. Lucca thought of Miriam.

  What if they had had a child? He would definitely not have wanted that. She thought of the American boy who had been given a red car for his birthday. Otto never spoke of him, apparently he had said all there was to say. The boy existed, but they did not know each other and that’s how it was. Otto didn’t even have a picture of him. A letter from Lester enclosing a drawing had arrived in the autumn. The only sign of the mother’s life was the neat, formal handwriting on the envelope. Lucca fixed the drawing to the fridge door with sticky tape. Otto accepted that, but when it fell down one windy day he left it on the floor. She got him to send the boy an advent calendar. She bought it herself. He looked at her as if he thought she was crazy, but he sent it.

  She hadn’t even contemplated the possibility of their having a child. Only now did she calculate how many potential children had spurted out of him every time to no purpose. A whole class, a whole school, a whole city of unborn babies. She had never seriously imagined them walking down the street one day with a buggy, on a Saturday morning shopping trip. Maybe because she hadn’t dared. She visualised Otto’s blue eyes. She didn’t even know what they had seen, those eyes. Probably just a girl among so many others, a face in the line of faces blotting each other out on his sheet like transparencies projected on a screen. Click, and the world changed. But that can’t have been how he saw it. His world was probably always the same, only it was full of girls.

  Lucca turned to look at the woods. The shadows had grown thicker among the straight columns of spruce. She tried to recall the men she had been with, either for a night, a few months or longer. There were twenty-four altogether, if she counted her first sweethearts. She recalled the advent calendar she had bought for Otto’s son. It pictured a crowd of children sledging and building snowmen and having snowball fights, all of them rosy-cheeked. She tried to reconstruct the sequence of the men she had known and visualised th
em with excited red cheeks and a number on their foreheads. When she kissed a new, strange face it had been like opening yet another lid, thrilled as a child with what might be hidden behind it. Had she really believed that Otto’s face was the last one? Was she so naïve? Had she imagined it would be Christmas every night for ever?

  It was still light when she went to bed, having told Else she had a headache. She closed the blind to darken the room, light nights had never appealed to her. As a child she had been afraid night would not come, she didn’t know why, and she had been just as scared when Else drew down the black blind. She had insisted on keeping the bedside light on until she fell asleep. Else had draped one of her Indian scarves over the lamp and she had lain looking at the grey woollen petals and stems spreading over the ceiling and walls, where the embroidered flowers on the scarf threw their enlarged shadows. Now she lay open-eyed in the thick darkness of the room.

  In the spring of 1965 Else and her first husband toured Italy by car. They were young and had only been married four years. She had married a successful young man, at least his parents were well-off, and Else’s mother and father were more than pleased. She had played with the idea of being an actor and studied with one for a few months, but nothing came of it. In one of the photographs from that trip she sits smiling in a white open-top Aston Martin. She wears sunglasses and a light-coloured silk scarf tied under her chin, and the road snakes behind her through rows of black pines on the Tyrolean mountainsides. Else’s first husband doesn’t appear in any of the pictures. He was the one who took them.

  In Lucca’s opinion it was quite appropriate for him not to be in a single one of the snapshots. He was nothing but an eye in the camera he directed towards her mother, who did not yet know she was to be a mother the next year, standing in St Mark’s Square and beneath the arches of the Colosseum, smiling the same delighted smile. Lucca smiled when she looked at those pictures. They made her feel she was the surprise itself in her own person. If Else had had a child with the invisible photographer, Lucca would never have been born.