Mothers and Daughters
- Автор: Хантер Эван
- Год: 1961
- Язык: английский
- Год: Simon and Schuster
- Жанр: Современная русская и зарубежная проза
Электронная книга - «Mothers and Daughters». Краткое содержание книги:
“You’ve forgotten my name,” he said.
“No. No, I haven’t. Renato.” She smiled.
“And Julia.”
“Yes. And Julia.”
“What would you like, Julia?”
“I’m sorry, what...?”
“To drink.”
“Oh. Whatever you’re having.”
“Some vermouth?”
“Yes, that would be fine.”
“Have you had lunch yet?”
“No. I thought I’d—”
“Good, then we shall eat together.”
“No, I couldn’t,” Julia said.
“Why not?”
“I want to get to the Colosseum.”
“Cara,” he said, “the Colosseum has been there for two thousand years. It will still be there after lunch. We will eat together.” He snapped his fingers for the waiter and ordered a vermouth. Julia sat with her hands on the table, silent.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“No.”
“You seem...” He shrugged. “Distressed.”
“No.”
“Would you prefer not having lunch with me?”
“Yes,” she said honestly.
“But that would be foolish.”
“I don’t know you,” she said. “We met on a mountain.”
“And again in Domodossola. You mustn’t forget Domodossola.” He smiled suddenly.
“No. I won’t ever forget Domodossola,” she answered. She looked down at her hands again.
“So you see, it’s all very proper. Our having lunch together. We’re almost old friends.”
“Yes, we are. But I don’t know you.”
“And if we waited to know each other before having lunch together, we’d both be old and incapable of enjoying good food.” He laughed. “Americans always insist on knowing people. What does it do, this knowledge?”
“I guess Americans are...”
“Besides, knowing another person is an impossibility.”
“I don’t think so.”
“An impossibility,” he said flatly.
“All you’re saying is that you yourself refuse to be known.”
Renato looked at her appreciatively. “Perhaps so.” He grinned. “See how well you know me already?”
“No, not at all.”
“Well, we will know each other better.”
She did not answer. The waiter brought her drink. She lifted the glass and sipped at it.
“Mmmm, that feels good.”
“You’re not wearing lipstick,” he said, studying her mouth.
“No. Does it look terrible?”
“It looks very natural.”
“Roman women don’t use much make-up. I felt a little conspicuous.”
“When in Rome,” he said, and he smiled again.
“You’re always laughing at me, aren’t you?”
“Laughing?” His eyebrows quirked upward suddenly. “Cara, laughing at you?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I get the feeling you think I’m very stupid and... and dazed, I guess, and you find me very amusing. That’s the feeling you give me.”
“Well, I must explain. It’s my face.”
“Your face?”
“Yes, it’s given me trouble ever since I was a boy. Do you see my eyes?”
“Yes.”
“They slant upward. In fact, there’s some suspicion that my father was a Chinese.”
“You’re joking.”
“Yes, I am. But my eyes slant upward, nonetheless. And my mouth turns slightly upward too. So you see, in combination they give my face a look of constant amusement, even when I’m most serious. It’s a terrible thing, believe me. Men strike me, women avoid me, all because they think I’m smirking at them. I apologize for my stupid face, but there’s really nothing I can do about it.” He laughed suddenly, the blue eyes slanting, the mouth turning up at the edges.
She watched, and laughed with him, and then said, “No, it’s not your face. It’s something else, something inside. Be honest with me, Renato.”
“All right,” he said. “I’ll be perfectly honest. I’m not amused by you. Not in the slightest. I’m delighted by you, and my delight shows on my face, and I can’t help smiling when I’m in your presence. That is the truth.”
Julia nodded and lowered her eyes again.
“And as usual,” Renato said, “the truth when asked for is instantly embarrassing when delivered.”
“Yes, I’m embarrassed,” she admitted.
“Why should you be?”
“Because... because what you said pleased me.”
“And so you become embarrassed? Americans, Americans.”
“You sound as if you know a great many Americans.”
“No, only a few.”
“Women?” she asked, and was immediately sorry.
The smile dropped from his face. He looked at her silently for what seemed like a very long time. Then he said, “Julia, I don’t want to play the American game. I don’t want the disguised question, and the guarded answer. There is enough falseness in Rome. Let’s not add to it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. She would not raise her eyes. “I... I guess I’m frightened.”
“Of me?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I’m a simple man,” he said quietly.
She kept her eyes fastened to the table top. In a hushed voice, she said, “I looked for you. This is my third time in Rome. Each time, I looked for you.”
“You do not have to look any more,” he said.
A city is only wood and stone and glass until you are loved there. Julia Regan, in 1938, felt a oneness with Rome that she had never felt for any other place.
Everything about the city was romantic to her, yes, the obvious romance traps like the fountain of Trevi and the Spanish Steps and the church of Santa Maria Maggiore where it reportedly snowed through the open roof in the middle of summer, and the majesty of the Sistine Chapel, and the flamboyant severity of the Victor Emmanuel Monument, all these tried-and-true tourist delights seemed to have been invented and constructed for Julia’s pleasure alone, but more than these, there was romance everywhere in the city. And Renato, like a lover to woman and city both, showed off one to the other and unfailingly flattered both.
The cats.
Surely, she told herself, there is nothing at all romantic about the notion of cats or the presence of cats or the habits of cats. But one day Renato mentioned to her that there were more cats in the city of Rome than any other place in the world, and suddenly the discovery of each new cat became a momentous occasion charged with the excitement only a secret can possess. The cats of Rome were their secret. They found cats everywhere, the real cats prowling every cobbled alley, nosing into every uncovered garbage can, squatting contentedly on the hoods of the black taxicabs, stalking the banks of the snaking Tiber, howling to the moon in the triangular square formed by the junction of the Via Sistina and the angling Viale Trinità dei Monti, parading down the steps and through the Via Condotti like shopping dowagers, striped cats, and fat orange cats, and Persian cats, and black cats to be avoided, and a Siamese cat sitting in the window of a jewelry shop beside a clock with an ornately carved jade face, and an emaciated cat on the Via Giovanni who sat up and begged when Renato offered him a thin slice of salami, real cats of every shape and size, appearing as if by magic whenever they turned a corner or crossed a street. Sculptured cats in the frieze-work of buildings, cats in paintings at the galleries they went to, a lap cat carried by Violetta in the outdoor production of La Traviata which they saw at the Baths of Caracalla, the fat Angora suddenly joining the soprano in her aria, wailing to the stars and the crescent moon above, her song more forlorn than the singer’s, convulsing the Italian audience, sending them into gales of unrepressed laughter until the diva finally walked to the edge of the stage and stamped her foot and stopped the orchestra and silenced the audience with a glare colder than the September Roman night.