TALES
AND
TRAVE L.


CESARE AND THE CHINESE.
ARE
Cesare was a slim, good-looking young man with dark hair
and a delicate, slightly curving nose. He was quite tall, and
moved softly and lightly. I used to see him in a trattoria,
usually with a Woman of Chinese origin. He would smile towards
our table most politely, with a little nod of his head. It was
impossible to imagine him doing anything abrupt or harsh. In
everything he seemed delicate and thoughtful, and perhaps a bit
submissive. He lacked the blind, staring quality of other Romans :
far from being lost in his senses he seemed inglese, in the Italian
meaning of the word---rather cool and formal. In fact, I often
wondered if he was wholly Italian, and if perhaps he didn't come
from the Veneto or the Alps. But he told me one day, when I asked
him, that he was a Roman 'born and bred'. His father was a big
landlord and owned several blocks of flats in Naples and Palermo.
Cesare wasn't a very young man. He was in his early forties.
But he gave the impression of a touthful shyness and insecurity.
once
I remember when he told men that, duming-tiut-Ter afterthe armistice
had-been-signet between the alliesend-the-newlyformed Italtan
in He war
govermment, he a walked from one side of Italy to the other,
the
mostly along difficult mountain pa ths, with no money,
EEmEP
image I already had of him---as innocent of any harshness,
and shyly withdrawn from the World---was sustained by his descrip-
had
tion, as heymeant it to be perhaps, so that I saw him asy kind of
romantic wanderer for a moment, his uniform in rags (he'd been
an officer), hatless, but still smooth and trim-looking, strangely
as *e Hest
beautiful, not sweating or hungry or irritated I aything
Sfits
duould Ae.
that
He and the Chinese woman always sat in a corner of the
trattoria, quietly, sometimes never once addressing each other;


and they rarely joined another party. I took them for a
married couple Who were a bit bored with each other. But then
lalar
someone told me that they weren't married. And a little/he
invited us up to his flat. It was an awkward, cold-looking place---
just two rooms . These set out to'be artistic, with useless
imitation-beams across the ceiling and a bookcase sticking out in
the middle of the room with a settee in front of it, all jagged
and devised, without any intimacy at all. The Chinese W oman was
a pale, thin creature with a cracked voice, and she spoke in
painfully complicated sentences, trying to use big Words and convey
pretentious ideas. I couldn't concentrate on anything she saido
eelam of
U A trOMherZ She W ould talk about
books or pictures or the latest film, and everything seemed
syphened through a dusty brain.
The things she said didn't seem
to come from life or people but to be connected with technique or,
portandaceoz Styreor machinery of some kind. Her sentenc es
were R jagged like his room, and she kept referring to people
as being 'sensitieed' to things or 'unsensitised'. She said she
had a high degree of sensitisation to noise, meaning she couldn't
stand the radio in the courtyard; she wasn't sensitised at all
to human presence as obstruction of the psyche, meaning she could
work with other people in the room, She sp oke in a breathless
way all the time as if she couldn't get sufficient moisture into
her mouth and was trying to whip a dead heart into life again.
She had strangely hollow eyes with only a reminiscence of the
Chinese in them, dar rker than the rest of her face; and she sat
hunched up, her shoulders angular, her chest caved in. We heard
that she'd once been one of the loveliest women in the city, With
a plump, rich body that made the Romans gape wherever she went.
She'd come to Rome in the war , and had stayed afterwards out of
love for the city.
She talked to me about this.


'It was some city in the war---it's never been the same
since---I'm sure it wasn't like it before, either---the streets
seemed different---'.
I said I thought this was the glow war put on things.
It made everything a glowing scene---the background of death.
She nodded and said, 'I guess I was looking for it to
happen again, but short of another war it wouldn't. Anyway,
it's been a gradual let-down ever since---', and she cast a slow,
narrowed look, so dusty and tired, across at Cesare, Who sat
talking to my wife, his head back against the settee in a way
that gave him a helpless and even frail look.
I asked her when she'd met him and she said just after the
war---a long time ag O now (with another dusty sidgglance at him).
Their Work had bec ome connected: he was on some trading scheme
that involved Shanghai, where she was born. They'd worked for
said
months in the same office---"Then...) she addod with a smile,
and shrugged her shoulders slowly without adding anything.
There was a silence, and I looked across at him.
'We're talking about you,' I said. 'How you met.'
'0h, yes' he answered in English, with the same slight
American ac cent as the Chinese womano For a moment, watching
his face, I felt a rush of friendship towards him, for that
Italian quality I had come to recognise CF a certain clear-bright,
and
ara dazzlingi yet mysterious intelligence.
Then it disappeared,
like a brief giddiness.
'I'd just come back from China f .
'Oh, you were in China, too?'
'Yes. For about two years. In Hong Kong. -
Really? You met Buwei there?'
He paused for a moment---nothing seemed to take him unawares
or disturh his delicate calm---and *en he nodded gravely. He


could as easily have met her on the street in Naples---I had a
sudden impression of him as a liar.
In a curious---perhaps eastern---way the Chinese Woman
seemed to know everything ab out him. Sometimes he looked like
a child at her side. Apparently, she knew both his Wives well---
he'd been divorced once and separa ted once. She even seemed to
collect an encyclopadic knowledge about him, all the time storing
it up in her peculiar English machine-banguage, which he may or
may not have taught her himself. He liked her to speak in English;
waroart Italian seemed 'vulgar' to him, sepedines, and he knew
no Chinese. Even when she was away from Rome she seemed to be
protecting him still, and people said *E he never went a day
without writing to her: even, that he kept a diary for herof
his mos t intima I te doings, in symbol-lenguage.
Yet he wouldn't tolerate a mention of her When she was
away. He screwed his nose-up stigatagy with disgust. . It was
an 'old' affair: stale. Yet it had proved itself stable.
Jul-
It had lasted longer than either of his marriages. The tweof
ert
aems semee se separatefromeachother---XEX the root in
religion andcivilisation---that even while mer vere mutually
bored And-disgusted therfelt S ome fascina tion holding them
tege
a Hrew-it-eeemedy enyway-- they never talked
about each other if they could help it, except to show a little
sign of disgust. Perhaps she felt proud to use the odd language
he'd taught her: it was light and timeless, like a strange
western Buddhist tongue---perhaps that was it; it wasn't ugly
for her as it was for us, since the language wasn't alive for
her in any case.
She gazed at Cesare. from a distance, at his corrupt, Roman
with
face makiag ifs kindly or delicate or boyish mask, according to
according r
the needs of the moment (that is,)" what kind of woman there was in


the room) . Perhaps the machine-language was the best way of
just
describing the peculiar machinery of his life' las it would have
been to describe his room, and the fake art he put on his walls.
She seemed to feel an exquisite power ofer him, but being Chinese
she had no taste for power in our sense:, epemanttdozitemtet
fot her.
exereisingtanytihring. He was simply an exquisite
experience
In fact, she relinguished whatever power she had over him every
day, every hour : she grasped at nothing. . She stayed in his
flat when he wanted her to; left it when he gave the word.
The stay might last a week, six months, hardly a day. They led
a strange life.
I used to think of them as two people sitting in the crazy
no-man's-land between two religions, so gripped by what lay on
the other side of the frontier than they never came to terms wibh
what lay on their own. Cesare had wanted to be a priest once,
but, as he said, demurely, with a flattered glance downsards,
'passion' ' had stood in his way e
We saw them several times after that, and they seemed to
get more and more irritated with each other. Sometimes he gave
her a cold, level glance, or deliberately didn't answer a question, tut
X a - Zatopal ays
only
She/seemed to smile inwardly, and talked on in
her droning voice as if he weren't in the room. They looked
too tired of each other seen to have a quarrel.
often she would go away, for weeks on end, to Aus tria or
Switzerland for the cood mountains, and he Would eat in the tratt-
oria alone. Then she went to China for many months, and he
started up with another woman.


This new woman was a friend of ours: she came from Greece
and had a lazy, self-indulgent, morbidly sensuous character, with
a handsome but nervous face and childish, light-blue eyes which
she momvizes cast down in affected modesty, with the hint of a
wry smile, as if she quietly a pproved of a7 impropreity but
say
couldn't teayon as much. She was separated from her XNARRERX
tound
husband, and for nearly four years now she'd been going edowts with
one man after another, sometimes falling in love, or saying she
just ansther
fell in love, and sometimes treating it asl4/raw sensuous adventure.
She had firm, well-rounde d hips and a full bosom, and seemed to
grow more sensuous in body with every man: until she met Cesare.
Every new affair was arvelye the most important experience
she 'd ever had, and she liked to give her friends all the details.
Then there would be an estrangement, a crisis during which she
WG03S look/ tired and ill, than there would be another man and the
process would start all over again. She was interested in a man
and
most, it seemed, when he was fed up with her, bat the moment he
seemed to need her she cooled.
Actually she and Cesare had known each other for some years 9
intimale
but not onp
terms. A few weeks after the Chinese
woman left he asked her to dine with him---not at the usual
trattoria---and they were soon spending the night together at his
flat. She had told people openly that she was going to 1 mal ke a
line for him'.
Sometimes he slept at her flat, sometimes she slept at his.
They had dinner together almost every evening, and often he took
her to night-clubs. She would bhone him at his office, and he
would show impatience if she had made an appointment With another
man. Then their affair suddenly became secret. They never went
to the usual trattoria and for weeks she said nothing about him.
He had asked her not to give him publicity, as she'd gievn it so


generously to the other men. For one thing there was the
Chinese woman, who mustn't hear of it, and then he had a certain
position to keep up. He was shrewd enough to see that her pub-
licity wasn't always flattering.
As always at the beginning of an affair she was demure and
girlish, casting her eyes down a. lot and looking quietly---even
theatrically---happy. But gradually it was clear that anxities
wer creefing in,
badsteatede The trouble, it seemed, was this: he was so-mich loo
like her L in Wie character. He was aot interested in a woman
he Coded
when she was cool, terniug and
when she
Gauede-tonctotrior
was warm. MEKXW His wives, she saidgwrthe publicity-service was
starting up agai inuwwhdd made the mistake of showing warmth.
had
aad Also she began to find out that he'd,quite as many Women as
She'd had men. I was surprised to hear this, remembering him in
the trattoria, so meek and retiring.
Her usualt way of giving a man publicity was to ask her
friends for 'advice'. And she began to ask us for advice.
When she rang Cesare up a great many times in the day, sometimes
once every three minutes for three hours or more---there was a
lazy persistenc ce about her---or made a scene at his office, or
waited outside the palazzo where he lived to see if other W omen
went in, he was brusque and cold with her, and told her not to
be 'vulgar'o serhamrhoarpartparteed.dn But when she made
other appointments and stayed out the Whole night he W ould ring
her flat repeatedly and leave messages with the maid, and then
shout at her furiously for being a *whoref.
Slowly her body changed. She aaa lost the round, fleshy
look in her hips, and her chest began to look sunken, in the
same way as the Chinese woman's. Her eyes took on a paler
Was.
and dimmer look, ard her hair seemed more straggly. She began
'sachs I
1 A
to wear loose desses in the Tewnties st tyle, no longer the tight,


erotic, Roman dresses she'd worn before. She spoke softly,
always seemed tired. She even began to look schoolmarmish,
wearing flat, healthy walking shoes and buttoned blouses.
She told us that Cesare was always 'correcting' her. He
could only bear her to wear certain pale colours, and considered
most of her clothes 'crude'. And he made her little gifts which
subtly suggested the correction he was after. He had a way of
looking at a woman With a secretly appreciative warmth in his
eyes, as if he saw something in her that the other men hadn't
seen. He seemed to say, 'But how strange you never realised
before---didn't you really know that you had all these little
gifts---is it really true no one told you about them...?' And
of course an attractive woman couldn't brush that off. She
began to feel that she was dazzling and exquisite, byt only if
she followed his directions.
It was only one more step for him to use this as blackmail,
supposing he hadn't designed it as blackmail. from the start.
She fell over herself to do whatever he suggested. She rushed
out and bought the hideous 'artistic' colours he wanted. She
began reading the books he liked, even Proust. He told her he
Caps
was essentially proustian': there were certain vulgarities he
couldn't bear, and what could be more Proustian than that?
She began to talk more carefully, as he asked for more 'spiritual'
forms of conversation.
She told her freinds that she'd never had a man like him.
He exhilarated and excited her without precisely satisfdying her.
The more he criticised her and threw up his hands at some
'vulgarity', the more she felt the obscenity of her own person
and tried to tone it down in some way. And the pleasure in
this was that the moment they were in darkness together again,
even if it was only for a few moments, she wa: S a 'shrine' again.


Her other men had given her rounded hips and warm appetites,
but she didn't wantbthis any more. By being attractive now
she fell short of being a shrine. So she ceased being attract-
ive. It was the most tremendous boon her vanity had ever had.
But the moment she was ready to do anything for him, he
cooled and made other ap ppointments. He told her he had to work
late at the office.
She phoned the office and found he wasn't
there. Or he said he was going to work at home; and she found
he didn't get home until after midnight that day. She wasn't
sure he was going out with other women; he always threw up his
hands if she suggested it. But several things happened to make
it obvious. He was seen at a night-alub with a woman from
Bechuanaland, the wife of an official. She was a striking dark
woman with thick hips and a provocative, burning gaze. Still she
didn't believe it. He was so convincing when she saw hi im again:
He would look at her as if to say, 'And you, with all those gifts
I've told you about, you really believe I could be seen out with
her?' Of course, he knew the woman, but no more than that.
And, being flattered again, the 'shrine' came back into its own,
especially if they mea spent the night otgether.
He even introduced her to the Bechuanaland lady; Edam she
her
founqystriking but notthe Spromiscuous type'; and in any case
she had thick hips, which she knew Cesare didn't like. They
and she, went
even became friends in a mild way, jandyskewent to the Bechuanaland
lady's house for drinks, though they were both careful never to
discuss Cesare.
Then she would promise not to spy on him orrdoubt his word
again. He would say, 'Why, yes, she chases me, she's in love
with me, but I know my tastes!' And he would lean back and
To P. 9(a)


smile at her lazily, his eyes making a tiny dark sparkling
movement, and put out his hand in a gesture of compassion---
compassion for the other
T. P.lo


woman. After all, if she called him a liar, she dethroned
she a
Lic herself as well---there vas that to think of:
dethronde every
her.
little compliment he'd madef
But at the same time she played her own game as well. when-
ever he seemed to behying she made an appointment with another
man, and when he seemed really cool to her---meaning he didn't
even trouble to pay her compliments, but looked at her Nhen bitterly
8ys a 31 and said, 'My God, you lbok ghastly tonight!i--she would
stay away for a day or two. The spying became reciporcal and
pessm
obsessive. They began to realise that the other, was as practised
and unscrupulous a liar as Bax themselves, weres A Woman Who knew
them both, after listening to one of her long stories about his
lying and treachery, said wi th a smile, 'Siete fatti l'uno per
l'altro'---you are made for each other.
They began to live like man and wife, out of mutual fear.
mere + Aa1 n/a1 wth 1 a
He spent nights at her flat, and she
nights at his. They agreed to try 'an experimental period of
marriage' to see how far they were
C ompatible. But the
blackmail and strategy went on. She began smoking a lot, which
she'd never done before. She wandered round from friend to
friend. Her face was sallow and drawn, and days at the sea made
no difference. Late one night she rang us up saying she had
to talk to someone, could we come round at once, otherwise she
would throw herself out of the window. I said, No, we were
tired and had to work the next day, but rather tham throw herself
out of the window why didn't she come round to us for a few
minutes? She said she couldn't because she had a temperature,
and rang off. I began to get anxious and after a few minutes
rang her back. But she seemed to have forgotten our conversation.
She spoke lazily---Cesare had just talked to her, she said---and
she added a little curtly that she was tired now and wanted to


sleep.
Number One then came back from China. Everybody expected a
crisis, but apparently her affair with Cesare, which had gone on
for twelve years now, was at last over. Or so it was thought.
But someone who knew her well pointed out that this had often
been thought before. Anyway, she and the Greek woman met and
found they'd known each other long before, in a vague way.
They even breakfasted together at Cesare's flat, after he'd gone
to work---to the astonishment of his maid. They didn't talk
about him, but both knew the other knew. Number Two remained
in sole possession. Or so she thought. The Chinese woman had
nowhere to stay yet---she hadn't found a flat, and was constrained
Just tor afew mights,
to sleep there, fixing up a divan in the sitting room.
One morning Number Two, after spending the night at her own
flat, went to Cesare's just to eheck up', before the maid was
due to arrive. No one was there, but under the bed she found
a Chinese handkerchief, which she said only a woman, and PeBOeaDS?
ak Hal,
a Chinese woman, would carry about wi th her. Then she found
Number One's toilet equipment---including a pessary and contra-
ceptive tablets---in the bathroom. This wasn't necessarily a
proof of anything but, as she said, it went ta damned long way.'
But then Cesare had told her that his relation wit th Number One was
like that of a brother. Also it didn't seem likely to the
Greek woman that he would want her now---after all, she had lost
her looks. But the contraceptive apparatus wogrried her, and in
the evening she tackled him about it. He gave her a still gaze
and then said slowly and coolly, 'You're quite disgusting.
I never wish to see you aga in.' She went home, and after an


a taxi
hour or Sof arrived from Cesare's flat with all her belongings.
She at once retaliated by sending her maid with all his belong-
ings. The affair seemed closed, but after two days he rang her up
and invited her to dinner as if nothing had happened. The period
of the trail-marriage was thus over, and they were back at the
lover-stage, seeing each other secretly a few times a week.
There was the old thrill of seeming to deceive the Chinese woman.
cut frienal
even
As phey said, it was/better than the trial-marriage.
She spent ane night with him at his flat, when Number One was
in Torino for a few days, and next morning she was just about to
leave,XKEX after he'd gone to the office, When the maid called
after her casually, 'You'll be here tomorrow then?' She turned mud
and sensing something said with equal casualness, 'No, Why?'
'Oh, it doesn't matter,' the maid said, 'only il signore
sadd to buy enough bread for two tomorrow.'
'For tomorrow's breakfast?'
The maid didn't seem to realise what she'd said---or
perhaps she did. Number Two murmured, 'Oh, he might have made a
mistake.'
Then she went home and decided to lay a plan, and
catch him out once and for all.
She phoned h im in the evening bevause not doing so might
have aroused his supicions. He told her he was going to work at
home, on something very important, and she said she wouldn't
disturb him, and would go to bed early herself. They spoke
politely to each other and agreed to see each other the following
day, when the worst of his Work would be over. She hadcthe key
to his flat, an extra one, and added that she would return it to
him the next day. -
She was very sleepy and had an early dinner, quite alone,
which was unusual for her. She was silent and collected, with-


out her usual restless indecision. Then she went to bed, at
about nine o'clock, and set the alarm f or two o'clock in the
morning. She went to sleep at once ànd woke up, perfectly clear
and enrgetic, even before the alarm went off. She took a taxi
across the river, and dismissed it a hundred me tres or so before
Cesare's palazzo. She did the rest on foot,keeping close to the
massive stone knikding Walls in case he saw her from his window.
She'd put on soft, low-heeled shoes. There was no light from his
window, but she knew he took the precaution of always buying
thick curtain material. She didn't take the lift up, in case the
noise put him on guard. Outlsde his door, on the fifth floor,
shetaited and listened. There wasn't a sound, and no light sh owed
underneath. She turned the key, and went in on tiptoe. There
was no movement at all inside. She knew every corner of the flat
and needed no light to go straight to the bedroom. The door was
open, as it always was at night, to make a breeze from the window
of the sitting room. She went swiftly in and wafted for her eyes
to grow accustomed to the dim light. There were two people.
Cesare was in his place, and the head next to him was dark.
In fact, it was black. She walked XXEKEEX closer. Was it the
woman from Bechuanaland? She stepped forward to make sure it was
wete
in Rome, agter
really her---there mightibe other blako-faced women-hezwaszinta
all
egegtedringwand knocked over a big lamp at the dide of the bed.
It crashed down, and Cesare Woke up at once. She ran to the door,
but he'd seen her.
'Vatene via,' he said in a clear voice, 'è non fare una
scena.' Go away and don't make a scene.
He said it in a paternal way---firmly, like a doctor order-
ing a prescription. As it happened it was the best tone he CO uld
h ave adopted. It ma de her feel ashamed---dethroned and deshrined.
The Bechuanaland lady---if it was the Bechuanaland lady---sat up,


blinking, as Number Two ran to the front door shouting
'Bugiardo!'---liar: at the top of her voice.
Now she knew. And she began to piece to gether all the
other lies he'd told her, Wondering if hel/told the same lies
abbutrabr to the other women. After she'd been back in her own
flat for an hour she decided to ring the Bechuanaland lady at
nd He Beckuanalandlndy was Here,
her home. K Mpi2/Bhe_F-thre/thouehf she might just have
avalf
come insffahe didn't sound/sleepy. Had it been her after all?,
Therezvere ther ark Zezedaoomérpin Reme gead the bedroom kad
She was sddeuly unsute -) henelg.
curtains had been drawn. So she said nothing and put the phone
down.
phe-Beemednalend ad had er
leave Cesarets flat and reac) h home in a taxi.
she pare
aceanz Cesare Hou Le probab! have-sent et home at once knowing
still
hat Number Twefhed akey and might cause more trouble. Soher
reflections wentod.
The next day she came to us for 'advice'. Should she ask
the Bechuanaland lady point-blank whether she'd slept Wit th him,
or should she ask Cesare himself? On the other hand, if the
Bechuanaland lady thought there was any doubt in her mind she
would DEXEEHIEEXE at once say no, and Cesare was in any case a
liar. So neither of those plans would do. Then she hit on some-
thing else: she would phone the Bechuanaland lady and ask her
casually, 'Did Cesare say anything about me last night?' And
if the other woman said, 'But we weren't together last nssht!, 3
she could easily reply, 'Oh, I'm sorry, I thought he was going to
have dinner with tou.x He said something of the sort.' It
was rather ingenious. And it was effective.)
Thé Bechuanaland lady replied at once, 'Of course he did!
What do you think?' When Number Two asked how long'it had been
going on, she said, 'You'd better ask him that, darling.'
She left him alone that day, both at the office and at


home. Instead she phoned the Bechuanaland lady again in the
evening and told her with a rush how Cesare had been lying to her
all these months, and how he'd told her that she (the Bechuanaland
lady) had been chasing him and seemed to be madly in love with
himg mhougshe-uerederever
a er a0 a 4
The Bechuanaland
lady laughed coolly at this, without ranc our, and said, 'He worried
the life out of me. And he's bee en doing so for months. Ever
since his Chinese W oman went away. He used to ring me up every
day.' Then she added, 'He told me the same about you. He sadd
he wasn't interested in you at all really, but you kept worrying
him, and he was afraid of what you might do to yourself if he
suddenly dropped you.'
They began to work on his charac ter reciprocally. Evenings
were pieced together over which he had lied either to one of them
or to bothgpechemer Ku They even compared him as a lover and
same
thal
reached the/conclusiong, /he 'tried to satisfy many because he
never satisfied onew', a neat phrase. They found the poor man's
diary, which he kept for the Chinese woman, listing his intimate
These
doings. Pheg were certainly intimate. By hard work the two
ih diary's
women found the key to the code he was using, to thejs trange
items
hieroglyphics: the dverey carefully recorded the Women he'd met,
those he'd kissed and those he'd spent the night with, using
different symb ols for each cotatans epagen
mean t success, they dis-
covered. '2HU' mean t two unsuccessful hours; "2HUN' meant two
unsuccessful hours with Natalie, the Greek woman; DKiX '3MSN meant
three successful minutes wi th Natalie. How they found the key
nobody knew: they said they did it by following his character as
as a atcatcher follrws a tat.
they knew
They Baa put certain dates---one 3MSCEEA (C meant
Cynthia, the Bechuanaland lady)---together and looked at their own
appointment books. His mistake was to use initials like that.
Sometimes there was simply the letter s, with the words che gioia:


written after it---how wonderful: And Natalie began to give
the book all the publicity she could.
To solve matters, the Chinese woman moved back to his flat
completely: she answered all calls for him, and with inscrutable
tact laid false trails for him, telling poeple that he was away
from Rome when he was in his office, and in his office when he wa S
sitting at home. The Greek Woman couldn't penetrate the Eastern
The Chinese homan
barrier she put round him, and gave up soon. A Wumhen-Cene/oould
talk her machine-language again: 'the cohabitative urge Which in
the frustrated eg O can become obsessive', a sly dig at Cesare,
thak.
thike, And,
lic.
SAgain he was in the trattoria sitting middly at her side,
hardly saying a word, only giving her a look of disgust now and
then.