Insults

My friends tell me my nasty nature can be seen from my profile. Straight on, I look like a Pekingese: round, protuberant eyes; a fixed, malicious stare; a snub nose; a wide, curving mouth. But from the side, they say, my face reminds them of a fist ready to hit somebody in the nose. It's really more than a nasty nature you're born with and can't do anything about. It's a deep-down anger that got hold of me when I was about 15 and never left me. This anger, like a watch that's self-winding, goes on its own, without motive or provocation. And then, because of this anger, I always feel like arguing. At this point, I can hear what the usual busybody will ask: "Why so angry? Why always ready to pick a fight?" And my answer to the people who want to know too much but don't know there's nothing to know is always precise: "Who knows?"

Especially mornings when I just wake up, I'm so mad that if the world were a dish or a glass, I'd smash it to bits on the door. No doubt about it, I have to pick an argument like a smoker needs to smoke, a drinker needs to drink and a drug addict needs to trip. But, unluckily for me, I can't work off this urge to quarrel at home. My parents are not very successful shopkeepers (they have a perfumery in the Prati district, where there are dozens of shops like theirs, and better ones at that). They're two vague old angels who are as in love as they were the day they were married. My younger sister, who's at teachers college, is an angel, too, the studious type, fussy, hard-working. My brother is a loafer, maybe even a delinquent, but since I'm very fond of him, to me he's an angel, too.

Well, I can't take out my fighting urge on this family of angels, so I've found another way. I go out mornings and choose a street corner to stand on, it doesn't matter which as long as there's a traffic light. I take my stance against a light pole, like the whores I'm imitating, pulling my chest back and shoving my belly out, so my crotch will show, thick and oblong like a bar of soap. And then my legs, the best thing I have going for me, are so perfect you'd think I got them from the stocking models they have in show windows. As soon as I spot a car with just the driver in it, I start thumbing a ride. The driver looks me over, my thumb, my face, my "bar of soap" and my great mannequin legs. The car keeps going for a few feet as if by inertia, then slows down and stops. I run up to it, hop in, slam the door. Without beating around the bush, I ask, "Where are you headed?"

My direct approach gives him courage; he doesn't know I have treated everybody like pigs ever since the student riots. These drivers are usually very polite, very accommodating. "Where would you like to go?" So then I make a quick guess at how long it will take to have a good, drawn-out fight. If, say, I'm at Piazza Cavour, I think of a square on the other side of town, Piazza Bologna. Well, believe it or not, not very many turn me down. Most of them shift into gear, their hopes rising, and begin the usual string of questions as they drive. "What's your name? Where are you from? What do you do? Student? Do you have a job? Do you have a boyfriend? Do you make it with him?" Etc. I give them quick answers and get right down to the fight.

For instance, if we're talking about how we make our living, and one of them says he's a building contractor, I attack: "What? You say you're a building contractor? Really? You're in the construction business? That's good, because I've been waiting a long time to meet somebody like you to tell you just what I think about your business. You know what? I think you contractors are disgusting. Yes, disgusting. You speculate on land: Buy for ten and sell for a hundred. You can't even count your payoffs around town, from city hall to the Vatican. You work for the rich. So the price of houses goes up and the poor can't even hope to buy one. At least if they were decent, your houses! But they're disgusting like you. Well dressed and proper on the outside and ugly and rotten on the inside. Oh. I know all about it. I went looking for a house with a friend of mine who's getting married. We saw a lot of them. You call them houses? The floors are warped, the fixtures are cheap, the plaster is cracked. You open a window and there's a wall to look at. Or a dingy courtyard. No trees or grass, no yard. You're like food hoarders, but instead of getting people in the stomach, you get them where they have to live, and maybe that's even more important than food." Etc., etc.

When they had the student riots, I was still pretty young; then afterward I lost interest. But I remember what the group leaders said. So whatever work the driver of the moment does, I always have something to say about it. I'm never short a comeback.

Now here's the best part: The driver is insulted, degraded, but he usually doesn't do what you'd expect--open the door and ask me to get out. Maybe it's because he still hopes to get me into bed, or maybe, more likely, he's one of those masochists, never arguing back, bending over the steering wheel sopping up a shower of insults, driving from one light to the next until we reach the place I told him I wanted to go. Then, when he comes to a stop, he doesn't let me off as if he's glad to get rid of me. No, not him. Most of the time, he asks me humbly for a date. Very hangdog about it. Now, will you tell me what men are about? Why do they like to be treated bad? Who knows?

One day I leave the house and think, "The first one I take on today I'll eat alive." I go to the traffic light at the Tiber, my favorite spot because the drivers can pull over and pick me up without any trouble. As usual, I'm wearing a miniskirt. I lean up against a light pole and cross my legs. That bar of soap between my legs shows up just right. My breasts are big and sagging, but I haul them up as much as I can, until they almost touch my chin. I start thumbing right away, but very casually, I'm so sure of myself and my looks. Nothing happens. So I start thumbing harder. Still nothing. I'm getting a little anxious. I try something I don't have to do very often, only in cases like this. I start scratching my crotch, pulling up my miniskirt while I'm at it, as if I had an itch. Suddenly a big white car, a little yellow with age, screeches to a stop a few feet away. I run after it, dive in and announce. "I'm going to Corso Trieste; what about you?"

A low, educated voice answers, "Corso Trieste? Sure."

The traffic light changes, he cuts across the bridge, gets onto Via Tomacelli. I make myself comfortable and take a look at him. His head is strange, flat in the back and bulging in front. Reminds me of an owl. His black hair is plastered to his temples as if it were wet with sweat. His round eyes are set deep into dark sockets, under his jet-black brows. His nose is a beak, curving almost enough so that the point touches his mouth. Black, trim mustache. Prominent chin with a dimple. A tough-skinned, red face, like a farmer's or a hunter's, somebody used to being outdoors, in other words. I study him carefully, because there's something not normal in the line of his face I can't quite make out. Finally I ask, "Do you mind looking at me?"

He turns abruptly and defiantly says, "Here I am. What's the problem?"

Now I understand. Under his clipped mustache, his mouth seems to be pulled as if by a cut that hasn't healed, a red gash that goes from his upper lip to his left nostril. I tell him, "Thanks, you can look ahead now. I see what it's all about."

"What do you see?"

"That you have a disgusting mouth, with that harelip of yours."

He doesn't say anything for a while. Then he gently murmurs, "Some people like it."

"I don't."

"That's life."

"That's life, hell."

I'm getting my dander up, I can tell. I'm so wound up I'm about to snap. But I give myself one last twist, thinking, "He doesn't pronounce his Rs and listen to that nasal voice: a society type, a snob, the cocktail set and all that." And, as I look him over, my suspicions are confirmed. He's wearing a gray pinstripe suit, a white shirt, a classical rep tie, gold cuff links. My eyes shift to his hands gripping the steering wheel: stubby, square, with a few straight hairs on the back; his nails are shiny, flat, well manicured. He must be one of those men who spend their time at the barber's with hot towels, massage and shampoo, having their nose and ear hairs clipped while they casually give their hand to the talkative manicurist squatting on a small stool as best she can, with her fat thighs bulging over both sides. In other words, a real pill. My glance flicks over his hands like a fly and comes to rest on a ring he's wearing on the middle finger of his right hand. It's a signet ring or a monogram, I can't tell which. I come right out and ask him, "What do you do?"

"What do you mean, 'What do you do'?"

"Your work, your profession."

He doesn't answer immediately. He seems to be thinking it over. Then he says. "Export-import."

"What's that?"

He explains in that overly courteous tone of his that's really insulting, "It means bringing things into the country and shipping things out. Business transactions."

A businessman! Like my parents! Like the people my parents know! So I lower my head and charge: "A businessman? You're a businessman? I know all about businessmen, because my family's full of them. The worst bunch in the world, the laziest, the most useless, the most destructive. That's right, it's their fault that prices are going up and everything costs more and more, while the money we have to spend is worth less and less. Do you know what businessmen are? Parasites, real ones, like lice and crabs, that live by sucking people's blood, but doing it on the sly, hiding away, camouflaged. Your great trick, the one you've been getting away with for centuries, is to rent a place, put a counter and some shelves in it and buy stuff for a few cents wholesale and sell it for twenty times more retail. All the while with your asses parked behind the register, your arms crossed and your minds empty. Oh, I know all about you, you don't fool me. I know all your tricks: the specials, the deals, the bargains, discounts, installment plans, reductions, bankruptcy sales, and so on and so on...."

I have to stop a minute to catch my breath. He takes the opportunity to tell me, and not at all offended, "Fine, but I'm not a storekeeper, as I think you mistook me to say. I don't have a store, I have an office. I handle business deals."

The answer puts me off. After all, businessman is a general term that could mean any number of things, and that's the trouble with it. Somewhat flustered, I try again: "A businessman? What sort of business?"

"Business."

I'll have to try another approach, and right now. We're already near Piazza Ungheria. Corso Trieste isn't too far away. All at once, probably out of necessity, my eyes get sharper and I can finally make out what's on his ring: It's a crest. Yes, a crest, no doubt about it, with a coronet and the usual bits: balls, stripes, lions, lilies, and so on. I feel aggressive again, so I demand an explanation, pointing to the ring. "What's that? A crest?"

"That's right."

"So you're a nobleman?"

"They say."

"Well, what are you? A count? A baron? Duke? Prince? Marquis?"

He thinks about it for a minute and then answers evasively but with a gallant touch: "To you, I'm Paolo, just plain Paolo."

Bursting with the anger I can't express, I shout, "I should have known you were noble, because only somebody with a title could be such a pill. I know you nobles, I had a boyfriend who was one, and for a whole summer we tore around in his sports car, from one resort to another, from one night club to the other. A real cretin he was. His name was Uguccioni. I know you all, and I can tell you the more they kill you off, the more you're around: lazy, ignorant, arrogant, spineless, degenerate. What the hell are you doing in the world? Carrying your pride around? Giving yourselves airs just because your crest is embroidered on your shirts, huh? Looking down your nose at those who don't have titles? And why, may I ask? Because you have a family tree with the names of your forebears printed in little boxes all the way up to the so-called founder, huh? Just because you know their names? Just because you know, or think you know, who they were? But, in fact, you don't know a thing about them. No, not a thing. I'll tell you who those forebears you're so proud of really were. They were crooks and criminals, outlaws, thieves. That's right, downright highway robbers. With one raid after another, one outrage after the other, they accumulated the wealth that allows you descendants to get away without doing a damned thing in life. Lounging around bars at night and picking up girls in the day. Your forebears were bandits and you're a good-for-nothing, export-import or no export-import. The fingernail of any kid from the slums is worth more than all the parts of you put together, with your big car, your gray suit, your gold cuff links and your fancy upbringing."

What a relief! What a pleasure! I'm getting rid of my rage and I'm feeling better and better as I keep going at it. I continue sniping at the nobility for a while, and then I come out with something so unexpected that even I'm stunned:

"Look, you'd better stop and let me off. We're not to Corso Trieste yet, but it doesn't matter, I'll walk the rest of the way. I really can't stand you, you and your class. Let me off!"

But he doesn't stop; maybe he understands I really don't want to get out. His only reaction is to lick his harelip with the red, obscene point of his tongue. He says, "Good for you."

"Good for me, hell!"

He doesn't get insulted; just the opposite. He goes on unperturbed: "Yes, good for you, because even if you went a little overboard, you said what I think, too. Our forebears were bandits, robbers, highwaymen, just as you said. But they were whole men, complete with all their natural appetites, and still close to nature. Men of prey, in short. And their natural prey were the peace-loving, the civilized and stable sort. They were daring, strong, fierce. The only thing they knew how to do was to devour the weak and the cowardly. So I and all the others like me have to try to be like those pitiless forebears of ours, those bandits, as you call them. If we don't want to become extinct, we have to model ourselves on them."

I scream this time: "Great models! Highway robbers! God, you should be ashamed!"

He seems not to be listening. He's silent for a moment, then goes on in that educational, uppity tone of his: "You wouldn't talk the way you just did if somehow, maybe without even knowing it, you didn't have the same kind of family history. What's your name?"

Is he serious or joking? No, he's being serious. Very unwillingly I answer, "My name's Sebastiana."

"Sebastiana what?"

It seems incredible, but he's got me there. My name is, in fact, noble. The kids at school would make fun of it. ("What's your name? Colonna? You don't say? Princess Colonna in person?" "No, just Colonna with a store over in Prati.")

I reluctantly admit my name's Colonna.

He's really happy now, as if he had finally found the solution to a mind-racking puzzle. He cries out: "Colonna! I knew it. Good blood doesn't lie."

I'm furious. "What do you mean, 'Blood doesn't lie'? Sure, my name's Colonna, but it could just as easily be Rossi or Proietti. Nobody in my family is noble, thank God. Poor, yes, but not noble. And don't go buttering me up. You're a pill, just like everybody else in your class. Don't try flattering me. You've got a fool's face, with that harelip. And, besides, you're a turd and stink of snobbery a mile away."

You can never tell what a madman will do. He isn't the least upset and just shakes his head, like a teacher with a stubborn pupil. "No, Sebastiana, there aren't classes, just races. Two races, the masters and the slaves. You can recognize a master because his morality consists of dominating. And you can recognize a slave because his morality consists of obeying. And don't forget: Masters are born, not made. The same for slaves. It's a matter of race and not class. You can go from one class to another, but no matter what you do, you can't go from one race to the other. There's a certain something about you, Sebastiana, that makes me think you're a member of the master race, even if you don't realize it."

"What, for instance?"

"The way you become indignant."

I'm beside myself. "You're wrong. You don't get anything right. You are what makes me indignant, with that shitty idea of yours of being a master. Master, my foot! You a master? With that face, that outfit? You make me laugh!"

He patiently explains, "You're using the word signore the way it's used in Rome, meaning a rich, elegant man who's free with his money. But, Sebastiana, that's only the usual meaning. I've already told you, signore for me means lord or master, a beast of prey who attacks weaker animals and devours them, and has the right to because he's the strongest."

I start laughing hysterically. "You said it: 'beast.' Only a beast talks like that. Who the hell do you think you're taking in with nonsense like that?"

He doesn't answer, calm, very calm and intent on his driving. Then his hand reaches into the pocket of his vest and takes out something. "Does this help?" he asks.

Now, I have to admit I never have any money. And I mean never. As I said, my father doesn't do too well and my parents, even if they don't come right out and say it, let me understand I have to manage on my own. I do, too. How?

Now we're coming to the biggest contradiction in my life. Sure, I need to quarrel, but I need money, too. I could go to bed with the men who pick me up and earn the money I need that way. But I just can't do it. It's one of the many impossibilities in my life. I could even give (continued on page 230) Insults (continued from page 96) up quarreling and play up my troubles by crying and whining. The drivers would be moved and help me out. But even that's impossible; I need fights like the air I breathe. So, since I can't and won't be a whore or a beggar, I fall back on this contradiction: First, I really insult the driver who picks me up, and then, just as I'm getting out of the car, I change my line and very timidly ask, "Say, could you let me have a small loan?"

As I said, a contradiction. But yon can see I'm not so contradictory as I think I am. Or else men go for contradictions. That's right, it isn't at all unusual that the same guy I've just finished roundly insulting puts his hand in his pocket when I ask for a loan and gives me money. In fact, I notice the ones I insult the most are the most generous. Once again, masochism. What else would you call it? Who knows?

Here's this Paolo giving me money even before I ask for it. I look at the 10,000-lira note he's handing me between two fingers with aristocratic aplomb. The same thing happens to me that always happens the minute I see money. Maybe because I see so little of it. My mind goes blank, my anger disappears, a kind of stupor takes hold of me, makes me feel empty. I go into a trance. I see that flesh-colored bill with Michelangelo's picture on one side and the white oval on the other, and my thoughts fizzle.

Finally I manage to say, "It's ten thousand lire."

"It's for you."

"Are you giving it to me?"

"Yes."

I grab the bill and stick it into my purse. Then I'm overcome with greed, another effect the money hypnosis has on me. I add, very childishly, imploringly, "Just ten? Can't you let me have twenty?"

You might say, what crust. But it's not true. It's really a kind of shyness that comes from being poor. I'm so poor that the same thing happens to me with money that happens to a starving man with food. After eating, he's still hungry and wants to eat all over again.

But Paolo doesn't give in this time. He tells me, "Ten's enough. But if you come to see me at the office tomorrow, I'll give you another ten and maybe more."

I stammer, "But tomorrow's Sunday. Nobody goes to work tomorrow."

"Exactly."

Exactly what? What a great excuse for another quarrel, now that I'm about to leave. But I'm played out. And the money stops me from winding up again. So I answer, in a very hushed voice, as if I didn't want to be overheard, "All right, I'll come. But couldn't you give me a small advance, say, five thousand? If I come to your office, I have to have a new pair of pants, at least."

"It won't be a party. I'll be the only one there. You're fine just as you are."

The car stops, I look around. I'm dismayed to see we're at Corso Trieste. A street like any other, normally, but now the symbol of my defeat. I ask anxiously, "At what time?"

"Come at five."

"What's the address?"

He reaches into his pocket and for a minute my hopes are up. But nothing doing. It's his visiting card: name, address, export-import and--naturally--his coat of arms, with lines radiating from circles like an insect's body, engraved over his name.

I put the card in my purse and he reaches over and opens the door for me. I say very quickly, "Thanks a lot." And just as I'm about to step out, I lean over, like a real nut, and kiss his hand in abject gratitude. True, the minute my lips brush against his hand, I'm strongly tempted to bite it, but it's only a temptation. And what's a temptation if you don't do anything about it? Nothing, less than nothing. I get out and stand on the sidewalk watching, in a dead rage, as the car drives away.

• • •

It's Sunday, and here I am on this street lined with new buildings. On weekdays, it would be a madhouse of a traffic jam, engines roaring helplessly away, cars wrapped in clouds of smoke from their exhausts. But today, being Sunday, everything's deserted. I even cross paths with a cat calmly strolling across the street. The appointment with Paolo turns the deserted street, that would otherwise be pleasant, into something sinister, menacing, mysterious. Paolo's not one of those you go to see on Sunday when his parents are away, just to spend the afternoon smoking, listening to records, drinking, making love and maybe having a joint or two. Paolo is...Paolo. A man who doesn't appeal to me, who repels me, actually, but whose invitation, for all its ambiguity and promise of no good, I accept. Sure, there's the hope of another 10, or even 20 or 30. But I've already explained, money fascinates me if I see it, in the flesh, so to speak, right there under my nose. When it's out of sight, it doesn't hypnotize me anymore. For better or for worse, I become myself again. So why am I here? Why am I going to see him? Why have I let myself be taken in? A contradiction, as usual. And so we go back to where we started. Why do I contradict myself so often? Who knows?

Enough questions, here's his office building. I look up at it and I'm nearly blinded by the dazzling wall of glass and steel, with the cold blue reflection of the sky on each panel. Strange, all this brilliance, this glare, these shiny materials and pure lines, and behind them, in one of the offices, Paolo with his harelip, his mustache, his coal-black brows, his owl eyes. I go up to the entrance, but it's locked. I try peering in, but the doors are made of that special glass you can only see out of. Next to the door, though, there's a row of names, including the export-import firm. I make up my mind and press the buzzer, set in a brass ring the size of a bowl.

Almost at once, the door clicks open, as if I had been watched from behind the one-way glass by someone who was expecting me. In the entranceway appears a boy with long hair. Not long the way kids wear it these days but long the way little girls wore it many years ago. His hair falls on both sides of his white, smooth, slightly chubby face that makes you think of the cherubim and seraphim with wings attached to their heads that fly around the sky in religious paintings. His languid eyes, too, are angelic as, both encouraging and questioning, they look at me. A straight nose with narrow nostrils, a heart-shaped mouth, the corners turned up. He's small like a jockey, but well proportioned, with such slender hands and feet as to tug at your heart. I like him. "Are you the porter?"

He answers modestly, "No, his son. Poppa has gone to the country."

"Well, I have to go to the fifth floor, to the export-import firm."

"To Signor Paolo's? I'll show you the way."

He leads me to the elevator, enters it, I follow and he starts to close the doors. I tell him, pointing to the indicator panel, "You don't have to show me the way. I can press buttons, too."

He looks at me without answering, then casually, but not insolently, reaches over and presses the fifth-floor button. I angrily repeat, "Are you deaf or something? I said I can go up alone."

He shoots an ambiguous glance at me and announces, "Orders from above."

"Whose orders?"

He doesn't answer. Now he's staring at my breasts, maybe only because they're at his eye level. He has a curious expression on his face that I can't quite decipher. It makes me nervous.

He hurriedly explains, "Today's Sunday. This is an office building and nobody's around. Did you know we're alone in the whole building?"

I answer curtly, "Who gives a damn?"

"Well, then, how about a kiss?"

As he says it, he presses the emergency button. The elevator comes to an abrupt stop.

Now, I really could give him a kiss, if for no other reason than he's such a perfect angel right out of an altar painting. And, furthermore, maybe I wouldn't mind, either. But it's that "Well, then" that gets me. Why "Well, then"? "Well, then" what? Obviously, "Well, then, give me a kiss, because you're a girl and we're alone and you can't do anything about it."

I stare him right in the eye. Then very emphatically I say, "Kiss you? You silly little fool."

Would you believe it? Here that angel, with a very resolute expression on his cherubic face, lunges at me, grabs my blouse and with one tug rips off the only button. Absolutely determined, he grips my bra and pulls it down on one side. A tit pops out and the angel, without wasting a second, squeezes it hard. I moan with the pain and give him a quick knee in the groin. The angel jumps back, grabs me by the hair and pulls my head down, trying to get my mouth close to his.

Enraged, I lash out blindly and claw his face. The angel immediately lets go of my hair. I straighten up, breathing hard. There he is, cowering in the corner of the elevator, looking at me, humiliated, and wiping his face with his hand. He whines, "I only wanted a little kiss."

I jab angrily at the panel and the elevator starts up again. "Look, you'd better just shut up."

He's begging me now: "At least promise you won't say anything to Signor Paolo."

A great idea! The perfect excuse to start another scene with Paolo: the angel assaulting me in the elevator. But just because the angel's chubby, scratched face makes me feel sorry for him, I want to show him how tough I can be. I snap, "I'm not promising anything."

He looks at me, his expression not at all intimidated. If anything, it's full of curiosity, like someone pressing his face against the side of an aquarium, watching the darting fish. But I don't have a chance to think about it. The elevator stops. I turn my back to the angel and get out hurriedly without looking to see if he's following me.

The door of the export-import firm is ajar. I push it open and plunge into the reception room, then down a long corridor with doors on both sides. Gray wall-to-wall carpeting, red doors, white ceiling. Where's Paolo? I open one door after the other and come on the usual scene in offices on holiday: covered typewriters and sheets of paper and carbons scattered around as if a windstorm had struck. But as I continue to throw open doors without finding a trace of Paolo, my annoyance grows. I'm getting wound up the same way I do when I hitchhike. A phrase darts through my mind like an angered fish: "I'll fix him."

I come to the room at the end of the corridor and burst in. Paolo is sitting at one end behind a steel-and-glass desk. The office is large and nearly bare. He's wearing the same gray suit, the usual gold cuff links, the usual striped tie and, I was almost about to say, the usual harelip. I launch into him: "The porter's son attacked me in the elevator. Look at me! He ripped my blouse, grabbed my hair, squeezed my tit! What the hell is this? Who do you think you are? With all your self-importance, you allow people to be attacked in your own elevator," etc., etc.

I'm shouting by now, but Paolo doesn't react or try to interrupt me. He, too, is looking at me the way the angel did in the elevator, out of curiosity, as through glass. What can these two want, looking at me like that? I end my diatribe: "What kind of behavior do you call that? Who's going to pay for my blouse? I'm going to turn him in, that little thug, I'm going to turn him in for sure."

Finally Paolo moves, but in a very studied way, almost as if he were acting. He reaches toward a box on his desk, takes out a cigarette and puts it to his harelip. Very easy, common gestures, you'll say, that anybody makes without effort or attention, allowing the movements to happen almost by themselves. But somehow, Paolo acts out these seemingly normal gestures as if he were concealing something not so normal. And, in fact, he fluffs them, like a nervous actor in his first play, putting the wrong end of the cigarette in his mouth and not realizing it until he lights his lighter. Then he turns the cigarette around and moves the flame toward it again. Strange, his hand is so shaky, he doesn't succeed in lighting it. I'm suddenly afraid: it's clear his hand is shaky because he's been planning something for me that's made him nervous, ashamed, even frightened. I watch as he lowers his hand, puts the lighter back on the desk and looks down at his hand, which is still trembling. Finally he says hoarsely, "Do you want me to punish him?"

Scared by that trembling hand and the tone of his voice, I want to say no, I don't want you to, I've forgotten the whole thing. But, as always, the contradiction in me wins out. My curiosity is always stronger than my fear. I blurt out hypocritically, "Of course I want you to."

Silence. Paolo is looking at the desk, where a sheet of paper is lying. He picks up a pen and begins doodling on it, lost in thought. After a while, he reaches over to the intercom and presses a button. A croaking sound at first, then very clearly, the angel's voice comes over the loudspeaker. "Yes, Signor Paolo?"

"Come up right away."

I'm awed. "What are you going to do to him?"

He doesn't reply. He's absorbed by the doodles he's tracing on the sheet of paper. Or, to be more exact, I realize he's staring at his trembling hand as it draws the spirals. I wait for him to answer and, meanwhile, I catch myself staring in fascination--I don't know why--at that trembling hand. Then I hear his voice, clipped and authoritative: "Undress."

I look at him uncertainly. Did he say something to me or was I imagining it? I ask, "Huh?"

He repeats the order more slowly, deliberately: "I said, undress."

How strange the human personality is. Or mine, at least. So changeable, so full of contradictions. I'm a rebel, an activist, a protester ever since I was born, you might say. And yet, here it takes one order delivered in the right tone of voice and at the right time to make me as obedient and disciplined as a soldier facing a superior. Or, better yet, I tell myself as I start pulling off my clothes, like an actor taking orders from a director. Yes, that's it, a director, because Paolo has a role for me in some play of his and, unexplainably compliant, I'm accepting it.

What kind of role is it? What's compelling me to tiptoe over to a chair to put my clothes on it, for example? And then to tear off my bra and panties as if I were afraid I wouldn't get them off in time before the angel, the other actor in this comedy, makes his entrance? I'm standing there naked, but since I'm ashamed of my big, hanging breasts, I cradle them on my arm to hold them up, the way you do to feed a baby. I feel awkward, so I approach the desk and shyly ask, "Should I stand up or sit down?"

"Keep standing."

A knock at the door. In his clipped tone, Paolo tells the boy to come in. The angel cautiously peers around the door as if he were checking to see how far along the act is. Then, unquestionably satisfied with what he sees (Paolo, his eyes lowered, is absorbed in his doodling. I'm standing in front of the desk naked, but with my boots still on.), he strides in confidently and says, "Signor Paolo, you called?"

"Yes, I called. So you're attacking people who're coming to see me in the elevator?"

A moment of silence. Then something happens I was really expecting and confirms my feeling that this is some kind of play the three of us are acting in. Taking advantage of Paolo's distraction as he still intently watches his trembling hand, the angel turns to me and brazenly, but always angelically, winks at me, as if to say, "It's all been rigged between me and Signor Paolo. But you and I are in this against him." Just for a second. Then the angel explains in a contrite, obsequious, fake voice, "Signor Paolo, you're right. But the young lady was--what can I say?--a little undressed, and so I lost my head and----"

I have just time to think what a bad actor the angel is, when Paolo, with an inhuman growl, says, "Shut up, slave!"

"But, Signor Paolo----"

"Silence, pariah!"

Listen to that. If the angel can't act, Paolo certainly makes up for him. Or rather, he's playing himself, realer than real, so much so it's scary. He jumps to his feet, slams his fist on the desk, shouts, "Slave! Pariah! If you don't want me to tell your father, you've got to kneel, that's right, kneel in front of Sebastiana and kiss her feet."

The plot thickens and I'm getting more involved, without even attempting to guess what the next development will be. A minute ago, I was a third-rate call-girl who was undressing in front of her customer. Now who am I? Who knows? Maybe some kind of goddess. I look on incredulously as the angel drops onto all fours at my feet in a comic gesture of prostration. And then how eagerly he stretches his neck toward my boots. Paolo is shouting like a madman, "That's not enough. You've got to do more than kiss her feet, you've got to lick them."

Is the angel following orders or only pretending to? It's hard to say: Because of the boots, I can't tell what he's doing. Paolo shouts again, "Both of them! Both of them!!" And the angel obediently bobs his head from one foot to the other.

I jump in terror. Paolo has come around the desk and grabbed my arms from behind with tremendous force. He's hurting me. He peers at me from over my shoulder and hisses in my ear, "Now pee on his head. Go on, pee, pee on his head!"

What's happening to me? Simply that I am no longer a character in Paolo's play. I'm myself again. And so, very naturally, instinctively, I refuse: "I won't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to."

"Why don't you want to? He's a low-life, a servant, a slave. Go on, do it on his head. I'll give you whatever you ask for, but do it, do it!"

But it's obvious now that the deal between Paolo and the angel didn't include getting pissed on. The angel is uncertain as to what to do, like someone who isn't sure he's heard right, then suddenly he scuttles back across the floor and jumps to his feet. Breathlessly, he blurts, "Signor Paolo, not that, not that!"

It seems our game is over. Apparently the angel and I, like two actors who've finished their scene, have nothing left to do except make our bows and leave the stage. But no, I feel suddenly the plot is taking a new turn. I'm not wrong. Paolo circles around, stands in front of me, shouts, "If you won't do it on his head, do it on mine, yes, mine!" And he drops to his knees on the floor.

Here's the picture: I'm standing with my legs apart, one boot here, one there, my arm holding up my tits and leaning with my hip against the desk. The angel is standing a little way off, his face still red from the strain. And this nut Paolo is on all fours in front of me, clutching my ankles, his head bowed over my boots.

At this point, I have to confess that anything having to do with bodily functions makes me burst out laughing hysterically. Why this effect? Who knows? It's a fact like any other, and that's that.

I was about to start laughing when Paolo ordered me to urinate on the angel's head, but now that he's begging me to do it on his own, I can't contain myself any longer. I laugh despite myself, like an idiot, with a savage joy I don't understand. Paolo keeps pleading, down there on the floor, "Come on, do it."

And, convulsed with laughter, I stammer, "No...no...never!"

"Come on, do it, do it."

"I said no, no, no."

Beside himself now, he shakes me by the ankles, the way you shake a tree to make the fruit fall. I'm swaying back and forth trying to keep my balance, laughing harder all the while. But suddenly he yanks at me and I fall against the desk. The sharp pain chokes off my laughter. I scream at him in a frenzy: "Stop it! Leave me alone! Are you completely crazy?"

That's it, he's really out of his mind. He keeps tugging at me. Just as I'm about to fall, my eye lights on a heavy glass ashtray on the desk. I pick it up and with all the strength my anger arouses in me, I bring it down on his head. He cries out in pain, lets go of me and puts his hands to his head, falling on his side, his knees drawn up in a fetal position.

I lean over him and start to raise his head, when I feel something wet on my hand. I look and see that it's blood. A terrible fear grips me, a fear that increases when I realize he's not dead as I had thought. He's alive, too much alive. He lies there without moving, his cheek pressed against the carpet, his hand on the wound and those owl eyes of his wide open, staring straight ahead at something only he can see. It's those round, gaping eyes that should reassure me I haven't killed him, but that now only strike terror in me.

What I didn't do before because I didn't want to, I start doing now, out of horror and uncontrolledly. I begin pissing, not normally, in a stream, but in spurts and dribbles, at random. When I see the urine dripping onto his hair, his face and on those awful staring eyes, I pull away to avoid wetting him. As I stumble to the chair where I put my clothes, the urine, coming out in small, involuntary splashes, traces a dark wet line on the gray carpet and runs down my boots. I grab my clothes and, turning toward the angel, who's standing there stunned, take him by the hand and in a low voice urge him, "Come on, let's go!"

But even before we take a step, we're frozen by the sight of Paolo, his face streaming blood, struggling to his feet. Perhaps he doesn't know we're there; he certainly is not looking at us. He wipes his face with his hand and reels across the room. But he doesn't go to the door the angel and I came in. He staggers by us, opens a smaller side door I hadn't noticed and disappears. Through the open door, we can hear water running. At least Paolo has the strength to wash himself. I pull the angel by the hand: "Let's get out of here!"

I know the building is empty, because it's Sunday and they're all offices. So I don't think twice about dashing down the stairs just as I am, breasts and hair flying, with my boots on and my clothes over my arm. Hand in hand, I dragging the angel and he letting himself be dragged, we careen down the winding staircase five floors to the lobby. But we don't stop there. The porter's son beckons. With a flick of his eyes, the angel answers the question in mine, as if to say I had guessed right. I give his hand a squeeze to seal our silent bargain and he does the same. We hurry down the narrow flight of steps leading to the basement apartment. Of course, we're still running away from Paolo, but of course, too, we end up where you might expect: in the porter's big double bed.

Later, as we lie without talking, our bodies pressed against each other on the gaudy satin bedspread, I think how much I like basement apartments to make love in and afterward relax and doze. The ceiling is low, the room is cluttered with furniture and bric-a-brac. The stale smells of airless rooms and cooking fill the place, as in all these basements where porters and their families live. Behind the frosted glass of the half-windows, I can make out the paired shadows of legs belonging to the occasional passers-by. The mirror on the wardrobe door at the foot of the bed reflects our naked bodies from below, so that our feet seem attached directly to our knees. I'm holding the angel's prick, encircled by my two fingers like a ring, and his hand is lying flat on my groin.

After a while, the angel asks, "Why do you think Paolo does those things?"

"Because he likes to."

"But why does he like to?"

"Who knows?"