Through the large sound horn of the gramophone, the music was spreading through the dim light of the living room, distorted only slightly by the rustling of the needle; and perhaps that very imperfection rendered it even more captivating.
Looking out at the thousand glittering lights of the distant city and the sea that extended, black, dotted with the gleams of lamps from fishing boats and running lights on ships passing through, the woman sprawling comfortably in the armchair thought to herself that the finest thing about life is its very imperfection, the imprint of diversity, the richness of the original traits that stand out against the drab gray of convention.
In contrast, the man lying on the sofa across from her continued to look at her with eyes by now well adapted to the partial darkness, thinking to himself that this woman was just perfect. Perfectly beautiful, with a perfect soul and a perfect sensibility. Perhaps too perfect.
When Bianca Borgati di Zisa, the Contessa Palmieri di Roccaspina, paid a call on Carlo Maria Fossati Berti, the Duke of Marangolo, this is how the hours passed. She would join him a little before sunset in his magnificent home on the lofty floor of the palazzo that overlooked the waterfront, stepping out of the chauffeured car that he had sent for her, and she’d find her friend already reclining on the sofa, a woolen blanket draped over him, two soft pillows propping up his head.
Each time, the nobleman apologized for receiving her in that fashion, and told her that unfortunately the day hadn’t been a good one for his health. Each time, she would lean over to kiss him on the cheeks and reply that actually she thought he looked much better, and that they’d soon go back to strolling along the seafront. Each time he pretended to believe her and every time, both of them, behind the smile they each wore as a mask, felt themselves die a little bit inside, ravaged by nostalgia.
Then Bianca would put a record on the platter of the gramophone, something she had selected from the duke’s vast collection. Usually she chose one of the American records; Marangolo arranged for them to be brought to him aboard one of the large trans-Atlantic ocean liners that docked in the nearby port at least once a week. The warm, despairing voices of wonderful, ebony-skinned singers, accompanied by the lamenting wail of saxophones and amorous trumpet, surrounded the two friends’ silences, filling them with emotions and sentiments far more than thousands of empty words might ever have done.
As they listened, the two of them gazed out at the vast mass of salt water framed by the large windows as if it were a sequence of a film in a movie theater, only in full, living color. The street below was, so to speak, offscreen. It almost seemed as if they were aboard a plane flying at low altitude, capable, as if by magic, of stopping at a given point in space and hovering in the empty air. The sea repaid their attention kindly, offering an ever-changing spectacle, glowing at sunset, dimming to darkness in the embrace of night, teeming with boats or displaying itself both deserted and boundless.
The third guest in the room, the one that most strongly made felt its disagreeable presence, was melancholy, the only one present that chattered endlessly, making loud demands and dredging up hostile memories.
Most of the inhabitants of that miserably poor metropolis, who struggled day by day to carve out even a fragment of human dignity, would have wondered what damned reason there could be for sorrow to prevail in a living room occupied by a man wealthy beyond all imagining and a woman so lovely and refined as to intimidate any ordinary person. And yet there was not a place, in the entire city, where that emotion predominated so powerfully and so unrivaled.
Carlo Marangolo was a sick man. His liver was damaged beyond repair, and the doctors had not been able to do anything more than prolong his suffering. The duke’s immense wealth had still not been enough to buy him a little health; his darting, intelligent dark eyes were the only element still ferociously alive in that waxen, wrinkled, jaundice-yellow face, framed by straggling, disorderly locks of lank, unhealthy-looking hair.
As always, he was totally focused on the woman sitting beside him; the true wonder for him was being able to look at Bianca as she looked out at the sea.
Bianca was much younger than him. He had always loved her and because of that love, he’d never been able to imagine anyone else beside him.
Bianca, whose melancholy came from a long way away.
Her husband, Romualdo, was in prison. He had claimed responsibility for a murder, putting an end to a social life in steady decline, oppressed by the vice of gambling that had led him to squander every last penny to his name, including his wife’s inheritance, and culminating in an arrest that had made the rounds of gossip in the city’s most exclusive drawing rooms for months and months.
The woman had experienced the worst kind of poverty, the kind that follows wealth. She had also been shut out of the higher ranks of polite society. Her relatives had shunned her and her closest friends had promptly abandoned her. All except Carlo. He had remained a close and steadfast friend. For some time, he had secretly underwritten the husband, until it became clear to him that access to money only fed the demon.
After Romualdo’s arrest, Bianca had shut herself up in a home emptied of all furnishings, a house that was falling apart, just like her life. That was when Marangolo had decided to devote his last remaining years to a mission: he wanted to bring back to life the woman he had always loved from afar. He had spoken with her at great length, explaining what fun it would to be to flip the condescending pity of the ladies of high society into scalding envy. In order to bring her around, he had taken advantage of an opportunity that then and there had struck him as ideal: she could help that green-eyed commissario, so mysterious and intelligent, who had liberated her of her husband’s obsessive tyranny, but who was now in serious trouble.
What he hadn’t foreseen, though—he mused inwardly for what seemed like the thousandth time, as he admired his good friend’s exquisite profile—was that the cure might prove more deleterious than the disease. Though he, of all people, ought to have suspected that.
My heart is sad and lonely
For you I sigh, for you, dear, only
Why haven’t you seen it
I’m all for you, body and soul . . .
This voice from across the ocean mingled with the sound of the waves, braiding together their thoughts and heartbeats—two hearts, so close and yet so distant. Carlo wondered where Bianca’s mind was wandering, and he was terrified at the thought of the answer. He also questioned himself concerning the nature of that strange sentiment of his, locked up inside a body that would never again be able to dream of love, and yet nonetheless so blind and selfish that it still demanded it. He felt sorry for himself.
“What’s wrong, friend of mine?” he asked in a whisper.
Bianca turned around. Her long neck, her hair gathered high, a shade of blonde that caught the sunlight with flecks of copper, her eyes an incredible, extraordinary violet hue, her small, upturned nose. Even in the dark of night, even in the flickering glow of the candles lit on the low table between them, even just in his mind, Marangolo would have been capable of describing every single square centimeter of that flesh that had never belonged to him.
The contessa’s deep, warm voice made its way through the song.
“Nothing, Carlo. I’m just resting. I’m letting my mind go where it pleases without any defense, at least for a while. And how are you feeling?”
The man waved his hand in the air, dismissively.
“My state of health is a long and boring topic. A sad novel, published in installments, and without a happy ending, I’m afraid. Let’s leave it aside, I won’t allow anything to ruin the perfection of the hours I have you here.”
She responded dismissively.
“But you know I come here every day. By now, people are probably starting to come up with strange ideas of their own.”
The duke snorted impatiently.
“I am beyond any and all suspicions. But tell me about yourself. How is the fake relationship with your smoldering dark policeman going?”
Bianca turned to look out at the sea with a slow toss of her head, displaying to the other man the elegance of her features, like something out of a cameo, and at the same time revealing the innermost nature of the sentiment that was oppressing her heart.
“He thanked me. A few days ago he came to pay a call on me, he sat down in my drawing room with a smile, which is a genuine rarity for him, and said that he harbored a boundless gratitude toward me for having freed him—by pretending to be his lover—of the odious accusation of pederasty that was hanging over his head.”
Carlo listened attentively.
“And so?”
“And so,” she went on in a neutral tone of voice, “he told me that, for personal reasons, we could no longer be seen in public together, that he no longer wished to go on pretending, and that for me, too, this would be a better way forward.”
The song ended. Bianca stood up and went over to the shelf full of records next to the gramophone.
“Would you care to listen to something more lighthearted? Cole Porter, perhaps. Love For Sale . . . That would be fun, don’t you think? You go into a store and instead of a new hat, a dress, or a loaf of bread, you buy yourself some love. Whatever color you like, whatever weight you please.”
The notes of the music filled the room without transmitting the cheerfulness that had been promised.
Carlo’s voice took on a dark timbre.
“And why did he tell you that? That’s not the behavior of a gentleman: to thank you and dump you.”
Bianca stepped close and tucked in his blanket, solicitously, then went back to her seat.
“Instead it’s an act of profound sincerity, typical of him. He’s an honest man, and he can’t stand deceit. After all, unmasking lies is his profession, as we saw with Romualdo.”
The duke coughed and then wiped his mouth with a handkerchief.
“What would be the truth, the frankness, behind this declaration of his?”
The woman shrugged and sat there, staring out at the night.
“I asked him that. After all, I’m still a woman. I lacked the tact required to feign indifference.”
“And what did he say?
“He replied that, as I was well aware, his heart belonged to another. As long as this person was distant, he didn’t find it inappropriate to socialize with me in public, but now that the two of them have begun to see each other—something that, by the way, he was revealing only to make the situation clear to me—he no longer thought it was right to pursue the farce. But you know what the best part of it was? That he had the tone of voice of someone who was freeing me of his presence. Basically, he believes that he’s been a burden to me. Don’t you find that hilarious?”
She laughed, in fact. But sadness throttled her.
Marangolo considered inwardly how the people he could least tolerate were those who were honest to the point of being obtuse.
“You ought to tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
“That his presence was anything but a burden. That his company and his friendship were more than welcome, as far as you were concerned. And that you care nothing for your reputation, for what others might say about you, about the two of you, least of all the opinions of that flock of plucked hens in the drawing rooms and clubs.”
She replied after a brief silence: “In fact, I had considered having a conversation with him. Or at least letting him know that he can consider me a friend, and confide in me if there’s anything bothering him. And I can think of the perfect occasion for that talk. Princess Vaccaro di Ferrandina—do you remember her?—is going to be holding a New Year’s Day reception the day after tomorrow. She’s invited me, but of course I’d never go on my own. I can ask him to accompany me. I don’t believe he has any other plans.”
Marangolo felt a surge of joy mixed with the pang of jealousy that he’d learned to recognize so well over the years. There’s my Bianca, he thought. Sweet and combative.
“An excellent idea. But you’ll need a new, magnificent outfit for the event. Let me take care of it. We don’t have much time: tomorrow morning I’ll have Gustavo drive you around to the shops. You must be the loveliest one there, even lovelier than you usually are.”
She scolded him, tenderly.
“Carlo, stop spending all this money on me. You know that it makes me uncomfortable.”
The duke’s laughter pealed out hoarsely.
“Stop it with this nonsense. I possess a useless mountain of cash that will soon enough belong to you anyway, since I plan to name you my universal heiress; you’ll become by far the wealthiest woman in this city. What’s so bad about now starting to dip into that wealth already?”
Silence fell. Then Bianca murmured: “Don’t say such things, I don’t want to lose you. You’re my one point of reference. More than a father. My life would be nothing without you.”
The duke momentarily concealed the depth of his emotion behind another racking cough.
“For now, I’m here. So let’s make the best use of this time and prepare a fine strategy. For the hat, what color did you have in mind?”
Outside, the night, comfortably resting upon the sea, smiled.