Everything had been so simple then. No one expected you to be competent or to take any initiatives. On the contrary, such behaviour was frowned upon. The staff told you what to do and when to do it, and you obeyed them. There was no need to plan or act. In retrospect, it had all been very relaxing.
He finished the rather dry roll, washing it down with the rest of the beer. To be honest, he realised, the visit to the consultant had been just a pretext. His real reason for going had simply been to go, to escape the encircling walls of Lucca. This massive brick barrier had once seemed reassuring, but after one month bedridden and another confined to the apartment in Via del Fosso, it had become as spiritually suffocating as it literally became in high summer, shutting out every open perspective and refreshing breeze. No doubt that was why he had arrived in Rome hours before his appointment, killing the time by sitting around in cafes and gazing mindlessly at everyone who came and went, like a tourist. And afterwards, instead of taking the first train north, he wasted further hours at a cinema in a seat so close to the screen that the movie was an incomprehensible blur. Now, though, he was on his way home, this brief spell of parole at an end. It could be prolonged slightly by deliberately missing the connection at Florence, so that by the time he arrived back at the apartment, Gemma would with any luck be asleep.
But there was still tomorrow, and the day after, and all the days after that. Once upon a time he could have turned to his work for distraction, but it seemed doubtful, feeling the way he did, that he would even be able to hold down the sort of routine administrative job he had been allocated years before during a period when he was in disfavour, doing the rounds of provincial headquarters to check that the petty pilfering and misappropriation of funds were being kept within broadly acceptable limits. In a word, his career was over. He had been granted indefinite sick leave once the extent of his medical problems became clear, and the temptation now was to string that out for as long as possible, then parlay it into early retirement. He had a powerful backer at the Ministry, and was clearly of no use to anyone. A gilt handshake seemed to offer the most painless solution to this embarrassing situation for everyone concerned, and he could see no reason why it should be refused.
Which left the question of his personal life. Zen had had relationships go wrong before, of course, and had felt amazed, dismayed and at a loss, but this time the effect was much more intense, perhaps because the possibility of its happening had never occurred to him. Neither Zen nor Gemma had bothered to get a divorce from their previous partners, and so the question of their remarrying had never arisen. But to all intents and purposes they had acted, and had seemed to feel, as if they were indeed husband and wife. More often now, though, they resembled two boxers circling each other warily, occasionally jabbing out, then getting into a clinch and pounding each other at close quarters with no referee to pull them apart. There was never any winner, only two losers, and the contest invariably ended with Gemma stalking out and slamming the door behind her.
Turning to the window, Zen eyed his spectral other, so smugly solid and substantial. He felt as if he were the reflection and that image the original. ‘A shadow of his former self,’ as the stock phrase went. A hopeless invalid. A sad case. The long, sleek train poured out of the final tunnel and clattered over the bridge across the Arno. In the past, on his weekly visits to the Ministry, Zen had always felt a lifting of the heart at this moment, because it was when he felt that he was almost home. Now, for exactly the same reason, it filled him with foreboding.
3
When Vincenzo burst in, Rodolfo was lying naked on the bed and savouring one of those rare moments when, to quote a German poet recently cited by Professor Ugo, ‘a happiness falls’. What had he done to deserve this? The answer appeared to be nothing. At the advanced age of twenty-three, Rodolfo was reluctantly coming to terms with the fact that he was not one of life’s natural achievers, a doer of deeds, attainer of goals and winner of women. If he had won Flavia, for the moment at least, it was only because she had fallen into his hands. There was nothing wrong with his intellect, but when it came to everything else, he seemed to be an under-motivated if well-meaning lightweight who had always taken, and no doubt always would take, the path of least resistance.
Ahappiness had fallen, and he had been fortunate enough to be there to catch it, but you couldn’t count on such luck indefinitely. Normally what fell broke, or broke you if you were standing unawares beneath. Rodolfo’s father had continually striven to remind his son of such basic facts, in a weary but dutiful tone of voice which suggested-indeed, almost proudly advertised-that while he had accepted the utter futility of any such attempt, he would not have it said of him that he had shirked his paternal responsibilities.
The thought of his father had brought to mind, by natural degrees of progression, the family home, the little market town, and the whole intimately immanent landscape of his youth. Puglia! So when Vincenzo burst in, resembling an Errol Flynn lookalike after a particularly hard night’s carousing, his flatmate felt naked in more ways than one.
‘Siamo in due,’ he hissed angrily, yanking the covers up over Flavia’s torso and his own genitals.
The intruder leant on the door frame like a drunk against a lamppost.
‘Where the fuck’s my fucking jacket, you cunt?’
As always, Rodolfo marvelled at how repulsively attractive Vincenzo was, with his sleek black hair, aquiline features, intense eyes, slim body and devastating devil-may-care manner.
‘Jacket?’ he replied, getting out of bed and pulling on his jeans.
‘My football jacket! It’s disappeared!’
Vincenzo grasped the shapeless, acid-green polyester garment that he was wearing over an incongruously fashionable dress shirt.
‘I had to borrow this piece of shit from Michele. I want my own jacket to go to games in, God damn it! My signature jacket!’
Rodolfo steered his flatmate out into the living room and softly closed the bedroom door behind them.
‘You mean the black leather one with the Bologna FC crest on the back?’
‘Of course I do! I’ve worn it to every single match since…For years and years. For ever! It’s the team’s lucky charm! When I don’t wear it we lose, just like we did tonight.’
Rodolfo gestured apologetically.
‘I’m sorry, Vincenzo. My coat was stolen at the university. I haven’t been well, as you know, and it’s freezing cold out there so I borrowed one of your jackets. You weren’t around, so I couldn’t ask, I just took the shabbiest one I could find. I didn’t realise it was so precious to you. You’ve got tons of clothes, after all.’
Vincenzo Amadori’s extensive and eclectic wardrobe was indeed one of the principal reasons why he and Rodolfo were sharing this relatively luxurious apartment in the first place.
‘I’m really sorry,’ Rodolfo repeated. ‘Your jacket’s safe next door, but I don’t want to turn the light on and wake Flavia.’
But Vincenzo, typically, had already lost interest in the subject.
‘Who cares?’ he said, dismissively waving a limp hand. ‘It’s all hopeless anyway.’
‘We lost?’
‘We lost. But it doesn’t matter.’
‘How come there was a game tonight? It’s midweek.’
‘Postponed from the original fixture. Cancelled due to a spot of nastiness engineered by yours truly. So we all had to go back to Ancona. The fans, the player, the manager, the owner…’
‘And we lost.’
Vincenzo roused himself briefly, felt in various pockets and finally produced a bottle of limoncello.
‘Leading at half-time and then pissed it away, with a little help from the ref as usual. Three-one final.’
‘You just got back?’ Rodolfo remarked, to get off the subject of the match before Vincenzo started insulting him as a shitbrained southerner, a Bari supporter whose sister did it with Albanians. It was just a matter of time before Vincenzo twigged that Flavia was from the unfashionable side of the Adriatic and made some remark which Rodolfo would not be able to overlook.
‘Shit happened,’ his flatmate replied with that raffish smile he could switch on and off at will. ‘I was out of it, Rodolfo. Way, way out!’
He took a long, gargling swig of the lemon liqueur. Rodolfo noted that it was the genuine pricey product made exclusively with fruit from the officially guaranteed zones in Capri and Sorrento. Nothing but the best for Vincenzo, even when his goal was oblivion.
‘Well, I’m glad you got back all right,’ he said, making a show of concern before returning to the bedroom and
