Adam, One Afternoon (Vintage Classics) by Italo Calvino

Author:Italo Calvino [Calvino, Italo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House UK
Published: 2011-01-11T06:00:00+00:00

Dollars and the Demi-Mondaine

* * *

IT WAS after supper and Emanuele was flicking a fly swatter against the window-pane. He was thirty-two years old and plump. His wife, Jolanda, was changing her stockings to go out.

Through the window could be seen the rubble patch where the old warehouse used to be; across it opened a view of the sea, between houses sloping downhill; the sea was darkening, and a slow wind was surging up through the streets. Six sailors from the Shenandoah, an American torpedo-boat anchored outside the port, entered a tavern called The Tub of Diogenes.

“There are six Americans at Felice’s,” said Emanuele.

“Officers?” asked Jolanda.

“Sailors. Better. Hurry up.” He pushed back his hat, and twisted round, groping for the sleeve of his jacket.

Jolanda had fastened her garter and was now tucking in the ribbons of her brassière which were sticking out in front.

“Ready? Let’s go.”

They trafficked in dollars, and so wanted to ask the sailors if they had any to sell; they were a respectable pair, though, for all their trafficking.

On the deserted rubble patch an odd palm-tree or two planted there to improve the area was rustling in the wind, as if desolate and disconsolate. And in the middle of the patch stood the brightly-lit construction called The Tub of Diogenes, put up by an ex-Serviceman called Felice, with the Town Council’s permission and in spite of protests that it spoilt the neighbourhood. It was shaped like a barrel; inside was a bar and tables.

Emanuele turned to Jolanda. “Now, you go in first and start talking to them, and ask them if they’d like to change any dollars. They’re more likely to say ‘Yes’ to you at once. Then I’ll come in and clinch the deal.”

A strategist, Emanuele. Off Jolanda went.

At Felice’s the six sailors were lined along the bar from end to end, and all those white trousers and elbows leaning on the marble made it seem as if there were twelve of them. Jolanda approached and saw twelve eyes fixed on her, rotating in time with closed, chewing, grunting mouths. Most of them, in loose white tunics and with those caps perched on their heads, looked overgrown yet badly developed; but there was one near her, over six feet tall, with apple cheeks and a neck like a pyramid, whose uniform moulded him as if he were naked; he had a pair of round eyes with pupils that revolved to and fro without ever touching the lids. Jolanda hid a ribbon on her brassière which kept popping out.

From behind the bar, Felice, a chef’s hat perched above swollen, sleepy eyes, was busy refilling glasses and seeing that all went well. From his cobbler’s face, its chin perpetually dark in spite of shaving, came a grin of greeting. He spoke English, Felice did, and Jolanda whispered: “Felice, just ask them, will you, if they want to change any dollars?”

Felice, for ever grinning and evasive, replied: “Ask ’em yourself,” and he told a young waiter with tar-black hair and an onion-coloured face to bring out more trays of pizza and chips.

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