‘No,’ he said. ‘No. Mrs Hildegarde. I buy my own shoes.’
He put his hand over his heart.
‘You give me work, and I buy my own.’
She swept it aside as absurd sentiment. The glass of wine offered distraction. He drained it, got up and filled it and drained it again. She came over to him and put her hand on his arm. He looked into her face that smiled sympathetically, and once more a gusher of tears rose out of him and overflowed to his cheeks. Self-pity lashed him. That he should be subjected to such embarrassment! He sat down again, his fists clamped at his chin, his eyes closed. That this should happen to Svevo Bandini!
But, even as he wept he bent over to unlace his old soggy shoes. The right shoe came off with a sucking sound, exposing a gray sock with holes in the toes, the big toe red and naked. For some reason he wiggled it. The Widow laughed. Her amusement was his cure. His mortification vanished. Eagerly he went at the business of removing the other shoe. The Widow sipped wine and watched him.
The shoes were kangaroo, she told him, they were expensive. He pulled them on, felt their cool softness. God in heaven, what shoes! He laced them and stood up. He might have stepped barefoot into a deep carpet so soft they were, such friendly things at his feet. He walked across the room, trying them.
‘Just right,’ he said. ‘Pretty good, Mrs Hildegarde!’
What now? She turned her back and sat down. He walked to the fireplace.
‘I’ll pay you, Mrs Hildegarde. What they cost you I’ll take off the bill.’ It was inappropriate. Upon her face was an expectancy and a disappointment he could not fathom.
‘The best shoes I ever had,’ he said, sitting down and stretching them before him. She threw herself at the opposite end of the divan. In a tired voice she asked him to pour her a drink. He gave it to her and she accepted it without thanks, saying nothing as she sipped the wine, sighing with faint exasperation. He sensed her uneasiness. Perhaps he had stayed too long. He got up to go. Vaguely he felt her smouldering silence. Her jaw was set, her lips a thin thread. Maybe she was sick, wanting to be alone. He picked up his old shoes and bundled them under his arms.
‘I think maybe I’ll go now, Mrs Hildegarde.
She stared into the flames.
‘Thank you Mrs Hildegarde. If you have some more work sometime . . .’
‘Of course, Svevo.’ She looked up and smiled. ‘You’re a superb worker, Svevo. I’m well satisfied.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Hildegarde.’
What about his wages for the work? He crossed the room and hesitated at the door. She did not see him go. He took the knob in his hand and twisted it.
‘Goodbye, Mrs Hildegarde.’
She sprang to her feet. Just a moment. There was something she had meant to ask him. That pile of stones in the back yard, left over from the house. Would he look at it before he went away? Perhaps he could tell her what to do with them. He followed the rounded hips through the hall to the back porch where he looked at the stones from the window, two tons of flagstone under snow. He thought a moment and made suggestions: she could do many things with that stone – lay down a sidewalk with it; build a low wall around the garden; erect a sundial and garden benches, a fountain, an incinerator. Her face was chalky and frightened as he turned from the window, his arm gently brushing her chin. She had been leaning over his shoulder, not quite touching it. He apologized. She smiled.
‘We’ll talk of it later,’ she said. ‘In the spring.’
She did not move, barring the path back to the hall.
‘I want you to do all my work, Svevo.’
Her eyes wandered over him. The new shoes attracted her. She smiled again. ‘How are they?’
‘Best I ever had.’
Still there was something else. Would he wait just a moment, until she thought of it? There was something – something – something – and she kept snapping her fingers and biting her lip thoughtfully. They went back through the narrow hallway. At the first door she stopped. Her hand fumbled at the knob. It was dim in the hall. She pushed the door open.
‘This is my room,’ she said.
He saw the pounding of her heart in her throat. Her face was gray, her eyes bright with quick shame. Her jeweled hand covered the fluttering in her throat. Over her shoulder he saw the room, the white bed, the dressing table, the chest of drawers. She entered the room, switched on the light, and made a circle in the middle of the carpet.
‘It’s a pleasant room, don’t you think?’
He watched her, not the room. He watched her, his eyes shifting to the bed and back to her again. He felt his mind warming, seeking the fruits of imagery; that woman and this room. She walked to the bed, her hips weaving like a cluster of serpents as she fell on the bed and lay there, her hand in an empty gesture.
‘It’s so pleasant here.’
A wanton gesture, careless as wine. The fragrance of the place fed his heartbeat. Her eyes were feverish, her lips parted in an agonized expression that showed her teeth. He could not be sure of himself. He squinted his eyes as he watched her. No – she could not mean it. This woman had too much money. Her wealth impeded the imagery. Such things did not happen.
She lay facing him, her head on her outstretched arm. The loose smile must have been painful, for it seemed to come with frightened uneasiness. His throat responded with a clamor of blood; he swallowed, and looked away, toward the door through the hall. What he had been thinking had best be forgotten. This woman was not interested in a poor man.
‘I think I better go now, Mrs Hildegarde.’
‘Fool,’ she smiled.
He grinned his confusion, the chaos of his blood and brain. The evening air would clear that up. He turned and walked down the hall to the front door.
‘You fool!’ he heard her say. ‘You ignorant peasant.’
Mannaggia! And she had not paid him, either. His lips screwed into a sneer. She could call Svevo Bandini a fool! She arose from the bed to meet him, her hands outstretched to embrace him. A moment later she was struggling to tear herself away. She winced in terrible joy as he stepped back, her ripped blouse streaming from his two fists.
He had torn her blouse away even as Maria had torn the flesh from his face. Remembering it now, that night in the Widow’s bedroom was even yet worth a great deal to him. No other living being was in that house, only himself and the woman against him, crying with ecstatic pain, weeping that he have mercy, her weeping a pretense, a beseechment for mercilessness. He laughed the triumph of his poverty and peasantry. This Widow! She with her wealth and deep plump warmth, slave and victim of her own challenge, sobbing in the joyful abandonment of her defeat, each gasp his victory. He could have done away with her had he desired, reduced her scream to a whisper, but he arose and walked into the room where the fireplace glowed lazily in the quick winter darkness, leaving her weeping and choking on the bed. Then she came to him there at the fireplace and fell on her knees before him, her face sodden with tears, and he smiled and lent himself once more to her delicious torment. And when he left her sobbing in her fulfillment, he walked down the road with deep content that came from the conviction he was master of the earth.