that! What are you doing riding in a coach if you drive a taxi?
I’m tired of driving, he explains.
You don’t have the face of a taxi-driver! she retorts.
I can’t help it … I drive a taxi … and anyway cars are useless in Venice … in Venice you walk.
Zdena pauses, perhaps to wonder what she’s doing.
A taxi-driver. It’s hard to believe, she says.
We’re all living things which are hard to believe, the man says, things we never imagined.
Forty minutes’ respite, announces the driver over the loudspeaker, not a minute more please.
Let the cat stay on my chest. I like her there, Gino. She’s purring. They say cats, when they lie on you, take away static electricity. Fear makes lots of static. She’s not frightened. She doesn’t know. Her warmth is going right into my bones. I can feel her purring between my ribs. Yes, put out the light. I think I’ll sleep.
When Zdena and the bald man, whose name is Tomas, come back into the coach, they are deep in conversation.
What shall I tell her when I see her? I can’t bear lies. All my life I’ve fought against lies—to my cost. But it’s stronger than me. I can’t bear lies.
You have a voice that couldn’t lie. There are voices that can’t lie.
So?
There’s no need to lie. What’s needed is calm.
I haven’t seen her for six years. As you might guess, I blame myself: if I’d been with her, it wouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have come back, I should have stayed with her in France. She needed me. Of course I blame myself.
There’s no blame.
She’s so young, so young.
Whom the gods love …
There’s no love in SIDA. I’m a scientist, Zdena says, I know what I’m talking about. No love. Not a scrap.
You mustn’t panic, Citizen.
Citizen! You’re the second person this week to call me Citizen. I thought our ancient form of address was junked.
You like to hear it?
Now it’s no longer used, I suppose I do. When it was used I hated the hypocrisy of it. Today it reminds me of my teens, when I dreamt of going to the Conservatoire.
There’s a silence. Both of them remembering.
So, she’s getting married, the man says.
An Italian has fallen in love with her, and insists upon marrying her. Crazy.
He knows?
Of course.
Why is he crazy?
Be reasonable, he’s crazy.
She doesn’t want to get married?
She wants everything and she wants nothing. They can’t have children. I’ll never know what she feels. Nobody else can know. But I feel it here! She used the Slavword
douchá
and the way she pronounced it as she put her hand to the base of her neck, indicated that, although she was small, and light as a bird, her longing and her despair were immense.
Outside, the trees are blacker than the sky and the driver has put on an old cassette of a Verdi opera. The honeymoon couple are cuddling and the shopkeepers are opening cans of beer.
Is he unemployed, your future son-in-law?
He sells clothes, men’s clothes.
So he works in a big store.
No, in street markets. He’s called Gino.
That’s short for Luigi.
Yes, taxi-driver!
If I understand, you’ve never met him?
Here’s a photo of the two of them in Verona, my daughter sent it.
She’s very beautiful, your daughter, and she already looks Italian! As for Gino with his big nose, his big teeth and his long wrists, he’s exactly like a young man drawn by Lucas van Leyden. A long time ago, nearly five centuries. I have a postcard of the drawing at home. Lucas probably drew it a few months after meeting Albrecht Dürer—the two of them swapped drawings in Antwerp.
How come you know so much?
Gino and the man in van Leyden’s drawing have the same kind of independence. It goes with their faces—with those teeth and that nose. It has nothing to do with rank. Men like them never have power. They’re riders. Much later the Americans turned the rider into a cowboy,but he’s much older than America. He’s the man in folktales who comes to take you away on his horse. Not
I’m tired of driving, he explains.
You don’t have the face of a taxi-driver! she retorts.
I can’t help it … I drive a taxi … and anyway cars are useless in Venice … in Venice you walk.
Zdena pauses, perhaps to wonder what she’s doing.
A taxi-driver. It’s hard to believe, she says.
We’re all living things which are hard to believe, the man says, things we never imagined.
Forty minutes’ respite, announces the driver over the loudspeaker, not a minute more please.
Let the cat stay on my chest. I like her there, Gino. She’s purring. They say cats, when they lie on you, take away static electricity. Fear makes lots of static. She’s not frightened. She doesn’t know. Her warmth is going right into my bones. I can feel her purring between my ribs. Yes, put out the light. I think I’ll sleep.
When Zdena and the bald man, whose name is Tomas, come back into the coach, they are deep in conversation.
What shall I tell her when I see her? I can’t bear lies. All my life I’ve fought against lies—to my cost. But it’s stronger than me. I can’t bear lies.
You have a voice that couldn’t lie. There are voices that can’t lie.
So?
There’s no need to lie. What’s needed is calm.
I haven’t seen her for six years. As you might guess, I blame myself: if I’d been with her, it wouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have come back, I should have stayed with her in France. She needed me. Of course I blame myself.
There’s no blame.
She’s so young, so young.
Whom the gods love …
There’s no love in SIDA. I’m a scientist, Zdena says, I know what I’m talking about. No love. Not a scrap.
You mustn’t panic, Citizen.
Citizen! You’re the second person this week to call me Citizen. I thought our ancient form of address was junked.
You like to hear it?
Now it’s no longer used, I suppose I do. When it was used I hated the hypocrisy of it. Today it reminds me of my teens, when I dreamt of going to the Conservatoire.
There’s a silence. Both of them remembering.
So, she’s getting married, the man says.
An Italian has fallen in love with her, and insists upon marrying her. Crazy.
He knows?
Of course.
Why is he crazy?
Be reasonable, he’s crazy.
She doesn’t want to get married?
She wants everything and she wants nothing. They can’t have children. I’ll never know what she feels. Nobody else can know. But I feel it here! She used the Slavword
douchá
and the way she pronounced it as she put her hand to the base of her neck, indicated that, although she was small, and light as a bird, her longing and her despair were immense.
Outside, the trees are blacker than the sky and the driver has put on an old cassette of a Verdi opera. The honeymoon couple are cuddling and the shopkeepers are opening cans of beer.
Is he unemployed, your future son-in-law?
He sells clothes, men’s clothes.
So he works in a big store.
No, in street markets. He’s called Gino.
That’s short for Luigi.
Yes, taxi-driver!
If I understand, you’ve never met him?
Here’s a photo of the two of them in Verona, my daughter sent it.
She’s very beautiful, your daughter, and she already looks Italian! As for Gino with his big nose, his big teeth and his long wrists, he’s exactly like a young man drawn by Lucas van Leyden. A long time ago, nearly five centuries. I have a postcard of the drawing at home. Lucas probably drew it a few months after meeting Albrecht Dürer—the two of them swapped drawings in Antwerp.
How come you know so much?
Gino and the man in van Leyden’s drawing have the same kind of independence. It goes with their faces—with those teeth and that nose. It has nothing to do with rank. Men like them never have power. They’re riders. Much later the Americans turned the rider into a cowboy,but he’s much older than America. He’s the man in folktales who comes to take you away on his horse. Not
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