The Skin Room Page 2

She tossed her half-smoked cigarette to the ground and stamped on it with a twisting heel. The smoke coiled and failed.

  “I’d better go back,” she said, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “He’ll be looking for me.” Her eyes were unhappy, orphan-like. She stared at one of the boats that loomed larger than the rest: a yacht with its superstructure of rust-streaked white, satellite dishes clustered around it like clamshells, radio antennae spiking out from the roof. My sister shifted her feet, half-smiled, and turned away. I saw her long hair spreading out as she walked, flicking up and down in slow-motion, as if she was walking underwater.

  I bowed my head and looked down at the ground. “Go then,” I said to my toes.

  When I looked up, a few seconds later, she was already stepping onto the boat. As she disappeared from view, I felt a little twinge in my heart. She was going away from me. Yes. Going away from me forever.

  Inspector, I have tried to freeze-frame the last video image of a missing person. How did she look that day? Resigned, sad, lost. The tremulous fingers of an alcoholic; the bombed-out eyes of a drug-addict. I was convinced her time with Carlo was coming to an end, but where would she end up next? Would she remain free or be trapped by someone else? She was too dependent on others. On men, in particular. On bad men, especially.

  Sometimes she would leave Carlo for a while, after some argument or fight, but she always went trailing back to him eventually, whether he came after her or not. He was like a drug, I guess. And drugs, well, they certainly played a part in it, too.

  But you know all this, don’t you, Inspector. You don’t need my help to connect the dots. I just wanted to write all this down to show you how much I know. Which is perhaps a little, perhaps a lot. The rest I worked out once I got to Luxembourg, and then I guess I did start to go a bit crazy. But they always said I was odd to start with. Everyone said that. Even my mother. And I guess that if she was still around today then I would be telling her all this. But you’ll do. Because I need to tell somebody.

  3

  It was July. Catania was flattened by sunlight, and the heat stuck to my clothes. One Saturday, two weeks after being tricked by the chocolate girl, I strolled through town, taking my usual route. I had showered in the morning, but already I smelled my sweaty body odor returning. I had sprayed my mother’s perfume onto my hands before leaving the house and smoothed my damp fingers through my hair, but already I wanted to return home and repeat the dose. I had sprayed only a little, so other people wouldn’t notice too much. I just wanted to keep her scent with me for a while longer.

  I went back to the same district, the same road, looking for the same girl, or one like her. There were many false leads, pulling me nowhere. I thought I saw her, and then I didn’t.

  There was gold light in the street at 4 p.m. I heard the slip-slap of heels, just like the first time. Could she be ghosting through this neighborhood? A scent: apricot, lime. I looked up to see her blonde hair down her back, her long thighs moving under a red skirt. I stepped into her slipstream and kept pace a few feet behind. The chocolate girl would not be allowed to escape this time.

  She crossed Piazza del Duomo, strode past the elephant statue, then turned up Via Etnea. Aware that she had sensed my presence the first time, I let her press ahead, keeping her at a kite-like distance. I let out the string, tugged it back, feeling the line across my fingertips.

  She stopped outside a shoe shop, Rosati, written across the window in big, gold letters. She clasped her hands behind her back and peered into the window. She looked at the ankle-high boots, silver heels, flip-flops, and clogs. She was taking it all in: sizes, prices.

  “Hello.”

  She turned around and saw me, and took half a step backwards. Her eyes appeared to shrink.

  “Oh, hi,” she said, her cheeks turning red.

  “I’m the man who bought you chocolates,” I reminded her.

  “Yes.” She looked to either side, as though trying to catch the eye of passersby. That made my palms sweaty and so I rubbed my hands quickly on my pants. I hoped she wouldn’t notice.

  “Were you following me?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She clasped her little purse with both hands. She had done her make-up well this time. She looked less like a goth. Perhaps she wasn’t trying so hard to get noticed by men and was just out shopping.

  I moved a step or two closer, but did it slowly, as I didn’t want to scare her.

  “I guess I should apologize,” she said, “for the last time.” She stood her ground on the sidewalk yet clasped her purse close to her chest, protectively. She didn’t know the sort of man I was. Her damned purse didn’t interest me at all.

  “Did you enjoy the chocolates?” I asked, in a kind voice.

  “Yes.”

  “You ate them all?”

  “Some I gave as a present. The rest I ate.”

  Her lips were pink with barely visible creases. I couldn’t remember what color her eyes were, couldn’t see now—the sunlight was too sharp. I wanted to move a little closer to check them out but didn’t want to put her off again.

  I said, “I guess…”

  “I really am sorry,” she said. “It was a silly thing to do, leaving you like that.”

  “Silly,” I repeated.

  “I won’t do it again. I promise.”

  I sensed a softening in her tone. “Again?”

  “I don’t know.” She turned to the window. “I was just looking at those shoes.”

  Our eyes met in the reflected glass—I saw what she meant. The shoes were pretty expensive. There was a cheaper shop down the road, but I wasn’t going to mention that. If she’d sensed I was following her then she had stopped here for a reason. I looked down at my own shoes which were scuffed at the toes and needed polishing. I should have been more careful because women notice things like that. It was important to appear as well-groomed as possible.

  “How much are they?”

  “You don’t have to,” she said. “I was only joking.” She flashed a nervous smile and touched her blonde hair.

  “But I’m serious. So, how much?”

  “This pair is very beautiful, don’t you think?” She pointed to a pair of designer leather black boots. The toe caps were polished to a mirror-like effect.

  “I like them,” I said.

  “You do?”

  I nodded.

  “I just thought…” She probed her mouth with her tongue. “I’m not sure I can ask that of you.”

  “You mean, not after last time?”

  She seemed to relax the grip on her purse. And I sensed that just talking to her like this made it fine. She wasn’t suspicious of anything.

  “It wasn’t such a nice thing I did to you. Why would you want to?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “Like I said. You’re pretty.”

  “Yes, but you must realize….”

  “What?”

  She looked away. “Nothing.”

  “It’s just a gift. I’d like to see them on you.” I tried to smile.

  “You think they would suit me?”

  She looked in the glass and checked her hair, as she had done outside the chocolate shop. She wasn’t really vain, just checking her appearance. Everyone did that. Though most girls would try to make sure no man was watching first. Was this naivety or carelessness? I couldn’t quite work her out.

  “Why don’t you just try them on?” I said.

  “Are you sure?” She tilted her head a little, and let her purse drop to her side. “You don’t even know me. Why are you spending money on me? What do you want?”

  I studied the shy reactions of her eyes and thought she was doing a good job of pretending. Sometimes I had a pretty clear picture of what people were thinking. I liked to check the impact of what I said by looking at a person up close, just to analyze the effect. It wasn’t really a science. Just something to do.

  “It’s a gift, nothing special. You don’t have to feel indebted or anything.”

&n
bsp; “A gift.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not sure I can accept that, Alex. I’m sorry.”

  At least she had remembered my name. That was a good sign. But then I noticed she was beginning to turn away, and I knew I had to try harder or she might be gone soon. And I really hated that thought.

  “Valentina, please.”

  I was begging her, and I really didn’t like trying this hard, but sometimes you had to show them you were ready to play the game.

  She stood still now and gave me the gaze. She was sizing me up. Could she trust a stranger? Did I appear to her to be a decent sort of client? What would she risk by accepting another gift? I figured she was asking herself all sorts of questions.

  I said, “It’s only money.” And that was about the best line I could think of.

  Her smile was a long time coming. Even when the shape was half-full, it could have slid back the other way.

  “Maybe it wouldn’t do any harm to try them on.” She turned to look through the glass.

  She was playing a good game too. I liked the fact that she gave in after appearing to consider it at length when all along she just wanted me to buy her a pair of new boots, because she knew I was kind enough, or crazy enough to do it.

  We entered the shop, not arm in arm this time; I lagged behind and kept my eyes fixed on her shoulders, the nape of her neck, the tresses of her hair, the tease of her bra straps showing through her white cotton blouse. I could see the red crossed lines, even the clip. And it was a kind of tease. Otherwise she would have worn a paler bra under a white blouse and not mixed the colors deliberately.

  Luring, enticing. These verbs are appropriate, I suppose. I was only doing what I knew I had to do in order to get her where I wanted. You may be surprised to know, Inspector, that at this stage I was already imagining her insides—I am not one to stop at the body naked. My imagination ran behind the flesh, into the pulp. I imagined her glistening innards, her yellow-and-purple heart, the cool pink exit of her colon.

  I always liked dissection. As a child, I fell into a kind of a trance when I sank the knife into the softest morsels of flesh: frogs, mice, and guinea pigs. I would splice their legs and slit open their brains. I soon dreamed of turning the whole world inside out. And when I say the whole world, I mean all it harbored and still does: humans, flora, fauna. Inspector, if you wanted to create a psychological profile of your target, this insight into my mind’s workings might prove fruitful. Am I helping you to sketch my inner face? How do I appear to you? Insane or just emotionally dissociated? But let’s not speculate on my mental state. I will tell you everything.

  4

  “They really are lovely.” She looked down at her heels.

  “You look fantastic,” I said.

  “And they fit perfectly.” She stopped smiling at herself in the mirror and turned to me, dead on. “This is so crazy.” She twirled a few strands of blonde hair in her fingers. I still had trouble describing the color. I have said golden before, with a slight darkness where it was parted in the middle. But now I figured it was just plain blonde. Perhaps she had dyed it recently?

  I shrugged. “You’re having fun, right? That’s the main thing. What next? A shirt, a jacket?”

  She waved her hand and I followed it with my eyes. I noticed that the color of her nails had changed since the last time. Now they were a darker shade of red. It suited her better.

  “Let’s not get carried away,” she said.

  She smiled and I saw her slightly uneven teeth. It was nice to be reacquainted with that quirky smile of hers. She approached in slow steps and crouched beside the chair. I smelled her perfume really close now and it was still the same fruity scent—I was glad she hadn’t changed that.

  She said, “I don’t want to feel I owe you anything, you understand.” Her eyes asked for knowledge, but it was not the sort of knowledge I wanted to share.

  “This is fun for me too.” I looked down at her heels. “Do they not cut in too much at the back?” I leaned forwards and reached out a hand.

  She stood up quickly. “They’ll be fine.” She turned to the saleswoman. “Can I wear them now?”

  The saleswoman packed the old shoes into a box and wrapped them up in crumpled tissue paper.

  I paid by credit card and hoped I would have the money by the end of the month. I would need to take on more work, which was a hassle. But sometimes working hard was all right because you got lost in your dictionaries or tinkered with the same phrase over and over again, and you forgot about other things, like your old father downstairs, or your mother dead, or your missing sister. Because after seeing Sonia stride away on the jetty, I’d never spoken to her again. And that was hard to take. It made my stomach tighten.

  Valentina patted me on the shoulder. It was the first time she had touched me, and that usually meant I was getting somewhere.

  “Thanks a lot,” she smiled. “How about I take you for a coffee now, on me, it’s the least I can do.”

  “Will you stay around to drink it?”

  “I’m just a touch shy, I suppose.” She looked down and shuffled her reflective boots.

  It was unconvincing. Her act. There were other words for what she was. She was using me, or I was using her. Or both of us were being used.

  “I’m astonished, really,” she said in the café across the sun-white street. “I didn’t think people could be so generous. Especially you, I mean, a stranger. And after the way I treated you the first time, sneaking off like a schoolgirl. You must have thought I was a real bitch.”

  I drank my espresso in three quick sips. “I like doing things for people, and you’re no exception. Though, if I may say, you’re an exception in a different way.”

  I looked into her eyes and saw the color of each iris now: teddy-bear brown.

  She seemed to want to look away, but couldn’t quite manage it. It was the first time I had managed to keep eye-contact going and it took a bit of courage on my part. Eventually she looked away first and stared down at her hands and her cup. I looked down at her hands too. Her skin was drawn thinly like faintly transparent paper over her knuckles, and a bluish color shone through. I thought of the way fish glint just beneath the surface of a pool. I shivered and looked instead at some specks of sugar on the table.

  We were sitting in a more modern café this time, a kind of ice-cream parlor with silver tables and those little shiny blocks of white paper napkins that were half-transparent and almost oily to the touch. Little children weaved around us, licking their ice-cream cones: pistachio, stracciatella, zuppa inglese…

  “I like the sound your new heels make. It’s different from the old sound. Your sandals used to slip and slap. These thud the concrete, they stomp. It’s a more satisfying sound, don’t you think?”

  She frowned with her eyes. “I’m not sure.” She lifted the cup to her lips, tilted it, and sipped her cappuccino. “But thank you, anyway.”

  “You have foam on your top lip.”

  She blushed, raised the napkin and dabbed the spot once, twice.

  She stared at me. “There’s something unusual about you. I mean, I think you’re a nice guy. Perhaps you could tell me about yourself. Where are you from?”

  “I’m not really from anywhere. My family moved to Europe from America when I was just a kid. I’ve lived in Spain, and Luxembourg. I’m a translator. I’ve always liked hearing different languages. If you stay in the same place for too long, you tend to hear the same things over again. I guess that’s why I travel. It must be something I’ve inherited from my father.”

  “Your father?”

  “He travelled a lot. He was an interpreter.”

  “And your mother?”

  “She passed away just last year.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Cancer,” I said. I never liked to say that word because it reminded me of all the bad hours. My mother’s face getting whiter and thinner until she had no face at all. At least that was the way I thought about
it. The person that died wasn’t her. She was already gone. Or maybe that’s wrong. Sometimes I got confused thinking about who she had become. I looked at Valentina and wondered how much I should say. “Catania was her home city. My father lives here now, in retirement. He’s getting old, and so I’ve moved here temporarily to keep an eye on him.”

  I’d shared the house with my father since my mother, Giorgia, died. It was a beautiful villa with a flat, white roof, surrounded by pines, offering a view to the ocean on a clear day. The pine trees had a resinous smell, and they kept the house shady in summer. I wondered if Valentina would be willing to come to my house, as I had hoped. Or perhaps today was too soon and I should ask her to meet me another day. The last time I had made a big mistake, but I didn’t think I had made any yet today. I was keeping my eyes on her this time.

  “So you live here now?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “For the time being.”

  “And when you’re not here, where are you? Where is home?”

  “Luxembourg, I guess.”

  “Never been.”

  “You missed nothing. But the work is good. Lots of different languages there.” I smiled.

  “So you’re what—freelance? It must be nice to be able to travel around. I know I’ll probably live my whole life here in Italy. Even if I do hate that womanizer, Berlusconi. I don’t think I could move around like you.” She shrugged. “I only speak Italian.”

  I liked the way she spoke, those soft R’s. Her voice had a schooled, tender tone. I wondered if it was a voice that she used for her clients only. I wanted to ask her what she did for a living, because I needed to be sure.

  “Can I ask … what you do?”

  She shook her head shyly, both hands around her coffee cup. “You may not want to speak to me afterwards. And you certainly won’t buy me any more presents.”

  “Don’t be so sure. I’m not judgmental.”

  She looked up with a brightness in her eyes, and I knew I had said the right word. And that was the useful thing about words. Sometimes it was just the right one at the right time.