“Well,” Belbo said, “where did you meet your Agliè?”
“My Agliè? Yours, too, from what I saw. You can know Simon, but I can’t. Fine.”
“Why do you call him Simon? Why does he call you Sophia?”
“Oh, it’s a game. I met him at a friend’s place—all right? And I find him fascinating. He kisses my hand as if I were a princess. He could be my father.”
“He could be the father of your son, if you aren’t careful.”
It sounded like me, in Bahia, talking to Amparo. Lorenza was right. Agliè knew how to kiss the hand of a young lady unfamiliar with that ritual.
“Why Simon and Sophia?” Belbo insisted. “Is his name Simon?”
“It’s a wonderful story. Did you know that our universe is the result of an error and that it’s partly my fault? Sophia was the female part of God, because God then was more female than male; it was you men who later put a beard on him and started calling him He. I was his good half. Simon says I tried to create the world without asking permission—I, the Sophia, who is also called—wait a minute—the Ennoia.
But my male part didn’t want to create; maybe he lacked the courage or was impotent. So instead of uniting with him, I decided to make the world by myself. I couldn’t resist; it was through an excess of love. Which is true; I adore this whole mixed-up universe. And that’s why I’m the soul of this world, according to Simon.”
“How nice! Does he give that line to all the girls?”
“No, stupid, just to me, because he understands me better than you do. He doesn’t try to create me in his image. He understands I have to be allowed to live my life in my own way. And that’s what Sophia did; she flung herself into making the world. She came up against primordial matter, which was disgusting, probably because it didn’t use a deodorant. And then, I think, she accidentally created the Demi—how do you say it?”
“You mean the Demiurge?”
“That’s him, yes. Or maybe it wasn’t Sophia who made this Demiurge; maybe he was already around and she egged him on: Get moving, silly, make the world, and then we’ll have real fun. The Demiurge must have been a real screwup, because he didn’t know how to make the world properly. In fact, he shouldn’t even have tried it, because matter is bad, and he wasn’t authorized to touch the stuff. Anyway, he made this awful mess, and Sophia was caught inside. Prisoner of the world.”
Lorenza was drinking a lot. A number of people had started dancing sleepily in the center of the room, their eyes closed, and Riccardo came by every few minutes and filled her cup. Belbo tried to stop him, saying she had already had too much to drink, but Riccardo laughed and shook his head, and she said indignantly that she could hold her alcohol better than Jacopo because she was younger.
“All right,” Belbo said, “don’t listen to Granddad, listen to Simon. What else did he tell you?”
“What I said: I’m prisoner of the world, or, rather, of the bad angels … because in this story the angels are bad and they helped the Demiurge make all this mess…. The bad angels, anyhow, are holding me; they don’t want me to get away, and they make me suffer. But every now and then in the world of men there is someone who recognizes me. Like Simon. He says it happened to him once before, a thousand years ago—I forgot to tell you Simon’s practically immortal; you can’t imagine all the things he’s seen….”
“Of course … but don’t drink anymore now.”
“Sssh … Simon found me once when I was a prostitute in a brothel in Tyre and my name was Helen….”
“He tells you that? And you’re overjoyed. Pray let me kiss your hand, whore of my screwed-up universe…. Some gentleman.”
“If anything, that Helen was the whore. And besides, in those days, when they said prostitute, they meant a woman who was free, without ties, an intellectual who didn’t want to be a housewife. She might hold a salon. Today she’d be in public relations. Would you call a PR woman a whore or a hooker, who lights bonfires along the highway for truck drivers?”
At that point Riccardo came and took her by the arm. “Come and dance,” he said.
In the middle of the room, they made faint, dreamy movements, as if beating a drum. But from time to time Riccardo drew her to him, put a hand possessively on the back of her neck, and she would follow him with closed eyes, her face flushed, head thrown back, hair hanging free, vertically. Belbo lit one cigarette after another.
Then Lorenza grabbed Riccardo by the waist and slowly pulled him until they were only a step from Belbo. Still dancing, she took the paper cup from Belbo’s hand. Holding Riccardo with her left hand, the cup with her right, she turned her moist eyes on Belbo. It was almost as if she had been crying, but she smiled and said: “It wasn’t the only time, either.”
“The only time, what?” Belbo asked.
“That he met Sophia. Centuries after that, Simon was also Guillaume Postel.”
“A letter carrier?”
“Idiot. He was a Renaissance scholar who read Jewish—”
“Hebrew.”
“Same difference. He read it the way kids read Superman. Without a dictionary. Anyhow, in a hospital in Venice he meets an old illiterate maidservant, Joanna. He looks at her and says, ‘You are the new incarnation of Sophia, the Ennoia, the Great Mother descended into our midst to redeem the whole world, which has a female soul.’ And so Postel takes Joanna with him; everybody says he’s crazy, but he pays no attention; he adores her, wants to free her from the angels’ imprisonment, and when she dies, he sits and stares at the sun for an hour and goes for days without drinking or eating, inhabited by Joanna, who no longer exists but it’s as if she did, because she’s still there, she inhabits the world, and every now and then she resurfaces, that is, she’s reincarnated…. Isn’t that a story to make you cry?”
“I’m dissolved in tears. Are you so pleased to be Sophia?”
“But I’m Sophia for you, too, darling. You know that before you met me you wore the most dreadful ghastly ties and had dandruff on your shoulders.”
Riccardo was holding her neck again. “May I join in the conversation?” he said.
“You keep quiet and dance. You’re the instrument of my lust.”
“Suits me.”
Belbo went on as if the other man didn’t exist. “So you’re his prostitute, his feminist who does public relations, and he’s your Simon.”
“My name’s not Simon,” Riccardo said, his tongue thick.
“We’re not talking about you,” Belbo said.
His behavior had been making me uneasy for some while now. He, as a rule so guarded about his feelings, was having a lovers’ quarrel in front of a witness, in front of a rival, even. But this last remark made me realize that with his baring of himself before the other man—the true rival being yet another—Belbo was reasserting, in the only way he could, his possession of Lorenza.
Meanwhile, holding out her cup for more drink, Lorenza answered: “But it’s a game. I love you.”
“Thank God you don’t hate me. Listen, I’d like to go home, I have a stomachache. I’m still a prisoner of base matter. Simon hasn’t done me any good. Will you come with me?”
“Let’s stay a little longer. It’s so nice. Aren’t you having fun? Besides, I still haven’t looked at the pictures. Did you see? Riccardo made one on me.”
“There are other things I’d like to do on you,” Riccardo said.
“You’re vulgar. Stop it. I’m talking about Jacopo. My God, Jacopo, are you the only one who can make intellectual jokes with your friends? Who treats me like a prostitute from Tyre? You do.”
“I might have known. Me. I’m the one pushing you into the arms of old gentlemen.”
“He’s never tried to take me in his arms. He isn’t a satyr. You’re cross because he doesn’t want to take me to bed but considers me an intellectual partner.”
“Allumeuse.”
“You really shouldn’t have said that. Riccardo, get me something to drink.”
“No, wait,” Belbo said. “Now, I want you to tell me if you take him seriously. Stop drinking, dammit! Tell me if you take him seriously!”
“But, darling, it’s our game, a game between him and me. And besides, the best part of the story is that when Sophia realizes who she is and frees herself from the tyranny of the angels, she frees herself from sin….”
“You’ve given up sinning?”
“Think it over first,” Riccardo said, kissing her chastely on the forehead.
“I don’t have to,” she replied—to Belbo, ignoring the painter. “Those things aren’t sins anymore; I can do anything I like. Once you’ve freed yourself from the flesh, you’re beyond good and evil.”
She pushed Riccardo away. “I’m Sophia, and to free myself from the angels I have to perpet … per-pet-rate all sins, even the most marvelous!”
Staggering a little, she went to a corner where a girl was seated, dressed in black, her eyes heavily mascaraed, her complexion pale. Lorenza led the girl into the center of the room and began to sway with her. They were belly to belly, arms limp at their sides. “I can love
