A Private Venus Read Free

qualities are recessive. It’s a kind of biological entropy.’
    The little emperor waved a hand, unhappily, but in the darkness it almost didn’t seem like a living hand, it appeared as vague and phosphorescent as ectoplasm, and even more unhappy in that funereal darkness.
    ‘And now I’d like to make one last attempt,’ Auseri said, ‘put him together with someone who could be both a friend and a doctor, who’d use any method he wanted to, to make him stop drinking, who’d stop him physically every minute of the day, even in the toilet. I don’t care if it takes a year, or what means he uses, he could even beat him to death, I’d rather he was dead than an alcoholic.’
    In prison you can actually become intelligent, and words mean a lot, the words you say and those you listen to. Outside, where you were free to say what you liked, words, and listening to words, were wasted, underestimated: people spoke without knowing what they were saying, and listenedwithout understanding. But with Auseri it wasn’t like that. That was why Duca liked him, apart from the pain and bitterness concealed within the imperious exterior. He said, ‘You want me to be that person who’s both a friend and a doctor, and who gets him off the drink.’
    ‘Yes, the idea came to me yesterday. Superintendent Carrua is a friend of mine, he knows the whole story. I had to go to Police Headquarters yesterday and I dropped by his office. He talked to me about you, and asked me if I could find you a job with Montecatini. Of course I could find you a desk job with Montecatini if you wanted it, but then it struck me that someone like you could help me with my son.’
    Of course, someone who’s only been out of prison for three days helps everyone, does everything, sings any song. He was certainly lucky to be a friend of Superintendent Carrua’s, he already had many things to choose from. Carrua had also found him a job selling pharmaceuticals, it was the ideal profession for a doctor who had been struck off, a suitcase with samples, a car with
Ciba
or
Farmitalia
painted on the doors, driving around the region, calling on doctors and pharmacists: it was almost better than being a doctor yourself. Or if he preferred something more unusual, he could accept Engineer Auseri’s offer and devote himself to his alcoholic son, cure him, remove the poison from him, be a kind of social worker. Or if he had lost the taste for socially redeeming work, he could make sure that Auseri got him that position with Montecatini: a desk somewhere in one of those neat offices, he could gratify his small-minded selfishness, the inertia of a man who no longer believes inanything. But in prison you also become sensitive, easily irritated. And because he was irritated now, he said calmly, ‘What made you think of me? Any other doctor could treat your son.’
    ‘I don’t think so,’ Auseri said. He had become irritated, too. ‘I need a person I can trust absolutely. From the way Superintendent Carrua spoke to me about you, I know I can trust you. I have an intuition about these things. Earlier, when I saw you sitting here, with those stones in your hand, I knew I could trust you.’
    These weren’t empty words, he could hear it in the tone of Auseri’s voice, and his irritation vanished. He liked talking to a man, after having talked to so many fools: the director of the clinic in the beanie hat who told dirty jokes as he operated, the prosecuting lawyer who shook his head each time he uttered Duca’s name in his closing statement: ‘… I don’t understand how Dr. Duca Lamberti’—a shake of the head—‘can maintain such an absurd version of events. Dr. Duca Lamberti’—a shake of the head—‘is either more naive, or more cunning, than may appear. Dr. Duca Lamberti’—another shake of the head—how could anyone be such an idiot? Auseri, though, was a man, and he liked listening to him.
    ‘Any other doctor would take advantage of the situation to drum