The Bottom of Your Heart Read Online Free Page A

wan wave, mouth an appropriate cliché (“Hot enough for you?”), and then trudge on, dragging their feet across the cement. People make dates to meet in the Galleria, as if trying to form disheveled salons under the glass ceilings, in search of a little shade, muggy and unsatisfying though it is, and they talk about how long the heat can last.
    A specific body of lore flourishes: buddy, last night just to get a little cool air I slept on the floor; that’s nothing, buddy, I went out and slept on my balcony in nothing but my underpants and undershirt, and the mosquitoes practically ate me alive, alive they almost ate me, look here at the bumps I have on my arms. Straw boaters are waved over the face like fans, and young men in two-tone shoes talk down the charms of the young
signorine
who walk past slowly, to spare themselves the effort of attempting to strike up conversation. The many overweight gentlemen and the many oversized matrons bemoan, in the presence of the heat, the genuine authentic heat, the bygone years when they strolled light-footed, their toes barely touching the ground as they floated along on the feathered wings of lost youth, but they console themselves with the thought that this heat has killed their appetites, even as they eat the fourth gelato of the day to soothe their parched throats.
    The outdoor café tables, sheltered under broad white awnings, are the objects of rustic duels, and the winners linger, nursing their drinks with tiny sips while those waiting for a spot to open up observe them with ill-concealed hostility, wishing all manner of painful deaths upon them. The coachmen, waiting in vain for paying passengers, battle for a place in the shade of the buildings lining the piazza, nod off seated in their carriages, mouths open, hats pulled down over their eyes.
    The trolleys that rattle and screech up into the hills and down toward the water are loaded with families in search of even a theoretical whiff of cool air. Sweat and stench prevail inside the trolleys, and everyone envies the freedom of the street urchins, the Neapolitan
scugnizzi
hanging off the outside of the streetcars in clusters, enjoying a free ride, as naked and dark as African natives, shouting and cheerful as clowns. The driver, snorting in annoyance, will stop the streetcar from time to time and step out to chase them off; the
scugnizzi
scamper away like a flock of swallows, laughing at his threats, calling back insults, only to assault the vehicle as soon as it gets moving again.
    When the heat comes, the real heat, it lowers a blanket of silence and fear over the city, because everyone is certain it will never end. Every item of clothing, no matter how light, seems like a thick woolen blanket, intolerable, and dark haloes of sweat soak the cloth under the armpits and on the chest. Forced to wear suits and ties, office clerks walking up and down the stairs of the buildings where they work sigh as they realize they’ll have to have their garments washed ahead of time, and they dread the cleaner’s bill, while marriageable young women try to go out less often in order to keep the wave the beautician, who made a house call, has set in their hair—for in this heat, the wave will wilt quickly.
    People look down from their balconies, scanning the street for the appearance of the iceman, calling out his wares with a shout. The ice will be more expensive than usual and there will be loud angry protests, but no one who can afford it will go without a hunk of cold, to which he will entrust his hopes that sooner or later the heat, this honest-to-goodness heat, will end. The negotiations with the iceman are different from those with any other strolling vendor. In fact, there are no negotiations at all; he knows his customers’ need and desire, and he refuses even to stop unless he hears the clinking of coins, in part because he knows that to stop means to allow some of the white gold that he carries in his