All Our Yesterdays Page 13

  She heard voices in the garden opposite and went over to the window, she saw that Mammina had come back, Emanuele was running limping to meet her and Mammina was much irritated because no one had come to fetch her from the station, she had had to come home from the station in a cab. She refused to embrace Emanuele, she was much irritated, she had suffered from the heat on her journey and said she was sick of always having to think of everything. And now the trunks had to be packed and they had to go away again, she swore she would not touch the trunks, she would not pack even so much as a handkerchief. The trunks must be taken charge of by Amalia. Anna listened, hiding behind the half-closed shutters, and it seemed to her that Mammina was irritated not with Emanuele or Amalia but with her. She stood there behind the shutters and thought that she must speak to Giuma before he went away, they must think together at once what to do to stop the baby. It seemed to her that she could endure that baby inside her no longer, not even for a moment. She left the window and sat in the half-darkness, and suddenly she began to imagine that Giuma would decide not to go away and that he would stay and marry her. In a determined, quiet voice Giuma was explaining to her that nothing must be done to stop a baby. So she answered him that they couldn’t get married and have a baby together, he had the girl Fiammetta to get married to, and she was rich and Mammina would be pleased. But he said he didn’t care in the least about Mammina and the girl Fiammetta. At that moment Emanuele came to take away the radio, Mammina wanted to get it packed at once and sent to the villa up above Stresa which she had taken. They were leaving in two or three days, just as soon as the packing was done. Emanuele called Giustino to help him carry the radio downstairs, they must be quick about it, Mammina was in a fierce mood. At the bottom of the stairs he sat down for a moment to wipe the sweat from his face, he said he himself was leaving with the others, Mammina was frightened at night in that isolated villa, with Franz having nightmares and waking up in the night shouting. So he was going, he had no wish to go but he was going, because he did not want any discussions with Mammina and because in any case one place or another was all the same to him, since he spent his days sleeping and no longer thought about anything. And he said that truly he was quite pleased to go and not to see Ippolito’s face any more, that death-like face that he had assumed ever since the Germans had begun to take France.

  Anna saw Giuma next morning in front of the school, the lists of examination results were hung up outside, and he told her that as he was passing he had stopped to look at his fellow-pupils’ marks, beside his own name there was nothing but a small red cross because he had left the school. He had the same jeering, arrogant expression on his face that he had always worn amongst his schoolfellows. Giustino had got his remove, but Anna had to take her mathematical exam again in October. Giustino was there with the tall, thin girl who was crying, she had got her remove but not with the marks she had hoped for. Giustino was comforting her. To Anna on the other hand he said that it served her right that she had to take the exam in October, she had been terribly slack recently, every time he came into her room he found her staring into vacancy. It served her right that she had to take the exam in October, it was always he, Giustino, who had to do these October exams, and now for once in a while he would be free for the whole summer. Anna and Giuma went off together. Giuma was laughing at the tall, thin girl, God what an idiot she was to cry like that over a few marks. Anna started crying too. Giuma told her to stop crying at once, he couldn’t bear girls who cried about things to do with school, after all an exam in October wasn’t a world catastrophe. They sat down on a seat in the public gardens, Anna went on crying, and then he said he must go home quickly to do his packing, Amalia had told him he must do all his packing himself. Besides, it was no fun being with a girl who was crying. He asked her if she was crying about the exam or about his going away. Anna said, “I’m going to have a baby.” Giuma turned towards her in a flash ; his forelock fluttered and fell back in a shower over his eyes. They sat dumbly looking at each other, and Giuma’s face became gradually covered with a hot redness. Anna understood then that what had happened was a terrible thing for them, never when she had thought about it alone had she felt so great a horror inside her. The garden was blazing and deserted in the midday sun, the seats abandoned and scorching and the fountain dry, with the big stone fish on top of it opening its empty mouth to the sky. It seemed they would never be able to rise from the seat, they sat there leaning against the back and she was slowly weeping, he had lit a cigarette and was smoking it as it were in little sips, combing his forelock with trembling fingers. She asked if they could not tell Emanuele about it, so that he might explain what ought to be done. Then Giuma was seized with rage, what nonsense she was talking, never must she dare to let drop even one word either to Emanuele or to anyone else, she had thought of telling Emanuele, had she, Emanuele indeed! She asked if going for long walks might perhaps get rid of it. Giuma shook his head, he didn’t believe in long walks, he had been told that sometimes quinine served the purpose, you could go on taking it until you heard a noise like thunder in your ears. But as soon as there was that noise like thunder you had to stop at once. She said, “Why can’t we get married ? ”— and he shrugged one shoulder and said, “Yes, I know ” Then suddenly she wondered what it was that made it impossible for them to marry, what obscure reasons forbade it, in reality it would be so simple, she would live in the house opposite, from its windows she would see her own house with the dried-up wistaria on the terrace, Signora Maria shaking out her duster, Giustino in bathing-drawers doing exercises with a dumb-bell, the long wires with Signora Maria’s black underclothes hanging on them. But it seemed to her that she would not much like living in the house opposite. She said, “We can’t get married because we don’t love each other so very much. That’s why——”. Giuma said, “It’s not a question of very much or not very much. We can’t get married, we’re too young, and besides there’ll be the war, too.” She had almost forgotten the war. She said, “I should like the war to come quickly, and to be killed.”

  They went home in silence. At the gate they decided to meet that afternoon, he would bring her the quinine, Mammina had plenty of it in her medicine cupboard. Now that Signora Maria had gone, she had to get lunch ready. But when she arrived Giustino and Ippolito had already started eating, Giustino had cooked the lunch, with tomatoes and eggs and ham all fried together. At the last moment he had added half a glass of milk, he was very pleased with this half glass of milk, he said that great cooks always add half a glass of milk at a certain point. He was proud of his dish and ate more of it than anyone. Ippolito went off immediately after lunch, they saw him cross the garden and disappear with the dog on the lead. Anna asked if he now took the dog to his office. But Giustino said that for some days Ippolito had not been going to his office, he wandered goggle-eyed about the town with the dog on the lead, he sat down on a seat in the public gardens and watched the dog chasing lizards in the dust. Giustino said he did not like the look on Ippolito’s face, he had never seen him so goggle-eyed, and at night he never slept and stood at the window smoking and walked about the room and fumbled in the drawers, goodness knows what he was fumbling for. He, Giustino, had thought for a moment that he had been having trouble with some girl, but Ippolito never went in for girls, if he had had a girl he would have known. It was entirely about France that he was upset, the happenings in France had fallen upon him and crushed him, it had seemed to him the end of everything. And one day he had told Danilo that if the war came to Italy and he was called into it he would not shoot, rather than shoot in a war he would prefer to let himself be killed. And Danilo had said that he, on the other hand, would shoot calmly, so as to keep himself alive for the day of the revolution. But Ippolito had said that there would never be a revolution now, just Germans and Germans all one’s life and even after that, Germans and Germans through the centuries, Germans with tanks and aeroplanes, masters of the whole earth. Anna was washing the dishes and Giustino was
wiping them. Giustino said that for some time he hadn’t liked the look on her face either, even before the news of the October exam. He said, “If you’ve got any troubles you’d better say so at once.” She was washing the dishes in the bowl, passing the dishcloth slowly over them. She said to him, “I haven’t any troubles. What troubles should I have ?” “I don’t know,” said Giustino.

  Giuma was waiting for her at the bridge. They went amongst the bushes on the river bank, and he at once brought out the quinine, but after two or three tablets she already thought she heard the noise like thunder in her ears. “I’m afraid,” she said, “I don’t want to die”. “But this morning you did want to die,” he said, “you’ve forgotten all about it.” He was no longer very much frightened, he said that perhaps she had dreamed about the baby. He told her to take some more quinine in the evening before she went to bed, he left her the phial. Then all of a sudden he pulled a thousand-lire note out of his pocket, these were his savings, for some time he had been putting aside money to buy himself a motor-boat. He was giving up the idea of the boat now, if she was really going to have a baby and did not succeed in doing anything with the quinine, she could go to a midwife, a thousand lire would be enough. She asked him where there was a midwife, he said there were midwives everywhere, you saw midwives’ door-plates all over the town. They needed a little persuasion but then they would help. Anna took the thousand lire together with the quinine, she was thinking of how she would look for a midwife and would try and persuade her, she was thinking of the words she would say to the midwife to try and persuade her. She felt so strange with the thousand lire clutched in her hand, it was the first time in her life she had held a thousand lire in her hand, and it seemed to her that she had gone right outside her life, far, far away from home, with a thousand lire in her hand, along unknown roads where there were midwives whom she had to try and persuade. She said, “You don’t want to marry me because you don’t love me. You love that girl Fiammetta and you want to marry her.” Giuma said, “What’s all this about getting married? I don’t want to marry anybody, the only thing I want is a motor-boat but for the time being I must give up that idea.” They remained silent. They did not make love, they would never again make love, thought Anna, never again. Never again would she see the expression on his face when he made love, the furious, secret expression, with the eyelids tight closed over his eyes and the quick, deep breathing. To-morrow he would be gone. And she would go and look at the midwives’ door-plates in the town.

  They said good-bye at the gate. He gave her his thin, sunburnt hand, there was no need to say great farewells because in a short time he would be back again, if the war came of course it would only last a few days, in October they would be back at school again, he to take his final exams, she that other exam. Amalia appeared at the window and called him and he disappeared into the house. Anna went up to her room, she hid the thousand lire and the quinine in a drawer in the desk.

  Next morning she looked out of the window to see them go. They had loaded a quantity of stuff on to the car and they were laughing at how heavily loaded it was, you could hear Emanuele’s laughter that sounded like the cooing of a pigeon. Inside the car were Mammina and Amalia buried amongst a mass of hat-boxes and suitcases, they had sent Franz on by train with the servants. Emanuele limped round the car which had its hood down and poured water into the bonnet, and he was cursing Giuma all the time for not helping him to load the baggage. Finally Giuma himself came out, with his waterproof over his arm and his tennis-racquets. He saw Anna at the window and gave her a slight wink, he shook his tennis-racquet gently in the air and got into the car. They were on the point of leaving when Ippolito looked out. Emanuele leant out of the car to say good-bye to him, his deep, prolonged laughter could be heard, Ippolito answered with a wave of his hand. Mammina was getting impatient, Emanuele hurriedly closed the window and they started.

  And now the house opposite was closed, completely closed in its fur-coat of ivy, with some cherry-stones placed in a line on Giuma’s window-sill and dried up by the sun, sometimes he used to look out of his window and eat cherries and place the stones in a line on the window-sill. Anna saw him again looking out and eating cherries, sometimes she had looked out at the same time but they never spoke to each other from the windows, he had the idea that talking to people out of windows was only a thing for servant-girls. Anna tried to take some more quinine, Giustino came in and asked her what she was sucking, she gulped down the tablet hurriedly ; Giustino brought a letter from Signora Maria who said she was expecting them at Le Visciole and sent a long list of the things they must put into their suitcases. Giustino told Anna to hurry up and pack, if she was waiting-for Ippolito to do it she would be disappointed, ippolito had gone out with the dog. He, Giustino, did not in the least want to go to Le Visciole but seeing that they were expecting them they must go, besides, the air at Le Visciole might perhaps do Ippolito some good, and going out shooting and forgetting about France. They waited for Ippolito for lunch but he did not come in. Anna pulled out the suitcases from under the wardrobe. From time to time she remembered the thousand lire and the quinine, she went to look if they were still there, she thought she would go on taking quinine at Le Visciole and at a certain moment the baby would go away. Then she would send back the thousand lire to Giuma in a letter, and he would be able to buy himself the boat. She was content now to go to Le Visciole, so as not to have to look at the house opposite all closed up like that, with no one ever looking out of the windows.

  She and Giustino spent the afternoon packing the suitcases, and suddenly Danilo appeared and asked for Ippolito, and told them that Italy was going into the war on the side of Germany. They went out into the street with Danilo, the radio was shouting from the open windows of the houses, people were standing in groups under the windows and round the cafés. The town was full of that yelling voice, and the people stood silently in groups, and then someone said they must think about the black-out, they must put black curtains in the windows so that not even a thread of light should filter through. Then everyone went in search of black material, Anna and Giustino too, and Danilo who had found his wife. They bought yards and yards of black material. Danilo told his wife that he himself almost certainly would not be sent to the war, he had been a political prisoner and people like him were not sent to the front for fear they should go over to the other side. Probably a person like him would be put in prison again.

  Anna and Giustino went home with the big parcel of black material, and in the kitchen they found Ippolito giving the dog its dinner, and they asked him if he had heard about the war. Ippolito said yes. His shoes were dusty and he had a very tired look on his face, he must have been walking all day long, goodness knows where. He was preparing the dog’s dinner, mixing together some remains of macaroni and crusts of bread and old cheese-rinds. Giustino asked him whether they would go next day to Le Visciole, Ippolito thought for a moment and said yes. Giustino said they would have to get up very early to catch the train, that local train would be very crowded since everyone was leaving the town, because there was a war on now and everyone was afraid that they would begin bombing immediately. Ippolito said they would not bomb their little town immediately. He spoke a great many words, for days and days they had not heard him speak so many words. He seemed pleased that war had finally come. He looked at the black material they had bought and laughed a little, he asked them whether they wanted to dress up the whole town in mourning. Giustino measured the windows and Anna cut out big black curtains and they got up on the ladder and fixed them to the window-frames with small nails. Then they made themselves something to eat, tomatoes and eggs fried with half a glass of milk, and Ippolito said it was a very good dish. After supper they went on sitting, all three of them, round the table, and Ippolito said that if he went to the war they would have to take care of his dog. He advised them to send it to the dog show, he had heard that there would be a dog show in the town before very long. Giustino remarked that it
would be difficult for them to hold a dog show, with the war going on. But Ippolito said that war was not as they imagined it, things were going on as usual except for black curtains at the windows, cinemas were going on, and theatres and dog shows. Except for black curtains at the windows. Giustino asked him if he wasn’t going to go and say good-bye to Danilo, Danilo would probably be put straight back into prison to-morrow, because people like Danilo were not wanted at the front. Ippolito said that indeed it would probably be like that. He himself, on the other hand, was not so lucky, in a short time he would be sent to the war and would have to shoot, and there was nothing he disliked so much as shooting, he liked shooting at birds but not at people. He said he wouldn’t go and say good-bye to Danilo, he was too tired, he wanted to go straight to bed, seeing that they had to get up early next morning and go away. All of a sudden he bent down and kissed Anna, he gave her arm a little squeeze, then he went up to Giustino, gave his usual twisted smile and kissed him too. They heard his footsteps on the stairs and finally the thump of his shoes on the floor, and the creaking of the bed as he lay down. They were left looking at each other in bewilderment, he had kissed them, it did not often happen that he kissed anybody. He had kissed them, therefore he must be thinking that he would be sent at once to the war, and perhaps he thought he would die there at once, he would throw his rifle on the ground refusing to shoot, and then they would kill him at once, perhaps that was what he was thinking. But Giustino was sure that in war even Ippolito would shoot, everybody shot. How strange he had been all the evening, said Giustino, and then when he had started talking about the dog show, perhaps he might really have gone off his head, wanting to send that extremely ugly dog to the dog show.