The Road To The City Read online

  Somehow I missed having Nini around the house, with his torn raincoat and his books and the lock of hair hanging over his forehead, telling me the way he always did that I ought to help my mother. Once, just to annoy Giulio, I went to see him. It was a Sunday afternoon and they served tea and cakes on an embroidered tablecloth and Antonietta kissed me on both cheeks and made a great fuss over me. She wore good clothes and painted her face, and she had blonde hair, wide hips, and narrow shoulders. Her children were there, too, doing their homework, and Nini sat listening to the radio instead of reading a book the way he used to do at home. They showed me the whole apartment, the bedroom and bath and the potted plants all over. The place was neater and cleaner than Azalea’s. We talked about one thing and another, and they told me to be sure to come again.

  Nini walked back with me part of the way, and I asked him why he didn’t come home. I began to cry and told him it was worse than ever there without him. He sat down on a bench with me and stroked my hands and told me not to cry or else the mascara would run off my eyelashes. I told him that I didn’t paint myself up like Antonietta, who looked like a perfect fright, and that he’d do a lot better to come home. The best thing of all, he said, would be for me to get a job and come and live in the city, and then he’d take me to see the films. But the point was for me to earn my own living and be independent. I told him he might just as well put that idea out of his head because I didn’t have the slightest intention of doing anything of the sort. I was going to marry Giulio and come and live in the city with him, because he didn’t like the country either. And that was how we said good-bye.

  3

  I told Giulio that I'd been to see Nini, but this time he wasn’t angry. All he said was that he was sorry to see me do something that displeased him. I told him about Antonietta and her apartment, and he asked me if I’d like to have a little place like that of my own. Then he said that when he’d taken his medical degree we’d get married, but it wasn’t possible any sooner. Meanwhile, he said, I shouldn’t be so hard on him.

  ‘I’m not hard on you,’ I answered.

  Then he asked me to go with him the next day to Fonte Le Macchie. This was a long walk, a large part of it uphill, and I was afraid of snakes.

  ‘There aren’t any snakes up that way,’ he said. ‘And we’ll eat blackberries and stop for a rest whenever you are tired of walking.’

  I pretended not to see what he was driving at and said Giovanni might come with us, but he said that he wanted us to be alone together without Giovanni tagging along. We never got all the way to Fonte Le Macchie, because at a certain point I sat down on a rock and swore I wouldn’t go a step farther. He tried to scare me by saying he could see a yellow snake beating around under the bushes. I told him to let me alone, because I was tired and hungry, and so he pulled some provisions out of a bag. He had a couple of flasks of wine with him, too, and made me drink so much of it that finally I lay down in a daze and he did exactly what I had expected.

  It was late when we started home, and I was so tired that I had to stop at every other step. When we reached the beginning of the woods he said he’d have to run on ahead or else his mother would wonder why he hadn’t come home. He left me alone and I stumbled back in the darkness, with a pain in my knees. Azalea came to the house the next day and I went part of the way home with her and told her what had happened. At first she thought I was bragging and didn’t believe me, but suddenly she stopped and said abruptly:

  ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Yes, it’s true, every word of it, Azalea,’ I said, and then she made me tell her the whole story again. She was so worried and angry that she tore the buckle off her belt and said she would tell her husband to speak to my father about it. I told her not to and added that there was plenty I could tell about her if I chose to. We exchanged quite a few hard words, and the next day I went to the city to make peace with her. She had calmed down overnight, and I found her cutting out a dress to wear to a dance to which she had been invited. She told me I could do what I damn well pleased as long as she didn’t have to be bothered about it, but she thought the doctor’s son was a vulgar fellow and didn’t care for him at all.

  On the way home I met Giovanni with Nini and Antonietta and we went for a dip in the river, all except Antonietta, who stayed in the boat because she didn’t know how to swim. I swam up and jiggled the boat as if I were going to turn it over, but then I began to feel cold and climbed in and started to row. Antonietta told me about her husband and the illness he had died of and the debts and lawsuits he had left behind him. I was bored with her story and thought how funny she looked, sitting in the boat as if she were making a formal call, with her pocket-book and hat on her lap and her knees held close together.

  That evening Giovanni came into my room and said he was in love with Antonietta. He paced up and down the floor, saying that he didn’t know how he’d ever get over it and asking me whether or not he should tell Nini. I was very impatient with him and told him that I’d had enough of all these love stories and I only wished he and Nini and Azalea would let me alone.

  ‘It was a bad day when you were born,’ he said, and went out, slamming the door behind him.

  4

  Giulio said I should go swimming in the river with him and have some fun afterward in the city. So we went for a swim and ate some ice-cream and then he took me to a hotel called the Moon. The hotel was at the end of a solitary street. With its drawn blinds and deserted garden it looked like a private house whose owners had gone away, but the rooms had mirrors and wash-basins and rugs on the floor. I told Azalea about going to the hotel and she said that sooner or later I was going to get myself in trouble. I didn’t see Azalea very often just now because she had taken up with a new lover, a penniless student, for whom she was always buying gloves and shoes and things to eat.

  One evening my father burst into my room, threw his raincoat on the bed, and said:

  ‘I told you that I’d smash your face for you.’

  He took me by the hair and began to hit me, while I cried:

  ‘Help! Help!’

  Finally my mother came, with her apron full of potatoes, and said:

  ‘What’s the matter ? What are you doing, Attilio?’

  ‘This is the last straw,’ said my father. He turned quite pale as he sat down and ran his fingers through his hair. I had a bleeding lip and red marks on my neck and I was so dizzy that I could hardly stand up. My mother wanted to help me wipe away the blood, but my father took her by one arm and pushed her out of the room. Then he followed her, leaving me alone. His raincoat still lay across my bed, and I picked it up and threw it down the stairs.

  While the rest of them were at supper I crept out the front door. The sky was clear and starry. I was trembling with cold and fright, and the blood dripping from my lip had run down over my dress and stockings. I set out toward the city, but I was uncertain as to where I should go. I thought first of Azalea, but her husband would have stormed me with questions and reproaches, so I went to Nini instead. They were all sitting around the dining-room table, playing parcheesi. The children took one look at me and screamed. I threw myself down on a couch and began to cry. Antonietta brought an antiseptic to put on my lip, gave me a cup of camomile tea, and set up a cot for me in the hall.

  ‘Tell us what happened, Delia,’ said Nini.

  I told him that my father had attacked and tried to kill me because I was going with Giulio and that they must find me a job in the city because after this I couldn’t live at home.

  ‘Get undressed and go to bed,’ said Nini, ‘then I’ll come and talk to you about what to do.’

  They all went away and I put on a lavender nightgown belonging to Antonietta and slipped into the cot. After a while Nini came and sat down beside me.

  ‘If you like I can find you a job in the factory where I work. You’ll find it hard going at first because you’ve grown into a big girl without ever lifting a finger. But you’ll get used to that. If I can’
t find you anything there you’ll have to do housework.’

  I told him that I’d rather work in the factory than do housework any day. But why couldn’t I sell flowers on the steps of the cathedral?

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said. ‘You don’t know enough arithmetic to sell anything.’

  Then I said that Giulio was going to marry me as soon as he had his degree.

  ‘Put that notion out of your head,’ he said. And he told me that Giulio was engaged to a girl in the city, whom everyone knew, a thin girl who drove her own car. I started to cry again, and Nini told me to go to sleep and brought me an extra pillow.

  The next morning I got dressed and went out early with Nini into the cool and empty city. He went with me as far as the outskirts and we sat down near the river until it was time for him to report to work. He said that every now and then he felt an urge to go to Milan and look for a job in a bigger factory.

  ‘But you’d have to shake off Antonietta,’ I said.

  ‘Of course. You can’t see me taking her and her two brats and her stationery shop along, can you?’

  ‘Then you don’t love her?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I love her after a fashion. We’ll stick together just as long as we like it, and then we’ll call it quits without any ill feelings on either side.’

  ‘Then turn her over to Giovanni, who’s crazy about her,’ I said.

  He started to laugh. ‘Giovanni? Antonietta’s not so bad, you know. She makes faces every now and then, but that’s not serious. Only I’m not in love with her.’

  ‘Who are you in love with, then?’ I asked, and it flashed across my mind that he might be in love with me. He looked at me and laughed and said:

  ‘Does everybody have to be in love? It’s possible not to love anyone and to put one’s mind on other things.’

  I had on a thin dress and my teeth were chattering.

  ‘You’re cold, little girl,’ he said, taking off his jacket and throwing it around my shoulders.

  ‘How affectionate you are!’ I said.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be affectionate with you? You’re so unlucky that it’s really a shame. Don’t think I don’t know that you’ve got yourself into a mess with that Giulio. Azalea told me, but I know you well enough and I had guessed as much already.’

  ‘It’s not so,’ I said, but he told me to be quiet because he knew better.

  Just then the whistles blew and Nini said that he had to go to work. He wanted me to keep his jacket, but I refused because I should have felt funny meeting anyone with a man’s jacket around me.

  ‘Why don’t you come back home, Nini?’ I asked when we said good-bye.

  He promised to come and see me the next day, which was Sunday. Then he leaned over abruptly and kissed me on one cheek. I stood still, watching him go away with even steps, his hands in his pockets. I was astonished that he should have kissed me, something he had never done before. I walked slowly along, thinking of how Nini had kissed me and how Giulio was engaged to a girl in the city of whom he had never said a word. ‘People are strange,’ I said to myself. ‘You never can make out what they want.’ And then I thought how my father might be at home and hit me again, and this made me feel very sad. But my father pretended not to see me and didn’t say a word, and neither did any of the rest of them.

  The next day Nini came in a state of great excitement, saying that he had found me a job. Nothing doing at the factory, but there was an eccentric old lady who wanted someone to go out with her every afternoon. I was to come to the city every day after lunch and go back home at night. The pay wouldn’t be enough at the start for me to rent a room of my own, but she had promised to increase it very soon. The old lady was an acquaintance of Antonietta, and Antonietta had recommended me to her. That day there was no one in the house, and Nini and I lay out under the pergola and talked as peacefully as if we were beside the river.

  ‘The river’s the best, though,’ said Nini. ‘You must meet me there soon for a swim. You don’t know how wonderful it is early in the morning. It’s not too cold and it puts life into you.’

  Then I asked him again with whom he was in love. ‘Let me alone,’ he said.’Don’t tease me today, when I’m so happy.’

  ‘Tell me, Nini,’ I insisted. ‘I won’t breathe a word to a soul.’

  ‘What does it matter to you?’ he answered. And he began to tell me to wash thoroughly and put on a dark dress when I went to the old lady. I told him I didn’t have any dark dress and if she was so fussy I didn’t want to go at all. Then he was angry and went away without saying good-bye.

  5

  I went to the old lady’s house in my light blue dress and found her all ready to go out, with her hat on and powder smeared over her wrinkled face. I was to take her for a walk and make things agreeable for her, so her daughter told me, then bring her home and read the newspaper aloud until she was sleepy. I took very short steps, while she hung on to my arm and muttered the whole while about one thing and another. She said I walked too fast, that I was too tall for her, and reaching up to my arm was a strain. She shook all over when it came to crossing the street, and everyone turned around to stare. One day we ran into Azalea, who didn’t have the slightest idea that I was working and gaped with astonishment.

  When we went back to the house the old lady drank a cup of hot milk and I read the paper. Soon after that she began to nod and I was free to go. But I was often in a bad mood and got no enjoyment from being in the city. One evening I decided on the spur of the moment to go and meet Nini at the factory gate. He saw me from a distance and his face lighted up. But when he started to walk with me, dirty and tired as he was, and wearing an old, pale grey hat and down-at-the-heel shoes that were too large for him and dragged along the pavement, I was ashamed to be seen with him and began to be sorry I had come. He was quick to catch on and take offence and he became angry when I told him that the old lady bored me to death. But by the time we reached the river he had calmed down and told me that he had found a picture of Giovanni with a message scrawled on the back in one of Antonietta’s bureau drawers.

  ‘Perhaps it’s all for the best,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean, all for the best?’

  ‘Why should I care?’

  'You’re a cold fish. I hate you.'

  ‘Very well, then, I’m a cold fish. And what are you?’ He looked at me for a minute and then said:’ You’re just a poor little girl.’

  'Why do you say that?'

  ‘Is it true that you went to the Moon ?’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘A little birdie told me’ he said. ‘Have you been there more than once?’

  ‘That’s none of your business,’ I said.

  ‘Poor little girl! Poor little girl!’ he said half to himself.

  I was angry and clapped my hand over his mouth. He put his arms around me and threw me down on the ground, kissing my face and ears and hair.

  ‘Are you crazy, Nini?’ I said. ‘What are you doing?’ I was half laughing, half afraid. He sat up and pushed back his hair.

  ‘See the kind you are? Any man can go as far as he likes with you’

  ‘Is that what you were trying to find out just now?’

  ‘No. Forget it. I was only joking.’

  Giulio was waiting for me on the road that evening.

  ‘Where have you been all this time?’ I asked him.

  ‘In bed with a fever,’ he said, trying to take my arm. But I told him to go away and leave me alone, because I knew that he was engaged to a girl in the city.

  ‘What girl?’ he asked.

  'A girl who has a car of her own.’

  He laughed and struck his knee with his hand.

  ‘People are always telling tall tales,’ he said. ‘And you fall for them. Don’t be a goose. Meet me in the woods to-morrow after lunch.’

  But I told him that I wasn’t free in the afternoon any more because of the old lady.

  ‘Come in the morning, then,’ he said.r />
  I turned my face away because I was afraid that he might see that Nini had kissed me. The next morning in the woods he kept asking who had told me that he was engaged to a girl in the city.

  ‘There are plenty of people who have it in for me,’ he said. ‘Sour grapes, most likely.’

  He teased and teased me until I told him it was Nini.

  'I'll tell Nini a thing or two when I see him,’ he said. Then he began to tease me about my job of taking the old lady out for a walk.

  I went again to meet Nini when he came out from work. But he was annoyed because the old lady’s daughter had complained to Antonietta that I was always late.

  ‘There’s no counting on you,’ he said. ‘You won’t get very far if you go on like this. It’s just as well they didn’t take you on at the factory.’

  I said that I was sick and tired of the old lady and didn’t want to have anything more to do with her.

  ‘Keep on going until the end of the month and collect your pay,’ he said. ‘And give the money to your mother, so she can buy the boys some shoes.’

  ‘I’ll keep it, that’s what I’ll do,’ I said.

  ‘Good! Good girl! Don’t think of anyone but yourself! Buy some glad rags and have a good time. What should it matter to me?’

  He didn’t want to go down by the river, and we walked along toward his house. We got there just as Antonietta was closing the shop. She was very angry and said that if she’d known me better she’d never have recommended me for the job. Now I’d put her in a very awkward position. They had told her that I always came late and went away early and when I read the paper I was always giggling and making mistakes, just to be funny. She barely nodded good-bye as she and Nini went into the house.