The City and the House Read online

  I would like to come to Monte Fermo once more. To go walking with you, to follow you through the streets in Pianura while you bought ham and wool. But I won’t do it. I won’t come. It’s strange how sometimes a man forbids himself to do things he really wants to do, things that are completely harmless and simple and natural. But I shan’t come. My separation from you has already happened. I’m already a long way off, already in America. I prefer sheets of paper.

  I wander around Rome a great deal. Yesterday I took the bus to Piazza San Silvestro. Piazza San Silvestro isn’t so very special, with its half-open bags of rubbish in the corner, its Japanese tourists, its beggars stretched out on newspapers, its post office vans and Red-Cross sirens and police motor-cycles. It isn’t very special. But I said goodbye to it lovingly and for a long time. In America there will be other squares with tourists, beggars and sirens. But they will mean nothing to me because a man can only make so many things his own during his life. At a certain point in our lives everything we see for the first time is external to us. We look at it like tourists, with interest but coldly. It belongs to other people.

  You say a lot about your mother in your letter. You have often talked about her to me. You never talk about your father because you can’t remember him, he died when you were little. But I think that all your life you have been searching for a father, in your mother, in your husband, and in me. Perhaps you were even looking for a father in Dr Civetta.

  I always say very little about my parents. I soon stopped thinking of them as any protection. I found them irritating and boring. I too drank in boredom as a child, it’s true not as much as my own son, but I drank in my share. It was my brother who was a protection for me. Even now I feel the need for his authoritative, slightly contemptuous and high-handed protection. You often reproached me for not protecting you. But how could I have protected you when I myself have such a need to be protected? And you reproached Piero too for not protecting you. You often talk about your wish to feel protected. You often talk about protectors. It is one of your obsessions. ‘Prostitutes have protectors,’ Piero said to you once. You were very hurt. In truth, adults should not need to be protected. But perhaps neither you nor I have ever become adults, nor Piero either. We are a brood of children.

  Giuseppe

  GIUSEPPE TO LUCREZIA

  Rome, 10th November

  Yesterday I went to see Ignazio Fegiz, he phoned me and suggested I go to his house to see some paintings by a friend of his. They are pictures of woodland scenes. His flat is small, on a split-level plan with a sitting-room and a room above. I can’t bear split-level rooms. I like proper houses with a corridor in them. He has a lot of paintings in- the house. I’m not very interested in paintings. I told him so. I also said that he and I perhaps didn’t have much to talk about to each other. He said that didn’t matter. Two people can get along very well without having anything to talk about. It’s true.

  In the sitting-room there’s a picture of a woman with a great mass of blond hair sitting in an arm-chair. I looked at it and he told me it was a self-portrait by one of his friends. He thought it very beautiful. I’m not so sure. He showed me other pictures by this friend of his. They are mostly landscapes, mainly red and a golden-blond. He looked at the time and said he had to see someone. He couldn’t take me home because he was going a different way. We went down together. His house has no lift, there’s a rather dirty little flight of stairs. He got into his car, an olive-green Renault. Later Egisto told me that this friend of his, the one with the red and golden-blond paintings, lives in Porta Cavalleggeri and that he eats at her flat almost every evening. Her name is Ippolita, people call her Ippo. She isn’t beautiful but she has marvellous thick, curly blond hair. She is very thin. But even though she’s so thin she lives in terror of getting fat and eats nothing at all. A bread-stick, a carrot, a lemon. Even so she’s a very good cook and invents dishes that she doesn’t taste herself. Egisto always knows everyone’s business.

  Giuseppe

  LUCREZIA TO GIUSEPPE

  Monte Fermo, 14th November

  Yesterday evening the famous Ignazio Fegiz arrived here, famous because you have talked about him so much, and you like him so much, and Egisto also likes him so much, and now Piero too. Albina arrived with Egisto. They came in Ignazio Fegiz’s olive-green Renault. They had phoned and we were expecting them. I wanted to make them a meat-loaf but I didn’t have time. I’ll make one tomorrow. We had eggs and potato soup. The Sicilian general help has disappeared. He took with him some silver teaspoons, a clock belonging to poor Piero and a tape-recorder. He left early in the morning whilst we were asleep. Poor Piero went to the police. He is especially sorry about the clock because it had a sentimental value for him.

  Now I have a great deal to do in the house. The Sicilian didn’t do much but at least he swept the rooms clean and washed the vegetables.

  Yesterday evening we stayed up till late. Ignazio Fegiz chattered away. How he chatters! He has his say about everything. Art, politics. I fell asleep in a corner of the sofa. I woke up and realized they were talking about you. I shan’t tell you what they said. It doesn’t seem right to me to tell someone what other people say when he isn’t there. Neither the good nor the bad. Not even the good, because then the absence of the words he hasn’t heard puff it all up and butter it and sweeten it and make it into something quite different from the truth.

  I thought of coming to Rome for a day. But I shan’t come. I have too much to do in the house. I will say goodbye to you on this piece of paper.

  Your long, thinning hair. Your glasses. Your jumpers with their roll collars, blue in the winter, white in the summer. Your long, bony legs, like a stork’s. Your big, long nose, like a stork’s. Your big, bony hands that are always cold even when the weather’s hot. That’s how I remember you.

  Lucrezia

  GIUSEPPE TO LUCREZIA

  Rome, 18th November

  My son telephoned from Berlin. He is leaving for Florence. They have decided to shoot some of the film on the hills around Florence. If I came to Florence we could meet. If I come I am to bring a typewriter that he had lent to a friend of his and never got back again. I won’t tell you the itinerary Roberta and I had to go through to get hold of that typewriter, in via dei Coronari, then in via dei Giubbonari, tracking down someone called Pino, and then tracking down someone called Mario. We finally found the typewriter with someone called Franca who has a record shop on via Cassia. And it was a wreck.

  Roberta, Ignazio Fegiz and I went to Florence. Ignazio Fegiz had to go to Florence too and he took us in his Renault.

  Ignazio Fegiz said he had enjoyed himself at Le Margherite. He said he slept in a very big, very damp room where there is a chest-of-drawers with tortoises carved on it, and a mirror stained with dark spots. I know that room, I too have slept there so many times. He likes Piero. He said about you that you are a very nervous person, especially at lunch-time when you had made a meat-loaf which fell apart as you were cutting it. He stayed with you for two days and on both days you made a meat-loaf which fell apart. So he asked you why you showed off by making meat-loaves when they were always a failure. You were upset. Piero said that your meat-loaves had a very good taste, even when they fell apart and crumbled like that they were very good. But he said that when a meat-loaf falls apart it is, after all, a failure. That’s what he said about you, that you are very nervous, and that your youngest son Vito is extremely spoilt and that at eleven in the evening he is still wandering around the house with a squashed orange in his hand. According to you one shouldn’t pass on the things people say about us when we are not there. But I usually pass them on, if they are not really nasty. Perhaps I’m wrong.

  We got to Florence late in the evening. Alberico had arranged to meet me at a pensione. They were in the hall, lounging in armchairs, with their rucksacks by their feet. There were three of them, Alberico, a little blond fellow and a tiny girl wearing sky-blue overalls with braces. The little blond fellow was t
he director of the film, and the girl was the production secretary. The blond fellow’s name is Rainer, the girl’s name is Nadia. The blond fellow is from Monaco, the girl from Catania. I always feel ill at ease when I find myself face to face with Alberico. I kissed him on his beard. He is taller than I am and I had to stand on tiptoe.

  The girl had a splitting headache and she and Roberta went off to find an all-night chemist’s. As soon as they had gone Alberico said that the girl was a pain in the neck and the blond fellow said that he thought so too. The blond fellow talked half in German and half in Italian. They had flown to Milan and then come on by train. The girl had been afraid in the plane and the two of them had to take turns to hold her hand. In the train she had been too cold and she had argued with a woman who wanted to turn off the heating. A pain in the neck. All the same, they were tied to her hand and foot because she had put up the money for the film and she would have to put up some more, because if she didn’t the film couldn’t be finished. She had got them the money from a partner of her father’s in Germany because her father had business interests in Germany. Her father is rolling in money. Ignazio Fegiz asked about the film. Alberico said it was a disgusting mess and the blond fellow said he thought so too. Ignazio Fegiz kept asking questions. So they dragged various scribbled notes out of their rucksacks. Ignazio Fegiz tried to go through them but said he found them illegible. Roberta and the girl came back. The girl ordered half a litre of mineral water and a roll. She is a very tiny, plump, pretty girl with a-little dark face. She has frizzy, untidy hair, like a black cloud. She has big breasts that seem to be bursting out of her tight overalls.

  The following morning Ignazio Fegiz went off on his own business. Roberta and the girl went for a walk through Florence. The blond fellow had got up early and was by this time exploring the hills. Alberico and I had coffee in the hall. I asked him when he was thinking of coming back to Rome, and where he would live seeing that he no longer had a house. I asked him if he still planned to move to the country with Adelmo and raise chickens. He said that he hadn’t heard anything from Adelmo for a while and that he didn’t think about chickens any more. I said that in that case it would have been better if he hadn’t sold his house, however I had made the same mistake too and that we were a couple of idiots to have sold our houses, his and mine. I told him that Roberta would buy me some Treasury Bonds with the money from the sale of my house so that if he ever needed money he could refer to her. He gave a faint smile and said he had plenty of money. When he laughs I feel less ill at ease because I see his little white healthy teeth. I said that in fact he was a rich man. He said that if it came to that I wasn’t poor, I was just frightened of becoming poor, a completely different thing from being poor already. I asked him if he would come and see me in America and he said that he might well come over soon, or perhaps next spring.

  Everyone came back and we stayed sitting in the hall for a while. Ignazio Fegiz and Roberta talked in German to the blond fellow. I couldn’t understand what they were saying but I think they were giving their opinion of the film and offering advice. If Ignazio Fegiz isn’t offering advice he isn’t happy. Roberta’s the same. Just that Roberta’s advice tends to be pretty crude, and Ignazio Fegiz’s is very affected. The little blond fellow had a bewildered expression on his face. Alberico was reading the newspapers. The girl had ordered a ham roll and was eating it in her secretive, babyish way.

  The time for us to leave had come. I kissed Alberico on his beard and for a moment gripped his long cold fingers in my hand. You say that my hands are always cold but you don’t know how cold his are.

  All three stood on the pavement while were were getting into the car. Alberico was leaning against the wall. He was wearing his tight, short leather coat, his worn-out jeans that are faded at the knee, and filthy white tennis-shoes. The blond fellow had a check flannel shirt on. The girl was eating her ham roll. We left.

  Roberta said that she had had a good long chat with the girl while they were wandering through Florence looking at churches. The girl thinks she is pregnant. In Berlin she had an affair with an Austrian journalist. She isn’t quite sure that she wants an abortion. The journalist has left Berlin and, anyway it wasn’t a very close relationship. When she phoned and asked his advice the journalist said she should have an abortion. But she is unsure. Her relationship with her parents is not bad, but not marvellous either. Her parents live near Catania, on their own property. Her father owns a huge construction materials company. He is a millionaire. But she doesn’t want to go back to Sicily. When the film is finished she thinks of coming to Rome. Alberico has said he could put her up. Put her up where, said Roberta. Alberico has sold his house and has nowhere to put himself and his own odds and ends. But she said that Alberico knows masses of people in Rome.

  We stopped at a motel by the autostrada, to rest and buy biscuits. It was dark when we arrived in Rome. Now I am at home and it is night. This is how my two days, yesterday and today, have been.

  Giuseppe

  morning, 19th November

  Piero phoned me a short while ago and woke me up. He was calling from Perugia, from his office. How early he goes to work, it’s only nine. He wanted to say hello to me. He asked me why I didn’t come to Le Margherite once more before I leave. He asked me not to forget you. I am very fond of Piero. He said that Ignazio Fegiz seemed pleasant enough, but perhaps a little over-critical. I think he found him over-critical about the meat-loaves.

  FERRUCCIO TO GIUSEPPE

  Princeton, 12th November

  My dear Giuseppe,

  I would rather phone than write, but when I have phoned you recently I haven’t told you something important. I didn’t tell you because I find it easier to write it down. The telephone isn’t made for saying important things that need time and space, it’s made for trivial remarks, or for news that’s brief despite its importance.

  My dear Giuseppe, I have decided to get married. I am marrying someone I have known for a few years. Her name is Anne Marie Rosenthal. She works with me. I used to think I would never get married, and then all of a sudden I took this decision. Anne Marie is forty-eight, six years younger than me. She came to America during the war. Her father was German and her mother French. Her parents were Jews and her father died in a German concentration camp. She came to America as a child, with her mother and grandmother. She is a widow and has a married daughter who lives in Philadelphia. We decided to get married a month ago during a congress in Philadelphia. I didn’t write to you about it earlier because I know your indecisive character and I was afraid my imminent marriage might put you off your plan of coming to stay with me.

  You have asked me many times, on the phone and in your letters, if I regretted asking you to come. I don’t regret it at all. The three of us - you, Anne Marie and I - shall live very well together. Three is, as you know, a perfect number.

  Anne Marie and I are getting married in a week. When you arrive we shall already be married. I shan’t wait for you to arrive before I get married, there would be no point. There won’t be any kind of celebration.

  I shall be in New York at the airport on 30th November to meet you. Anne Marie will be with me. As you have never seen

  New York we shall stay there for a week. Then we shall go on to Princeton. As I told you on the phone I've recently moved house. The house I had before was beautiful, this one is less beautiful but more convenient. With love from

  Ferruccio

  GIUSEPPE TO PIERO

  Rome, 21st November

  Thank you for phoning me. I still have your voice ringing in my ears. I am here in my room with my suitcases packed and locked, and bits of paper and string all over the floor.

  It would be impossible for me to forget you, and I shall carry all of you — Lucrezia, your dear children - with me in my heart. I shall carry your big, yellow, old house which you call Le Margherite, though goodness knows why, with me in my heart. Lucrezia sometimes says she is fed up with that house, she is fed up with li
ving in the country, and wishes you could all move somewhere else. But she is wrong. It is a beautiful house, and you did well to buy it ten years ago, or whenever it was. Stay there. Never leave it.

  Yesterday I had a letter from my brother. He says he is getting married. To tell you the truth this news has really worried me. I think I shan’t go and live with him. As soon as I have a salary I shall look for a little flat for myself.

  I had imagined my brother and me alone, but it won’t be like that. That fantasy fell to pieces in less than a moment. And this has made me upset and very worried.

  Giuseppe

  ALBINA TO GIUSEPPE

  Pianura, 22nd November

  Dear Giuseppe,

  I’m writing to you from the Women’s Centre. I’m here with Egisto and Serena. Lucrezia has stayed at home. I’m writing to tell you I can’t have supper with you tomorrow evening because

  I’m staying at Monte Fermo. i couldn’t reach you by telephone and I’m sending this letter with the Swiss girl because she will come to Rome tomorrow and she has to bring you a suitcase

  that you once lent to Piero.

  Egisto is banging nails into the stage and Serena is working on her play and banging away at her typewriter so that my head feels as though it’s splitting open; I don’t know what to do and so I’m writing to you.

  Serena has almost finished her play. She is going to act it here in two weeks’ time. She will act it alone because there is only one person in her play, Gemma Donati, Dante’s wife. No one ever says anything about this Gemma Donati and nothing is known about her. Serena is curious about her precisely because no one talks about her. She sees her as a person who has lost her own identity and who rediscovers it while talking out loud to herself. Serena will be dressed in white and will walk backwards and forwards along the stage holding a book in her hand - the Divine Comedy - which she will fling into a fire in a moment of intense rage. In the middle of the stage there will be a brazier with ashes in it, and she will throw the book into the ashes. Serena wanted to make a big blaze with a pile of firewood on the floor, but we forbade her to do this because we were afraid that the whole stage might go up in flames.