The Complete Short Stories of Natalia Ginzburg Page 4

  Maurizio had asked himself many times if Anna was unfaithful to him, and that day he felt certain that she was. He was convinced that she had gone to San Remo to meet a lover and that she would never return from the trip. He imagined a letter from her: ‘Maurizio, I can no longer remain silent; our marriage has been a mistake … We must separate.’ He pictured her large, clear writing on lilac paper. He imagined Anna’s lover, very tall and lean with long curly hair, a Frenchman or maybe a Russian. But no! Anna would come back, she had common sense after all. ‘My darling, you can’t understand … my child … you don’t know what it is to be a mother.’ At times she liked to speak like the heroine of a novel: ‘I will keep the memory of you as long as I live, of you, and of these beautiful days …’

  Then she would return, her hair made lighter by the sea water and those beautiful red lips set against her dark skin, ‘Anna, darling Anna!’ She would sit in front of him, with her legs crossed and three horizontal furrows would appear on her brow. ‘Maurizio, I have something important to say to you.’ ‘What’s the matter?’ She would get up, put her hands on his shoulders. Her hands were strong and stained yellow with nicotine. ‘Have you looked yet?’ ‘Looked? What for?’ ‘A job.’ ‘Ah … no, Anna, I forgot.’ Then he would begin to remonstrate. ‘But, as I see it, there’s no hurry. We have plenty of money.’ ‘That is not the point. It’s unseemly for you to remain idle and to take pleasure in it.’ The first time that Anna had spoken of finding a job, he had burst out laughing in amazement: ‘But a job doing what?’ ‘Oh Good Lord … Have you got a Law degree or not?’ ‘A Law degree? Oh yes, of course.’

  Like being married to Anna, having a Law degree amazed him as well. He had put together a very short dissertation, had received low marks across the board, but had still been feted by all and sundry. Notwithstanding this, Anna would readily mention his degree, in polite society, slipping it into any conversation with great skill. ‘Yes, when Maurizio graduated … my father-in-law put on a great luncheon party and invited all his friends … I went as well. In those days we weren’t yet engaged.’

  Anna loved memories. One day she had said to Maurizio: ‘Tell me a little about your childhood.’ Maurizio had been very grateful to her for these words, because he loved memories as well. He had talked at length. His childhood – so memorable, so recent! But Anna had soon got bored as she did not like these memories. In any case, she had imagined the young Maurizio very differently. She had pictured a lively, wilful, and daring boy who climbed trees and ran away from home. Instead … ‘When I was young I always had ear infections and a bandage around my ears. I didn’t like playing with the other boys … I was scared of cows.’ He continued, ‘Did you know, Anna, that I wore a smock until I was fifteen?’ ‘What are you talking about? Until you were fifteen?’ ‘Why yes, Anna, a baggy turquoise smock, with two big pockets.’ Anna began laughing, but you could tell she was not pleased. The detail about his smock had not gone down well. ‘But really, until you were fifteen?’ ‘Why yes, Anna …’

  Then there were his playthings. How he longed to talk about his playthings! But Anna wasn’t capable of paying attention for any length of time. He used to love beautiful multi-coloured toys – big animals made of cloth or felt and little puppet theatres; mechanical toys did not interest him. He preferred illustrated fairy tales – his dearly loved German fairy tales – and the story of Peter Pan to the books of Jules Verne or Emilio Salgari. None of this pleased Anna. While Anna gave their child sensible and challenging playthings, Maurizio filled his cupboard with old-fashioned toys, simple and expensive ones. He would sometimes come home with three red balloons all at once as they were another old passion of his.

  The whole of that day – the one after Anna had left – had passed slowly, smoothly, and vacantly. The evening came, and at dinner time Maurizio and Villi played lots of games: puzzles, painting, and colouring-in, and they stained the carpet with some tomato sauce to the silent disapproval of the servant, Giovanni. Then Maurizio realized that it was late for Villi, and, to make him go to bed without crying, he promised to take him to the cinema on another evening, apologizing in his heart to Anna. The child said goodnight to him. He knelt down to give him a kiss on his little freckled nose, and told him to dream of his mamma. Then he found himself alone at the table, and he discovered for the first time that a dinner table has something sad about it after a meal has finished, covered with the mess of crumbs and peel, half-empty glasses, and creased napkins. He decided to go out.

  He found himself in the street with his overcoat unbuttoned, and felt a gentle sense of well-being as the fresh breeze blew on his face. ‘Where can I go? To the cinema?’ He began walking on the bridge: beneath him ran the river; it was dark, muddy, and flecked with red lights. ‘Where can I go?’ He stopped to lean against the parapet. ‘Anna … Now she will be dancing, and then she will drink champagne, and then … with her lover … My God, why am I not jealous of Anna?’ He looked at the sky, the little moon, and the handful of gloomy-looking clouds. He had never believed in God. ‘Oh God, if you do exist, make me jealous of Anna, just for a single moment, make me horribly jealous of Anna …’ He tried to remember her, her fresh lips, her small breasts, and her soft, endearing hands, ‘Anna, Anna!’ But there was nothing. Nothing moved in him, no shiver roused him. In the sky, the little moon covered itself with a cloud, as if taunting him. He felt tired, disheartened, and alone. He remembered something Anna had said, half-jokingly, half-seriously, one day while they were bickering: ‘There’s no blood in your veins, just water.’ Water, indeed, not blood; just fresh, clear water. He could not recall ever having suffered from anything or for anyone. He could not recall ever having been in love. He could not recall ever having fiercely lusted after a woman. The only dreams he remembered were his strange childhood daydreams, mixed up with absurd fairy tales and old legends. All of a sudden he felt he had understood truly what he was. ‘God, why didn’t you make me a man, like all the other men? Why don’t you give me the strength to protect my child, to stand up for Anna?’ He was interrogating God in this way because he needed to pick on someone. ‘I’m nothing more than a child, a child just like my own child.’ He realized that he was experiencing an all-too-rare moment of awareness. ‘I don’t even love Villi really. I have fun with him and his toys. But if we were to become poor tomorrow, I wouldn’t have the energy to look for a job for his sake. Who am I useful to, who would suffer if I … if I were to disappear …’ People came and went around him, but by this time he thought of nothing else but himself and the river. ‘If I were to throw myself off … Anna would receive a telegram: “Tragic accident – return at once.” How frightened she would be! She would think of Villi. Then in the paper: “Cut off in his prime, grieving relatives announce the death of …” But I couldn’t throw myself into the river. It’s so dark and dirty, full of all of the city’s rubbish. Anna says that I am squeamish.’ “I couldn’t be a lawyer, Anna, poor people disgust me.” “But you don’t have to put their clothes on, for goodness’ sake! They’re your clients … You just speak to them about the case.” “I know Anna, but the smell of garlic and onion upsets me.” Sometimes he would exaggerate just to get on Anna’s nerves.

  Little by little he moved away from the parapet. He began walking again. The moon reappeared: a clear, cold light spread across his heart. Very slowly he began to feel himself again. ‘And why shouldn’t I go … to see that nice little blonde girl … Mimi, Lili or whatever her name is?’ He walked with a firmer and quicker stride. He felt vaguely proud of having briefly thought of suicide a moment before on the bridge. ‘Cici, Lili – what the hell is her name? That nice little blonde girl who has dimples like Villi.’ Who could tell how Villi would turn out when he grew up? Like him, or like Anna? Anna had been a gossipy and precocious child, she had entered early into society, where she had learned to flirt with a grace and refinement which characterized everything she did. Even as a child she had travelled a lot, and she knew how to handle people. He did
not. At fifteen he had been a skinny boy who wore a baggy turquoise smock and had no interest in women … He slipped down a dark alley, lit by a gas lamp. ‘Now then my darling Anna. You are in San Remo with your lover and I am here with my pretty Titi or Cici, or whatever her name is. Here I am.’

  He climbed the few steps, and casually rang the bell, wiping his feet scrupulously on the mat. When they came to open the door he went in without any hurry, apologizing in his heart to Anna.

  Giulietta

  HE’D HAD TO WAIT FOR a good while under the station portico. Two porters in blue jackets were eating apples near him; a core fell right by his feet and he watched it turn brown, and then a sparrow flew down to peck at it. ‘Lord God’ – he moaned to himself – ‘that boy, how am I going to explain to him … explain to him about Giulietta? Straightaway, before we get home, I’ll say to him: “I need to speak to you man to man. You have to understand, I was unhappy living by myself … Get married? No, no, it’s not about that …”’ He had taken her into his house a year ago, Giulietta that is, but he had never spoken of this in letters to his relatives, or during his short visits home. He spotted his brother from a distance, among the other people who were arriving; ‘he’s still in mourning’ he thought, looking down remorsefully at his own yellow shoes.

  “Ferruccio my dear brother, how are you?” he said, kissing him on the cheek. Ferruccio swung on his arm in a playful way. Aldo lived in the suburbs, and during the long journey home on the tram, he didn’t stop talking for a moment. “I’m so happy about starting high school! It was hard work to convince mamma though. ‘You’ll be all alone in the city … if only there were schools nearby where we live,’ she said. ‘But Aldo’s in the city,’ I said to her. ‘Aldo has studied, so why shouldn’t I study and become a doctor as well?’ You earn a lot, don’t you? You’re so well dressed! I wanted to come out of mourning as well, but mamma wouldn’t have it. She still cries, you know, when she speaks about poor papa. I’ve brought some jelly sweets, here, do you want one?” He pulled out a packet from his pocket. “The blue ones are the best, but you prefer mints, don’t you? Oh, I’m so happy to finally be at high school! I’ll need to study a little at the start, in order to prove myself. This year we’ll be doing the Inferno, isn’t that right?” “Yes, Dante, the Inferno,” Aldo repeated rather distractedly. ‘The Inferno … Lord God, how can I explain to him? He’s just a boy … I haven’t seen him for such a long time, I thought that he would have grown up. “Ferruccio, I need to speak to you man to man …” How ridiculous, he doesn’t even come up to my shoulders.’ The jelly sweets had left him with an unpleasant bittersweet aftertaste. ‘All that talk of family bonds. What have we got in common, me and this little boy with black socks? What nonsense!’

  While they were climbing the stairs up to the house, Aldo said, “Ferruccio, don’t go thinking that my house is anything special. Four rooms – a little flat, that’s all. I earn very little. Here we are; don’t ring, I have the key.” He showed him into the hall, and made him put down his case. “Now come, I’ll show you to your room. Here; it’s not big, but it’s comfortable, and from the window you can see the mountains.” Ferruccio looked out of the window: below there was an area with a little grass which looked parched and dry: lots of children were playing around a pile of stones; the women sitting together on the ground were sewing, some had taken off their shoes; further in the distance there was a house under construction, balconies which had been painted red, and an area for playing bowls. “On Sunday I can go and play bowls,” said Ferruccio happily. “I love bowling.” From the room nearby there came the sound of a sewing machine. Ferruccio asked, “Who’s in that room? The maid?”, Then Aldo, in a loud and nonchalant way, called out, “Giulietta, Giulietta.” The machine stopped, and Giulietta appeared at the door: she was wearing a dress with large green and yellow flowers, made of the same material that is sometimes used to cover armchairs. “Hello,” she said to Ferruccio, while brushing away the pieces of white thread from her dress. “I hope you’ve had a good journey. Aldo, what are you waiting for to introduce me? Your brother always has his head in the clouds.”

  Aldo was standing in the middle of the room: his hands were hot and felt heavy and he didn’t know what to do with them. “I’m sorry, I forgot … Signorina Giulietta Fanti … my brother Ferruccio.” “Very pleased to meet you,” said Ferruccio, who seemed a little taken aback. “Signorina, please, could I interest you at all in one of these jelly sweets. I think the blue ones are the best.” “Thank you, how kind, but really I don’t know if I could … one of these blue ones, did you say? Could I have an orange one too? Thank you, how kind you are. Can I help you unpack?” Giulietta skipped from one piece of furniture to the next: her tiny bottom, her breasts, and the curls behind the nape of her neck bobbed up and down as she went. Her face was sweaty and red from enthusiasm. “Well well, a high school student! I would have liked to have studied too, if it weren’t for my circumstances … you know how it is when you’re hard up! I could have done really well, I even won a prize in the fourth year of primary school.” Aldo went into the hall, and took his hat down from the hat-stand. “I’m just popping downstairs a moment to buy some cigarettes,” he said as he left. On his way to the tobacconist he thought to himself without much conviction, ‘When all’s said and done, I’m a free man; in my house I do as I please. Ferruccio can think whatever he likes, write whatever he wants to mamma: Aldo is living with a … and if mamma wants to come and fetch him, they can all go to hell.’

  He felt tempted not to return to the house, but rather to rush off blindly into the dark night of the city and follow an unknown woman down an unknown street. He could slip away and leave Ferruccio and Giulietta together to get on with things. On returning, he found them sitting at the table for supper, in the little dining room. “You know what,” cried Giulietta, “your brother and I are getting on really well; we have a lot in common; he even likes spicy sauce, like me.”

  The maid, a girl with a dazed expression, went back and forth from the kitchen. During the supper Aldo didn’t say a word, and devoured all the bread that he could lay his hands on, while Giulietta watched him with reproachful eyes. “One evening back home,” said Ferruccio, “I got completely drunk. ‘Hey everybody,’ I said, ‘I’m the king of the world, I’m the king of the world!’ What a racket we made! It was such fun.” In his suitcase, they had found some nuts, as well as little jars of jam and honey. Giulietta asked for permission to open one straightaway: “Thank you, thank you so much; I bet it’s delicious. If only my dear little mother were here, don’t you think Aldo? She would be so happy. She’s seventy-two, and only has one tooth left, isn’t that true Aldo? But how greedy she is!”

  “The nuts come from our tree,” Ferruccio explained. “Do you remember Aldo, the one in front of the house. You should see the amount of fruit in our little garden, Signorina Giulietta. Apricots and great big prunes the size of my head. And the pears? Don’t even talk about the pears!”

  “How beautiful the countryside must be,” Giulietta sighed. “I’ve never been.” “You’ve never been, really?” said Ferruccio, who was very taken with Giulietta. “Well then, one Sunday we must bring her home with us; what do you say Aldo? Mamma would be happy to meet her.” “Oh, you are so kind, thank you. I would like that so much, I mean, to meet your dear mamma.” Aldo got up from the table abruptly, throwing his napkin to the ground, and went out onto the balcony. “This is unbearable,” he muttered to himself, “unbearable.” He felt himself being suffocated by unhappiness and resentment. ‘And the best bit is that I feel like an intruder; they’re chatting away like old friends. They have so much in common; they even both like spicy sauce.’

  He went back in to drink the coffee, and Giulietta came to sit on his knees. “Aldo, you are naughty,” she said in an affected voice, ruffling the tuft of hair on his forehead. “Do you know that my legs are covered in bruises? You always kick me during the night.”

  Ferruccio was already
in bed and about to go to sleep when Aldo came into his room. “I wanted to say goodnight to you, Ferruccio. I wanted to tell you that I’m happy to have you here, in my house.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, he stroked his hair. “I also wanted to ask you … if you do write to mamma, there’s no need to speak of … of Signorina Giulietta. Try to understand me dear brother; she’s a nice girl, and she keeps the house in order, and does the linen. She loves me. She is alone in the world: she has nothing but her mother, an old hag who lives in a rest home: she goes to see her every Saturday. She kept me company when I was lonely … Anyway, as I was saying, she’s a nice girl.”

  “I understand,” said Ferruccio, winking in a knowing way. “Do you sleep together in the same bed? You’re lucky, she’s pretty. You’ve done well, you’ve done very well; I envy you. I’m the same, you know. One evening a friend of mine wanted to take me to see a woman, he already knew her. But then it started raining so we stayed at home and played cards.”