All Our Yesterdays (14 page)

Giuma told her that Mammina was feeling ill because Franz and Amalia were on the point of arriving. He knew how matters stood, Mammina had been very much in love with Franz before Franz and Amalia got married, and now she did not know what attitude to take on finding herself face to face with him again. So she lay in bed in the dark and would not allow anyone into her room, she would not allow anyone to see her while she was thinking of what attitude she should take. He, Giuma, was not a puritan and it did not matter to him if his mother had had a love affair with Franz, poor Mammina, so much the better if she had had some days of happiness, so much the better for men and women if they could enjoy themselves together. Emanuele, on the other hand, was a puritan and would have found it scandalous to think of Mammina having a love affair with Franz, perhaps it had occurred to him but he had buried the thought in his mind, he was good at burying in his mind all thoughts that he did not like, burying them so deeply that he forgot they had ever existed. After Papa's death Franz for a moment had been undecided whether to marry Amalia or Mammina, but he had decided on Amalia because Mammina had only the usufruct whereas Amalia had the shares. And so poor Mammina had been left with nothing but her bridge.

Later, Mammina put on a resolute, imperious expression as she waited at the garden gate with her fox fur thrown over her shoulders and her lorgnette ; Emanuele had gone in the car to the station, Giuma had stayed with Mammina by the gate. The car came back and they saw Amalia and Franz get out, Mammina kissed Amalia on the brow, to Franz she put out a long, limp hand without turning her head.

Emanuele went across to tell Ippolito how transformed Amalia was since her marriage, she had taken to giving orders and making decisions for everyone, for herself and Franz she wanted the red room, not the green room which Mammina had had prepared for them, which was so far from the bathroom and so sunless. And Franz was to start work at once at the soap factory. And poor Franz was subdued and sad, he whispered to Emanuele that he would have preferred the green room because at least you couldn't see the soap factory from its windows, it distressed him deeply to think of the soap factory and he would have preferred not to go and work there at once, he felt rather shaken in health, he had heard nothing at all about his parents and every night he had horrible dreams, he woke up all panting and sweating and Amalia gave him camphor injections, the course she had taken as a student-nurse had left her with a mania for giving injections, Franz's behind was as full of holes as a nutmeg-grater. It was by no means certain that the camphor was good for him and he would have liked to consult a doctor, but Amalia maintained that camphor was what he needed. He realized that he had to work at the soap factory, he realized that he had to work and could hot always remain in idleness, his life had been full of errors, it had been a long chain of idle hours and acts of cowardice and lies, he told Emanuele that some day perhaps he would tell him the whole story of his life. He had made up his mind to turn over a new leaf but not at present, at present everything frightened him, he could not help thinking all the time about the Germans and the concentration camps and at night he saw his parents in those ditches in which they burned the dead. But it was Amalia who gave orders and a few days after their arrival Franz was working in the soap factory, sitting at a desk with an unhappy expression, and in the evening Franz and Emanuele came home together, and now it was Franz who complained about the managing director, and Emanuele contradicted him, saying the managing director was really a fine fellow. Emanuele was sorry for Franz and at the same time irritated with him, and was always wanting to contradict him, and his voice was always a little harsh when he spoke to him.

12

Emanuele came to wake Ippolito one morning at seven o'clock. The Germans had landed in Norway. He had heard this news on the radio, there were not many details. It was the beginning of April and there had been long days of rain, but now the sun was shining on the mud in the town; Anna thought that the snow up in the mountains would certainly have melted and now Giuma would stay with her on Sundays, and the Germans had landed in Norway and they would be thrown back into the sea and scattered, the long winter with the cold war was over. Ippolito went to his office but Emanuele stayed with them, limping round after Signora Maria as she swept; that morning he had no desire to go to the factory and at his own home there were Mammina and Amalia who were quarrelling over the red room and the green room.

They spent a few happy days hearing of all the German ships that were going to the bottom. By now the German navy was lying at the bottom of the sea, and the landing in Norway had not been a success for Germany, in a short time Norway would shake off the Germans and throw them to the bottom of the sea where the cruisers and other ships already were, all that was needed was just a little shake, Norway was in no hurry. For Germany there was no longer any hope of winning, now that her navy was at the bottom of the sea. Emanuele had brought over the radio from his own house and put it in the sitting-room, and again Emanuele and Ippolito and Danilo were together in the sitting-room, gathered close round the radio to pick up the thin thread of a voice from the forbidden stations. Ippolito again had the anxious, feverish look of the time when they were trafficking in pamphlets and newspapers, perhaps he was thinking of the revolution, perhaps he was thinking that as soon as the Germans were beaten it would at once be possible to start the revolution in Italy. Danilo said they must not be too optimistic, it was quite possible that the affair would go on for a long time yet, he was not too pleased about the landing in Norway. But certainly it was no joke for Germany that her entire fleet should have perished like this, at a single stroke.

Giuma said to Anna that he didn't care in the least about Norway, or about Germany and the fleet. Only he had been annoyed when Emanuele took away the radio, he had taken it away as though it had been his own property, the other radio was in Mammina's bedroom and now it was no longer possible to hear a bit of music if Mammina happened to be resting. Anna said that when he wanted to listen to music he could come over to the sitting-room in their house. But Giuma said he had no wish to find himself in the company of “those people.” “Those people ” were Emanuele, Ippolito and Danilo. He was irritated by the air of mystery they assumed when they were all three together, an air of mystery and of triumph, as though it were they who had sunk the fleet. Sometimes Anna and Giuma met Danilo and his wife in the street, Danilo used to go and fetch his wife from the gate of the foundry and they went for a little walk. Giuma would greet them with a little bow and go very red in the face, perhaps he was recalling the time Danilo had thrown his hat and coat at him and turned him out of the house. And as soon as Danilo had turned the corner Giuma would burst out laughing, Danilo walked through the town like a great victorious general, like Nelson after he had won the Battle of Trafalgar. Giuma had left school because the marks he was getting were altogether too bad, he told Anna he had been getting these bad marks on purpose, so that Mammina should make up her mind to let him leave school. At last Mammina did make up her mind, Amalia however did not agree, Amalia and Mammina quarrelled over Giuma's education and over a thousand other things and there was never a moment's peace in the house. But Franz left them to quarrel and roamed about the house, he too with the air of a great victorious general, he too like Nelson, Giuma told Anna that those four German ships that had been sunk had gone to Franz's head too. Giuma was very pleased not to be going to school any more and in the mornings he took his books into the garden and did his work there, he worked very well on his own like that, at school they made you waste such a heap of time. Giuma no longer went ski-ing now but still he was not free on Sundays, he had to go with Mammina to visit her friends or he went to play tennis, Anna saw him from the window going out with his racquet and his white trousers. Anna asked him whether the girl Fiammetta played tennis with him. Giuma said yes, sometimes ; whenever they talked about the girl Fiammetta he used to blush and speak in a thin little voice. And so Anna had nothing to do on Sundays, after her homework she would go into the sitting-room and sit with the others beside the radio, the Germans had started advancing in Holland and Belgium. There was nothing strange about that because in the other war they had advanced at the beginning too, then they had gone back again, but in the meantime it was painful to hear that they were advancing. Holland and Belgium fell in a few days, the Germans crossed the French frontier, and there was no need to worry
there,
said Emanuele, the Maginot Line was impenetrable. Danilo said that it was indeed impenetrable but they were in the act of penetrating it.

Giuma told Anna how Franz had all of a sudden lost his Nelson airs, and in the evening waited for Emanuele's return in order to know whether the Germans had come to a halt, to know also what Danilo had said, for he too had come to believe in Danilo as a kind of prophet. Giuma said he was pleased if the Germans were advancing a little, so that he might enjoy the faces of Emanuele and the others, Emanuele came home in the evenings more and more mortified and from his way of going upstairs you could tell that the Germans had advanced still further. Only he was annoyed that Franz refused flatly to play tennis nowadays. Anna said there was always the girl Fiammetta for him to play with. But Giuma said that the girl Fiammetta was not free always, he said it in a thin little voice. Anna asked him why he did not teach
her
to play tennis, but Giuma said he hadn't the patience to teach anyone anything. But he had taught her to play ping-pong, Anna said. But they were children then, said Giuma, as a child he had done a great many things that he had left off doing later, for instance he had played ping-pong which was a very boring game, he remembered how he had tormented his father to play ping-pong with him, his father did not know how to play and he wanted to teach him. But now he wouldn't have the patience to teach anyone anything. It was hot and when they went to the Paris café they sat outside under the big pergola, at the iron tables, and ate ice cream in big wine-glasses. It was hot and the countryside was all green and humming, with a smell of damp, tender grass amongst loosened earth, with high, white, swelling clouds in the sky. Giuma said that now it was no longer like being in Paris at that café, now that they were sitting outside under the big pergola, with the peasants' carts and the flocks of sheep passing close by, and the town in the distance no longer hidden in mist and darkness, the town with the iron roofs of the soap factory. Giuma sat facing her and sometimes his face was neither proud nor tender, it was perhaps as it was when he was alone in his room, the lips soft and surly and the eyes sleepy and wandering. He seemed suddenly to wake up when they brought the ice cream, he ate his ice greedily as if it was for that alone that he had come to the café, he licked his spoon greedily, sticking out his red wolf-like tongue. Anna felt that something had got lost between them, something that had been there when they were eating chestnuts in the public gardens, it was perhaps still there in the first days at the Paris café, but since then little by little it had got lost, goodness knows why or how. They went away and he drew her down amongst the bushes on the river bank, and they lay a long time kissing in the grass, and he kissed her harder and harder, he held her tighter and tighter and kissed her harder. At home she told herself that nothing had got lost, because Giuma kissed her harder and harder. And so one day they started making love, they lay clinging together in the grass and the world round them was green and humming between the warm puffs of air from the grass and the high clouds in the sky, and Giuma's expression was one of absorption and fury and secrecy, and his eyelids were tight closed over his eyes and his breathing was quick. At home she sat down bewildered at the little table in her room, and with a stab of pain at her heart saw again that expression on Giuma's face, that expression that seemed as it were plunged in a furious, secret sleep, that expression that had lost all trace both of words and of thoughts for her. And afterwards Giuma had stayed a long time lying beside her in the grass, and from time to time he gave her a look and winked his eye at her, but without either gaiety or slyness, the faint wink appeared and disappeared like a shadow on the face that was so remote from her. They had walked home in silence. Anna had sat down at the table in her room and had taken up her pen to do her homework, but she could not manage to write, her hands were trembling violently. She would have liked someone to come and scold her for not doing her homework, to come and tell her never to go again with Giuma amongst the bushes on the river bank. But no one came to say anything to her, no one even came to see if she had come home, Ippolito was thinking of nothing but the Germans advancing in France, Signora Maria spent her days at Concettina's making clothes for the baby that was to be born, Giustino was working for his exams with the tall, thin girl. She was alone, she was alone and no one said anything to her, she was alone in her room with her grass-stained, crumpled dress and her violently trembling hands. She was alone with Giuma's face that gave her a stab of pain at her heart, and every day she would be going back with Giuma amongst the bushes on the river bank, every day she would see again that face with the rumpled forelock and the tightly closed eyelids, that face that had lost all trace both of words and of thoughts for her.

Signora Maria related what she had heard in the shops and from the music-master, whom she still met sometimes on the road by the river. The Germans were sprinkling a kind of powder that made people stupid, the Allies were breathing in this powder and were fighting half asleep. And the French generals were accepting gold coins from the Germans to make wrong moves. And the Germans were dressing up as French peasants and fishermen and Were cutting the telegraph wires and poisoning the rivers. And the roads of France were full of refugees, women running away with their children, and the children got lost and the Germans caught them and sent them off to their laboratories, where they used them for scientific experiments like frogs or rabbits, Emanuele put his hands over his ears and besought them for goodness' sake to make her stop talking ; his nerves were all to pieces and he couldn't control himself, one day perhaps he would strangle Signora Maria. Emanuele disliked the Belgians, the French, the English, the Russians who had allied themselves with the Germans, he limped up and down the room and kicked at the furniture. He disliked Signora Maria who was spreading panic. In his own home he also had Franz spreading panic, he wandered about like a ghost and said that the Germans by advancing in France would overflow into Italy. Emanuele told him he was behaving as though the Germans were already in Italy ; but perhaps Mussolini was not sticking by the Germans. Franz said he was not afraid of Mussolini, he was only afraid of the Germans, if he found himself face to face with German soldiers he would go mad. At night he came to Emanuele's room and sat on his bed, and made him repeat that the Maginot Line was impenetrable. But the Germans went on penetrating it. One night he woke Emanuele to tell him that not only was his mother Jewish but his father too, he was completely Jewish and it was well known what the Germans were doing to the Jews, if the Germans came down into Italy the only thing for him to do would be to put a bullet through his head. So many times he had been on the point of going to America but he liked Italy too much, in Italy he felt he was safe even though for some time now there had been laws against the Jews, all you did was to pay a little and the police left you alone. But now he felt the Germans altogether too near, there they were in France behind the mountains and all they had to do was cross the mountains to get to where he was.