All Our Yesterdays (19 page)

She started talking again about the girl Fiammetta, and about Montale and the café which was like Paris. How was it like Paris, asked Cenzo Rena? It
was
like Paris, she said, Giuma thought it was really very like Paris. But later on it stopped being like Paris and they had gone more often amongst the bushes on the river bank. And perhaps they did not love each other so very much, she used to feel humiliated and unhappy when she got home. She had realized she did not love him so very much when Giuma gave her the thousand lire, she had found herself with a thousand lire in her hand and had realized that the affair between the two of them was over, and had also realized that it had been a very stupid, poor sort of affair, with Giuma having to give up the idea of buying himself a boat. Before that, she had perhaps almost believed that they would get married. But instead, he had given her a thousand lire so that she might go by herself and look for a midwife in the town. And she did not know where midwives were to be found, there was Concettina's midwife but she had not the face to go to her. She had not told Concettina, she had not told anyone. He, Cenzo Rena, was the only person she had told, and she didn't know why it should have been him, particularly. She asked him if it meant that they were great friends, because the moment she saw him she had been able to tell him the things she had been keeping from everybody for such a long time. She said she had not even thought about him very often. And Cenzo Rena said he had not thought about
her
very often, either. He had thought more about Giustino, it had happened more often in the case of Giustino than with her. But he was glad she had told him so many things. He told her not to go on thinking so much about the mid-wives and the thousand lire, he would take her into the town next day to get this problem solved. For a long time they went on floundering very slowly about the countryside. From time to time she cried but she felt quiet and serene, as though she were washed clean by her tears, as though the fear and the silence had suddenly been discharged from her heart.

It was late when they reached home, and Signora Maria came forward to meet Cenzo Rena with outstretched hands and half-closed eyes and breathing heavily, so as to join with him in remembrance of Ippolito. But Cenzo Rena's face was amused and happy and high-coloured from the open air, and he waved his dripping hat at Signora Maria and started taking out his suitcases. Signora Maria asked Anna where she had put the meat, Anna clapped her hand to her forehead, she had not remembered the meat. Cenzo Rena said it did not matter, he had plenty of tins of tunnyfish in oil and some beer too, and they could have a splendid dinner, a wedding feast. Signora Maria said afterwards to Concettina that one did not arrive with such a happy face to visit a family which had had a great misfortune. But Cenzo Rena had always been a little mad, and in reality she was pleased that he had come because he would talk to the
contadino
about the harvest, he was mad but he knew how to deal with
contadini.
This time, however, Cenzo Rena did not make himself agreeable either to the dog or to the
contadino,
he wandered round the rooms with an amused expression, his hands in his pockets.

They sat down to table, and Cenzo Rena ate spoonfuls of tunnyfish in oil and talked about the war. Anna, now that she saw him amongst the others, was ashamed of all that she had said to him. Cenzo Rena seemed to have forgotten her. But suddenly he raised his eyes to her face and gazed at her with a steady, calm, profound look. Then he started talking about the war again. He did not believe that the Germans had now won, this was a war in which no one would win or lose, in the end it would be seen that everyone had more or less lost. Certainly it would last many years and it would not be at all cheerful. For now there were so many different ways of driving people mad, there were machine-gunnings, carpet bombings, incendiary bombs, all sorts of bombs. And the Germans killing just in order to kill, allies or non-allies, just like that. Concettina sat listening with her baby at her shoulder, and her eyes had dark circles round them and she asked all of a sudden why it was, then, that she had brought this baby into the world. Cenzo Rena told her not to ask silly questions. She had brought this baby into the world in order to love him and give him milk. Babies were not brought into the world in order that they should be comfortable, with plenty to eat and warm feet, they were brought into the world so that they should live the life they had to live, even if it was carpet bombings and want and hunger. But later he told her that if carpet bombings started, she and the baby could come and take refuge with him in his village. Perhaps the war would not reach that black village of his, hidden amongst its hills. Talking of carpets, he said, he was sorry he had forgotten to send Ippolito the Smyrna carpet he had promised him. He spoke of Ippolito without lowering either his eyes or his voice, he spoke as though Ippolito were alive and in the next room. Only just for a moment did he take off his glasses and rub his open hand over his eyelids and his face. Then his face reappeared, redder than before and as it were sleepy-looking. He was sorry now that he had made ink-stains on the carpet Ippolito was fond of, he was sorry he had taken the dog away from him when he wanted to go out shooting. And he was also sorry that he had said some unkind words to him. He wished he could be there in front of him again so that he could say some quite different words to him. He would never forgive himself for the unkind words he had said to him. He had said unkind words to him because he had imagined that by doing so he could help him to become a free being. But on the contrary, he had not helped him, he had merely humiliated him, he could still see that twisted smile of his. Emilio then said that Ippolito had been a free being, he had himself chosen the day of his own death. But Cenzo Rena said that a man had not the right to choose the day of his own death. And in any case Ippolito had not made any choice at all, he had allowed himself to get all tied up by his own thoughts, so that he had been killed by them. He died strangled by his own thoughts, he was dead even before he sat down that morning in the public gardens. Emilio then asked whether a man who did not think was a free being. And Cenzo Rena told him not to ask silly questions. The man who accepted the life he had to live was free. The man who made health and wealth out of his own thoughts was free, not the man who made them into a noose to strangle himself with. Then he began to yawn and stretch himself, waving his long arms, and he said he was going to bed. Emilio asked Concettina whether this fellow would be staying long at Le Visciole, he did not care for him very much, he knew quite well that he was silly but he didn't much like being told so to his face. And Concettina told Giustino to do what Cenzo Rena did when his drawers were scratching him. But Giustino said he did not know how to do it, it was Emanuele who knew how to do it. Besides, he didn't think it was right to laugh at a person the moment he had left the room.

Next morning Giustino went to look for worms, because he hoped to go fishing with Cenzo Rena in the afternoon. He collected a quantity of fine long worms, but in the afternoon Cenzo Rena said he was going with Anna into the town to buy her a watch, he wanted to give her a present and had noticed that she hadn't a watch. Signora Maria was very pleased, she thought of a little gold watch, of a good make, which Anna would wear on her wrist all her life. But Giustino was disappointed and went fishing by himself, and he did not catch anything and in the end he threw away the worms and started eating big rolls of bread, as he always did when he felt sad. It seemed to him that Cenzo Rena had nodded to him absent-mindedly, it seemed to him that they were no longer such friends, yet it was he who had written begging him to come, and he had been so pleased the evening before when he had seen his car down at the gate. As he passed he saw the Humbugs' daughters in the square but he had no wish for Humbugs' daughters that day, fishing with Cenzo Rena was the only thing he would have liked, or again choosing a watch for Anna with the two of them in the town. But Cenzo Rena had not told him to get into the car with them, he had just nodded to him in an absent-minded way.

Anna and Cenzo Rena drove towards the town, the sun was shining and the road was dry but not yet dusty, the car swayed in the deep ruts caused by the rain. Cenzo Rena said he had once had a friend who was a doctor in the town, but he did not know if he was still alive and if he still lived at the same address. He said it was better to keep away from midwives, midwives might even kill you, so many poor girls had come to a bad end like that. Anna had been thinking all night of a midwife with the face of Danilo's mother. All at once she was frightened, she asked what they would do to her, whether it was easy to face death. Cenzo Rena said no, what was needed was to go to a doctor, midwives sometimes did not wash their hands properly. If they could not find that friend of his they could perhaps fall back upon the little doctor with the hair like chickens' feathers. But Anna said she would be too much ashamed to go to that little doctor, she wanted a face she had never seen before and that she would never see again. Cenzo Rena suddenly stopped the car, he asked her if she really wanted to get rid of the baby. Anna asked what else she could do, Giuma would never marry her and possibly she herself would not have at all liked marrying him, she had made a mess of everything and so what would that baby have if it came into the world, nothing but a mother who had made a mess of everything and had no courage. Cenzo Rena said that no one found himself with courage ready-made, you had to acquire courage little by little, it was a long story and it went on almost all your life. They had stopped at the gates of the town, the tin roofs of the soap factory could be seen. He told her that up till that day she had lived like an insect. An insect that knows nothing beyond the leaf upon which it hangs.

He asked her if she would marry him. In that way she would not have to get rid of the baby. The streets were full of babies and certainly they grew up into men with scowling, nasty faces, and yet it seemed to him sad that one of them should be got rid of. He himself would not remember often that this baby was not his own child, in any case all those stories about the voice of the blood were very silly,
his
blood had no voice. He had never dreamed of wanting a child, but seeing that there was one to be had he would take it. Perhaps he was very old to marry her but all the years he had behind him did not weigh much, he had galloped through them so fast, never had he looked back to count the things he had lost. And what made people grow old was to keep looking back in order to count, counting made you grow very old all at once, with a sharp nose and gloomy, rapacious eyes. He himself had always galloped on. Then she looked at him in bewilderment and wondered how old Cenzo Rena could be, fifty, sixty, goodness knows. There was no further need to look for a doctor who would do something or other to her body to make the baby disappear. She would marry Cenzo Rena, and so her life would be over, nothing unexpected or strange would ever happen to her again, it would be Cenzo Rena and Cenzo Rena for ever.

She said yes, she would marry him. But she told him she felt a little cold at the thought of having decided something for the whole of her life. Cenzo Rena said he himself felt very cold too, he felt long, cold shudders down his back, but anyone who was afraid of a cold shudder did not deserve to live, he deserved to hang on a leaf all his life. And she, now, had got to come away from her leaf, only insects remained on leaves, with their little staring, sad eyes, and their little motionless feet, and their short, sad little breathing. In order to get married it was necessary to know whether you felt free and happy together, with cold shudders down your back because even joy has its cold shudders, and with a great fear of making a mistake and a real desire to go forward. And he himself had never felt so free and happy as he had the day before when he had begun to think he might marry her, for he had thought of it at once and had been awake all night thinking about it, and he had had such long, cold shudders that he had got up and drunk some brandy and put on his sweater over his pyjamas.

They turned back, and stopped at an inn on the road. Cenzo Rena ordered wine,
salame
sausage and figs. The figs were in a basket covered with moist leaves, the
salame
was cut in slices and was full of little white eyes and grains of pepper. Anna asked if she would still have to take her mathematical exam in October, Cenzo Rena said no, they drank a toast to the mathematical exam that had rolled away like a cloud. Cenzo Rena told her they would get married at once, in a few days' time, and then they would leave at once for his own village, he pulled out a map of Italy and showed her where his village was, far away where the South began. There the baby would be born and no one would ever know that the father of the baby was not himself, Cenzo Rena, but a boy with teeth like a wolf. There they would stay until the end of the war, afterwards he would start travelling again if there was an afterwards, at present it was not worth thinking about. She could burn all her school books in the stove, she would be learning other things now, perhaps she would learn from La Maschiona how to make an omelette with onions. He drew a picture of La Maschiona on the edge of a newspaper, La Maschiona had been his servant for almost twenty years. He drew a triangular face underneath a kind of black cloud and two big feet coming out of the ears. La Maschiona was like that, he said, all feet and hair. He immediately wrote her a post-card to say he was arriving in a few days with a wife and she must wash the stairs.

Then they went into a barber's shop because Cenzo Rena needed a shave and it worried him. In the barber's shop they stood looking at themselves in the mirror and the barber waited. They laughed a great deal at seeing themselves like that in the mirror, he with his long waterproof all muddy and crumpled and she dishevelled and bewildered in a dress that had once been a curtain. They did not look at all as if they were just going to undergo a wedding ceremony, he said. They did not look at all exultant and triumphant. They looked like two people who had been flung against each other by chance in a sinking ship. For them there had been no fanfare of trumpets, he said. And that was a good thing, because when fate announced itself with a loud fanfare of trumpets you always had to be a little on your guard. Fanfares of trumpets usually announced only small, futile things, it was a way fate had of teasing people. You felt a great exaltation and heard a loud fanfare of trumpets in the sky. But the serious things of life, on the contrary, took you by surprise, they spurted up all of a sudden like water. She had not quite understood what it was, this fanfare of trumpets, she asked him as he was sitting in the revolving chair with his face all covered with soap. A fanfare of trumpets, he said, a fanfare of trumpets. The way fate had of teasing people. Some people waited all their lives for some little fanfare or other, and their lives passed without any fanfares and they felt defrauded and unhappy. And others heard nothing but fanfares and ran about hither and thither, and then they were very tired and thirsty and there was no water left to drink. There was nothing left but dust and fanfares. As they went out of the shop they took another look in the mirror, she told him that at all events she never again wished to wear dresses made out of curtains. Cenzo Rena said she was wrong, dresses made out of curtains suited her very well. When they were inside the car he bent down and kissed her, and then she saw very closely the grey streaks in his hair and moustache and his tortoiseshell spectacles and all the grains of rice.