All Our Yesterdays (24 page)

Spring came on muddy and rainy, in the village people walked about in mud and water rushed in torrents from the gutters, and the Turk complained because the rain came through into his room at the inn, he had to sleep with his umbrella up. Cenzo Rena invited him to sleep at their house but the Turk did not accept, In the evenings he listened to the radio with the landlord of the inn, they were even able to get foreign stations. Cenzo Rena was suddenly astonished that he did not possess a radio, he rushed off at once to the town to buy one. The Turk came and slept at the house one night, but the police-sergeant sent for him in the morning and told him he would not allow him to sleep at Cenzo Rena's because Cenzo Rena's house was too far away from the police station, the Turk must never go far away from the police station. Then it came to be known that the police-sergeant was angry with Cenzo Rena because he had given orders to the schoolmistress to have the schoolchildren's heads cropped, amongst these children was the police-sergeant's son who had beautiful fair curls, his mother put his hair in curl-papers every evening. The police-sergeant had not allowed them to crop his son's head. The police-sergeant was now going about the village saying that this man Cenzo Rena. was passing all bounds, who was he that he should give orders to crop the children's heads, who was he that he should lord it over everybody in the village ? But he was frightened of Cenzo Rena because Cenzo Rena had lent him money when he had had to buy the furniture for his house, he had paid him back some of the money but very little, he had made him promise not to tell anyone about it and what a figure he would cut if Cenzo Rena started telling people in the village that he had lent him the money to buy his furniture. So he always greeted him with a low bow when he met him, and his only way of unburdening himself was by writing long anonymous letters attacking him, the
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used to come to see Cenzo Rena and tell him about these anonymous letters that the police-sergeant, as well as the Marchesa, was now sending to the police in the town, letters in which he accused Cenzo Rena of favouring the internees, as the Turk and the three old women were officially called. The Turk had been very much frightened by the police-sergeant's reproof and now no longer dared go up to Cenzo Rena's house, he no longer dared to go even a hundred yards from the police station, and when he met Cenzo Rena in the village square he said to him in a low voice what a lovely night he had spent at his house, with fresh, clean sheets and a soft mattress, at the inn he had a thin mattress and could feel all the springs of the bed through it. In a low voice he complained about the war, the Germans had come to the help of the Italians in Greece and in the end the Italians had won, and Jugoslavia too was now held by the Germans and the Italians, and the English had allowed a big piece of Africa to be taken back from them, it was a story that seemed to be going on for ever. A family of Belgrade Jews had arrived at Scoturno. Cenzo Rena wanted to go and see them, he was always anxious to see new faces. He and Anna sat down at the inn in Scoturno to wait for these Jews to go past, at last they saw a lady with a white parasol and a gentleman with a walking-stick stopping at a vegetable-garden to buy some onions. They were unable to explain themselves properly in Italian and Cenzo Rena went over to help them, they wanted some lettuce too and Cenzo Rena went with them to choose some small, tender lettuces. They thanked him very warmly, they had had a long journey and had also been in prison and now the one thing they wanted was a dish of salad with onions.

All at once the mud came to an end and it was summer, the sun rose sudden and scorching and the mud turned into the fine, sandy dust of summer, and along the edge of the road which was all white with this fine dust the tall poppies were already faded, and the hills were already thorny and burnt-up and the river flowed quiet and dark amongst clouds of mosquitoes. Anna went with the baby down to the river to watch La Maschiona digging her field, Cenzo Rena came too and they sat down on the ground and Cenzo Rena took a leafy bough to drive away the mosquitoes from the baby's face. La Maschiona shouted to them not to hold the baby with her face to the sun and she tore off the sweaty handkerchief from her head so that they might use it to shelter her, but Cenzo Rena said that the sun had never done anybody any harm, he and La Maschiona quarrelled and threw the handkerchief backwards and forwards to each other. People passed and said to the baby, “sleep peacefully”, and to Cenzo Rena they said, “when will it end ?”—meaning the war.

Concettina's husband had been sent to Greece, then from Greece to Jugoslavia, and Signora Maria wrote that she could not come, because Concettina was sad and needed her. Signora Maria also was very sad, because her nephew had been sent to the war as well, and Giustino was working for his final exams and was very nervy and was treating her badly. Cenzo Rena, now that he had a radio, spent the evenings trying to pick up foreign stations, he clung on to those tenuous voices and afterwards told the news to the
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and the Turk, the Turk was now too much afraid of the police-sergeant and did not dare listen in to foreign stations with the landlord of the inn.

One evening Anna was in bed and was feeding the baby and suddenly Cenzo Rena came in and told her that Germany was going to war against Russia. There he was, with a flask of wine in his hand, in the evenings when he was listening to the radio he always kept a flask of wine by him. He was happy because Germany at last had a very big, strong country as an enemy. He was very happy and wanted to go and wake up the
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and tell them, but he was afraid that if he went out he might meet the police-sergeant and be seen by him with an altogether too happy expression on his face. He walked up and down the room with the flask of wine, and said that the war was now becoming rather interesting. He said that Russia was so very strong and that it might even come about that in two or three months' time it would all be over. At San Costanzo, perhaps, after the war was over and the Fascists had gone up in smoke, they might want to make him mayor, but he would not accept. A
contadino
friend of his called Giuseppe would do very well as mayor ; to the devil with the police-sergeant, he said, and out he went with the wine-flask to go and wake Giuseppe and tell him to get ready to be mayor and to drink with him to Russia which was now fighting against Germany.

Cenzo Rena decided next day that they would go to the seaside for a month with the baby, In that way he would not be seen by the police-sergeant with too happy an expression on his face. La Maschiona was very pleased to see them go because now she could work all day long in her field, Cenzo Rena told her the only thing she must do was to look after the dog, she must take it with her when she went to her field because if she left it alone it would become savage and melancholy. They went in the bus to the town and there they got into the train, If they had gone by car they would have needed too much petrol and petrol was now to be found only on the black market and was extremely expensive. Between the bus and the train Cenzo Rena rushed off to the town market to buy bathing costumes, he seized two costumes at random off the counter from amongst corsets and garters and ran off with them, offending the woman who wanted to wrap them up in a parcel for him. This woman came from Masuri and he knew her, and afterwards he wrote her a post-card to explain that his train was just leaving and that was why he had offended her.

The costumes were of poor quality and when they were wet they hung down in all directions. While Anna went to bathe Cenzo Rena stayed with the baby in the shade in the garden of the hotel, even there there were mosquitoes and he drove them off with a bough. Anna came back with her bathing-costume all slack and shapeless and he laughed as he looked at her, it was certainly the ugliest costume on the whole of the beach. Anna combed her hair and squeezed the water out of it and out of the edges of her costume. He told her that she had not had quite so much of an insect face recently, perhaps it was since the baby had been born, they looked together at the baby and he said to her that this was the baby she had once wanted to get rid of. He said he hardly ever remembered that this baby was not his own daughter, in any case why remember it, it was he who chased away the mosquitoes and even sometimes walked the baby up and down when she cried, and in the meantime no one knew what on earth the baby's real father was doing, perhaps he was sitting for his exams and being ploughed once again. They were there at the seaside when they had a letter from Giustino, he had sat for his exams and had passed and now he was asking to go to the war. Anna cried all day, she was sure Giustino would be killed in the war, she still seemed to see him going off in the bus with that reserved, gloomy expression that had come to him in the last few months, ever since he had been living alone with Signora Maria. But Cenzo Rena told her that Giustino would never be in time to go, the war would last only another month or two. Cenzo Rena rowed and swam and had scorched the whole of his back, at night he had to sleep on his stomach. He was still very happy about Russia but gradually he began to be a little less happy, the Germans were taking pieces of Russia. There at the seaside there was no means of listening to the foreign broadcasts and you had to be content with the Italian communique put up in the hall of the hotel, Cenzo Rena came to hate that hall because he always heard bad news there.

All of a sudden they both realized that they were homesick for San Costanzo, Cenzo Rena was certain that the baby too, when she cried, cried because she wanted them to take her back home. Cenzo Rena said he was homesick for the
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and even for a sight of the police-sergeant's cloak, and he said that perhaps he had gradually become accustomed to being a kind of person whom everybody knew well, here at the seaside no one knew him and he did not like it that no one should know him. Once upon a time, when he was on his travels, he had been happy to be knocking about all alone in hotels and trains and towns, without even a dog knowing who he was, but now perhaps he was beginning to grow old, and all he wanted was his
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and the police-sergeant's cloak, he wanted to have the same things always in front of his eyes. And Anna wanted to be at home, with La Maschiona spirting water from a wine-flask on to the floor in the morning. At the seaside she had realized all at once that that house had become her home, that house with the pine wood at the back and a tumbled mass of rocks down below. At the seaside there were ladies on the beach in black spectacles who asked her questions, and were astonished that she, so young, should already have a baby, and were astonished that Cenzo Rena, so old, should be her husband, they did not exactly say “so old” but they were astonished and they pulled up their black spectacles so as to have a good look, and all of a sudden Anna was ashamed of having an old husband, and was also ashamed of their bathing-costumes that had been bought in the market. But she told Cenzo Rena that she was ashamed and he told her she was an idiot, at San Costanzo the
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did not like her and were astonished by her and
he
was not ashamed.

They went back to San Costanzo and Cenzo Rena immediately started quarrelling with La Maschiona because the dog had become melancholy and savage just as he had thought, of course La Maschiona had left it alone tied up in front of the house, she had gone off to work in her field and had neglected the dog. Cenzo Rena lay on the bed with the dog on top of him making him all dirty with earth, and he talked to the dog and said bad things to it about La Maschiona for having left it alone all the time, he asked it if it was not true that she left it alone all the time and had paid no attention to anything except her own field. Then La Maschiona said that at the seaside they had neglected the baby, they had let her be bitten by mosquitoes and had allowed her to grow even thinner, a nephew of hers born a whole month later was three times as fat. Cenzo Rena shouted at her not to talk about her nephews because they had dysentery, as he got out of the bus he had met the doctor and had heard from him that the village was full of dysentery. La Maschiona said yes, her nephews too had a touch of dysentery but it was nothing much, and Cenzo Rena said that of course she bought them those pieces of almond paste at the shop, and if he ever saw her give a piece of almond paste to his own baby he would turn her out of the house for good and all. After being one hour at San Costanzo Cenzo Rena was bored to death with La Maschiona and with everything else, but he remembered that at the seaside he had been bored with the seaside and he thought it must be the fault of the war that he was bored and did not feel at ease anywhere. The very next day he started going round all the houses with the gloomy doctor, to see the babies with dysentery, and he quarrelled with the women and with the doctor as well because he told him he was no use as a doctor with that disgusted, gloomy appearance.

Anna went up through the pine wood with the baby. The pine wood was dark and cool, one of the few dark, cool spots in that country of sun and dust, and Anna sat down and put the baby on a cushion with her feet wrapped up in a blanket, the baby threw off the blanket and stuck her red, thin feet up in the air, Anna covered the thin feet again and again the baby stuck them up in the air, then she sucked one of her hands with a prolonged murmuring sound, for some time she made this prolonged murmuring sound and sucked at her hand with loud clucking noises, and Anna sat looking at her and found nothing to say to her, because she did not know how to chatter to small babies in the way that Signora Maria chattered to them. As soon as the baby had gone to sleep she started trying to disentangle her endless thoughts, she collected all the scattered threads of her own life and wove them together, and she was able to stay for hours in the pine wood beside the baby without being bored, weaving together and then separating her endless thoughts, beside the baby who for a long time had been merely a piece of darkness within her, and then suddenly had become a real baby in the hands of La Maschiona, with feet that were thin and red and long, tender, pale hair, and the name of Cenzo Rena's first love, she sought Giuma's face in the sleeping face of the baby but there was no sign of any other face in that naked sleeping face, with its little lips pursed and pale and its short breathing. Cenzo Rena came and brought the post with him, Giustino had left for Russia, Signora Maria had gone to stay with Concettina and had let the house to some relations of Emilio's, Emilio too had been sent to Russia, Signora Maria could not come to San Costanzo because she had swollen ankles and would never be able to manage those rocks, she was sorry not to be able to come and see the baby, she chattered about Concettina's baby and about Anna's baby, she filled pages and pages with her chatter. She was well off with the Sbrancagnas and they were very kind but even with all the maids that there were in the house she still had a lot of work to do, perhaps she had come by her swollen ankles by standing too long at her ironing. There was also a letter from Emanuele in which he said that Giuma had scraped through his exam this time but had got it into his head to study literature and philosophy, Mammina on the other hand wanted him to study commercial sciences, otherwise he would not be able to work at the soap factory. Giuma was now saying that he did not feel himself to be cut out for the soap factory. Emanuele wrote that he felt even more lonely without Giustino, he saw Concettina every now and then and certainly Concettina had become rather tire-some, she always had the baby with her and one could never manage to have a sensible conversation with her, absorbed as she always was in combing the baby's hair and cleaning his hands with a handkerchief and calling him if he moved even one step away from her, but she was still Concettina and he was very pleased when he met her with the baby on the road beside the river, they walked along together for a moment or sat down in a café and recollected the same things. But Concettina became very ill-humoured if Danilo's wife went past and he, Emanuele, called to her and greeted her, Concettina said it was the fault of that woman Marisa that Giustino had been so determined to go away, she had played the coquette with Giustino who was only a boy until she had made him fall in love with her, and now Giustino was where he was, when he might have been still at home studying, instead of which he had gone off with a tragic air, and she herself had been left with Signora Maria to look after, and it was very boring to have to spend the whole day with her. Then Emanuele said that Marisa had not played the coquette at all, in any case she had other things to think about than playing the coquette, with a sick husband to whom she had to send money and with all the extra hours she was working at the foundry, and he told her that she, Concettina, ought to have respect for a woman who worked, she who spent her days without doing anything, except petting and spoiling her baby. Concettina was deeply offended, her baby was not in the least spoilt, and of course everyone nowadays ought to have respect for all the people at the foundry. But then they made it up and he went back home and felt sad when he looked out of the window at seeing the Sbrancagnas' relations in the house opposite, and no more of Signora Maria's black underclothes hung up on the line, Mammina on the other hand was very pleased at not seeing the underclothes any more and she was also pleased because the Sbrancagnas' relations did not manure the rose-trees with dung as Signora Maria did. Anna's heart beat fast as she waited for the post, but afterwards, as soon as she had read the letters, she always felt slightly mortified, as it were, because of the things that were going on without her.