Cabaret (5 page)

But here I am racing ahead of myself; back then, in the fall of 1965, although I did not share Fiamma’s uncertainty about my occupation, I was in no state to embark upon it. Even after the bandages were removed from my head, the brace was taken from my neck, and the plaster cast was cut off my leg, I had to return to the hospital every weekday for treatment.

Yes, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings I propelled myself on crutches to the physiotherapy department.

There, the sadistic therapist, Drusilla Morelli, manipulated my whiplashed neck with her brawny forearms until it cracked in submission, and I could feel a fug of fluid seeping around the base of my dented skull, which left me woozy and weak. Then, when my neck relented and accepted Drusilla Morelli’s mastery over it, my poor mangled leg was subjected to torture by ice and a regimen of contortions for which it clearly wasn’t designed.

My mental scars, of course, were less easy to heal. At night, I lay awake for hours listening to the cacophony of sounds issuing from Fiamma’s sleeping form. She made more noise when she was asleep than when she was awake. And she was able to constantly surprise me with her variety. The grunts like an amorous gibbon; snores like the earth’s crust rupturing; muted wails, groans, fervent whispers, chipmunk chomping; snorts, whines, whinnies. How much of this was due to the accident, I couldn’t say, because nobody ever shared a bedroom with her before, but I am inclined to think that this was her natural state when sleeping, and that the tragedy had little or nothing to do with it.

My insomnia wasn’t helped either by the restlessness of the city after dark, the ceaseless traffic on the Via Gregorio, the cacophony of sirens, the serenades of drunken lotharios, the howling of mad dogs, gunshots, fireworks, horns blowing, screaming, shouting, and general mayhem. I had never known such noise in our own apartment, in our sweet and gentle district across the river, but then again, I had never known insomnia either.

When I did manage to sleep, I was beset by terrifying dreams. Most often, we were back in the car, careering down the hill toward the old man who’d hurried into our path, and stood there gaping. I clearly heard Mamma’s beautiful song transform itself on her lips into a scream with which the old man and I joined in horrible competition. Before the car could stop I was usually shaken out of my nightmare by Uncle Birillo, his mustache secured by a strip of Elastoplast, or I was smothered out of it by Aunt Ninfa’s bosom scented with verbena, into which I was plunged. If I was particularly un-lucky, and Signora Pucillo got to me first, I could expect to be pinched awake by her arthritic fingers, and in the light from the passage my first glimpse of reality would be the far from reassuring sight of a face like thunder, minus its teeth, framed by an enormous nightcap of pea-green gauze.

Throughout the rumpus, Fiamma snored and snorted undisturbed.

When I attended the outpatients’ clinic at the psychiatry unit on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Dr. Boncoddo listened with only half an ear to my problems, and before long I began to fear the repetitive nature of my trauma and my nightmares was boring him. I did my best to invent variations, but even then he showed little interest.

One Thursday, before I had even launched into a new and entirely fictitious range of fears and desires that I had prepared earlier, I noticed the doctor was crying. When I asked what was troubling him, it was as though a mighty dam was bursting open. The strain of listening to other people’s troubles all day at work, coupled with an unhappy home life, was bringing him close to the edge.

He suspected his lover, Nicodemo, of having an affair with the lascivious butcher Fontanelli; Nicodemo’s high-spending ways had left him in debt up to his eyebrows; his mother was sick; his moped had been stolen that morning; he was brutally overworked; and his head of department, Dr. Farranda, was a tyrant who didn’t understand him. Because of all the stress, he had developed an unsightly rash, his hair was falling out, and in addition, his libido was suffering.

After this I felt an enormous sense of relief that I didn’t have to entertain Dr. Boncoddo anymore, and during our sessions I listened to him in silence, merely nodding my head from time to time, absorbing all he could tell me like a sponge. Although I was only sixteen, I gained a lot of knowledge about life, which I felt could only benefit me in future.

More important, from this I learned that psychiatry couldn’t help me get over Mamma’s death: deep down I knew that the only person I could rely on for help was myself.

By the time I reached this conclusion, it was already Christmas, our first Christmas without Mama. Faded paper chains went up in physiotherapy, and Drusilla Morelli began wearing a pair of joke reindeer antlers. In psychiatry, the at-mosphere grew ever more frosty as the annual departmental party approached, which, according to Dr. Boncoddo, was always a bloodbath.While we weren’t expecting much of a celebration at the Via Gregorio, none of us could have predicted just how miserable it was going to be.

The precious crib figures we had collected since we were tiny had been lost in the move from the Via Giulia, and it couldn’t be Christmas without them. Uncle Birillo tried to make us feel better by blowing up a few balloons, but his asthma prevented him from giving them the necessary firm-ness, without which they were sad and shrunken, the texture of shriveled grapes.

I couldn’t stop thinking about our usual Christmas with Mamma: the party at the Magnolia club for which we always had a new dress. It was a rare treat watching Mamma perform, and every time, I felt the thrill of seeing her up on the stage under the bright lights, where she seemed a glamorous stranger, not our own familiar Mamma. This impression was reinforced when she sang those Bing Crosby numbers—

“White Christmas,” “Jingle Bells,” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”—in heavily accented English, a language she didn’t understand.Then how the audience would applaud!

And later, Signor Saltini would shower us with expensive gifts and send us home in his limousine. Our little kitchen would be filled with pomegranates, marzipan cherubs, fig-filled cookies, hazelnut brittle, dried fruits, and the scent of roasting chestnuts, and Mamma would make special
castagnaccio
, which we distributed among our neighbors.We went to mass, and then to the fairground; we played
tombola,
danced to the music on the gramophone, and in the evening, out of a sense of duty, we paid a visit to Uncle Birillo and Aunt Ninfa.

This year, Aunt Ninfa, for some mysterious reason, was in a thunderous mood throughout the holiday. She refused to speak to Uncle Birillo, or to listen to him, and made the rest of us pass messages between them, even when they were in the same room.

“Freda, inform your uncle I need a kilo of the good tripe from Tripoto, and a bag of sugared almonds.”

“Fiamma, remind your uncle to pay the tip to the bread boy—the small one with the swellings—and the street sweeper.”

Then, having issued her instructions, Aunt Ninfa would retreat into the kitchen, slamming the door shut behind her, only to reappear immediately, like a figure from a Swiss clock.

Not surprisingly, all the Christmas baking she did in her fury turned out bad. The
pangiallo
of candied fruits, nuts, raisins, and almond paste was a leaden thing that shattered the plate of Signora Pucillo’s false teeth. As the dentist didn’t reopen until after Epiphany, the signora was reduced to having her food mashed like a baby’s, which didn’t improve her own sour temper. The
maiale porchettato
Aunt Ninfa prepared poisoned Fiamma and Uncle Birillo, and the overcrowded apartment was soon filled with the sound of violent vomiting.Thankfully I wasn’t affected: then, as now, I had a cast-iron stomach.

Despite my heavy hints over previous weeks, my parrot did not materialize, and I was livid. Mamma had promised me a parrot, and the patchwork cushion, pixie hat, and small spiny cactus provided by my uncle and aunt were not, in my view, a suitable substitute. I tossed them out of the window, and they landed on the head of a passing priest.

It was a relief to us all when the holidays were over, and Uncle Birillo and Fiamma were able to stop vomiting and return to work. Aunt Ninfa stopped being furious, and became instead tearful. She assumed the mantle of a martyr and consumed vast quantities of marzipan fruits. At least now she was able to resume her daily visits to her hairdresser, Raffaello, whom she regarded as a sage, slavishly following his whimsi-cal and often contradictory advice. Signora Pucillo was able to have her false teeth fixed, and return to her senior citizens luncheon club, where she continued to vie with the trollop Telma Maccarrone for the attentions of the club’s sprightly chairman, Signor Felice.

The start of the new year, 1966, was a cathartic one for me, and I resolved to take control of my own life as much as I could. I did not return to the hospital, and gave away my crutches to a lame beggar with too many fingers on his right hand. My neck, leg, and skull were virtually restored, and it was time for Drusilla Morelli to find herself a new victim. I knew Dr. Boncoddo needed me, but didn’t want him to become too dependent upon me: in the end he would see it was for the best.

I thwarted Uncle Birillo’s plans to send me back to school, and Aunt Ninfa’s scheme for me to become an appren-tice to her hairdresser. Instead, I took myself to see Signora Dorotea Pompi at her funeral parlor in the Vicolo Sugarelli.

S
ignora Pompi hadn’t forgotten me. In fact she threw her arms around me and marveled at the success and speed of my recovery. I told her I wanted to become an embalmer, and she was delighted to take me on as her trainee. It transpired that she had been advertising for a junior in the labor exchange for several weeks, but apart from one pimpled youth who listed his hobby on the application form as necrophilia, she had received no interest at all.

I couldn’t have chosen a more prestigious establishment to pursue my calling. The signora’s family had been undertakers and embalmers for countless generations. Not only had they interred every pope since Gregory the Great, but, the signora confided to me, they had even embalmed Saint Peter himself.

She began by showing me around her premises. Beyond the entrance hall—where Calipso Longo, the motherly receptionist, greeted the bereaved—were two chapels of rest, the staff room, and the office. Behind was the yard, where the private ambulance was kept, and in the back was the stock-room containing the coffins and other supplies, the cold storage area where the bodies reposed in drawers like those of a big filing cabinet, and adjoining it was the embalming suite where I was to work.

It was a light room lined with white tiles and smelled of the geranium disinfectant Aunt Ninfa endorsed. On either side there was a sloping metal table with a sink at its foot, and rubber hoses wound neatly in coils were fixed to the walls.

There was a trolley with rows of surgical implements arranged on it, and between the tables was a bank of giant containers filled with bright pink fluid.

We put on green overalls—I borrowed one of the signora’s, which swamped me (soon I would have my very own ones with my name embroidered in black letters over the breast pocket, “Freda Castro”) and white rubber boots (fortunately our feet were the same size).Then we wheeled Signora Fortuna out of refrigeration and slid her onto the metal table.

She had died the previous day of natural causes—in fact, according to her date of birth, Signora Fortuna was one hundred and eleven years old—and to me she looked just as if she were asleep. Except, of course, that she was too still and too quiet, and her tiny body had no living presence anymore.

She was like a very old, shrunken, wrinkled, and slightly bald-ing doll.

We removed Signora Fortuna’s nightgown, and sponged her down with germicide. She looked very vulnerable, lying there naked, and I felt a bit embarrassed for her, but I hoped she knew she was in safe hands.

I didn’t feel the least bit squeamish—indeed I was fascinated—as Signora Pompi explained everything to me as she went along. First she took a scalpel and made incisions on the right side of Signora Fortuna’s neck: in the carotid artery and the jugular vein. Then she inserted two tubes—one to pump in the embalming fluid—and the other to allow the blood gathered inside the body to drain out.

As I watched I could see the veins plumping up with the pink fluid, giving Signora Fortuna a healthy rosiness in place of her former pallor. When the veins in her baby feet started to swell, we knew we had inserted enough fluid, and stopped the pump. At the same time, the blood flowed out from the other tube and was collected in a drum for disposal.

Then Signora Pompi stitched up the incisions she had made with the precision of a surgeon, and also put a stitch in Signora Fortuna’s mouth to keep it closed.

“It’s very important to get the lips to meet naturally,” she said. “We can’t have her scowling at the relatives.” The next step was to give her a thorough wash with soapy water, clean her fingernails, and shampoo her hair. Signora Pompi allowed me to blow-dry it, and I did my best to fluff it up and make it look like it did in the photograph the family had given us, although I think a lot of it had fallen out since the picture was taken.

Then we dressed Signora Fortuna in her winter underwear, stockings, and her tiny wedding dress—yellowed now with age—and the satin slippers she had last worn as a bride, back in 1872.

Finally Signora Pompi made up her face with special mor-tuary cosmetics—powder, rouge, and lipstick, taking care to make her look as lifelike as possible.

“I’d say she doesn’t look a day over seventy-five,” said Signora Pompi with pride, standing back to admire the effect of her work. And I have to say I think Signora Fortuna looked even better dead than she had alive.

At last she was ready to be placed in the deluxe
Ultima
Cena
coffin her sons had selected, the final adjustments were made, and she was wheeled through to the chapel of rest to receive visits from her relatives and friends.