Her Husband (9 page)

For more than four years he hadn’t seen his mother, that is, since they had transferred him to Taranto. How many things had happened in those four years, and how changed he felt now that the imminent arrival of his mother reminded him of his former life with her, of the humble and saintly affection rigorously maintained, of the simple life he had been torn from, because of so many unforeseen events!

That quiet, solitary life amid the snows and green meadows singing with water, among the chestnut trees of his Cargiore watched over by the perennial rumbling of the Sangone River. Those affections, those thoughts he would soon embrace again in his mother, but with an uneasy conscience.

When he married Silvia he had hidden from his mother the fact that she was a writer. Instead, he had written lengthy letters about
her qualities that his mother could better accept. All true, however. But that was exactly why the uneasiness he now felt was all the more prickly, because it was he who had encouraged his wife to neglect those good qualities, and if Silvia’s book was now making the leap to the stage, it was he who had pushed it. His mother would realize it when she saw Silvia, forlorn and in need only of maternal care, unmindful of anything not directly concerned with her pitiful condition. He, instead, would be at the theater with the actors, busily involved with the concerns of opening night.

It’s true he was no longer a boy. By now he should be able to manage his own affairs. Besides, he saw nothing wrong in what he was doing. But because he had always been a good son, obedient and submissive to his good mamma’s way of thinking and feeling, he was troubled by the thought of her disapproval, of doing anything to displease her. It bothered him even more to think that the saintly little old woman, traveling such a distance to be a loving help to her daughter-in-law, would in no way show her disapproval or express the slightest criticism.

Many people were also waiting for the Turin train, already late. To divert himself from these troublesome thoughts, he walked up and down the platform, forcing himself to read the English grammar, but at every train whistle he turned or stopped.

The arrival of the train was finally announced. The considerable crowd watched as it entered the station puffing noisily. The first windows opened. People ran in various states of anxiety from one carriage to the other.

“There she is!” Giustino said, growing cheerful, and he threw himself into the crowd in order to get to one of the last second-class carriages, from which appeared the bewildered head of a pale old woman dressed in black. “Mamma! Mamma!”

She turned, raised a hand, and smiled at him with her black, intense eyes whose vivacity contrasted with the paleness of a face already withered by the years.

The joy of seeing her son again was a refuge for little Signora Velia
from the confusion that had oppressed her during the long journey, and from the many new impressions colliding tumultuously in her tired mind, closed and limited by the endless years of the same routine in her sheltered, monotonous life.

As though dazed, she responded to her son in monosyllables. Among so many people and such confusion, he seemed different to her; even the sound of his voice, his expression, his whole appearance seemed changed. And Giustino had the same impression of his mother. They both felt as if something between them had loosened, separated: the natural intimacy that had once kept them from seeing each other as they saw each other now, no longer one being, but two, not different, but separate. And hadn’t he in fact been nurtured far from her–his mother was thinking–by a life she knew nothing about? And didn’t he now have another woman at his side whom she didn’t know and who surely had to be dearer to him than
she
was? But when his mother was finally alone with him in the carriage and saw that the luggage and bundle she had brought with her were safe, she felt relieved and comforted.

“How is your wife?” she then asked, revealing in the tone of her voice and expression that she was in awe of her.

“She’s anxious to see you,” Giustino replied. “She suffers a lot. . . .”

“Oh, poor thing . . .” Signora Velia sighed, closing her eyes. “I’m afraid there is little . . . little I can do . . . because maybe for her … I won’t be . . .”

“What do you mean!” Giustino interrupted. “Get those notions out of your head, Mamma! You’ll see how good she is.”

“I’m sure she is, I know she is,” Signora Velia said quickly. “I’m talking about myself. . . .”

“Because you imagine that someone who writes,” added Giustino, “naturally has to be pretentious? Vain? Not at all! You’ll see. In fact, she is too . . . too modest . . . That’s what is driving me crazy! And then, in her condition . . . Come on, Mammina, she’s just like you, you know? No different.”

The old woman nodded her head in assent. Those words wounded
her heart. She was the mother, and another woman, now, for her son was
like her, no different
. But she agreed. She agreed with a nod of her head.

“I do everything!” continued Giustino. “I make the deals. Besides in Rome, oh, my dear Mamma . . . it’s impossible! Everything’s twice the price . . . you can’t even imagine! And if I didn’t help out in every possible way . . . She works at home. I make her work pay outside.”

“And . . . it pays?” his mother timidly asked, trying to shield the glare from her eyes.

“Because I’m the one who makes it pay!” answered Giustino. “My work, no doubt about it! It’s me .. . all my work … What she does … yes, nothing, it would be like nothing . . . because the thing . . . literature, understand? is something that . .. you can do or not do, according to the day. Today you get an idea, you know how to write, so you write it. What does it cost you? Nothing! Literature is nothing in itself. It produces nothing, it wouldn’t pay if it weren’t . . . if it weren’t . . . yes, if it weren’t for me, that’s all there is to it! I do everything. And if she’s known now all over Italy . . .”

“Bravo, bravo.” Signora Velia attempted to interrupt him. Then she ventured: “Is she known in our parts, too?”

“Even outside Italy!” exclaimed Giustino. “I have dealings with France! With France, Germany, Spain. Now I’m starting to deal with England! See? I’m studying English. But England is serious business! Take last year. How much? Eight thousand five hundred forty-five lire. Between the original and translations. More, with the translations.”

“So much!” exclaimed Signora Velia, falling back in amazement.

“That’s nothing!” Giustino laughed scornfully. “You make me laugh. If you knew how much they earn in America, in England! Five hundred lire, like nothing. But this year, who knows!”

Instead of toning things down, he now felt compelled to exaggerate out of irritation at what he pretended to himself was his mother’s lack of savvy, though it really came from his inner discomfort, his remorse.

His mother looked at him and immediately lowered her eyes.

Oh, my, how her poor son had become involved with his wife’s activity!
What earnings he dreamed of! He hadn’t asked anything about their town, just barely asked about her health and if she’d had a good trip. She sighed and said, as though returning from a long distance: “Graziella sends her greetings, you know?”

“Good, good!” Giustino exclaimed. “Is my old nurse well?”

“She’s starting to lose her memory, like me,” was his mother’s reply. “But, you know, she’s dependable. Prever also sends his best.”

“Still crazy?” asked Giustino.

“As always,” the old woman said with a smile.

“Does he still want to marry you?”

Signora Velia waved a hand, as if to brush away a fly. She smiled and repeated: “Crazy … crazy … Did you know we already have snow at Cargiore? Snow on Roccia Vrè and Rubinett!”

“If all goes well,” said Giustino, “after the baby comes, maybe Silvia will go to Cargiore and be with you for a few months.”

“Up there, with the snow?” his mother asked with concern.

“She’ll like it. She’s never seen snow,” exclaimed Giustino. “I may have to go away on business…. We’ll talk more about this later. You’ll see how soon you’ll get along with Silvia. Poor thing, she was raised without a mother.”

It happened as he had predicted.

From the first moment she saw her, Signora Velia read in Silvia’s sorrowful eyes the desire to be loved like a daughter, and Silvia read in the mother’s eyes the fear and pain of feeling that with nothing more than her simple affection, she wasn’t up to the task her son had assigned her. Immediately the mother hastened to satisfy that desire in Silvia and Silvia to remove that fear in the mother.

“I imagined you just as you are!” Silvia said with her eyes full of affectionate and tender reverence. “It’s strange! … I feel I’ve always known you.”

“There’s nothing here!” replied Signora Velia, tapping her forehead. “But in my heart, yes, daughter, as much as you want.”

“Hurrah for the simple things of life!” exclaimed Signor Ippolito, relieved finally to find a nice little old-fashioned woman. “Heart, heart, yes, well said, Signora! It takes heart and damn the head! You’re the mamma, perform a miracle! Take the bellows out of your son’s hands!”

“The bellows?” asked Signora Velia, puzzled, and looking at Giustino’s hands.

“Yes, Signora, the bellows,” replied Signor Ippolito. “A bellows he sticks in the ear of this poor girl, and blows and blows and blows till her head is this big!”

“Poor Giustino!” said Silvia with a smile, turning to her mother-in-law. “Pay no attention to him.”

Giustino snickered like a snail in the fire.

“Go on! The woman understands me!” continued Uncle Ippolito. “It’s lucky, my dear signora, that this little fool doesn’t fly into the air! She, too, has heart, and it’s solid, you know? If she didn’t at this time . . . Her brain would sail like a ball . . . into the clouds . . . if there wasn’t a little ballast in the boat of her heart. I don’t write, don’t worry, but I speak well when I get started. And my niece steals my images. All tomfoolery!”

With a shrug he went to smoke in the study.

“A bit cuckoo, but a good man,” Silvia said to reassure the startled old woman. “He can’t stand for Giustino . . .”

“I’ve already told Mamma!” he interrupted in annoyance. “I do everything. He smokes, and I think about earning money! After all, we’re in Rome. Listen, Silvia: let Mamma rest now–we’ll eat later. I have to dash off to the rehearsal. You know every minute is precious. Oh, yes, by the way, I meant to tell you that Signora Carmi . . .”

“Oh, dear, no, Giustino!” Silvia begged. “Don’t tell me anything today, for pity’s sake!”

“Eight! nine! ten!” exploded Giustino, finally losing his patience. “All on my back! Well, all right … I have to tell you, my dear! You can get over all your aggravation in one fell swoop, by receiving Signora Carmi.”

“But how can I, in my condition?” Silvia asked. “Tell him, Mamma . . .”

“What does Mamma know about it!” exclaimed Giustino, more irritated than ever. “What is she? Isn’t Signora Carmi a woman like you? She has a husband and children, too. An actress . . . Of course! If the play is to be performed it must have actresses! You can’t go to the theater to help with the rehearsals. So I go: I have taken care of everything. But you should understand that if she wants to clarify something about her role, she has to ask you. But you won’t receive her–you won’t even talk to me about it! What can I do?”

“Later, later,” Silvia said, to end the discussion. “Let me think about Mamma now.”

Giustino rushed off in a fury.

He was so occupied with the imminent battle that he hadn’t noticed his wife’s aggravation every time he turned to the subject of the play.

Really bad timing that
The New Colony
had to be staged just while Silvia was in this condition. Giustino had miscalculated the months: he had figured that his wife would be free by October, but instead . . .

The Carmi-Revelli Company, engaging the Valle for just that month, was especially relying on
The New Colony
, which had been hot news for several months.

Claudio Revelli, director and actor, heartily detested Italian drama, as did all his fellow directors and actors. But during these months of preparation, helped by all of those who, to his satisfaction, had begun to enjoy it, Giustino Boggiolo was able to make such a fuss around that play that its opening was now awaited as a great artistic event, and promised to bring in almost as much profit as a vulgar little Parisian farce. Therefore, Revelli thought he could give in this once to the ardent and eager wishes of his associate and leading lady of the company, Signora Laura Carmi, who displayed a passionate predilection for Italian playwrights, as well as a deep dislike for all the scheduling concerns. She didn’t want to hear about postponing the first performance of the play until November in Naples, because by doing so they might lose their priority in the theater at Rome. Another company, now performing in Bologna and waiting for the go-ahead from Rome to present their play, might take their place immediately, and
after the reactions of the audience in Bologna, bring a newly revised play to Rome in December.

Therefore, Giustino really couldn’t spare his wife these worries.

Silvia had suffered a great deal during the summer. Signora Ely Faciolli had begged her to take a vacation with her at Catino, near Farfa. She had sent several affectionate letters and postcards from there, inviting Silvia to join her. Not only did Silvia not want to move from Rome, but she did not even want to leave the house, feeling disgusted, and even ashamed, of her unsightliness, almost seeing it as a sordid and cruel mockery of nature.

“You are right, child!” Uncle Ippolito said to her. “Nature is a lot kinder to hens. An egg and maternal warmth.”

“Oh, really!” grumbled Giustino. “A human chick has to be born, in fact . . .”

“But from the she-ass, dear boy! Should a human being be born from a she-ass? Do you think it’s nice to treat a woman like an ass?”

Silvia smiled wanly. Thank goodness her uncle was in the house. His sporadic rockets shook her out of her torpor, from the stupidity into which she felt she had fallen.

Under the weight of such an oppressive reality, she felt a deep disgust these days with everything in the art field that is essentially, like life itself, banal. Even her own work seemed false and disgusting to her–work so often violated by life’s sudden eruptions, as if by gusts of wind and impetuous waves. Eruptions that sometimes worked against the logic of her concept.

And the play?

She forced herself not to think about it so as not to upset herself. But from time to time the rawness of certain scenes gripped her and left her breathless. That play now seemed monstrous to her.

She had imagined a very fertile little island in the Ionian Sea, once a penal colony, abandoned after a disastrous earthquake that had reduced the little city there to a pile of rubble. After the few survivors cleared out, it had remained deserted for years, probably destined to disappear one day into the sea. That is the play’s setting.

A first colony of sailors from Otranto, rough and primitive, has secretly gone to settle in the ruins in spite of the terrible threat of another earthquake that hangs over the island. They live there outside all law, almost outside time. Only one woman is with them, Spera, a woman with a doubtful past, but now honored like a queen, venerated like a saint, and ferociously protected by the man who brought her, a certain Currao, who has become the leader of the colony for that reason alone. But Currao is also the strongest, and because of his power over everyone, keeps the woman to himself, who in that new life has become another person. She has returned to her natural state of goodness, looks after the fires, comforts and cares for everyone, and has given Currao a son that he adores.

But, one day, one of those sailors, Currao’s most ardent rival, whom Currao surprised and subdued in the act of raping Spera, disappears from the island. Perhaps he threw himself into the sea on a plank. Perhaps he swam to a ship passing in the distance.

Sometime later a new colony disembarks on the island, led by the runaway. However, the other sailors bring their own women, mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters. When the men of the first colony under Currao’s command see this, they stop fighting the newcomers. Currao is isolated, suddenly bereft of his power. Spera immediately appears to all of them to be what she was before. But she is not as sorry for herself as she is for Currao. She can tell that he who was at first so proud of her is now ashamed, and she bears his contempt quietly. In the end Spera realizes that Currao, in order to hold up his head and keep the respect of the others, is thinking of leaving her. Some young sailors, the same men who had in vain yearned for her so ardently, come to tell her mockingly that he no longer cares for her because he has taken up with Mita, the daughter of an old sailor, Padron Dodo, who serves as the head of the new colony. When Spera hears this, she takes their son, hoping in this way to have a hold over the man who has spurned her. But old Padron Dodo will not agree to the marriage unless Currao brings the boy with him. Spera pleads, begs, turns to the others to intervene. No one pays any attention to her. Then she goes to plead with the old man
and the bride, but they insist her son should remain with his father. Mita assures her that the boy will be well cared for. Spera, desperately wanting to keep her son, and wanting to break the heart of the man who abandoned her, embraces her child in a mad, screaming rage, and in that terrible embrace suffocates him. Stones fall after that scream, and others fall lugubriously in the horrible silence following the crime. Other screams are heard in the distance. Spera lives on top of a hill, in the ruins of a house that had collapsed at the time of the first disaster. Now she wonders if she didn’t make those stones fall with her scream of horror. No, no, it’s the earth! It’s the earth! She jumps to her feet. Everyone is shrieking, overcome by terror, some flee, saved from disaster. The earth has opened up! The earth has caved in! Spera hears herself calling her son’s name with heartrending cries from the side of the hill; she staggers about with the others, leans over to look down, horrified, and into the clamor coming from below, she shouts:

“Did it open under your feet? Did it half-swallow you? Your son? Because of you I killed him with my own hands. Die, die and be damned to hell!”

What impression would this play make? Silvia closed her eyes and saw the theater and the audience flash before her and was terrified. No! No! She had written it for herself! When she wrote it she wasn’t thinking about the audience that would now see, hear, judge it. She had seen those characters and scenes on paper as she had written them down, translating her inner vision with the utmost fidelity. How would they make the leap from paper to the stage? With what voice? What gestures? What impression would those live words and real actions make on the boards, in front of the cardboard scenery in a fictitious and artificial reality?

“Come see,” Giustino had advised her. “You don’t even need to go on the stage. You can watch the rehearsals from the orchestra or a box near the stage. No one is better suited to judge, advise, or suggest than you.”

Silvia was tempted to go, but then, about to leave, had felt her strength and spirit weaken. She was afraid that the excessive emotion would harm that other being living in her womb. How could she appear
in that condition? How could she talk to the actors? No, no, it would be torture.

“At least tell me, how are they doing?” she asked her husband. “Do you think they understand their roles?”

Giustino, returning from the rehearsals, eyes bright and face red as though slapped, would snort, raise his hands angrily: “They don’t understand a thing!”

Giustino was dejected. That dark stage impregnated with mildew and damp dust, those stagehands hammering on the canvas, nailing together the scenery for the evening’s performance, all the gossip and pettiness and laziness and indifference of the actors clustered around in groups, that prompter in the prompt box in his skullcap, the script before him full of cuts and additions, the director, always surly and impolite, sitting near the prompt box, that man sitting at the little table who copied down the parts, and the property man working among the large boxes, sweating and puffing, were the cause of the cruel disappointment exasperating him.

He had photographs of the sailors and inhabitants of Terra d’Otranto sent from Taranto to use as models for the costumes, as well as dresses, shawls, and caps. For the most part, the costumes made a big hit. But some stupid minor actress had declared she didn’t want to disguise herself in those rags. Revelli wanted to skimp on all the “savage” (as he put it) outdoor sets. And Laura Carmi, the leading lady, feigned indignation. Only Signora Carmi was a little bit of comfort to Giustino: she had wanted to read
Stormy Petrel
and
House of Dwarves
to better prepare herself, as she said, for acting her part. And she said she was enthusiastic about the part of Spera: she would make a “creation” of it! But she still didn’t know a word of her part. She would walk past the prompt box and mechanically repeat, like all the others, the lines that the prompter gave her, shouting and giving directions according to the script. Only the character actor Adolfo Grimi was beginning to give some shape to his role as the old Padron Dodo and Revelli to that of Currao. But to Giustino it seemed that they both overdid it somewhat. Grimi performed his part like a baritone. Giustino took him
aside and politely pointed it out, but he couldn’t risk it with Revelli, so he just stewed inwardly. He would have liked to ask different actors how they would make this gesture, how they would utter that phrase. At the third and fourth rehearsals, Revelli, piqued by Signora Carmi’s showy enthusiasm, had begun to rudely interrupt everyone from time to time. Many times he would interrupt for no good reason, just when Giustino thought everything was going well and the scene had begun to warm up and assume a life of its own, gradually triumphing over the actors’ indifference and moving them to add feeling to their voice and gestures. Signora Grassi, for example, who played the role of Mita, had almost started to cry because of one of Revelli’s rude remarks. Confound it! He could at least be a little nicer with the women! Giustino did his utmost to console her.