History (27 page)

And in his overfl happiness and desire to play, Ninnarieddu took his little brother off to one side. First of all, he immediately taught him a new word :
whore.
And he laughed blissfully at the readiness with which Useppe learned to say it, naturally in his own way: ho. Now, seeing Nin narieddu's unfailing amusement whenever it was repeated, Useppe re mained convinced that the word was, in itself, comical; so afterwards, every time he said ho, he already laughed madly, on his own.

After this, as a secret between the two of them, his brother announced the marvelous news that he would soon take him out on a bicycle ri all over Rome: because in two, or at most three days, he was sure he would own a racing bike, which had been promised him as a present. And leaving this divine promise with Useppe as a pledge, he disappeared again in his wealth and splendor, like genies in tales.

But his promise of the bicycle was not kept. After staying away an other two days and three nights, he returned on foot, at an incredible hour-about six in the morning!-when Useppe was sound asleep, and Iduzza, just up, still in gown and robe, was at the stove cooking some greens for the midday meal. As usual, he was followed by Blitz, who, however, seemed unusually depressed, and so hungry that he even took advantage of a cold cabbage stalk found under the kitchen table. Nino himself, even in his same new clothes, seemed poor, dirty, and disheveled, as if he had slept under a bridge. On his very pale face and on the back of his hand, he had some raw, violent scratches. And without even stepping into the rooms, the moment he arrived he sat on the chest in the entrance, where he remained, frowning and silent, as if under a malediction.

To Ida's excited questioning, he answered : "Leave me alone!" in such a grim and peremptory manner that his mother was dissuaded from insist ing. More than an hour and a half later, when she went out, he was still there, in the same position as before, with Blitz sleeping in wretched repose at his feet.

The night had been interrupted by air-raid alarms, more threatening with the approach of spring; and Useppe, less of an early riser than on other days, woke up after eight. Something in the air alerted him to a stuprise (in which there flashed, among other things, the vision of a bicycle ride); and promptly, with a daredevil feat, which he now, however, could perform expertly, he lowered himself, on his own, from his cot. A moment later, he appeared at the entrance, and at the sight of Nino sitting there on the chest, he immediately rushed towards him. But Ninnarieddu shouted

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"Leave me alone!" with such raging brutality that it froze Useppe halfway in his dash.

This was the fi time, in the twenty months and more of their community, that his brother had treated him badly. And though Blitz moving at once to greet him, did his best to cheer him with rasping licks and fanning tail, Useppe remained numb in his amazement, breathless, glued to the spot. With a bitter gravity on his face, and all fi with a strange solemnity; as if confronted by an absolute and undecipherable decree of fate.

Nino, in driving him away, naturally took a glance at him; and the sight of his person, even in that tragic dawn, produced instantaneously a comical effect. The fact was that, in the already warm spring weather, Useppe wore at night only a little woolen undershirt, so short that it barely covered him to the waist, leaving him, from the belly down, completely nude in front and behind. This, on his rising, was the costume in which he found himself; and if no one bothered to dress him, he remained in it throughout the morning and perhaps even for the rest of the day. In his innocence, however, he went around the house like that, with the same naturalness and nonchalance as if he were clothed.

But on the present occasion, his simplicity of dress contrasted so curi ously with the extreme gravity of his face that Nino, as soon as he glimpsed him, burst into irresistible laughter. And, at his laughter, as if at a liberat· ing signal, Useppe immediately ran to him, all joyful, in a return of total faith. "Hey, leave me alone!" Nino warned him again, resuming his thug's look; but all the same, to please him, he gave Useppe a little kiss on the cheek. Useppe (so content, by now, that he had even forgotten the absent bicycle ) promptly returned another little kiss. And this moment, in the history of their eternal love, remained one of the most cheri memories. After the exchange of little kisses, Nino pushed Useppe away, and

Blitz too; then he stretched out on the chest, falling into a downright sepulchral sleep. He woke towards noon, still with the same gri pallor, as if a revolting taste had remained in his throat, and he could neither spit it out nor swallow it. And when Useppe came again to greet him, Nino, his face dark and frowning, taught him a new word :
bitch,
which Useppe promptly learned with his usual bravura. But not even this new didactic success suffi ed, today, to brighten Nino's gloomy expression; so afterwards, whenever Useppe said
bits,
he assumed a suitable gravity.

Until nearly the end of the week (also because he didn't enjoy being seen outside so disfi by scratches ), Ninnari for the fi time in his life perhaps, spent most of his hours in the house, both day and night. But his mood, in becoming domestic, had become at the same time unusu-

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ally sulky. Even towards food he showed a glum indifference, since his hunger was also spoiled by his black humor. And almost constantly he chose to be alone, locking himself into his room, which was also the family living room; so Useppe and Blitz were forced to release their energies in the few confi rooms of the rest of the house. Being unable to smoke unhinged Nino's reason, until the wretched lduzza, rather than see him go mad, forswore her oath and gave him money for some cigarettes, even at black-market prices. But those few were not enough for him; and to make them last longer he mixed the tobacco with certain surr stinking weeds. Moreover, by the bed in his room he kept some fl of wine, which made him nasty drunk: he would suddenly come out of the door, lumbering, as if on a deck in a storm, shouting insults and obscenities; or else yelling: Death! Death!! Death!!!

Then he strode up and down the hall, saying he would like to squeeze the whole universe into a single face, so he could beat it to a pulp with his fi but if by chance that face was a woman's, after having beaten it with his fi he would then smear it with an ointment of shit. He even had it in for the Duce, for whom he threatened fantastic, but unrepeatable pun ishments. And he went on repeating that, anyway, despite the
cock-s
. . . (sic) Duce and the
assho
. . . etc. of a Fuhrer, he, Nino, would go to the war anyway, to screw both of them up the a . . . He said Rome stank, Italy stank; and the living stank worse than a corp

During these abominable monologues, which she pitifully called his
gutter talk,
the terrifi Iduzza would take refuge in her room, sealing her ears with her palms, not to hear. While, forgotten in the tumult, Useppe would stay in a corner to gaze at his brother with great respect, but with no fear: as if he were facing a volcano too high to strike him with its lava. Or as if he were in the midst of a stupendous storm at sea, through which he was recklessly passing his tiny boat. Every now and then, from his corner, erect and fi with courage, in his little nightshirt, he would remind his brother of his presence, calling him in a faint voice: "ino ino," clearly meaning: "Never fear, I'm keeping you company. I'm not running away." As for the foolish Blitz, it was obvious that the matter, whatever it meant, gave him some pleasure. So long as his chief love didn't remain locked in his room, excluding him from his presence, for Blitz all was

merri

After a while, weighted by the wine's indigestion, Ninnarieddu would sink down to sleep on the daybed, snori to Useppe's supreme admira tion, with a voice that made it seem an airplane was fl around right inside the house.

Because of the scratches, he had to give up shaving for those days : his beard, new and wild, still a half-grown boy's, sprouted irr like

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. . . . . .
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pa tches of dirt. And, to make himself even more disgusting, he didn't even wash or comb his hair. On Sa turday morning, fi he woke up with the scratches reduced to little more than a trace, and he could shave. It was a sunny Saturday, breezy, and you could hear a radio singing a popular song in the courtyard. He washed his hands, ears, armpits, and feet; he wet and combed his curls. He put on a clean white jersey, which was rather tight on him, but at the same time, fully displayed his chest muscles. In front of the mirror, he tested the muscles of his arms and chest; and with great leaps, he started playing lions and tigers, through the room. Then he went back to the mirror, to examine the marks of the scratches, which luckily had become almost invisible. There was, all the same, a brief fl in his eyes. But meanwhile, his face in the mirror pleased him; and in an immense outburst of all his nerves, muscles, breath, he shouted happily:

"Ah, life!! Life! . . . Now we're off into town . . . Rome! Come on, Blitz!"

On leaving, to console Useppe, who was remaining alone, Nino said to him :

"Useppe, come here! You see this sock?"

It was an ordinary dirty sock, which he had dropped there on the fl or: "You see it? Be careful! Stay here and watch it! Not a peep out of you! Don't make a move : you have to stand still and guard it for a minute and a half AT LEAST. You got that? Don't you dare move! And you'll see it turn into a rattlesnake, that moves and rattles : ta-tum-ta-tum! Tum tum!"

Filled with extraordinary faith, Useppe stood for some time by the sock, waiting for the apparition of the marvelous creature; but it failed to materialize. Life's disappointments. Similarly, there was no further talk of the bicycle. However, one of those days, Nino brought home instead a half broken wind-up phonograph ( the previous similar machine, his former property, had been traded for cigarettes) with a single worn record, which still continued to play, as best it could, its sentimental little tunes : "The Old Organ-Grinder" and "Illusion, My Sweet Dream" . . . repeating them by incessant request during the hours Nino was in the house, an average of twenty performances a day. For Useppe, it was a sublime por tent, no less than the rattlesnake. But on the third day, its now sexless voice, its enunciation incomprehensible, sounded more pained than usual; and with a jerk it died, in the midst of a song. Nino ascert there
was
no remedy for the phonograph; it was broken. He put it on the floor, near the wall, and, after giving it a kick, left it there.

Another time, one afternoon, Nino brought up on a visit a casual girl of his, met only a short time before; to Useppe she seemed another stupen dous spectacle. She wore a colored dress with roses on it, which rode up

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behind as she walked, showing a second dress, black with lace; and she advanced, calm and shapely, with a distorted gait because of her ortho pedic soles. On her hands she had as many dimples as she had fi her nails were a cherry red, her eyes starry, and her mouth perfectly round, small, of dark carmine. She had a slow, singsong voice and, speaking, at every cadence of that voice, she would sway. On entering, she said :

"Say, what a cute kid. Who does he belong to?" "He's my brother. And this is my dog."

"Aaaah! What's your name, kid?" "Useppe."

"Ah, Giuseppe, right? Giuseppe!"

"No," Nino spoke, with frowning absolutism, "his name really is USEPPE, just like he said!"

". . . ? Us . . . I thought it was diff . . . You mean he's really Useppe? What kind of name would that be?"

"We like it."

"It sounds funny to me . . . GIUseppe, sure, but Useppe . . .

Useppe doesn't sound like a real name to mel" "That's because you're a dimwit."

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As the fi weather progressed, the air raids on the I talian cities that year multiplied, gradually more furi and the military bulletins, though they feigned optimism, reported destru and massacre every day. Rome still was spared; but the people, un

nerv by now and frightened at the strange talk that circulated everywhere, began to feel less secure. The wealthy families had moved to the country; and those remaining ( the great crowd ), meeting one another in the street, on trams, in offi peered into one another's faces, even strangers, all with the same absurd question in their eyes.

In some part of Ida's mind, not clear to her reason, there was in that period a little, brutal shift, which made her morbidly sensitive to the alarms (which had previously seemed usual, indifferent to her), suddenly rousing in her an almost impossible reserv of energy. For the rest, her life of scholastic and domestic toil dragged on the same as before, in a kind of negative ecstasy. But at the fi cry of the siren, she was immediately seized by a confused panic, like a machine plunging down a slope, out of gear. And whether she was awake or asleep, at whatever moment, she would rush to fasten on her corset ( where she still kept her savings); and taking Useppe in her arms, with an unnatural nerv strength, she would