History (59 page)

The second event was, in August, the grandfather's death. On one of those torrid nights, the old man, on his own initiative, lowering himself from the cot in the kitchen, had lain down on the fl perhaps to feel cooler. And in the morning he was still stretched out there, grumbling to himself, paying no attention to the line of ants marching across his half naked body. The fi to enter the kitchen, waking at dawn, had been Useppe. Amazed, staring at the old man, he had tried off him the basin to spit in, the chair, the fl of wine. But the old man answered only with insistent muttering, in a tone of refusal, nor would he get up again. From the kitchen that same morning he was transferred to the hospital, whence, a little later, he was carried, dead, directly to the graveyard and emptied into the common paupers' grave. Useppe, who asked where he had gone, was told by Annita that he had returned to the mountains; and at this reply, Useppe stood there puzzled, imagining that emaciated old man, naked, covered with ants, and without even his cioce on his feet, climbing up amid the notorious dust cloud. After that, however, Useppe asked no more about him.

Ida, meanwhile, after the inevitable confusion in all public services, had resumed collecting her salary from the Bursary in bank notes of a new kind, known as am-lire. But also with these am-lire it was hard for her to manage meals every day; stealing, however, was out of the question for her from now on. Her old school building, there in Testaccio, requisitioned by the armed forces, had been occupied by a unit of South Africans, who every now and then gave Tommaso Marrocco the leftovers from their mess, in exchange for some err And then it happened that Ida, through Tommaso, found a job there : giving Italian lessons to a member of that unit. Never having taught an adult before, Ida was quite scared at the trial; but at fi she believed a South African would be a black-skinned man, and this fact, for some unknown reason, she found more reassuring. Instead, she found herself facing a white man, blond, with freckles; he spoke very little, in an incomprehensible language, and had rather rough

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manners, somewhat like a recruiting sergeant. He was heavy and square, and slow to understand; but here, I believe, the fault lay more with the teacher, who in that lesson hour, gasped and stammered, fi with embar rassment, looking like an idiot. The lessons were held in the school build ing, in an airy room on the ground fl formerly the gymnasium; and in payment Ida received some little bags of powdered soup, cans of corned beef, etc. The job ended in late summer, when the South African was transferred towards Florence; and this remained, from then on, Ida's only connection with the victors.

Of Giovannino, there had still been no news. And so Ida, at the end of summer, was still occupying, with Useppe, the little room in Via Mastro Giorgio. Here one afternoon, late in September, there was an unexpected visitor: Carlo.

He turned up looking for Nino, declaring that the latter had been in Rome for some days now, though without a specifi address. And Carlo had hoped to fi here, at least, some idea of how to trace him; but on realizing that nobody in the house knew anything, he didn't conceal his own impatience to leave promptly, announcing in a grumble that he had to catch the train back to Naples before evening.

Still, in the face of Ida's anxiety and the others' consideration, to leave so abruptly must have seemed too rude to him. And when invited, he sat down awkwardly at the work table, where they promptly served him some white Frascati wine. Running from the little room, Useppe, on recognizing him, had shouted at him joyfully : Carlo! Carlo! and Ida, stammering in her surprise, had introduced him to the others : "Signor Carlo Vivaldi." But as he sat down, he announced with a stem, brusque manner, as if all should have known it already:

"My name is DAVIDE SEGRE."

In the room, besides Ida and Useppe and the women of the house and the
piccinina,
there were Consolata and two other lady acquaintances plus an elderly little man, a family friend, who was a news-vendor by profession. Ida would have liked to ask the guest a hundred questions, but his usual mien, sullen and shy, checked her. Further, she was ashamed that Nino had left her in the dark, so uninformed that she, his own mother, had to ask news of an outsider.

He who once had been called Carlo, then Pyotr, and now Davide, sat uneasily amid the little domestic throng. Th present, having already heard Ida speak of him, had immediately identifi him as that famous partisan, companion of the hero:c Ninnuzzu, who had crossed the lines with him. And consequently, they treated him as a guest of supreme worth, all excited at his presence. But these honors seemed to embarr him still more, indeed to irk him and make him gloomy.

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At that time, he was much the same as in the past; however, he somehow seemed more of a boy than in the Pietralata days. He wore a freshly laundered white polo shirt, over pants which were, on the contrary, incredibly fi hy, of blue denim, like a sailor's. And though shaven, and with his hair cut nice and short in his old style, he had a neglected look in his face, in all his body, as if he had let himself go. His nails were black with dirt, and his feet were fi in his worn sandals. Though Ida intro duced him with the title of "Signor," he looked more like a gypsy or a proletarian. And the intense sadness of his dark eyes seemed to drown in an inner stubbornness, almost desperate, like an incurable, brooding ob session.

He looked at no one; and between sips of wine, instead of setting down the glass, he clutched it in his nervous hands and stared into it, seeming more interested in the bottom of a glass than in his own peers. When someone urged him to tell something of his adventures, he an swered only with a shrug of one shoulder, and a crooked smile. He was, clearly, very timid; but there was also something arrogant about his silence, as if he refused all conversation to avenge the civil obligation that had led him, against his will, to stay here in company. The center of general curios ity and consideration, he behaved exactly like a deaf-mute. Only when Consolata and the Marrocco women inevitably began expounding to him the crucial problem of their missing men, he raised his eyes for a moment, and with a snap of his jaws, he said, gravely and brutally absolute:

"They'll never come back."

All were silent. And then the news-vendor, to distract the women a bit from the terrible shock, promptly changed the subject to Santina, who had promised to come to read the cards right after dinner, and instead was keeping them waiting. On this subject, the little man, assuming a light tone, began making easy guesses about the business that might be keeping Santi explaining her delay. And he didn't use vague terms, but quite precise ones, enriched with obscene allusions, aiming at a comical eff

The young man named Davide didn't seem any more interested in this subject than in the previous ones. When Santina appeared at the door a few minutes later, however, he, who till then had paid no attention to anyone, accompanied her with his eyes as she came towards the table with heavy steps. And he went on watching her, beneath his slightly lowered lashes, even after she had taken her seat, fi herself almost opposite him. Thanks to the horde of soldiers old and young, who weren't choosy, and who poured into Rome in those months from every continent, Santina was now enjoying some good fortune, compared to her usual lot, and she had had her long, partly gray hair waved by a hairdresser; but otherwise she hadn't changed. Nobody bothered to introduce her to Davide; nor did she

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seem to notice those black eyes observing her with an obstinate wildness. But when her ruined, washerwoman's hands, heavy and gnarled, were about to shuffi the cards lent her by Annita, Davide stood up, announc ing fi :

"I have to go."

Then, addressing her at once, he suggested, or rather he almost ordered her, bullying, though he blushed like a little boy :

"Please, will you come down with me? There's still an hour and a half before my train.
Afterwards,
you can come back here for the cards."

He had spoken without ambigui ty, but there was no lack of respect in his tone; indeed, in his fi words, he almost seemed to be asking charity. Santina's backward, docile eyes barely moved in his direction; she gave a little, hesitant smile, showing the incisor's gap in her upper gum.

"Go on, go with tire gentleman; we'll wait for you," the news-vendor encouraged her, with a cordial, slightly malicious festiveness. "We'll wait for you here. Take your time."

She followed the young man simply. When the sound of their paired footsteps disappeared down the steps, in the workroom there were various comments, but all, more or less, harping on the main theme "such a handsome boy, going off with that old tramp!!"

Meanwhile the old tramp was leading this unexpected customer to her ground-level room on the edge of the Via Portuense, not far from Porta Portese. It was at the bottom of a solid, isolated building, with two stori over the ground fl ( these upper stories seemed to have been added more recently, though they were already in bad shape and decaying) at the end of a vacant lot, without cobbles, beyond some huts with gar dens. You entered the place directly from the street, through a narrow door without nameplate or bell, and the interior, a single damp little room, looked out onto a kind of garbage dump, visible through a barred window, which, however, was always hidden by a curtain. On the same side as the window, there was
a
wooden bed, not very broad, guarded by two holy pictures : one was the usual, repeated image of the Sacred Heart, and the other the fi of a village saint, with bishop's crook and vestments, and a halo around his miter. The bed was covered by a piece of reddish cotton damask, and at its side there was a cheap little Oriental-style rug, worn almost to the nap.

The rest of the furn consisted of an armchair with half the springs showing and a little table bearing a celluloid doll dressed in tulle, a small frying pan, and an electric hot plate. Under the table, there was a big fiber suitcase, which served also as wardrobe, and above, hanging on the wall, there was a little cupboard.

In one corner of the room there was a curtain of the same fl

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and stri materi as the one at the window, and equally worn. Behind it there was a small tin-plate washstand with jug, basin, and bucket, a very clean towel hanging from a nail, and on the fl even a bidet, also of tin plate.

The latrine, shared with the other tenants of the upper fl (on the ground fl Santina was the sole inhabitant), was in the little courtyard inside the main entrance. To reach it, you had to come out of the room on the street and go around the building to the front door. In any event, in the little room, under the bed there was a urinal, which could also be emptied directly into the street.

Santina didn't undress, taking off only her shoes before lying down under the cover beside Davide, who had already stripped naked. They stayed together about an hour, and in that hour he released himself in an animal aggressiveness, greedy, almost frantic. At the moment of goodbyes, however, he looked at Santina shyly again, with a kind of tender gratitude, whereas for that whole hour he had avoided looking at her, turning his gri and lonely eyes elsewhere in the fury of his body. He gave her all the ( little) money he had, digging it from the pocket of his trousers (where he also had his Naples-Rome round-trip ticket ); and piling it up in her hand, the bills all crumpled like waste paper, he apologized to her, ashamed that he couldn't pay her better. But then, realizing it was late, he had to ask her to give him back some change for the tram to the station. And this request made him blush, mortifi as if at a guilt diffi to pardon; while San ti at this little exchange, seemed to apologize in turn, her eyes obedient and dazed, because really the money received from him (however little) was more than twice her usual rate.

In any case, he hastened to inform her that, after the liberation of the North, he would have a lot more money than now, so he would be able to pay her much better. Meanwhile, with what money he could scrape up at present, every time he came to Rome he would visit her.

She accompanied him to the tram stop, afraid that, unfamiliar with the neighborhood, he might get lost. Then, with the weight of her mauled and patient body, she went back up to the Marroccos; while he, jolted in the crowded tram, pushed his way forward, nerv as a wrestler without style.

The reappearance of Carlo-Davide, like a dispatch-ri er, preceded Nino's only by a little. Barely two days later, just after dinner, Ninnari pre sented himself at the Marrocco home; and his visit was the opposite of Davide's, though equally brief.

Since on the door of the house there was the nameplate MAR-

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ROCCO, even before knocking, he called excitedly: "Useppe! Useppe!!" As chance would have it, however, Useppe, since it was a beautiful sunny day, had gone out with Annita. On learning this, Nino was disappointed, especially since he couldn't stay long. He had brought his little brother some bars of American chocolate, and he put them there on the shelf, with an irked expression. 1l1en Filomena promptly dispatched the
piccinina
to recover the pair, who for that matter couldn't have gone far: they had probably stopped at the little garden in Piazza Santa Maria Liberatrice. But, after a speedy disappearance below, the
piccinina
reappeared running, in such a hurry she seemed to be gulping the air: she had looked for the two of them in the garden and in the square, but hadn't found them. To tell the truth, she had carried out the errand reluctantly, eager not to, lose a spark of this new and dazzling guest. Never, except perhaps among movie heroes, had she seen such a sensational fi