History (67 page)

At every footstep coming up the stairs, they both raised their eyes at once from their work, in a moment's interruption, each time with a slight start. Then they would lower their eyes again, saying nothing to each other. One day Santina's cards answered that Giovannino was
on the way,

with no further or more precise information. Another day, the
piccinina
arrived, breathless, and said she had seen Giovannino standing in a comer of the landing, on the second fl They all rushed down; there was nobody on the landing. But the
piccinina
insisted hysterically she hadn't made a mistake: it was a man dressed as a soldier, with hob-nailed moun tain boots, and a cloak. He was huddled in the corner between two doors, and, according to her, he had looked at her, frowning and staring, signaling her to say nothing. But how had she recognized him, since she had never seen him before? "He was blond, not very tall!" the
piccinina
answered, "just like him! It was him all right!!"

"Why didn't you talk to him then?" "I was a fraid .
.
.
"

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The father, who was present, shrugged his shoulders; but for the whole day Filomena and Annita kept going down the stairs and coming up again, and looking out of the front door into the street, to see if they could see that soldier. They suspected that Giovannino, for some reason, was angry with the family: perhaps because of his room, which wasn't ready for him . . . occupied by outsiders . . . ? Already in November, Ida had be gun to realize it was time for her to fi a new lodging, and chance came to her aid. A little old woman, a customer of Filomena's ( the same one who, at Nino's fi visit, had said : "I could eat him up with kisses" . . . ) was planning, in February or March to leave her own little private lodging in that same Testaccio quarter to go and stay with a daughter who lived in Rieti. For a payment of a few thousand lire, she was prepared to cede Ida her lease. And Ida, who was still saving some of the am-lire she had received from Nino, managed to make the old woman accept them as a down payment, promising the rest in a short time (she was counting on collecting some damages as a
bombed-out refugee,
or at worst obtaining a loan from the Ministry against her future wages . . . ) . And so, in a little while, Ida and Useppe would fi have a home again. Ida was eager and pleased with it, also because she hoped, among other things, that a more comfortable situation would immediately improve Useppe's health and spirits.

Useppe was pale. He was having a hard time recovering his strength, and he was no longer able to remain calmly on his own, as he had done the previous winters, "thinking" or watching the rabbit or the grandfather. Towards evening especially, he would be seized by a turbulent restlessness, and would start running around the rooms of the house, his head lowered, grumbling, as if he wanted to butt down the walls. The Marrocco women, bewildered, protested with their usual bad words, but luckily, in view of his imminent move, they had recently become more tolerant towards their unruly tenant.

In the evening, though he was sleepy, Useppe never wanted to go to bed; and Ida thought she could recognize in this whim of his a frightened apprehension, because for some time he had rarely enjoyed sound, uninter rupted sleep. The seri of these abnormal nights had begun the previous summer, and one of them especially was marked in Ida's memory like a bitter speck. It had been after the episode in the kitchen, when he had diligently torn up the illustrated magazine with the strange pictures, re peati his mother's words : "It's
uggy"
( ugly ). This episode, like so many others that had preceded it, soon seemed expunged from his capricious mind. But instead, perhaps a week afterwards, Ida was wakened in the night by a curious prolonged sob. And when she had turned on the light,

3 3 6 H I S T O R Y
. .
. .
. .
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she saw Useppe sitting beside her, half out of the sheet, waving his little hands franti in the gesture of certain ill people the doctors call
clastomanes,
when they rave and tear their hospital gown. Useppe, however, in the summer heat, was naked; and in that movement of his, he gave the impression of wanting to rip away his skin. "It's uggy . . . It's uggy! . . ." he moaned, with the menacing tones of a little animal who presumes to dri away, with his own defenses, an armed hunter. And he didn't even see his mother; he was alienated by unknown images that belonged, really, to his sleep, while with his wide eyes he stared at the wall of the room, as if he saw them there. When called, he was deaf. And even the usual, futile charms with which Ida distracted him on such occasions went unheard. For a few seconds, he remained staring, on guard; then, overcome by that thing of undefi fear which he had to confront all alone, he suddenly fl himself down again and huddled up, hiding his head. And almost immediately he plunged once more into sleep.

This incident came at the beginning of a long series of nights, in which her own dreams and Useppe's uneasiness overlapped, foggily, in Ida's mind at every waking. She herself, in fact, had resumed dreaming extravagantly; but her complicated oneiric adventures, passing through her memory, left only a painful streak, with no other recollection. She had simply the sensation that their preordained plot always ran towards a vio lent rupture, translated, externally, into some disturbance, perhaps only slight, of the child. What, in her dream, she had believed the crash of a storm or an earthquake, had been, in reality, only a jerk, or a moan of Useppe's; and this was enough to wake her with a start. At times, they were ordinary little upsets, the kind that can aff anyone, child or adult: she would fi him mutteri something in his sleep, his lips trembling, his face contracted, his teeth chattering. Or else she would hear him shout, or call : "Ma! maaa!" asking help. She might also fi him already awake, sobbing as if over some enormous disaster, because he had wet the bed. But more often he woke up, crying for no apparent reason, or he would cling to her in his sleep, as if pursued by some extraordinary threat. And all sweating, he would open his little blue eyes, still fi by that unspeakable fear. When questioned, he could give only disjointed or confused informa tion: always repeating he had too many
deams.
"I don't want those
deams
he would say in a frightened little voice. "But
what
dreams? What do you dream?'' "Too many
deams.
Too many," he would repeat. The very task of explaining those too many dreams seemed to alarm him. From what could be reconstructed, he apparently dreamed of very tall buildings, as a rule, or else of chasms beneath houses, or abysses. But the dream he complained of most frequently was fi "Fire! . . . fi he would weep

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on some of his sudden wakings. Once he also mentioned an
"
uggy
woman, big, big" and "lots of people running" and "lots of fi lots and lots" and "the kids and animals running from the fi

Only once did he report a complete and precise dream, frowning in the eff to tell it properly. He had dreamed of his mother, "not all, just your face." This face of Ida's had closed eyes : ". . . but you were awake, and you weren't sick or anything!" And on her mouth fi Ninnuzzu's hand was placed, and afterwards, over it, Useppe's hand. Suddenly, the two hands were torn away, and somewhere a big scream could be heard "big big big big big!" But Ida's face, with the eyes still closed, and the mouth closed, had meanwhile started smiling.

Useppe's nighttime spells of anguish, as was only natural, cast their long shadows also over his days. As the day's hours advanced, the child seemed to grow tense and retreat, like a person trying to escape somebody always waiting in ambush for him and threatening him, without his knowing why. One day Ida decided to take him to a doctor, a woman she had heard mentioned at school, a pediatrician. In the waiting room, a woman came in, just after them, carrying a ruddy character perhaps three months old; he smiled at Useppe. And when Useppe's turn came, and the character was left waiting there, Useppe turn to say to him: "Aren't you coming, too? . . ." The doctor was still a young woman, carelessly dressed, almost gruff in her manner, but basically conscientious and kindly. Useppe gravely allowed himself to be examined, as if he were witnessing some exotic ceremony; and, his curi aroused by the stethoscope, he inquired : ". . . Does it make noise?", thinking it was a toy trumpet. Then, a little later, again concern for the other client left in the waiting room, he asked the doctor:

"Why doesn't he come in?
"He? Who?"

"That other one!"

"His tum comes after yours!" the doctor answered. And Useppe seemed disappointed, but didn't insist.

Th doctor declared she could fi no organic ailment in Useppe: "He's tiny, to be sure," she said to Ida. "You tell me he was four last August, and from his height he might be two and a half . . . he's thin

. . . obviously, he's a war product . . . but he's very lively!" Then, lead ing him by the hand, she observ him in the full light from the window, "His eyes are strange," she remarked, half to herself, ". . . too beautiful," she went on, as if spellbound, but suspicious at the same ti An she

338 H I S T O R Y
. .
.
. . .
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asked Ida, in the tone of one who already foresees the answer, if the child had, by chance, proved more precocious than the norm.

"Yes, yes," Ida answered. And she added hesitantly: "as I told you, he was also born prematurely . . .
"

"We already know that! And as far as his later development is con cerned, that wouldn't be important!" the doctor replied almost angrily.

And, frowning and puzzled, in her rough way she went on asking Ida if she heard him talking to himself at times, perhaps in long and rather confused chatter . . ."Yes, sometimes," Ida answered, more and more shy. And going off to one side with the doctor, she murmured to her hesitantly, like someone divulging another's secret: ". . . I believe . . . he tells him self stories . . . or poems perhaps . . . or fairy tales . . . but he doesn't want anyone else to know them."

The doctor prescribed a tonic for him, and a mild sedative for the night. And fi Useppe sighed with relief, because the recondite cere mony was over. On leaving, he waved to the infant in the waiting room and gave him a knowing, confi smile, as between old acquaintances. The good doctor's prescriptions proved useful. Thanks to the sedative, Useppe's nights passed more serenely. And the tonic, which tasted of egg and syrup, was so sweet that Useppe, every day, even licked the spoon. Ida promptly hastened to lock away the bottle, for fear he would drain it all at

once.

2

Though belatedly, Ninnuzzu kept his word and came with the motorcycle. To avoid leaving it alone in the street, where they could steal it from him, he didn't come upstairs but whistled at the Marroccos' windows from below, then called : "Useppe! Usep

peeee!" blowing the horn full blast. When, from above Useppe saw him looking up, beside the dazzling machine, he began to tremble from head to foot with impatience; and without saying a word, he immediately rushed towards the stairs (as if afraid the motorcyclist would vanish meanwhile), so Ida had to run after him to put on his little overcoat and cap. She also wrapped around his neck a scarf of many colors, which Filomena had made specially for him at a modest fee.

At the fi signals of the event, the
piccinina
had frozen over her machine, dazed as if she had received a blow; now she hastily resumed stitching, pretending not to have heard or seen anything.

It was winter, but the January day seemed like April. The tepid air,

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especially in the sun, smelled of bread. Once outside the front door, not even waiting for Nino's invitation, Useppe, all excited, grabbed the ma chine to climb into the seat, as if mounting a pony. Nino was wearing a leather jacket, big gloves, and a helmet. A bunch of kids had already gathered around the motorcycle like so many lovers; and Nino was explain ing wi smug superiority: "It's a Tri !" even condescending to grant those poor lovers some detailed information about the horsepower, the gearbox, the brake-drum, the carter, etc.