The City and the House (16 page)

The next day I was in Princeton again. I reported my conversation with Danny and Anne Marie got angry. She said I'd acted like a fool. I should have talked about the divorce and not about anything else. I should have been severe, concise and distant. It was stupid of me to give him my novel, to accept a favour from him. When Anne Marie gets angry she doesn't stop smiling, but her mouth trembles and she gets red blotches on her face and neck. Chantal on the other hand did not get angry. She said that the main thing was that the clothes should arrive because neither she nor the baby had anything to wear. Then she suddenly burst out laughing. She said she found the idea of Danny and me sitting down and chatting away like old friends funny. Chantal almost never smiles, but every now and then she laughs, she bursts out into a shrill, high-pitched laugh that ends in a little sob. However, when I said that Danny intended to take the baby to the Pippolos' during the holidays she stopped laughing and said that she would not allow it because the Pippolos were coarse, dirty people. Then her mother said that there wasn't much to allow or not allow, and that Danny would do whatever he thought fit with the baby during the holidays.

As soon as you get the package with my novel in it let me know. I'd like you to read it soon. I'm impatient to know what you think of it.

Giuseppe

Rome, 5th April

Dear Giuseppe,

Lucrezia's baby was born last Friday, but he only lived for two days. He was a fine looking boy. It has all been very sad.

I was with her the whole time. She had the first contractions and went into hospital and called me from there. She was alone, poor girl. 'I' took it into his head to go off to Paris just over those few days, and he was unreachable.

Lucrezia suffered a lot, it was a difficult birth. I phoned Piero in Perugia, I was worried and wanted someone to be there. Piero came immediately.

The baby was born and it seemed that everything was over. 'I' arrived. I had thought he was a bastard when he went off, but to tell the truth I stopped thinking so when I saw him. He's one of those people it's impossible to hate when you actually see them. He has that crew-cut and that energetic determined air about him, and at the same time looks bewildered. He liked the baby immensely and seemed happy.

Then we learnt that there was something wrong with the baby. It was an extremely sad afternoon, I shall never forget that Sunday afternoon. We were all there - me, Piero, 'I', Serena, even Cecilia. Serena had had the daft idea of bringing Cecilia along with her. I didn't think it was right that a little girl should be there at such a sad time. We had lost hope, but Lucrezia clung to the belief that nothing they said was true. The baby died at ten in the evening. I remained with Lucrezia throughout the night. A doctor on the ward told me I could stay.

Lucrezia is still in hospital and it'll be a few more days before she's able to come home.

If you want to phone her you can call her at home on Monday or Tuesday.

With love from

Roberta

Rome, 10th April

Dear Giuseppe,

Roberta told me that she had written to you and that you had phoned her, and so you already know what has happened to me.

I received your novel some time ago, but I can't read it at the moment. I can't even touch it. It's on my table, in its pale blue folder.

If you write to me, don't write as if you pitied me. I don't want people to feel pity for me. Perhaps I'd even prefer it if you didn't write to me at all for a while. Roberta says that you told her you would phone me. Don't. I don't want to hear your voice. I don't want voices. Yours

Lucrezia

Rome, 25th April

Dear Giuseppe,

I was pleased when you phoned me the other day. I can't remember now what you said to me or what I answered. Nothing, or almost nothing. I could have pulled out the connection and taken the phone into my room, but instead I stayed in the living-room where Daniele and Cecilia were. Anyway, I was pleased that you phoned me. I thought I wouldn't be, but I was pleased. You didn't talk as if you pitied me and I thank you for that.

You said you thought of coming to Italy to see me, and perhaps you will come, but not just now. Goodness knows why not just now. In fact I don't think you'll come all that soon. You have planted your long, thin feet down over there, in Princeton.

I haven't read your novel yet. I don't read anything, not even the newspapers. I get up late and keep my dressing-gown on all day. I don't even go out to do the shopping. I have that woman from Capo Verde now, perhaps I've mentioned her to you. Egisto found her for me. In the morning she goes to your son's to look after that girl's baby. At noon she comes to me. She does the shopping and makes lunch. She is a fat, black woman, with a handkerchief on her head. She is called Zezé.

Yours

Lucrezia

Rome, 5th May

My baby was born on Friday 25th March at six in the afternoon. He died after two days. He died on Sunday evening.

I went to the hospital alone on Friday morning in the Volkswagen with the suitcase I had had ready for several days. Serena stayed at home to wait for the children and to make them lunch. 'I' was in Paris. He had told me that he had to meet some people about some pictures in Paris, but that he would come back straight away. I phoned him at his hotel in Paris on Friday morning but he wasn't there. I cursed him whilst I was in the Volkswagen. I was furious with him, but calm in myself. I thought that I had already given birth so many times and that it had always been a quick, easy process. I phoned Roberta from the hospital, just to have someone with me. She came at once.

By midday I felt very ill. I realized that it was a difficult birth. Roberta seemed worried to me, but she was trying not to let me see it. I cursed. Then I stopped cursing and called out for my mother. I didn't remember that she had been dead for years. I wanted Piero to be there. He had always been there when I gave birth and I wanted him there this time too. I don't know if I mentioned him. I can't remember now what I said and what I didn't say. I thought I was dying.

There was great confusion all around me. I couldn't see Roberta any more and I wasn't in the same room any more. Then they gave me injections and I didn't feel anything else.

When I came round the first face I saw was Piero's. Someone had phoned him, either Roberta or Serena, and he had come at once. They showed me the baby. He had long black hair. Piero said that he looked like Cecilia.

Then Piero left and after a while 'I' arrived. Roberta had phoned him and he had caught a plane. He was pale. They took him to see the baby. He was very pleased with him. The baby was in a room at the end of the corridor with nine others. 'I' said he was the best of the nine, by far the best looking. He said that he looked like a Chinese magistrate. He resembled his father. He wanted him to be called Giovanni, like his father. All of a sudden he started to talk about his parents, about whom he never talks. They have been dead for many years. They had a chemist's shop in Ancona. The famous Fegiz Pharmacy. Roberta and Serena were in the room. When he went out of the room for a moment Serena whispered to Roberta that she couldn't stand him. I heard and said she could go if she couldn't stand him. She could go to my house and see what Zezé was doing. It was Zezé's first day there and everything had to be explained to her.

Then Piero came back and he brought me some roses. He and 'I' shook hands in a very friendly way. Roberta said that they had better go to the registrar to report the birth, and that Piero would have to disclaim paternity otherwise the baby would not be called Giovanni Fegiz but Giovanni Mantelli. 'I' started talking about his father Giovanni Fegiz again. He said there was lots of time to go to the registrar.

A nurse told us they had taken the baby out of the room where there were nine of them, and had put him in a room by himself because he wasn't breathing very well. We could still see him just the same, from the other side of a glass window, and 'I' went to see him and said that he was breathing marvellously. The nurse drew off some of my milk to give it to the baby with a dropper. He mustn't get too tired. He was healthy, just a little weak.

Serena came the next morning and told me there was something wrong with the baby. The doctors had told her. He didn't breathe well, he had a heart defect. I don't know why but Serena always gets a certain kick out of giving me bad news. She loves me a lot I know, nevertheless she likes being able to give me bad news. Her eyes light up with a strange glow. I felt heartbroken. I told Serena to go and call Roberta, but Roberta had gone home to sleep, Piero had gone to the Villa Borghese with the children and 'I' had disappeared too. A nurse scolded Serena for telling me things I shouldn't have been told.

Then Roberta and Piero arrived. Roberta told me that 'I' was in the waiting-room and that as soon as he saw a doctor going by he assailed him with thousands of questions. Well yes, there was something wrong. The baby had a small heart defect. But Roberta knew someone, the son of one of her friends, who had the same thing and was alive and well. He was strong and robust. The hours went by and I waited for them to tell me that everything was going well. Instead a doctor came and told me that there was little hope. 'I' was in the waiting room the whole time. He appeared in my room every now and then, sat down and then immediately jumped up; he suddenly started to yell that this hospital was a shit-house where nobody explained anything clearly. Piero took him to the cafeteria downstairs to have a coffee.

At ten in the evening they told us that the baby was dead.

I stayed in that hospital for many more days. 'I' came to see me. He stayed silent most of the time. He only mentioned the baby once. He told me that he had never realized that he wanted a son, but that when he saw the baby he understood that that was the one thing in the world that he really wanted. He told me that when he went to have a coffee with Piero that evening, they had talked for a long time and that he had felt very close to him. He told me that Piero was an extraordinary person, goodness only knew why I had left him. Women, he said, are real idiots. I thought it was dreadful of him to say such a thing, so dreadful that I told him to get out and that I never wanted to see him again. But instead he stayed sitting where he was, patting his hair, until the nurse came as she did every evening to give me a tablet and to tell him that he had to go as it was past nine o'clock.

The next day I told him something that I had been thinking about constantly all those days. I told him that I had so hated his way of always leaving me alone and that I had so hated Ippo that all this hatred had finished up in the baby's bloodstream and poisoned him. Or perhaps I had thought about Ippo so much that she had hidden herself away inside of me and infected the baby with her heart disease. He stood up and came towards my bed grinding his teeth. He told me that he could not forgive what I said. When he met me he had thought I was strong and generous. I wasn't. My soul was full of wretchedness and poison. He said this in a deep hoarse voice. Then he put his raincoat on and left. I stayed awake and cried all night, then he phoned me the next morning and came back again.

The baby was registered and buried with the name Giovanni Mantelli. Piero had not disclaimed paternity. By this time everyone thought it immaterial whether he had one surname or another.

I went home again. The room that should have been for the baby has become a guest room. Cecilia didn't want to come and sleep there. She says that sometimes Vito is afraid in the night and she has to have him in her bed. And then she had seen the baby, both from behind the window when he was with the other nine, and on the Sunday evening when he died. She says she can't forget him. If she slept in that room she would do nothing but dream about dead babies. Piero sleeps in that room when he comes to Rome. At first he used to go to a hotel, but I thought it was stupid for him to go to a hotel when there's a bed here. He turns up in Rome quite often because at the moment he has business in Rome. I've put a bed in the room, the grey carpet and the chest-of-drawers with the tortoises.

The days go by without my doing anything. I lie stretched out on the sofa, I look out of the window. I don't want anything, and sometimes I'm afraid that what happened to my mother will happen to me.

Everyone says to me: Pull yourself together. You already have lots of children. I know, but I wanted this one too.

Roberta comes to see me every day. She busies herself with the house a bit and keeps an eye on Zezé. Egisto often comes, but Serena rarely comes because she has rehearsals at the theatre. She is going to act in Alfieri's
Mirra
in a little theatre they've recently set up. Acting in
Mirra
has been the great dream of her life. She sleeps with the director, who is called Umberto. She's very happy about everything.

Yours

Lucrezia

Princeton, 27th April

Dear Lucrezia,

You have repeatedly told me you don't want pity. So I will just say that I think of you with great affection. I shall come to Italy soon. No, not at once. I have my course of lessons to give. I've various things to do, I shall have to see my translator and get his advice about an agency. But sooner or later I'll come, you'll see.

I think about you a lot. I talk about you to Chantai a lot, I also talked about you to Danny who has come to Princeton a few times to see his little girl. I never talk about you to Anne Marie because when I started telling her about you she said that she wasn't really interested in people she didn't know.

Chantai has now found a job in a tourist agency. She leaves the baby in a crèche and goes at four to pick her up. Sometimes when I don't have any lessons I go to pick her up. I take her to the park and Chantai meets us there. We spend hours in the park, and it's very peaceful there, with the huge trees and the squirrels and birds. Then we go back to the house and Chantai and I prepare supper together. When Anne Marie comes in it's already done. But she always finds fault with something. Anne Marie and Chantai start arguing almost immediately. It's always for some trivial reason, a dirty cup on the table in the hall, a half-eaten apple on an armchair, a blouse that's been used to wipe the floor with. Chantai is pretty disorganized and very absent-minded. Anne Marie becomes furious and mother and daughter exchange angry words in a whisper. I try and make peace but then Anne Marie gets annoyed with me, and our suppers often pass in silence. The baby is put to bed but she continually gets out of bed and comes in the kitchen and Anne Marie doesn't say anything but she fiddles with her fork and glass and her neck becomes covered in red blotches. Schultz and Kramer usually come after supper. Anne Marie calms down then and sits and chats with them in the living-room. Meanwhile Chantai and I clear up in the kitchen and put the baby to bed again, and she invariably gets up again. When she finally goes off to sleep we sit in the living-room too, with a glass of whisky, but Chantai gets bored and starts yawning, and I get bored too and suppress my yawns, until Schultz and Kramer go and Anne Marie scolds us because we weren't welcoming to them and if it goes on like this one evening they won't come any more.