The City and the House (8 page)

Alberico phoned me. He told me he will go back to Italy at the end of the month. I imagine that he will have to look for a house too.

Giuseppe

Rome, 23rd January

Dear Alberico,

Egisto has told me that there is an empty flat under his. The previous tenant left a few days ago. I don't know if you can remember who Egisto is. He is a friend of your father's, and also of mine. A journalist. He lives in Piazza San Cosimato. I met him in the street this morning. He told me about the flat and I phoned the landlady. Then I went there and I think she must have liked me because she immediately agreed to show me the flat. I immediately offered to pay her two months' rent. I went to the bank to withdraw the cash and I took it over to her.

I phoned you before I went to the bank but I couldn't get hold of you. I had to hurry and I thought it best to come to an agreement without asking you. The flat has four rooms. There are some loose tiles and the fittings are shabby, but I don't think that will worry you. It costs four hundred thousand lire a month. That's more than it's worth but not too much more. You can give me the money I've paid in advance when you come.

I hope you haven't changed your mind in the meantime. If you have changed your mind let me know at once. And in any case let me know the date of your arrival. I have the keys.

Roberta

To be honest with you, as soon as he had told me about the flat Egisto rather regretted that he'd done so, probably because he remembered that you had been in prison, and the various things people say about you. He was afraid that you might make him appear in a bad light with his landlady. He started to say that the flat was tiny and too expensive and dark. But I didn't pay any attention. I had to drag the landlady's number out of him. He couldn't retreat any further. On the other hand he's a trustworthy person and as he will have the flat above yours you'll be able to ask him to do lots of things for you.

Berlin, 28th January

Dear Roberta,

As I told you on the phone yesterday everything's fine with me. Thanks very much, as always you've been marvellous. I can't remember this Egisto fellow. I shall arrive at the beginning of February. I will phone you. Piazza San Cosimato will be fine for me. It's not in old Rome, it's part of Trastevere, but it's just as good.

Nadia hasn't had an abortion. She's still pregnant. She will have the child in April. She's an idiot, but she hangs on to me for dear life and I can't get rid of her, and anyway she will pay half the rent. There will be three of us in the flat - me, Nadia, and an Italian boy I've met here who is called Salvatore. Don't worry, I will pay you back the money as soon as possible.

I shall come to collect the keys.

Alberico

Rome, 29th January

My dear Alberico,

Something terrible has happened. Your Uncle Ferruccio has died. He died in Princeton, of cerebral thrombosis, whilst giving a paper at a conference. Your father and Anne Marie, your uncle's wife - whom I've never met - were in the audience. They realized that he was having difficulty talking, and then they saw him turn pale and fall. He died a little later in hospital, without having regained consciousness.

Your father phoned me from the hospital. He seemed shattered. I told him I'd leave for America immediately. I called you but you were out. I left my number but you didn't call back. I sent you a telegram. I'm leaving. See if you can't come too.

Roberta

Monte Fermo, 29th January

Dear Giuseppe,

Roberta phoned us a short while ago. We have heard your terrible news. I remember your brother well. I met him in Rome last year. We ate in a restaurant on via Cassia. I was there, you, Lucrezia, and perhaps Roberta. Your brother and I had a long, pleasant conversation. About America, Italy, the contemporary world. He was a very intelligent, cultured man. I realize that his death will be a great loss to you. You have not been there long. He had not been married long. A sad fate. Roberta cried when she phoned us. She's on her way. She is a woman who is always ready to run to wherever she's needed. She will be a comfort to you.

Lucrezia and I feel very close to you. We send you our best love. Lucrezia wants to add a couple of words.

Piero

Dear Giuseppe,

Come back. Do everything quickly and come back. We are waiting for you. You can stay at your cousin's. Or you can come and stay with us, at Monte Fermo, for a while. The main thing is that you come away soon. What can you do there now? Your cousin will come and you must return with her, at once.

Lucrezia

Luco dei Marsi 8th February

My dear Serena.

I am at Luco dei Marsi because my mother has broken her femur. I asked for a week's leave from school. There's no telephone at my family's house here. You can imagine how cheerful it is for me to be here, with no telephone, with my irritable mother, Maura and Gina being no help, my father who is getting deafer and deafer, my brother who wants his shirts ironed. I fling his shirts back at him, and then he becomes like a wild animal and the house is full of endless shouting.

You will have heard that Giuseppe's brother has died. Egisto told me when I phoned him from a public call-box. I remember the morning Giuseppe left. He was in a real state. He had a sore throat. His brother had written telling him that he had got married. This was worrying him. We went to the airport with him, me, his cousin Roberta, and Egisto. He isn't the sort to move from one continent to another. He's the sort for a sedentary life. He's afraid of everything. He went to America in order to hide himself away under his brother's wings. But brothers don't have wings. Once you've reached a certain age you realize that either you stand on your own two feet, or you've had it. Giuseppe reached that age some time ago. But he has those long, skinny legs that hold him up so badly. He still has a craving to be protected. Perhaps he didn't have enough affection when he was a child. But then which of us hasn't suffered from lack of affection. I have. And you have too. In fact the affection we are given is always less than we need. Giuseppe went to America in order to feel more protected. Just ask yourself what kind of a reason that is for going to America. You go to America out of a spirit of adventure. He was the opposite. Anyway, when he gets there his brother dies. Now he will come back again.

Dear Serena, I get the impression that Lucrezia has fallen in love with Ignazio Fegiz, and perhaps he has with her. To tell you the truth, from the first few times that he came to
Le Mar-gherite
I thought this would happen. I sense it immediately when something starts to go on between two people. I feel the air becoming warm and light. But in this case I also felt there was something uneasy and fearful between them. I couldn't tell you why. I find Ignazio Fegiz handsome, but I don't like him. Once he told me I act too much like a young girl, and that I dress too much like a young girl, and that there is nothing worse than a thirty-year-old woman who behaves and dresses like a girl and has a lined, tired face. This was a horrible thing to do, and he said it just like that, quietly, tapping my hand as he did so. I felt absolutely terrible. He realized and perhaps he was sorry because later in the evening, when I played the flute, he said that I played well. Nevertheless, he had really hurt me and for days I felt bad about my face, and there's nothing worse than thinking about your own face constantly, hating it and avoiding all the mirrors.

I'll stop now, Serena; write to me here at Luco, where I'm bored stiff. Give me your news, and news of Lucrezia, of everyone. And I'd like to know if you read your poetry at the Women's Centre as you wanted to. Write to me, because I don't have anyone to talk to here, and a letter would be company for me.

Albina

Pianura, 10th February

Dear Albina,

You've got hold of some crazy ideas in Luco dei Marsi. Lucrezia is not in love with Ignazio Fegiz and he is not in love with her. I have never suffered from a lack of affection. In fact I even had too much affection when I was a child. Giuseppe didn't go to America to be protected by his brother but for a much simpler reason, he didn't have any money here, or it seemed to him that he had very little. His brother told him that he could teach in America. They pay teachers well in America. And now his brother is dead. I didn't like his brother. He thought too much of himself. But when someone dies you immediately start to think of him with respect and admiration even if you didn't like him, goodness knows why. It's not as if death were something meritorious. It comes to everyone sooner or later.

I haven't read my poems at the Women's Centre and perhaps I never shall. I bet no one comes on Friday evening. I've lost heart. Last Friday only two turned up. There were precisely two, the chemist and a boy, the caretaker's son. We played records. I danced with the boy. I closed the place at ten.

I don't like Ignazio Fegiz. I don't find him handsome, and I don't even find him particularly intelligent. He has a girl friend he's very attached to. She is rather ugly, with beautiful hair. I know because various people have told me. She is on drugs, they say. He and I argue furiously with one another. When I know he is at
Le Margherite
I don't go, I stay in Pianura. I eat something in my room. I curl up in bed and read. At the moment I like being alone. Being alone doesn't suit everyone. It doesn't suit you because you think about things which exist neither in this world nor the next. But being alone suits me and I like it.

Yours

Serena

Princeton, 14th February

My Lucrezia,

I received Piero's letter and your few, quick words. You tell me to come back at once. I can't. There are so many things that have to be done here, business that has to be finished off. And I can't leave Anne Marie alone at the moment.

Tell Piero I'll write to him soon.

Roberta left a few days ago. Yesterday Danny and Chantal left. They are Anne Marie's son-in-law and daughter. They live in Philadelphia. I don't know whether I've written to you about them. They slept in the sitting-room, Roberta slept in a little room which is used for storing suitcases.

Yesterday we packed up all my brother's clothes and odds and ends and sent them to a home for the blind. One of our neighbours, Mrs Mortimer, helped us. She phoned the home. She is very kind and has been a great help to us.

Roberta was a great help to us too, while she was here. Chantal is eight months pregnant and mustn't tire herself. Danny is someone who's full of problems. And so Roberta and Mrs Mortimer had to think of everything.

Roberta is someone who makes friends with everyone and she immediately made friends with Danny and Chantal. This Danny constantly needs to talk about his problems with someone. He would sit himself down in front of Roberta with a glass of whisky and talk to her about himself till two in the morning. Roberta is very patient and she stayed and listened to him. I don't have her kind of patience. When he planted himself in front of me I sent him about his business.

Now Anne Marie and I have been left alone. She is a strong woman, but she's tired and needs me. And in a way I need her too. I'm very tired too.

The thought that relations were so cold between me and my brother during those last days won't leave me alone. To be honest they were cold from the first day I arrived here. So many times he came and asked me to go for a walk with him and I refused to. What wouldn't I give to have him in front of me now, to stand up and follow him. I used to refuse coldly, and perhaps rather rudely. It even happened the day before he died. And when I did agree to go out with him we used to walk along exchanging a few cold words with one another. I have to go back years and years before I can rediscover a happy intimate relationship between us.

Yesterday Anne Marie and I went to the cemetery. I took her arm. She cried, but she doesn't stop smiling even when she cries. It's a smile that doesn't reach either her cheeks or her eyes, it stays fixed between her chin and her lips. When we got back to the house I sat in the kitchen, she came and stood beside me and str.oked my head. Then I rested my head against her, against the black woollen dress she was wearing over her thin belly. She made me some mint tea, that damned mint tea that she is obsessed with. Then we reheated and ate a bit of roast that Mrs Mortimer had cooked. Anne Marie sat opposite me and ate - self-possessed, dressed in black, with her long neck, her slender shoulders, her smile. Anne Marie and I never talk about my brother. We talk about day-to-day things, the shopping, the washing-machine, Mrs Mortimer, and we talk about Danny's problems and Chan-tal's character. We don't have many things to talk about, except these which however are soon exhausted. But Ignazio Fegiz once said to me that it's not important to have something to talk about - two people can stay together without having anything special to say to each other and without looking for something, each immersed in his own thoughts, in silence.

Sometimes those friends of my brother's, Schultz and Kramer, come and see us in the evening. Anne Marie talks to them about scientific subjects and things to do with the Institute. I stay quiet. When they go I walk to the gate with them, and at the same time take the rubbish out. Anne Marie hasn't started work again at the Institute yet, but she will do in a few days. And I shall start my lessons at the school again in a few days. Perhaps, I'm not sure, I'll start work again on that thing I've been writing. But at the moment I'm unable to do anything. I spend hours sitting in an armchair in my room staring at the bear-cubs. But I leave the door open and watch Anne Marie who knits in the sitting-room. Mrs Mortimer told her that when things are difficult knitting is a great comfort.