A Very Italian Christmas Read online

  I had no hope of seeing my shopgirl that Christmas Eve, as it was long past the usual time, and in any case she, like all other mortals, must have been busy with Christmas dinner festivities. And yet I went past the entrance to her house. It seemed to me that inside the dark doorway was a shadow. I strolled by, looked in, and glimpsed a woman’s hat. The woman hurriedly hid herself. It was her. My heart was thumping. I remained uncertain for a moment whether I should continue on my way or turn back. In the end I retraced my steps, and once more, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the figure, standing there. I felt ashamed of myself, ashamed at the same time of my desire and my timidity. I went past again. I had never been able to address an unknown woman in the street, however little averse she appeared, without the greatest reluctance. And on the very rare occasions when I had done so, it was, above all else, the fear of appearing ridiculous that prompted me. But that evening my soul felt the need to unburden itself. For a month I had locked up inside me my grief, desires, and youth. I urged myself to be bold, and since the figure was standing practically on the doorstep, I greeted her.

  “Good evening.”

  She did not reply, indeed she took a few steps back, melting into the darkness. I was delighted. I would have been sorry if the girl had been too forward. But a moment later she stuck her head out of the doorway again, giving a quick glance to left and right.

  I approached her once more, and said again, “Good evening.”

  She responded with a none too polite shrug of her shoulders, and said, “Leave me alone. Get along with you!” And since I made no move to go, she added, “You’ve no manners, and no call to be bothering an honest girl like me.”

  Then my pride rebelled, making me turn away, and I resolutely went some hundred yards. Ten minutes later I was back at the doorway.

  Striving to make my voice sound meek and ingratiating, I murmured, “Are you waiting for someone? Perhaps I could keep you company! I’m a decent fellow, you know. And besides, you must have seen me on more than one occasion.”

  “Certainly I have. You spend your time following me about. Evidently you’ve nothing else to do.”

  “Nothing better, no, because I find you so attractive. What’s your name?”

  “It can’t matter to you.”

  “Indeed it does. I want to know at least what name I should address my sighs to.”

  “Ah, you poor devil! Now, go away, at once. If my husband sees you …”

  “So you’re waiting for your husband?”

  “Of course. He should have been here half an hour ago.” And she stamped her feet in annoyance—perhaps, too, because of the cold, since her hands, which I had fleetingly touched, were frozen.

  “It’s that husband of yours who has no manners. And were you supposed to be going for a walk, if I might ask?”

  “A walk! You must be joking! I was supposed to be going out to dinner.”

  An idea occurred to me then, which I instantly seized upon, especially as I felt I had already been so gauche. “To dinner? Come and have dinner with me.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that! No, no. And what if my husband were to find out?”

  “He won’t. We’ll take a carriage and go to the Cavour Inn, we’ll eat truffles and drink champagne, and have a good time.”

  “But I don’t know you.”

  “After dinner, you’ll see, we’ll be old friends.”

  She smiled the smile that had seduced me and made me shiver, then, with a very determined gesture, she exclaimed, “Let’s go.”

  The room at the Cavour Inn, where I had been staying for several days, was very warm. The flames flickered in the hearth. I ordered two candelabras to be lit, as well as the lamp that hung from the ceiling. The walls, which were golden-yellow patterned with red flowers, looked garish in that bright light.

  The imperious waiter eyed the girl from head to toe with grand disdain, and began to lay the table—a small, oval table standing by the fire, which was very soon covered with all kinds of delicious things. My stomach was impatient: had it been cut open, as lambs’ stomachs are in order to extract the pepsin, a rare abundance of gastric juices would have been found inside me. My appetite, my need to eat, was so great that it seemed to me impossible that I would not be able to digest. And my shopgirl had almost made me forget this treat for my stomach, a treat that I had so long yearned for in vain. She had already removed her hat, and thrown her muff on a seat and her cloak on an armchair, and she was standing in front of the mirror rearranging her hair. Holding her arms in an arc raised to her head clearly revealed the contours of her body, scantily clad in a close-fitting dress that was so light it looked like a summer dress. I sat her down beside me, without even glancing at her, and we began to swallow large oysters, and to drink good amber-colored wine that put new life into me. The old, persistent, and intolerable pains in my intestines had gone. I breathed again, I rejoiced. Oh God! At last I could eat. I had already exhausted all possible remedies many months ago—even, to my shame, those in the classified advertisement sections of the newspapers. I had consulted distinguished doctors from Berlin and Paris. And yet I had to survive on diluted broth, milk, coffee, little bits of undercooked meat. Epicurus! Epicurus! And I thought of Emperor Tiberius, who gave his poet two hundred thousand sesterces for a dialogue in which mushrooms, the warbler, the oyster, and the thrush disputed preeminence.

  For my part, I would have awarded preeminence to the pheasant with truffles that my love and I ate in religious silence, quenching our thirst with sips of a superb claret. The assortment of glasses—on whose facets every candle cast a streak of brightness, like little electric sparks—kept growing in number. Stemmed, mug-shaped, large-bowled, long-necked—there were glasses of every shape and size, as well as the big stately water glass, as yet unfilled. At every shake of the table, they vibrated and tinkled, scattering thousands of white sparks on the tablecloth. The wine was like liquefied precious stones: amethysts, rubies, topazes.

  Having laid out the desserts on the table and uncorked the bottles of champagne, the waiter gave us a most respectful bow that was not without malice, and left the room.

  “Would you not like anything else, my dear?”

  “No, thank you, sir, I’m full.”

  “A glass of champagne?”

  “That, yes. I like it so much and I’ve drunk it only once in my life.”

  “When?”

  “One evening when two gentlemen took me to dinner at the Rebecchino. There was another girl there too.”

  “And your husband?”

  “What husband?”

  “The one you were waiting for in the doorway this evening.”

  “Ah, I’d forgotten about him. Damn him!”

  “Don’t you love him?”

  “Me? I met him ten days ago, and he’s married. I told you I was waiting for my husband so that you, being a gentleman, sir, as I thought, wouldn’t think badly of me.”

  “Let’s drop the formality, shall we?”

  “If you like.”

  “Tell me, have you never been in love?”

  “Let me see now. Once, I think, but only for a few days. He was a man of forty, with a black mustache. He used to beat me and wanted me to get money for him. Of course, men are all the same. Here, let me tell you what happened …”

  I was not listening to her anymore. I was looking at her. She was ugly. Her trim figure was not bad, but she had coarse features, a rough complexion speckled with little yellow spots, green-colored eyes, and fine parallel lines scoring her brow.

  I cut in as she continued to tell me her adventures in a raucous voice, and amused herself by mixing together the various-colored wines and then swilling down the foul concoction.

  “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen.”

  And she resumed her story in a desultory fashion. She got up; she examined with curiosity the heavy gilt frames of the mirrors; she lay back in the armchairs, and on the sofa; she threw herself on the bed; she came up be
hind me to caress me with her rough hands; then she ate some sugared almonds, filled her pockets with them, drained a glass of champagne, and examined with curiosity, one by one, the objects on the chests of drawers and small tables.

  She seized upon some pictures of Emilia, crying, “Oh, I’ve found her, I’ve found her. She’s your sweetheart!”

  A burning shame and anger went rushing to my head, and I leapt to my feet.

  “Give me those pictures.”

  “Your darling, your darling.”

  “Give me those pictures at once,” I repeated in a fury.

  And she went running around the room, climbing onto the armchairs and holding the portraits up in the air, and stupidly kept on chanting, “Your darling, your darling.”

  Then I went into a blind rage. I chased after her, saying again and again in a strangled voice, “Give me those pictures, you wretched woman.” And I snatched them from her hand, having squeezed her wrist so hard that she fell with a cry onto a high-backed chair, virtually unconscious.

  I was immediately at her side with some eau de Cologne. She soon recovered, although her arm and hand still hurt a little.

  Ashamed of my brutal behavior, I murmured, “Forgive me. Forgive me.”

  From the chest of drawers I took a watch that I had bought some days earlier, and I slipped the chain around her neck.

  She carefully examined the watch, which was very small, and the chain, which was heavy, and continuing to examine them, completely appeased, she asked, “Are they gold?”

  “Certainly.”

  She looked up, gazing into my face with her gleaming black eyes. And she smiled. In her delight, her face had taken on a new expression, with the curve of her parted, coral lips framing the pure whiteness of her perfect teeth. In face she looked like Emilia.

  “Do you forgive me?” I asked her.

  She came rushing over and hugged me in her arms. Then she sat down on a low stool, stretching out her legs on the carpet, and laying her head on my lap. She tipped her head back: her hair, disheveled and half loose, served her as a pillow. And seated as I was in a big armchair, I bent over to look at her, and asked her to smile broadly.

  To my great astonishment the wine I had drunk and the delicacies I had eaten (I should not be able to eat and drink as much again in a year) had no adverse effect on my stomach. But they had, of course, worked upon my imagination. I was not drunk, since I can recall today in exact detail the most minute particulars of that night. But I was in a strange state of moral and physical excitement that, without diminishing my memory, robbed me of responsibility for my actions. I could have killed a man with a fruit knife, just for fun.

  The girl’s teeth fascinated me. “What are you looking at me like that?”

  “I was looking at your teeth.”

  “Do you like them?”

  “What do you do to keep them so shiny?”

  “I don’t do anything.”

  They were all even, all set regularly, the upper ones a little larger and so thin they seemed transparent.

  “A girlfriend of mine,” she added, “the one that came with me to dinner at the Rebecchino with those two men, had a rotten tooth. You should have seen what a lovely tooth she had it replaced with. And you couldn’t tell that it wasn’t natural. It cost a lot, though: twenty lire! You can imagine, there are some days when I’d sell one of mine for twenty lire.”

  “Give me one for five hundred.”

  “Of course! I’d have it replaced and keep four hundred and eighty lire! Of course! Of course!” And she clapped her hands. “But now tell me,” she went on, “why were you ready to practically kill me for those pictures of yours? I wasn’t going to eat them, you know.”

  “Let’s not talk about it. It’s a sad story that upsets me.”

  She looked abashed. She yawned, stretched her arms, settled her head more comfortably on my lap, and fell asleep.

  Not wanting to wake the girl, I sat still and gradually became immersed in my painful cherished memories. Giorgetta, too, had frequently settled down to sleep on my lap, while her mother read to me in her clear voice an article from the newspaper, or a chapter of a novel. But my niece’s hair was as fair as a saint’s halo, her face like the face of an angel, and the breath that escaped her of the very purest, purer than the mountain breeze at sunrise. Occasionally, she would stir, talking in her dream to her doll. I would wait until she was sound asleep, and then very slowly I would get up, holding one arm under her back, supporting her little legs with the other, and I would carry her on tiptoe, followed by Emilia, to her beautiful golden cradle beneath the lace canopy her mother had embroidered. It was in that very same cot, which was so pretty, that Giorgetta died, choked by diphtheria. Before she was taken to heaven, she looked at us one by one—me, her mother, and old Maria—with those darling blue eyes of hers, and could not understand why we were weeping. Even the doctor was weeping.

  The rings under Emilia’s eyes, which at the beginning were a delicate blue, turned to dark brown, and the soft rosiness of her cheeks changed to a pale ethereal shade of ivory. The sweetness of that gentle disposition, eager to do good, always forgetful of herself, innocent, kind, and wise, was being purified into the nature of an angel.

  As the illness gradually gnawed away at her entrails, her spirit rose up to God. In the final hours, when racked with excruciating pains, she tried to conceal them from everyone with countless sublime stratagems. When I very gently raised her head and arranged her pillows more comfortably, she whispered to me in a faint voice, “I’m so sorry, Giorgio. You see how much trouble I am to you!” And she tried to squeeze my hand. And to Maria and everyone else, for however small a service, she never stopped repeating with a smile, “Thank you.”

  Before she died, she seemed to feel better. She called me to her side and softly said to me, “Giorgio, we were born at the same time, and have lived together twenty-four years, almost without ever being apart, and you’ve always been so very good to me. God bless you. But if I’ve ever upset you, or been rude to you, if I’ve not always shown the great love I have for you, forgive me.” Two tears slowly fell from her eyes. “I’m sorry to die, I’m sorry for your sake. Your health is poor. You have need of a lot of loving care and”—after a long pause—“guidance.” With these words she died. I sat up all night, alone, in her room, while old Maria sobbed and prayed in the room next door.

  Her black eyes were open. Her black hair framed her white face; in marked contrast to that lugubrious whiteness and that funereal blackness was the pinkness of her lips, slightly parted to show the poor dead girl’s teeth, which were even whiter than her brow.

  A jolt to my leg roused me from my gloomy thoughts. I had a fever and my head was inflamed. I pressed the rigid blade of a fruit knife to my forehead, which was burning hot. The coolness of it felt good.

  The girl reeked of the sour stench of wine. I leaned over to look at her: she was loathsome. She was sleeping with her mouth open. I then felt a sense of utter humiliation, acute remorse, and a kind of spirit of vendetta, at the same time raging and wary, stirred within my breast. I looked at the knife held in my hand, balancing it to find the point at which it would deliver its most telling blow. Then, with one finger I delicately raised the girl’s upper lip and gave a sharp tap with the tip of the blade to one of those pretty front teeth. The tooth broke, and more than half of it fell out.

  The drunken hussy hardly stirred. I shoved some cushions under her head and went to open the window. Freezing fog entered the room like dense smoke. There was nothing to be seen, not even the streetlights. But from the entrance to the inn came the sound of trunks being loaded onto the omnibus. I was seized with an urgent desire to leave. The servant I called told me that this omnibus was just about to depart for the station, to catch the train to Turin, but there was no time to lose. I put a five hundred-lire note into a sealed envelope, which I handed the servant, saying, “Give this letter to the lady when she wakes, and send her home in a carriage. Then pac
k my bags with all that you find on the tables and in the drawers. Here are the keys. Send everything to my address in Turin. But first post me the bill, which I haven’t time to wait for now.”

  I threw my coat over my shoulders and left.

  These papers were entrusted to me by Signor Giorgio three days after he arrived back in Turin. He had returned from Milan all but cured of his serious stomach ailment, and more active, more lively than before. I felt relieved. He wrote for a good part of the day, and when I asked him, “What is it that you’re writing so furiously, Signor Giorgio?” he replied, “I’m writing my ugly confessions and doing my penance.” Then he added in a most sad and resigned tone of voice, “My dear Maria, it’s a terrible penance!”

  On the morning of the fourth day he was unable to get out of bed. He had a burning fever. After a long visit the doctor shook his head and as he left he said in my ear, “This is the end.”

  Signor Giorgio could not swallow anything, not even diluted milk. And his fever continued more violently than ever. He was so weak, he could hardly lift his arm. He raved almost the whole time. He talked to himself under his breath. I often heard the names of Giorgetta and Signora Emilia, and at such moments his face would take on a blissful expression, bliss that reduced me to tears. Then his face would darken again, and he would close his eyes, as though some fearful image was tormenting him.

  One evening, the seventh after Signor Giorgio’s return, a servant came to fetch me. My patient seemed to be asleep, and I dared to leave him alone just for a moment. There was a woman wanting to speak to him. She insisted, she shouted. What a woman! How vulgar she looked! How brazen in her speech and manners! Never had such a woman set foot in this house before. She claimed that Signor Giorgio owed her money, how much I don’t know, and that she had come from Milan specially to collect it. I tried to quiet her, and just so that she would go I promised to let her in the following morning. She seemed prepared to leave, but as I returned to the bedroom she quietly followed behind me, and Signor Giorgio, who had woken up, saw her. I put my hands together and begged her not to move and not to speak.