A Very Italian Christmas Page 6

  Outside the grotto it was much more beautiful. The shepherds were a real army, motionlessly inundating that small mountain. They appeared to be going up and down the slopes, looking out of one of the white houses built into the rock (in the style of southern towns), or leaning over a well, or sitting at the table of a country inn; or, finally, to be sleeping, waking, walking, courting a girl, or selling (and you could see their mouths opened in a cry) a basket of fish, or resoling shoes (sitting at a cobbler’s bench), or performing a tarantella, while another, crouching in a corner with a mischievous air, touched a guitar. Many, standing near a donkey or some sheep, had their arms raised to indicate a distant point in that blue paper, or shielded their eyes with one hand to protect them from the bright light of an angel, who had dropped from a tree, with a strip of paper on which was written “Hosanna!” or “Peace on earth to men of good will!” Finally, there were two elegant cafés, on the model of those in Piazza dei Martiri, with small nickel-plated tables on the sidewalk, and red-wheeled carriages that drove up and down, carrying ladies holding fans and white parasols.

  Every so often someone stopped piously in front of that simulacrum of the Divinity, and observed this or that animal, or even picked one up—a sheep or a rooster—and examined it from all sides with curiosity.

  The room was already full of family members, chatting as they waited for lunch, and the younger, like Petrillo and Anna, jokingly played some notes on the piano.

  “Murolo is always Murolo,” Eduardo was saying, while Anna, standing in front of the piano, played now this key, now that one, enunciating, with her mouth closed, the words of Core ’ngrato— Ungrateful Heart—the same that could be heard in the morning, rising here and there in the narrow streets from phonographs and radios:

  Tutto è passato!

  “That’s enough, enough of these sad things,” said Dora. “Today is supposed to be joyful. This is the year that everyone’s getting married,” she added, winking at Anastasia.

  Anastasia, standing near the balcony, elegantly dressed, but with a long, melancholy expression, because she was still thinking of this life and of Antonio, gave her a glance full of gratitude and at the same time of anxiety, feeling herself revive yet again in those words. Therefore, she, too, was considered young; for her, too, there was hope! And that obstruction in her heart, that confused shame, that opposition to thinking things not suitable for her—maybe those were the mistake, and not the hope of living.

  Aunt Nana’s walking stick could be heard pounding everywhere. The poor woman, like a frog that happens into a circle of butterflies and no longer cares about the boredom of its existence, was eager to seize on some voice, a single note in that jumbled, gentle chatter, which would restore to her a connection with what she had long ago lost. Youth and love tormented her with curiosity, and she examined faces, unable to hear the voices, and muttered and laughed continuously, approving what she thought she grasped.

  “Oh, oh, what joy, what beauty is youth!” On her yellow cheeks, in honor of youth, she had put a little rouge, and now her terrible eyes were burning. “Oh, oh, what joy!”

  “As for me,” Giovannino Bocca, a young man with a carrot-colored mustache and big red ears, was saying, “as for me, I think the Naples team is on its way to becoming good. But it needs money … yeah … a lot of money.”

  “Also, our stadium needs to be renovated …” Eduardo observed, in a bored tone, and, approaching the piano, he moved some scores around on the music stand. “It seems that Casa Ricordi is having a revival. Have you heard what great songs they have this year?”

  “Here’s one that’s pretty good for dancing,” said Anna. “Listen …”

  “It really makes you want to dance,” and Dora Stassano spun around vivaciously, while Petrillo observed her.

  There was nothing extraordinary here. Anastasia knew and pitied the young, who were sickly and unemployed, with few ambitions, few dreams, a scant life; and yet, at that moment, they appeared to her beautiful, healthy, happy, rich in dreams and possibilities that would one day be fulfilled; and she shared in that joy, even though she knew that it didn’t belong to her, that she was remote from it. Her brain knew this, but her blood no longer knew it. Now at any moment, the young man would arrive; the door would open and he would come right in, and, sitting at the table, without looking at her, would ask, a little self-conscious, a little emotional: “Well, how are we doing? And you, Anastasia, still at the shop? I heard you’re getting married, too, is it true?” Oh, my God! Everything would change, after that conversation, the afternoon would be different from the usual, and the evening as well; maybe, talking to Anna in their room, late at night, she would tell her everything. And the next day would be another day, and the day after, too. The news would spread. “Anastasia’s getting married … It seems she’s marrying the Lauranos’ older son … He’s younger than she is, but men have these odd passions … He’ll never leave her … He’s jealous.” No, jealous was too much, even if it warmed her heart. They would say, instead: “She’s almost old, but he loves her just the same … It was a feeling he’d had for years … He admired her.”

  “To the table, to the table!” Signora Finizio cried just then, entering the room with a tray that held the steaming white porcelain soup tureen, full of the countless little yellow eyes of the broth.

  With a great scraping of chairs, the table was soon occupied. Prayers were recited, good wishes repeated, and Anastasia felt a happiness so intoxicating and strange that, suddenly, without saying a word, she went around kissing everyone, mother, siblings, in-laws, and when she returned to her place, her eyes shining with tears, she couldn’t breathe.

  They had finished the appetizer, and were tasting the first tagliolini, with small sighs of satisfaction (only Anastasia, completely absorbed in her dream, had barely touched her spoon), when the contentedness and peace of that hour were pierced by an indescribable noise, a broad and secret wave of sounds, of sighs rising from the courtyard overlooked by the dining room balcony, and from the building’s stairways and open loggia. Petrillo, who had jumped up to go and see, held his breath for a moment, then erupted in an excited “Madonna! ” at which they all or almost all rose abruptly to go to the windows, while Nana, who, her mouth full, and intent on chewing, hadn’t noticed anything, continued to repeat, “Oh, what joy, oh, what joy!”

  In front of one of the two doors on the third floor, where Donn’Amelia lived, there was a small crowd from which rose weeping and laments. That weeping came from the servant and one or two neighbors, while the others confined themselves to remarking on the fate that had cut off the life of Donn’Amelia, still young.

  In a rush, Eduardo opened the balcony door, and they all went out, despite the cold air, to see better. Indeed, all the tenants had done the same.

  The balconies overlooking the courtyard were crowded with people who had interrupted Christmas lunch to observe with surprise and a certain disquiet how death had passed over that house, and on a holiday, too. Silence had fallen on the Finizio family, which was then broken by remarks such as:

  “Who would have thought!”

  “Poor Donn’Amelia!”

  “Still, she was ill.”

  “Don Liberato was in time to see her.”

  From one person in the crowd came this message, directed toward a distant balcony: “She died with the blessing of the Holy Father!”

  “Lucky her!” responded another voice. “Now her suffering is over.”

  “This life is a torment,” another lamented.

  “Punishment.”

  “Hear the bells!” (And in fact they were rumbling again, announcing the last Mass.) “They’re ringing for her.”

  “She’s no longer of this world.”

  “God rest her soul.”

  And the Finizio family, as if dazed, murmured:

  “On this day!”

  “Who would have expected it!”

  “Now we must go and offer our condolences!”

&nb
sp; “Certainly not,” Signora Finizio burst out. “It wouldn’t be polite. Close them! Close the windows! God rest her soul. Let’s go back inside.”

  Turning, she bumped into Nana, who had come toward the balcony, and now, leaning on her stick, with her puffy face upturned, all confused, raised her big eyes questioningly.

  “Who was it? Who was it?”

  “Donn’Amelia is dead. God bless us!” her sister shouted in her ear.

  “The bread? What does she want with the bread?” answered Nana, bewildered.

  “Unstop your ears, aunt,” Eduardo said harshly. “They haven’t brought her any bread, in fact, she’ll never eat any again. She died suddenly.”

  “Oh, oh, oh!” said the old woman, and her horrible, crimson-colored face darkened, her eyes lowered and filled with tears. That was life, one day or the next, when youth had gone: the poorhouse or a coffin.

  Anastasia needed to go to her room to get a handkerchief. Her heart that day was as delicate as the strings of a violin, and vibrated if it were merely touched. She wept, not so much out of pity for the dead woman, whom she knew and respected, as out of tenderness for this life, which appeared so strange and profound, as she had never seen it, resonant with emotion. It was as if, for some hours, she had been drinking two or three glasses of wine all at once: everything was so new, so intense in its daily simplicity. Never, ever had she been so aware of the faces, the voices of her mother, her siblings, other people. That was why her eyes were full of tears: not because Donn’Amelia was lying on her deathbed, pale-faced and meek as she had always been, but because in this life there were so many things, there was life and death, the sighs of the flesh and despair, sumptuously laid tables and dirty work, the bells of Christmas and the tranquil hills of Poggioreale. Because, while downstairs they were lighting candles, a kilometer away was the port, where Antonio’s ship was anchored, and Antonio himself, who had been so dear to her, at this hour was sitting at the table, with his relatives, thinking of who knows whom or what. And suddenly she realized that, amid so many emotions, her deepest thoughts had returned to being calm, cold, inert, as they had always been, and she no longer cared about Antonio or about life itself.

  She didn’t wonder why this was. She sat again on the bed, as she had that morning, and, looking calmly at the plainest and most familiar details of the room—the chairs, the old paintings, the dried olive branches against the white of the walls—she was thinking what her life would be like twenty years from now. She saw herself still in this house (she didn’t see her own face), she heard the slightly irritated sound of her voice calling her nephews and nieces. Everything would be like today, on that Christmas in twenty years. Only the figures changed. But what would be different? They would still be called Anna, Eduardo, Petrillo, with the same cold faces, joyless, lifeless. They would be the same, even if in reality they had changed. Life, in their family, produced only this: a faint noise.

  She was amazed, remembering the festive atmosphere of the morning, that budding of hopes, of voices. A dream, it had been: there was nothing left. Not for that reason could life be called worse. Life … it was a strange thing, life. Every so often she seemed to understand what it was, and then poof, she forgot, sleep returned.

  The bell rang in the hallway, and right afterward steps could be heard, exclamations, animated voices, including Signora Finizio’s, secretly victorious. “My dear lady, what a pity, have you heard?” It was the neighbor from next door, coming to borrow some coffee. On the street, which should have been deserted, two imbeciles were intently blowing into a bagpipe and because no other voice arose, no other sound, that sad and tender note spread everywhere, at times mingling with a light wind now meandering across the Neapolitan sky.

  “Anastasia!” called Signora Finizio. Of course she needed something. “Anastasia!” she repeated after a moment.

  Mechanically, in that torpor that had now taken over her brain and made her inert, Anastasia went to the closet, opened it, and, seeing the blue coat, which hung there like an abandoned person, delicately ran her fingers over it, feeling a compassion that wasn’t, however, connected to anything, to any particular memory or suffering. Then, suddenly aware of her mother’s call, she answered slowly, with no intonation:

  “I’m coming.”

  1953

  WHITE DOGS IN THE SNOW

  Andrea De Carlo

  We spent Christmas morning with my family and I had to tell them for the third time my stories about Rome and about the time I had spent with the author Marco Polidori. My sisters and my mother were curious, my father more skeptical in his indirect way. He was worried by the idea that I had left a secure position in an impulsive move to Rome; but I had never let him read any of my novel, and he had no idea of what possibilities might await me in that realm. It was Christmas, and in the end our thoughts tended to get lost in the exchange of gestures and gifts, in the various roles that we played, in the familial phrases we repeated over and over to the point of exasperation.

  In all of this I was not able to stop thinking about Maria Blini: the fact that I was in a place I knew so well seemed to summon her up in my mind every few minutes, sending fresh and irregular currents through my heart. I knew almost nothing about her, nor did I have enough information on which to base any realistic expectations. It was exactly this that distracted me midconversation, filling me with a sudden anxiety and causing me to leap to my feet and head to the nearest window to look outside. My older sister remarked to my younger sister, “Isn’t Roberto acting strangely?” That she might have been able to intuit what was going through my mind was almost pleasing to me instead of disquieting.

  Just before dinner I went down to the street with the excuse of making sure I hadn’t left a present in the car. I ran like crazy to the nearest telephone booth but the phone was out of order; it spit my coins out as soon as I had thrust them in. I had to race back to the apartment as quickly as I could, dashing upstairs to my parents’ place and arriving out of breath, to face Caterina’s perplexed stare.

  That evening I repeated the same scenario at her parents’ house in the mountains after leaving a gift-wrapped book in the car on purpose as an excuse to leave. Once again I ran to the closest public telephone, the Swiss coins in my hand and my heart beating rapidly: this time the phone worked but at the other end of the line I heard only Maria’s voice on the answering machine. I didn’t leave any more messages for fear that she would listen to them all at once and think she was being stalked by a maniac; I didn’t really have anything specific to say to her, nor could I leave her a number where she could call me back. I wondered what she was doing at that very moment, if she was in Rome or someplace else, if she was with her family or with Luciano Merzi with the slicked-back hair. I ran back across the icy snow, full of jealousy and impatience and desperation from the distance that separated us; I almost forgot the book, my alibi, that I’d left on the back seat of the car.

  Caterina and I skied in the mornings, the ski runs full of people in the first snowy year after so long. In the afternoons and evenings we began our reading of Polidori’s books; I had bought them all in Rome before leaving. It amazed me to think that he had read my one and only novel with the greatest of attention whereas I had only vague secondhand impressions of his works. I was suddenly taken by the desire to correct my embarrassing ignorance: I skied less and less and read more and more, from morning until late at night, almost one book each day, one after the other, in chronological order.

  And in my ignorance I was surprised because Polidori’s novels were much more vivid and interesting than I had ever imagined them to be. The first novels that he had written in his Argentinian period had a tautness that was almost experimental, the more recent works displayed a research of literary engineering that bordered on the overly aware, but the novels in between were full of color and enjoyment and passion. It seemed to me that this was the essence of his writing: the engagement, the well-developed characters and story lines, the feelings that to
ok possession of the style and molded it to suit their inner breath. Page after page I was stupefied by the rich range of emotions and concrete situations which Polidori had depicted in his novels; I felt even more stupid and uncouth and uncultured for not having known this earlier, and for having brought him my attempt at an unfinished novel without any knowledge of his work.

  I also tried to understand which of his stories were autobiographical or in some way based on real life; when it seemed to be the case I read with twice as much attention as before, drawn in by the complicated dance between men and women at the center of each story. My continual thoughts about Maria provoked in me a strange hypersensitivity as I attempted to decipher the fabric of attraction and innate impulses and rational thoughts and social mores to which Polidori returned time and again but always via a different angle of approach. From my protected vantage point of the chalet in Pontresina, the novels from his central period seemed to me to be infrared telescopes aimed squarely at life; I read them as if I could gain from them some essential information.

  Caterina also read Polidori’s books, and she also preferred the novels he had written in his thirties. She said to me, “One can feel that he wanted to write them. He had stories to tell, and it made him happy to tell them. After The Mimetic Embrace he became much colder and much more detached as an author.” It was the only novel of his that I had read before meeting him and I assumed they were all very similar. She added, “It seems like he writes because he must, now, to maintain a certain standard and affirm his existence. He doesn’t put his heart into it anymore.”

  She was right, even though Polidori’s most recent novels were still full of precise and unconventional observations, and written in a language that was close to perfection. But they centered much more on the writing than on his usual vibrant contents, and they were constructed with a great deal of rational attention so that they seemed more like highly literary essays than actual novels. I wondered what had caused this change in him as an author and when it had taken place; if it was irreversible or just a phase he was going through. I wondered if it had been caused by disappointment, or because he had fallen out of love or if his energy had been diverted for external reasons.