All Our Yesterdays (25 page)

5

Autumn went by, with the tomatoes laid out in front of the houses to dry, for the making of tomato paste, and then with the maize and the beans laid out to dry, and with people coming down from the pine wood with sacks of pine-cones; there were even some who broke off entire branches from the pine-trees and the forest guard would arrive with his gun and there would be a great sound of running down through the pine wood and the forest guard shouting and firing into the air. The pine wood was also full of a certain kind of white mushrooms shaped like little ears, they were tough to cook and they tasted like pith, but the whole village feasted off them. There were also some real mushrooms but not very many, all those that there were were found by a little old man who lived down at the old station. He was a little old man with a dirty white jacket and white trousers turned up to the knees, as a young man he had been a servant in the house of a naval officer, and he had had this white uniform given to him as a present. He used to come down from the pine wood in the evening, looking as if he were in his drawers, and carrying, tied to a stick, a little bundle of real mushrooms, and Cenzo Rena, if he happened to be at the door of his house, would buy the whole bundle of mushrooms, and would be very pleased because he knew he was doing something to annoy the Marchesa, who was waiting at her window for the mushrooms, and when the little old man passed under the Marchesa's window without any mushrooms she would call him into the hall and make a furious scene. The old man would swear he had not found any mushrooms, and the Marchesa would swear that she had just seen him selling his mushrooms to Cenzo Rena, and she would pull out a pair of her coachman's cast-off shoes and swear to the little old man that she would make him a present of them if he brought her mushrooms every evening. But the little old man did not believe that she would ever make him a present of the shoes, the Marchesa was miserly and never gave away even so much as a pin.

Autumn went by and winter began and by now Anna knew well all the people in the village, from the little old man in white to the man with the corkscrew leg who came past with his cart full of pots and pans, from La Maschiona's seducer to the farrier who burnt the hooves of the mules, in front of his door there were always mules' hairs scattered about and a smell of scorched skin. La Maschiona's seducer's family were still waiting for news of the son who was at the war and had been posted missing, a man from the village who had come back from Greece told of how he had left him at a cross-roads and after that had heard nothing more of him. His mother kept thinking about that cross-roads, she had been told that in Greece there were so many cross-roads and it was easy to get lost, she came to Cenzo Rena to ask if this was true, and she had letters written through the Red Cross. La Maschiona hid herself when she came because she did not wish to meet the wife of her seducer, and she told Anna about this young man who was missing at the cross-roads, a fine young man he was, very tall and with black moustaches like his father. But still, it was better to be missing in Greece than to be missing in Russia, said La Maschiona, because in Russia it was so cold that the birds fell down dead out of the sky, and Russia was very big and just one great expanse of snow, and anyone who got lost in that snow never found the road to come back home again. News arrived con-stantly, sometimes at Masuri and sometimes at San Costanzo, of men who had been killed in Russia or wounded or missing, all of a sudden as you walked through the lanes you would hear shrill cries, an official announcement had been made that someone had been killed. La Maschiona wanted to put Mussolini in a cage and send him round very slowly through the lanes of all the villages, so that everyone could do whatever they liked to him.

In the winter Giustino had a month's leave because he had been wounded in the shoulder. The wound was not a serious one and he came to San Costanzo one day towards Christmas. Men belonging to San Costanzo had also come home on leave and they stood about in the village square and told people about Russia, so many men had had their feet frostbitten because of the boots that the Government provided, the Germans and the Russians did not get frostbitten feet because they had boots of a different kind. No one knew very much about who was winning or losing, it was all a matter of going forwards and then back again. They had been afraid of the Russians but also of the Germans, they were allies but all the same they made you afraid of them, they were completely armed from head to foot and well protected from the cold. Giustino was seen getting out of the bus one day, he had given them no notice that he was coming. He was strange in his soldier's uniform and he had allowed his beard to grow, and it grew all curly and chestnut-coloured, just a little lighter than his hair. There he sat in the dining-room and he supported his shoulder with one hand because it still hurt him a little. There he sat with a rather crooked smile on his face which looked just like Ippolito's smile, the curly beard making his face look thinner and older, with its eyes that had seen the war.

They asked him many questions but he had no desire to tell stories. He had not regretted having gone to the war because he had always had a wish to know what sort of a thing war was, now he knew it was a bad thing but he had not regretted going, he wanted to be like other people, he wanted to be neither better off nor worse off than others. He said that Emanuele, when he himself was on the point of going off to Russia, had made an angry scene with him, he was too young to be called up and he could have stayed at home, and instead of that he was going as a volunteer to fight in a Fascist war, he was going to help the Fascists not to lose this war of theirs, because he had perhaps taken to loving his country, he had perhaps believed all that rubbish about his country that Fascism taught in the schools. But there wasn't a grain of truth in it, said Giustino, he had never dreamed of loving his country, he never thought about any country whatever when he was at the war, firing at the enemy. Moreover, none of the men that were with him did think about it. Nor did anyone ever remember that it was against the Russians that they were firing. It was just firing, neither for anybody nor against anybody, just firing with your feet like pieces of ice in your boots, and with your eyes dazzled by the snow. When he went away he had simply wanted to know what sort of a thing war was, and then too he was fed up with being at home with Signora Maria, and then there was another story as well that wasn't worth mentioning. But little by little he had realized that he was at the war in order to be like other people, in order to have cold feet too, and to wait for things from home, and to fix on a point in the snow and then fire. He did not believe he was helping the Fascists to win the war, what difference did it make, one person firing more or less, surely the war was already hopelessly lost for the Fascists, they had America against them as well now, obviously America was coming into the war too, in a short time. But Cenzo Rena said the war would go on a long time yet, you couldn't see the end of it yet, when Russia had come in he had thought it would end quickly, and instead of that Germany had taken big pieces of Russia. And he said that Giustino had done well to go to Russia thinking as he did, that he was a person like the others fighting for no particular country but for the innocent people who were there on the spot, and
that,
in fact, was his country, his country was the poor devils sent off to Russia from a great many villages like San Costanzo, poor devils who had cold feet and were firing neither for nor against anybody. Anna looked and looked at Giustino and kept on thinking that he would be killed in the war, she looked at him as he was now with his curly beard and Ippolito's smile, she looked at him because she remembered that she had never looked properly at Ippolito and then all of a sudden he was dead. She was holding the baby in her lap and Giustino for a moment took the baby's fingers in the tips of his own fingers, and he said she was much better than Concettina's baby, which was petted and spoilt and tiresome, what with Concettina herself and Signora Maria and all those grandmothers and old women that were always hovering round for fear it should come to some harm. Signora Maria and Concettina quarrelled over the baby and what it should eat, Signora Maria complained of her ankles and of a backache that she had because she had tired herself out with working; she also complained that the Sbrancagnas' villa was damp, and that there was very little to eat and that the servants ate up everything. She said that one of these days she would come to San Costanzo but Giustino did not believe she would come, she had grown very old and everything frightened her. Giustino had also seen Emanuele and they had made it up again, Emanuele had asked his forgiveness for all the unkind things he had said to him when he was going away to the war. Emanuele was full of troubles at the soap factory, and besides, he was worried about Giuma who had been thrown over by that so-called
fiancée
of his and had taken it in a tragic manner, and he was always going and sitting on Ippolito's seat and was always going and looking at a picture of Ippolito on Emanuele's desk, Emanuele was afraid he was thinking of doing what Ippolito did, some time or other. He had let himself be persuaded to study commercial sciences but he never uttered a syllable now at home, he never went either to ski or to play bridge and he dressed untidily and behaved like a
po
èt
e maudit.
Giustino said that in Russia he would have learned how to ski very well.

When Giustino had gone away again Cenzo Rena clapped his hand to his forehead, again this time he had forgotten to introduce the Turk, the Turk who set so much store on being introduced to people who came from outside. La Maschiona said how handsome Giustino was now with his beard, a fine young man he was, what a pity he had to go back to the war and perhaps be killed. Cenzo Rena shouted at her to be quiet and not to bring misfortune, he touched a big horse-shoe that the farrier had given him, which he kept hung up on the wall in the dining-room. Once again there was the question of the pigs that had to be killed and La Maschiona was always running off in search of salt and of ox-gut to make the cases for the sausages, then came the things that are eaten as soon as the pig is killed, black puddings and the little fried curls of fat which they called
sfrizzoli,
and the sausages that have to be eaten at once, which they called
salsicce pazze
or “crazy sausages”, perhaps because they jump about and explode in the pan while they are frying. But everyone was complaining about the pigs which it had been impossible to fatten up properly that year, because neither bran nor vetch could now be got and they had had to bring them up entirely on grass and potatoes. But still, anyone who had a pig was lucky, said La Maschiona, because even with these lean pigs you had something to eat anyhow till the end of July, and yet a great number of people in the village had neither pigs nor anything else and scraped along with nothing but the rationed stuff, with the grey
pasta
that tasted of mud and the maize bread that was made at the communal bakehouse, but still they were lucky to have that little bit of yellow bread because you knew what there was in it, there was maize flour in it and that was all right, whereas with the grey bread they had in the town you didn't quite know what there was in it, they put a bit of everything into it and possibly even the vetch that ought to have been given to the pigs.

In the winter the baby began crawling about the house on all fours, and her knees were always red with rubbing against the bricks of the floor. Her cheeks were red and rough from the wind and the snow, because Cenzo Rena was always taking her off into the pine wood, and La Maschiona would shout from the kitchen window that there were wolves in the pine wood, and would ask if they wanted to make the child die of cold. Cenzo Rena went on up into the wood with the baby on his shoulder, but when they were some distance away from La Maschiona he took off his scarf and wrapped it right round the baby's head, and he asked Anna whether it was really too cold, after all what did he know about babies, this was the first baby he had ever happened to carry on his shoulder. Anna said she didn't know either, after all when had
she
ever had to do with a baby? But Cenzo Rena said there were certain things that women ought to know, she knew nothing because she had always lived like an insect. She had always lived like an insect in a swarm of other insects, said Cenzo Rena, and Anna unwrapped the scarf a little from round the baby's face and Cenzo Rena wrapped it round again, and then all of a sudden he flew into a rage and handed her the baby and ran on ahead, but he stopped because he remembered that there were wolves in the pine wood. Who were all this swarm of insects, Anna asked him. Concettina, said Cenzo Rena, Concettina and Signora Maria. Only Giustino was not an insect, Giustino was a real person, just as their father, with all his oddities and his follies, had been a real person. And Ippolito too, in his own way, had been a real person, even though he had come to that insect-like end. Why an insect-like end, asked Anna and she started crying, he ought not to speak like that about Ippolito. Why not, said Cenzo Rena, you ought to talk about the dead as if they were living, you ought to judge them as you judge the living, he, when he died, did not wish to be adored on bended knees, he wished to be judged. The wind was blowing violently and they went back to the house. Anna sat down with the baby and gave her something to eat, the baby now ate La Maschiona's bread soaked in milk from the mayor's cow. Cenzo Rena watched the baby eating for a bit and said that the only good thing about the mayor was the milk from his cows, as a mayor he was worthless. He went over to the window and waited for the
contadini.
But the
contadini
had not been coming so much for some time now, they came only if they had need of something but not just for conversation; Cenzo Rena said they came less because they were afraid of the police-sergeant, now that the police-sergeant was hostile to him. It really wasn't worth troubling yourself about this rotten village, said Cenzo Rena, he now had only one friend left and that was the
contadino
Giuseppe, he always came, every evening. The
contadino
Giuseppe wore a green hat which he never took off, and he always told the story of how he had been a bricklayer in Rome and in the cemetery had seen written on someone's tomb : “Lived and died a Socialist”; and that was what they ought to write on
his
tomb when he died. And then he talked about a book he read at night while his wife was asleep, Jack London's
The Iron Heel,
Cenzo Rena wanted to lend him other books but Giuseppe did not believe that anything could be as fine as
The Iron Heel.
Cenzo Rena sat with him listening to the radio and drinking wine, and he explained to him what he would have to do when Fascism went up in smoke and they made him mayor, Giuseppe said he was not sure that he would make a very good mayor, it would be better to make Cenzo Rena mayor, they discussed which of them ought to be mayor. Anna had already been asleep for some time when Cenzo Rena came up to bed, but he woke her up because he was incapable of undressing in silence, he walked up and down the room and hurled garments and shoes into the air and poured water into the jug and flung open the cupboards. He put on his striped pyjamas and made the whole bed bounce up and down as he slipped between the sheets, and he said what a fine chap the
contadino
Giuseppe was, one of the dearest friends he had ever had. Anna's father had been a very dear friend of his, too, they had quarrelled only because he had given him his book of memoirs to read and Cenzo Rena had been unable to tell a He, he had said that the book of memoirs was a thing quite without any sense. And so they had quarrelled and had said words to each other that they had never been able to wipe out. To Ippolito, too, he had said words which he would have liked to be able to wipe out, he did not recollect them very well now but he recollected that they had been intended to mortify him, he could still see Ippolito under the pergola at Le Visciole with the dog between his knees, he had mortified him so deeply and now he was dead and he could never ask his forgiveness. Now he wanted to take care never to mortify anyone again, there were times when he wanted to fly into a rage with Giuseppe for his everlasting reading of
The Iron Heel,
never anything but
The Iron Heel,
there were evenings when he longed to tell him that really and truly
The Iron Heel
was not of any importance, and that he was also sick of hearing him always repeat: “Lived and died a Socialist”. However he said nothing. He did not wish ever to mortify anyone again, there was the war going on and the
contadino
Giuseppe might go to it and be killed, and to himself too, to him, Cenzo Rena, it might happen somehow or other that he might be killed in the war, the war would not always be so far off, at any moment, even there where they were, something might come about that would cause people to be killed, revolution or war. He asked Anna whether she still thought all the time about revolution. Anna said she still thought about it when the baby was asleep, however when the baby was awake the only things she could think about were the things that were good for babies, sun and fresh air and milk and bread and butter, and long monotonous days with no one firing. But as soon as the baby went to sleep she immediately started thinking again about all the things she used to think about before, she herself, Anna, firing on the barricades, she climbed with her rifle on to the barricades as soon as the baby went to sleep. Cenzo Rena asked with whom did she climb on the barricades, she said that she climbed up with him, with the Turk and with the
contadino
Giuseppe. Cenzo Rena laughed a great deal at the thought of the Turk on the barricades, he himself believed that the Turk would shut himself up in the house the moment there was even the smallest revolution. They lay talking in the dark till late, and in the morning when they woke up Anna found that the head beside hers on the pillow no longer seemed so very strange. La Maschiona came in with the baby, since the baby had been born Cenzo Rena had forbidden her to go down and sleep at her mother's. She came in and threw down the baby on their bed, she was always very untidy and fierce-looking in the morning, she was very much annoyed with them because they no longer allowed her to go home to her mother's at night. She banged down the tub with the hot water on the floor and started sweeping out the rooms with a grim look on her face. Cenzo Rena fumed with rage at this grim face, he got into the tub and floundered about in it for a little, and then he went outside in his bath-gown to look at the morning, at the big dark patches of grass that were appearing amongst the snow on the ridges of the hills, at the man with the corkscrew leg who was passing with his cart, at the Turk who was going to ring at the door of the police station, he had to ring every so often to show that he was still there. Cenzo Rena poked about round the house in his bath-gown and breathed in the morning, and he said that he felt happy, bored to death with this village that was always there in front of his eyes, bored to death and happy, he did not understand how one could be so bored and so happy at the same time.