History (68 page)

The start was sensational, and the trip was a genuine science-fi expedition for Useppe! They covered all of monumental Rome, from Piazza Venezia to Piazza del Popolo, and then to Via Veneto, Villa Bor ghese, and back again to Piazza Navona, and the Janiculum, and St. Peter's! They hurtled through all the streets with a gigantic noise, because Ninnarieddu, to show who he was, had abolished the muffi And when they went by, people scattered in all directions on the sidewalks, and protested, and policemen blew their whistles. Useppe had never known those neighborhoods, which in a shining cyclone now rushed at Nino's motorcycle, as if at a space-probe launched across the planets. Raising his eyes, he could see statues fl with spread wings from domes and ter races, dragging the bridges in their race with their white tunics in the wind. And trees and fl spun. And characters never seen before, always of white marble, in the shape of men and women and animals, were carrying the palaces, playing with the water, sounding water trumpets, running and galloping in the fountains and around the columns. Drunk with the joy of adventure, Useppe accompanied the motor's thunder with a constant little explosion of laughs. And when Nino started to set him down, he frown and clung to the machine, pleading with him: "Agin!" "Agin! Agin!" Ninnuzzu imitated him, teasing, as he sped off again, to satisfy him, "Hey, kid, it's time you learn to talk right!" then after the third trip, he declared : "Okay, that's enough! . . . How about giving me a little kiss?" he added, to say goodbye, leaving him at the door of the building. "Agin," Useppe murmured once more, though without hope, raising his eyes to him. But Nino, this time, defi ive, didn't even answer him, bending right over to give him a little farewell kiss.

And giving it to him, he suddenly had the same notion he had had once before: that in Useppe's eyes there was something new and diff t. Even in his familiar little laugh, to tell the truth, there was now something diff (a feverish tremolo, almost impercepti not due to the speed : rather an inner cracking, like the constant tug of a nerve). But Nino hadn't noticed this; half-astri his bike, he watched his brother from behind, as he reluctantly climbed the stairs, always putting the same foot fi at each step, the way beginners do (in him a sign of bad humor), and

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1946

perhaps with some grumbling . . . Between the cap and the scarf, you could see his smooth, wispy hair. And from his little overcoat, made with "room to grow in," his pants appeared, also too long, American style. "Ciao!" Nino shouted to him, laughing at that comical sight, "see you soon!" and Useppe turned again to wave at him, opening and closing his fi "Make way, you kids! Clear out!!" Nino said, setting off again in a huge roar amid the crowd of worshipers .

After his reappearance in liberated Rome, Ninnuzzu hadn't been heard to make any further reference to the Communist revolution, or to Comrade Stalin. The subject came up again one day when Ninnuzzu, taking out Remo the tavernkeeper on his powerful bike, stopped off with him at the Marrocco home. In Filomena's workroom, the
piccinina's
place was empty today, because she had been kept home with ' flu; however, the thoughtless Ninnari didn't even notice this gap : he hardly saw the
piccinina,
to tell the truth, even when she was there, before his very eyes!

This time the bike had been left in the care of the concierge, who, devoted to motors and racing heroes, guarded it as if it were a harem pri ess. 1l1e tavernkeeper brought Ida a present, a jug of olive oil, and Nino brought her a packet of American coff and it was clear from some remarks that the two men's current relationship involved business more than politics. However, already on the stairs they had started a political discussion; their arguing voices had announced them from the landing below. And when they came into the house, they resumed their argument almost immediately.

Remo seemed embittered by Nino's present indiff towards the Communist Party; recently, in that month of Janua ry, the Party Congress had been held in Rome, followed with enthusiastic faith by Remo and by all the comrades; but Ninnarieddu hadn't taken the slightest interest in it; indeed he had barely heard news of it. When they suggested he take out a party card, he snickered, as if they had suggested he become a monk . . . And now, among these and similar complaints from Remo, he began softly to sing "Red Flag" in the tone of someone singing a song from an operetta, like
The Merry Widow!

"In the old days," Remo said bitterly to the others, "he used to talk like a real comrade . . . But now, when we should all stick together for the struggle . . ."

"In the old days I was a kid!" Nino exploded.

" . . . What struggle?" Consolata, also present, supported him, with a sad gaze, "we struggle and struggle, and we're left at the gate. Without a pot to pee in!"

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"I'll struggle for ME and for anybody I like!" Nino proclaimed, on his side angrily, "but for the Cell Leaders, NO! Do you know what REVO LUTION means? It means, fi of all : no Leaders! When I was a kid, I fought for that other one. And you saw what happened? Our Magnifi Leader, who never retreats?! He was so scared, he was running away, dressed up like a German!! He might of dressed up like a nun!! When I was a kid, none of the Leaders bothered to tell me that black shirt meant dirty shirt! But when I left the Blackshirts, those other Leaders up North, acting like genuine offi didn't want me with their partisans, because they didn't trust me! And now, I'm the one who doesn't trust them!!" And Ninnarieddu slapped his left arm, knifelike, with his right hand, in a well known obscene gesture.

"But Comrade Stalin is a true Leader! You believed in him too!"

"I used to believe in him! . . . but not all that much!" Ninnuzzu refl " . . . well, I believed in him . . . and now, if you want to know, I don't believe even in him any more. He's another Leader like the rest, and wherever there are Leaders, there's always the same stink! Ask anybody who's been there, in the kingdom of Siberi The people work their ass off and he licks his lips!"

"You didn't talk like this before . . ." Remo repeated bitterly.

"Before! Before! BEFORE!" Nino shouted at him, so loud he was deafening, "you know what I say, Remo? We don't have much time!" and in a loud tenor voice he started singing,

"play your balalaika, Ivana, and wait some more

"Remo . . . this is my life, not theirs! The Leaders aren't going to screw me again . . . Remo, I want to live!" Nino burst out with such violence that he sounded like a fi alarm.

He expounded this concept of his, a second time, in Ida's new home in Via Bodoni, where he turned up with his Triumph after another argu ment with Comrade Remo. As if continuing the quarrel with him, he raged, striding grandly about the kitchen; but really he was talking to himself, his only audience being Ida and Useppe, who kept quiet. Furi ously, he repeated that Stalin was a Big Cheese like the others, and for that matter History said so, too. Hadn't Comrade Stalin fl ted with the Nazis, to screw Poland?! And, lately, hadn't he taken advantage of Japan's being KO'd, in order to jump on them? Stalin and the other Big Cheeses, it's all one system : they play footsies with each other to screw everybody else and to screw each other, too. And Nino doesn't give a shit about them. Nino wants to live, he wants to enjoy all life and all the world, all the universe! with the suns, moons, and planets!!! Now, 1946, it's America's big mo-

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ment: and as for the Re\'olution, it's a sure thing it won't come for now

. . . "Maybe it'll come in a hundred years. But my time-and I'm twenty

-is today. In a hundred years, when I'll be a hundred and twenty, we can talk about it again !" . . . Nino in the meanwhile wants to get rich, a superbillionaire, and go off to America in a special extra de luxe plane. He'll take Useppe along, too : "Hey, Usc, you want to come, on the plane, to America?" "Yes, yes, yes." "Then we're off . . . The Revolution won't come for now because the guys in charge here now are the Americans and "they don't want it." And not even Stalin wants it, because he's an im perialist, too, like those others. Russia's imperialist like America, but the Russian empire's on the other side, on this side there's America's empire. Their fi all a fake. Meanwhile, the two of them fl and divide up the loot : you there and me here; and then if you make a wrong move, we'll see who has the best atomic bomb, and so the rest of us can go out on the balcony with our binoculars and enjoy the atoms. The Big Cheeses have it all fi out among themselves, they're all buddies.

"Me! They make me laugh! I'm the king of anarchy! I'm the outlaw bandit! I'll empty their banks, I will! And to hell with the big guys! I'll smash their empire in their faces . . .

. . . "Hey, Use, how about taking a ride now, on the bike?" "Es! Es! Essss!"

"Es es es! Now you've lost your 'y' again! Come on, Useppe, come on, come on, come on!"

And they run off together, the two lunatics. The enormous explosion of their departing engine makes everybody look out into the courtyard. All the tenants of Via Bodoni are at their windows, to watch the Triumph's departure.

The new home in Via Bodoni, where Ida and Useppe had moved that spring, was made up of two rooms, one of which was very small, hardly more than a closet. In addition, there was the entrance, a dark space without windows; on the left the
we
opened, very tiny and without a sink. The kitchen, instead, was to the right, at the end of a short corridor, and its window looked onto the courtyard, as did the little room, while from the larger room you could see the square of Santa Maria Liberatrice. In this square stood a church decorated with some mosaics that Ida, ac cording to her taste, considered beautiful, because in the light they glowed with gold.

At a very short distance from the house was Ida's famous school, which, after its wartime occupation, had already announced its reopening with the next school year; and this meant a great advantage and solace for

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Ida. The little apartment was at the corner of the building, on the top fl next to the water tank and the common terrace where laundry could be hung; and this position, like the topography of the interior, reminded Ida of her old home at San Lorenzo.

Here, too, the building was vast, more vast even than at San Lorenzo, with two courtyards and numerous entries. Ida's was Stairway Number Six; and in her courtyard a palm tree grew: Ida liked this, as well. Partly on time and partly from a junk man, she purchased the necessary furniture, which, for the moment, was limited to a table and cupboard for the kitchen, a couple of straight chairs, a second-hand wardrobe, and two sets of bedsprings, with feet, which the dealers pompously called
sommiers.
She placed the broader
sommier
in the large room, for herself and Useppe; and the other, a single bed, was put in the little room, in the hope that sooner or later Nino would come to stay there. But to tell the truth, he showed no intention of returning to the family; and indeed, during his stays in Rome, he left his addresses shrouded in mystery. It was clear, at any rate, that he had no permanent home; and that, on occasion, a woman put him up. Not always the same one, however, because Nino's relationships, as in the past, were always intermittent and irregular.