Lost Words (15 page)

“Don't even bother opening it,” she barked. “I've always hated colored gemstones . . .”

“Your wish is my command!” Baioni said, like an obsequious waiter. “And emeralds do get scratched so easily . . . You're right. For a woman like you, only diamonds will do! I should have realized immediately . . . So here you are, Signora . . .”

“
Signora
Elvira,” she quickly interjected, flattered.

Baioni stuck his hand into another secret pocket and extracted a small doeskin sachet.

“Inside you'll find the ring that's perfect for
you
.”

With a jubilant expression he emptied the contents of the sachet into the center of the satin bedspread: a shower of jewels.

My mother tried on the rings, one at a time. He proposed the earrings, too. No, not the earrings. That would be too much.

“As you wish, Signora Elvira.”

My mother studied the ring that she'd slid onto the middle finger of her left hand.

“My hands are all wrong for diamonds”—she began to pity herself—“look at them: dry, chapped . . . you can't imagine how much work they've done . . . and all for what?”

“There is a perfect ring for every woman,” declared Baioni, a true salesman. “The hard part is to find it . . . but you clearly have, Signora Elvira. An excellent choice: fourteen little diamonds and a larger central diamond in the middle . . . it would be the envy of any woman . . . See how nice it looks on you! With a ring like this on your finger, who'd notice how dry your skin is?”

“And how much would it cost?”

Baioni took out his price sheet.

“Six hundred thousand.”

She laughed in his face. It was a tenth of the cost of the house she had wanted to buy!

“Signora Elvira, let me explain,” Baioni continued passionately. “A diamond is no ordinary gemstone. It's much much more. Its value will increase! A diamond is a gift that will last a lifetime . . .”

She was unimpressed by his palaver.

“How much lower can you go?”

Baioni took a deep breath.

“I'll give it to you for five hundred, because it's your first purchase, your first diamond. An excellent price—but don't tell anyone! They'd never believe you . . . you can pay me fifty a month. It's a bargain. And it also comes with a warranty . . .”

She bit her lip. She held her hand out and brought it close. She tilted her head back, first to one side, then to the other.

“Do you like it?” she asked me.

I said I did, reminiscing about Miss Lynd's diamonds, which were ever bigger and shinier.

“The boy knows what he's talking about,” Baioni smiled, while placing the other jewels back in the doeskin sachets and the little envelopes. “And you'll find that even your husband will see you in an entirely new light . . .”

My mother opened the armoire, fished out the steel box, and removed two one-hundred-lira bills. Baioni took them, and signed the receipt.

“So we'll see each other next month then . . . Ah, and do you think in the building there might be other women who . . .”

“Heavens no!” my mother stopped him. “I have strict orders not to let anyone upstairs, no Jehovah's Witnesses, no Avon ladies, and no jewelry salesmen! . . . Besides, you're not going to find anyone who deserves diamonds here . . . In here they're all petty and cheap. They think they're grand but true nobility is not what you see on the outside—it's what's on the inside that counts. Don't get me started! Do you know what I think? I don't give a damn about the lowlifes who live here. They can all go to hell. For ten years now I've been kind to everybody. Enough already. From now on I'm ignoring them. They tell me: ‘Elvira, next time please remember to polish my door.' And I say: ‘Of course.' But next time I won't even mop the landing. Why should I care? Do they care about me? Worthless bums . . .”

Baioni was taken aback by her sudden outburst. Speechless, he made a slight bow and went on his way.

My mother sat down and studied the ring on her finger. Her face was burning. Like a remorseful thief, incapable of determining whether she had stolen a precious object or pure junk, she wondered what she had gotten herself into. What if the diamonds were fake? She'd been such an idiot! Giving her money to a complete stranger! The thought that Baioni would be coming by next month for the second installment reassured her—but what if he didn't come back? What a fool she'd been to be cheated like that! She, who knew that the world was filled with con artists!

*.

Fearing that my father would see it, she kept the ring hidden in the steel box. When he was away, she would take it, rub it with dishwashing liquid, and then study it carefully under a lamp. For her the ring could never be too shiny. “Look at it!” she would command me. When she would ask me, “What do you think?” there was no point in answering, “It's beautiful,” because something had been gnawing at her ever since that damn Baioni had dropped by. If it weren't for the two hundred liras it had cost her, she would have thrown it in the trash.

Saturday arrived. My father was getting ready to go to the movies. She was rinsing the dishes, her brow more furrowed than usual. She suddenly turned off the faucet and yanked off her apron.

“Get dressed,” she ordered me, “we're going downtown . . .”

“What's going on?” protested my father, who had almost finished combing his hair. “I'm about to go out . . .”

“Chino,” she replied while she was slipping on her shoes, “tell your father that it's our turn to go out today. Every now and then he can give up something, too. The movies will still be there tomorrow . . . Lets go!”

The streetcar left us in Piazza Cordusio, where my mother had gone on walks a few times as a young woman, back when she was working for the doctor.

“Here we are,” she sighed in front of a jewelry shop.

“Can I help you?” asked the owner without much conviction.

“Well, to be honest,” my mother stammered, “I didn't come here to buy anything. I only wanted, if possible, to get an estimate on this ring . . .”

She removed it from her jacket pocket and let it fall into the woman's outstretched hand.

“Where did you buy it?” the jeweler asked while she was examining it under the lens.

In the grip of panic, my mother told her she had found it on the street.

“It's a nice ring. The stones aren't the greatest, but they're pure. It's probably worth about seven hundred liras. If you want, I'll buy it from you. I can pay you right away . . .”

My mother grabbed me by the arm.

“No thank you,” she whispered. “Maybe someday, if I'm ever having difficulties . . .”

She took the ring back and dragged me out of the store. A few steps later she burst into tears, in the midst of the crowd. Not only was the ring authentic, but it was worth a lot more than it had cost her! Poor Baioni! She had been so unfair to ever doubt him!

On a wave of enthusiasm, she dragged me to the Rinascente department store—the moral sewer of the city, according to my father—where she bought me a pair of brand-name jeans and treated me to a Coke at the café on the top floor. For herself she ordered an espresso and asked the waiter for a cigarette.

As we walked across the Piazza del Duomo I told her what I remembered about the history of the cathedral, pointing up to the gold statue of the Madonna suspended in the Milanese sky. She started to sing “O mia bela Madunina,” but stopped after the first words. For a second we remembered the old lady's visit.

“Is it really pure gold?” she asked me incredulously. Then, she sighed: “If only I could've had just the head. . .”

*.

It was time to let the rest of the building know about the diamond—then they would stop thinking that the doorwoman hadn't bought an apartment because she was short of money. They had to understand once and for all that she hadn't bought one
because she didn't want to live in that building . . .

She invited the seamstress down for a cup of coffee: if you wanted a secret to get out as quickly as possible, who better to start with?

Nowadays the seamstress was acting like a grand capitalist. Indeed, she was the only one who had bought two apartments, her own and the one next door, the Vignolas' one-bedroom . . . She told us that in a year she'd knock down the wall, turning it into a five-room apartment. With two bathrooms! And four balconies! Two attics! And two front doors! She would have the biggest place on the block!

“We also have plenty of money,” my mother said, when the seamstress finally stopped long enough to take a breath. “But there were no more two-bedrooms left, so what was I supposed to buy? A one-bedroom? Where would we put the boy? The day we leave Via Icaro, we're going to get a house with at least two-bedrooms. Chino can't keep going without his own room. Especially now that he's attending the Classical Lyceum . . .”

“If you move,” the seamstress said, “you're gonna have bills to pay . . .”

“Signora Bortolon,” my mother reassured her, “it'll take a lot more than an electric bill to ruin us! We've got so much money squirreled away that we don't know what to do with it . . . You know just the other day, on a whim—it's not like I needed it!—I bought myself the diamond . . .”

That's how she said it,
the
diamond, the way she said
the
Classical Lyceum, like the Maestra.

The seamstress's face turned bright red.

“You got yourself the
diamond
!”

And my mother: “A setting of fourteen little stones with a big rock in the middle . . .”

Letting her envy get the better of her, the seamstress shrieked: “You're not scared someone's gonna steal it?”

And my mother, growing more aloof by the minute: “What can I say? It is what it is. In the meantime, I'll keep it well hidden. Oh, and please, don't breathe a word to anyone, I know I can trust you.”

The seamstress was shaking with the urge to see the diamond, but she didn't want to stoop to asking.

“What good's a diamond if you're scared someone's gonna steal it all the time? It's like you didn't even have it.”

“There you're wrong, my dear Signora Bortolon! There's a big difference between having the diamond and not having it! I look at it, every now and then I try it on. I didn't buy it to show off . . . the diamond is personal . . . if you could only see how shiny it is!”

“So show me the damn diamond already!”

With magnanimous reserve, as if she were granting an exclusive privilege, my mother invited the seamstress to follow her into the bedroom. She reached to the back of the armoire, rummaged through the winter clothes, and after a minute emerged somewhat ruffled, wearing her trophy.

“Ooooh, how pretty,” the seamstress murmured, and immediately followed in a higher-pitched tone, “Give it here so I can try it on.”

My mother removed the ring and handed it to her.

“It really is pretty . . .” she concluded, after regaining her sour expression. “But what good is a ring like that? I like simple things . . .”

Within two days, all of 15 Via Icaro knew that the doorwoman had bought a diamond.
The
diamond! Dell'Uomo tried to spread the rumor that we had won the lottery. But it didn't take long for everyone to realize that, if that were the case, we wouldn't still be living there.

*.

For my Italian finals I decided to write about freedom. While I was filling the exam sheet with words, I thought about my mother, who'd never had a taste of freedom. I thought about what I had learned from Miss Lynd: that the Italians didn't know freedom because they'd almost always been dominated. I compared them to the Russians. Like the Russians, Italians were inclined to entrust everything to a leader, whether a king, dictator, or pope—anyone who knew how to raise his voice and promise happiness for the future. I wrote that Italians didn't understand the concept of the present, at least not as well as other nations, for example the French. Italians postpone everything until tomorrow, and the next day they do the same thing, infinitely, and meanwhile they make do and try to manage with what they have. They wouldn't know what to do with real freedom because it would require hard work, dedication, constant vigilance—and Italians are lazy, a little selfish, and concerned only with themselves and their families. They don't care too much about their rights: they would rather break the law than fight to protect what was owed to them.

I wrote how true freedom gets attacked over nothing. True freedom cannot be partial, it can only be perfect. All it takes is one person, just one single member of our government, to misbehave—to disrespect the people—for freedom to become a travesty, a puppet that can be manipulated at will. I quoted a sentence by Gandhi that the Maestra had taught me: “No tyrant can govern without the active support of the people,” because when there is a dictator, freedom is trampled by everyone, not just the dictator. I wrote about South Africa, Palestine, Italian colonialism . . .

At my oral exam Signorina Salma took me to task.

“Where did this boy get all these crazy ideas?” she asked her colleagues indignantly. “You wouldn't believe the idiocies he wrote about Italian colonialism! Well he didn't hear them from me! We helped the countries we colonized—and that's the truth! We were much—and I mean
much
—better than the English! And comparing us to the Russians! We Italians aren't communists!”

She started in on a passionate defense of the greatness of the Italian people. She continued with a speech about the beauty of patriotism, the sweetness of our language, which forces us to turn around when we hear it echoed in a foreign country, prompting us to search for an unknown fellow Italian, unknown but not
foreign
, like the time that she, in Paris, during her honeymoon, overheard, in the midst of a crowd, a short sentence uttered in Italian—and she couldn't identify where it had come from. But for the rest of the day the sound stayed with her, or rather
in
her, as if it had slipped under her skin, making that foreign city feel less foreign, where no one knew her, and where they ate the most absurd things, like pasta as a side dish instead of a first course! . . .