The City and the House (20 page)

I think I'd enjoy living in that house. I don't know, I know that I have come to hate the apartment I live in at the moment. I hate every corner of it, every bit of wall. I'm not alone here because there's always some friend or other of mine sleeping here. But I really want to change where I live. I'm seriously thinking of buying your old home in via Nazario Sauro.

Yes, they took the child. I let them do it because I thought it was better for her. She will grow up in the country. She will have fresh air, chickens, fresh eggs. Not that I think the country and fresh eggs are everything. But they are a lot. And I didn't feel certain that I would be able to give her anything more essential.

The fact of her now being without a mother has not actually changed that much for the child. Nadia wasn't much of a mother; as such she more or less didn't exist. It was always me who looked after the child. But I said that she
more or less
didn't exist as a mother, and that
more or less
could be extremely important. I don't know. In any case Nadia's parents said that with them the child would have a better life. It's possible that what they said was true. I don't know. The old man who came to collect her wasn't unpleasant. I hated him and would have gladly strangled him, but I must say that I didn't find him wholly unpleasant. Anyway, they took the child away and now I want to stop thinking about it.

I haven't read your novel yet. Too many things have happened to me recently. It's still there on the table in its sky-blue cover. I will read it as soon as I can. I'm not a great novel reader. I never have been. At the moment I don't read anything. I don't even read the newspapers.

You mention Ignazio Fegiz in your letter. I see him quite often. I see him with that friend of his, Ippo. Sometimes we meet in the evenings in a restaurant in piazza Navona. Egisto and I, my neighbour from upstairs, sit at a table and wait for them. We see them arrive slowly, he is tall and upright with a crew-cut, and she is small, leaning forward a little, all nose. Egisto calls them the Cat and the Fox. He, Ignazio Fegiz, had an affair with that other friend of yours, Lucrezia, but it was an affair that came to an abrupt conclusion. He doesn't know how to get away from Ippo. To tell you the truth I can't stand Ippo. She's really neurotic. She only eats carrots. I get on quite well with Ignazio Fegiz and with Egisto. Perhaps because I'm always with young people and so every now and then I want to see someone older. And I'll be getting old too. This is a time in which people get old quickly. It's a time in which everything happens quickly.

I know that my neighbour Egisto has told you to come here. Don't take any notice, it's not necessary that you come. Even he thinks I need company. In fact I don't need anything. I've more company that I know what to do with. I'm never alone.

That friend of mine, Salvatore Ostuni, tried to hang himself in his mother's house at Frosinone. His mother was out and she arrived just in time, if she had come a moment later it would have been all over. He's in a mental hospital now.

No one knows what happened in piazza Tuscolo that evening. Salvatore doesn't speak and when he does speak he doesn't say even a syllable that's true. He says that the two on the scooter wanted a gold watch back from him and that he didn't want to give it to them because they hadn't given him a sum of money - three million - that he'd lent them. The ones in the Fiat 500 were friends of the ones on the scooter. He didn't see who it was who shot at him, he can't remember, he doesn't know.

Alberico

Rome, 5th October

Dear Giuseppe,

I haven't written to you for a long time, and you haven't written to me any more either.

I heard about Nadia. I can't stop thinking about it. I saw her twice in all. Once at Monte Fermo. Once at your son's film, that awful film. I only looked vaguely at her each time, and I can't remember her well. Goodness knows why we look at people so vaguely. Then they die and we wish we were able to remember them.

I spent August and September at Sabaudia, with Daniele and Vito, in a house that Serena has rented for the whole year. The others went to a summer camp, and then they went to Holland with Piero. I was very alone at Sabaudia, Serena didn't come at all. It was a quiet summer.

Write to me.

Lucrezia

Princeton, 15th October

Dear Lucrezia,

It's true we haven't written to each other for quite a while.

I think about Nadia all the time too. I only saw her once. In Florence. I feel as if a century has gone by since that day.

I'm going through a difficult time at the moment. This is why I haven't written to you.

In my letter I've often talked about Chantal. I don't know if you realized what was happening to me. I don't know if you realized that I had fallen in love with Chantal.

I didn't notice it immediately. Or perhaps I pretended not to notice it. I hid it from myself. But I'm sure you noticed it immediately, and I'm sure Anne Marie did too.

Relations between mother and daughter were already bad, and little by little they became impossible.

Now Chantal is in New York. She works in a restaurant. The child has remained with us. Anne Marie doesn't look after her, she says she hasn't time. It's me who looks after the child.

A few days ago I went to New York. I left the child with Mrs Mortimer.

I stayed at the Continental Hotel on Fifth Avenue. The few times that I've happened to be in New York I've always stayed at that hotel.

I went to the restaurant where Chantal works. She was carrying a tray and was in a hurry, she said she would phone me that evening at the hotel. I waited the whole evening for her to call me. She didn't call. It was a hellish evening. I drank a lot of whisky while I was waiting. I tell you I drink a lot these days.

The next day I went to the restaurant. I sat at a table and ordered a hamburger and a beer. After a while Chantal came and sat opposite me. She said that she was grateful to me for looking after the child. She said she would soon come to Princeton to collect her. As soon as she had a room to herself, because at the moment she was living in a commune. She gave one of her shrill, drawn-out bursts of laughter, like a bird's shriek. Chantal laughs a lot, for no reason. I laughed with her too, joylessly, in humiliation and despair. The hamburger was on my plate; I couldn't eat it. Then she suddenly became serious and told me to leave immediately. I left.

She and I made love only once, in the room with the bear-cubs.

Anne Marie had gone to a party at the house of some colleagues of hers from the Institute. The child was with Mrs Mortimer.

Then the telephone rang. I answered. It was Anne Marie and she said she would be a little late. Chantal went to have a shower. I went to fetch the child. I happened to stay at Mrs Mortimer's for a while because she wanted to show me some photographs. When I returned Anne Marie had returned too, she was sitting in the living-room examining her white spangled shawl which she always wore to parties and on which there was a little coffee stain. She and Chantal were discussing how to get the stain out.

I don't know if Anne Marie sensed something strange in my voice when I answered the phone, or if she saw something strange in my face, or in her daughter's face, when she returned to the house. I know that that evening at supper she talked at great length about the party, who was there and who wasn't. I watched Chantal; she was calm. Chantal left a few days later. She and I had not exchanged a single word since that evening.

For the first few days after Chantal left Anne Marie was very distressed and in the evenings she sat by the telephone and waited for Chantal to get in touch. Then as soon as she heard where she was she reassumed her calm exterior. Just that now and again while she and I were talking about something ordinary and banal red blotches would suddenly appear on her neck and her mouth would turn down and tremble. Now I try to make her think of the child. Anne Marie and the child don't like each other at all, however she feels ashamed and sorry that she doesn't like her and for a moment feels that she ought to look at her and smile at her. The child's presence makes our situation a little more bearable, a little easier.

Anne Marie said that the child could not sleep on the ground floor alone. One of us would have to sleep near her. I moved down to the ground floor, into a long, narrow room where our suitcases are piled up. The room with the bear-cubs, where the baby sleeps, is next door. And so if the baby wakes at night I hear her immediately.

Danny came yesterday. I was pleased to see him because he is really the only friend I have here. It's true that I never tell him anything about myself now, but I get great pleasure out of seeing him. As usual, I visited him, with the child, in that squalid rooming-house he stays in. We talked for a long time, as usual. We drank whisky. Then we went for a walk with the child in the park. We talked about the child, about Anne Marie, about the Pippolos, about Chantal's character. I don't know if he realized what had happened. Danny is a dear boy, but not very quick on the uptake, and above all far too involved in his own personal problems. He asked me to lend him some money again, and I did so. He has to send money to the Pippolos, who desperately need it. He thanked me for looking after the child. Just at the moment it was impossible for him to take her away. He gave me back a copy of the English translation of my novel, which he still had with him. He had read it and thought it interesting, but written in a very old-fashioned style. That friend of his had told him that a good three agencies had turned it down now. But I don't care about the novel any more. When I got home, I threw the copy into the bottom of the wardrobe where all the others are.

Giuseppe

Rome, 10th November

Dear Giuseppe,

I've started to read your novel. Alberico gave it to me. He doesn't have time to read it now. He has a new film in his head and he doesn't read anything. Not even the newspapers.

I hope you won't mind that he has given it to me. I've read about twenty pages. It's good. A bit stiff. But good.

Yesterday evening I was with Alberico and I suggested to him that we go and see Lucrezia. He didn't want to. But I persuaded him. When we arrived Lucrezia was alone. She is alone a great deal. You remember how once she used to be surrounded by people.
Le Margherite
was like a sea-port. Now, here in Rome, she almost never sees anyone. Serena's head is full of the theatre and she only sees actors. Serena isn't acting in
Mirra
any more, she's acting that monologue of hers now,
Gemma and the Flames
, in a little theatre in Prenestino. The newspapers tore her monologue to pieces. But she doesn't mind, she acts it all the same, happily wrapped up in her sheet. They didn't let her have the big fire she wanted here either, as in Pianura. There's still just a little brazier with a few ashes in it. On some evenings the entire audience consists
of
three people. But she doesn't mind. She says people don't come because the Italian theatre is in a state of crisis.

We found Lucrezia learning English from records. She's got it into her head that she'll learn English properly and then look for work as a translator. She says she needs the money. All the children were already in bed, except for Cecilia who appeared for a moment. But really they aren't children any more, except for the smallest. Vito - you remember him, the one who used to be still wandering around the house late at night with a plate of soup. Now he's in the first year of junior school. The others aren't children any more. Cecilia is sixteen, she uses eye-shadow and has a boyfriend she talks to on the phone for hours.

Yesterday evening Alberico and Lucrezia got on extraordinarily well. She immediately told him that she had seen his film
Deviance
and that she thought it was really awful. I thought that he would be put out by this but on the contrary he was pleased. He said that he thought it was terrible too. They tore
Deviance
to pieces between them, a little from her side, a little from his. And so they became friends all of a sudden. They had seen each other once before, at Monte Fermo, a few years ago. Nadia was there, she was pregnant. Alberico, Nadia and Salvatore had come to
Le Margherite
. Alberico could remember
Le Margherite
, the garden, the wood, the children. Lucrezia said that she had hardly glanced at Nadia that day and she had thought about that day when she heard she was dead. Alberico quickly changed the subject, he doesn't like talking openly about Nadia. He said that he and Lucrezia had met one other time, it had been on the landing in via Nazario Sauro. She was going to Roberta's, and he to the floor above. Then he went back to saying that
Deviance
really was an awful film. They started talking nineteen to the dozen about the film and I got bored and started to read a book. Then they talked about houses. How they got from films to houses I don't know, but Lucrezia thinks about houses a lot at the moment and talks about them a lot, because she will soon have to give up the apartment she's in. The person who lent it to her is coming back to Rome in a few months. Lucrezia reads the advertisements in
II Messaggero
, and she telephones, but the prices are out of this world. She knew about the house in via Nazario Sauro, the one that used to be yours. She knew it was on the market because Roberta had talked to her about it, she knew the Lanzaras were leaving Rome. But she said that perhaps she didn't really want to buy that house. She knew it too well. She'd been there too many times. She had even smashed ash-trays there once. She would prefer to buy a house that she didn't know and that had no memories attached to it. Alberico said that he also knew that house very well and that he had slept there a few times, when you lived there, and then he'd gone there for psychoanalysis, and that he too would prefer a house he didn't know and that had no memories attached to it, but even so houses where we've already been at other times can be reassuring in a way. He had come to hate the apartment where he was living now. He hated every corner of it and every inch of its walls. He suggested that she take it, if he left. But she said she didn't want it because it was too small, she hadn't seen it but Zezé had described it to her. In any case they both agreed on the fact that the house in via Nazario Sauro was ridiculously expensive.