The Italian Romance (21 page)

Sonia heard the approaching thunder, and knew what it meant. Fear made her throat sore. Gianni walked in front of her. She had been watching him, noticing that his trousers skimmed the top of his ungartered socks. The socks slunk around his ankles. As he stepped forward, even the skin of his bony leg showed itself. She thought three things: that he was growing away from his boy-childhood, striding with quicker and quicker steps into the future she had dreamed for him for thirteen years, and secondly that he was not a boy protected by plenty these days, that he was a boy with darned socks, pants too short, hair gone wild without a barber's shears. And lastly she thought with how much passion she loved him. She could kiss the bony boy-ankle, the gorgeous ring of bare skin which showed under the frayed hem of those pants.

In the moment before the thunder, she knew that everything about him, the downy moustache above his lip, the new swell of his back and shoulders, the round, moon-like grin his mouth had delighted her with from the first day she had ever held him, were
a cause of her heart's own beating. In a lightning moment such as this she felt these things as a cause of her heart's implosion and, in the seconds after, its pulsing outwards again with such force and such a physical feat that the world lost its confining power over her. And joy in him, overwhelming desire to hold him safe, was huger than the sky.

The thunder shook the street. She froze. She looked towards the bend of the road, and she said, her voice low and full of sharp authority, ‘Gianni.' He turned, the intense and absent entrancement dropped bit by bit from his face, and came slowly to her. ‘In here,' she said. He realised, then, and looked over his shoulder. ‘Now,' she said.

She stared through the glass pane of the shop's door. Signore Mazzoni, who had ventured to his customers' side of the counter, stared back at her. Her hand was on the doorknob. He was about to mouth something to her, was that it?

‘Mama,' Gianni cried.

She turned the handle as the outriders swerved around the bend. She took his shoulder and pushed him inside. Her breath was short.

There were five people in there, the Mazzonis, three customers. They were silent. Their eyes, dark, watched the woman and the boy as they hurtled through the doorway. Signore Mazzoni, the only man among them, the strings of his white apron wound around and around his waist, walked up to them. Sonia's neck was stiff; her head leaned back as he came slowly upon her. He put his hand on her arm. She was cold, waiting.

And he said, ‘Quick, Signora. Go to the back of the shop,' and he stepped right past her, past her son, and yanked down on the dark roller blind, lowered it and, as it kicked against him and threatened to rush headlong back to its safer enwrapment, he tugged, cursed at it, wouldn't let it go till it behaved and lay still against the nakedness of the glass.

Sonia walked very slowly, drained of all momentum. She took
hold of the boy's cardigan and pulled him along. Her face was white, her eyebrows too dark in the pallor. The four women, together near the back doorway, were in a tight semicircle, elbow on elbow. She looked at them as if they were one, one pair of eyes, shrewd, narrowed, one audible breath, one stout, intransigent body. The mouth seemed to say, ‘Ebraica'. Jew.

‘There are hundreds of them,' the boy had said.

‘Ebbene,' Signora Mazzoni had said, ‘well then.' She looked down the aisle, past Sonia's head. She said, ‘We should go out to the kitchen, if there are hundreds of them. It will take a long time.'

Sonia's heart began to pump again. A sweat broke through the fine skin of her forehead. ‘Are they going to stop?' she said. She spoke to the Signora, whose eyes immediately went to her husband.

‘I don't know,' the man said. ‘Wait.'

Sonia put her hands up to her ears. The street shook. For the first time in her conscious life, Sonia felt that her bladder might break open. Like an animal. She leant in to the Signora and murmured a shamed request. The woman whispered, ‘Through the door, out there', and pushed at the younger woman's arm. Gianni followed her. The Signora was about to hold him back, but thought better of it.

Sonia was aware of Gianni tumbling through the kitchen behind her, and she was glad. She said over her shoulder, ‘I'll be a minute,' and opened the back door on to a stone-floored courtyard, where crates were stacked with surprising neatness and order against a high wall. She pushed open the half-door.

The smell of her own urine rose up, a cloud of sourness, as her bladder gushed its fear.

Gianni heard his mother's stream. He saw her feet and her ankles and the calves of her legs, and he saw the edges of her pink

knickers down below her knees. He turned to face the other way.

When she came out, and walked with a measured, almost sure pace across the stone, her high heels strutting, he turned again.
She pulled her handkerchief from the sleeve of her black cardigan and used it to wipe at her forehead.

‘Are you all right, Mama?' he said. His voice sounded strange in that enclosed place, where they were alone.

She nodded. She could not speak. She gestured him to go in.

The kitchen, too, was neat. A pot gurgled on the stove, a stained wooden spoon rested on a small plate beside it. The white tiles on the walls gleamed like glass. She twisted the brass handle of the tap, to trickle cold water over her hands. She turned them over. The water was too cold, stung her skin. She wanted to put her face into it. Her hands began to redden.

‘Signora?' she heard. She looked towards the shop doorway. Signora Mazzoni was there.

She turned the handle quickly. ‘Yes,' she said. ‘Thank you.'

Gianni had been standing by the table, staring at his mother's bent back. ‘Let's see what they're doing, Mama,' he said.

‘Don't go out!' she said, too loud.

‘No,' he said. ‘I wasn't.'

She wiped her hands at her skirt, ineffectively. ‘Sorry. I'm sorry.'

‘My husband says he doesn't think they are stopping. They have gone through the square.' The young da Fogliano woman's eyes were staring at her, wide as a cow's. Signora Mazzoni had never had much time for the Jewish Signora, as she was known in the village and thereabouts. She was an aloof young woman. Men said she had ice in her veins. Elsa Mazzoni knew what that meant, knew what lusts men hinted at to each other, what foolish conceits swam around in their heads. And yet she herself felt that that good-looking husband of hers, a man of noble Italian blood, had not been rewarded by this strange fish, had not had his fill from her. And though the Mazzonis were no great match, either, it was different for the young Signore. His vitality deserved more than this one could give him.

And here was the Jewish Madonna peeing outside her
kitchen door. Well, we all learn a thing or two in our lives, and this one was no exception. As la Signora stood with her back to the sink, she could barely meet Elsa's eyes, and this gave a certain satisfaction.

The boy was like his father. He'd been a pretty child, and now he promised a fine manhood. Elsa Mazzoni had noticed the shoulders sprouting on him, and when he'd pushed past her to follow the mother out the back, she'd reckoned he was already a good two inches taller than her.

The Jewish woman was gazing over Elsa's shoulder. Elsa turned quickly. Her husband was behind her. ‘Well?' she said.

‘They've gone,' he said.

‘Can I see?' Gianni said and he narrowed himself sideways and slipped past the shopkeeper. Sonia shouted, ‘No, Gianni. Don't open the door!'

‘I won't,' he shouted back.

Sonia smiled apologetically at the couple.

Signore Mazzoni said, ‘They have no interest in any of us, Signora.'

She closed her eyes. She heard the man say, ‘Elsa, a little grappa.'

‘What?' the woman said. ‘For goodness sake, Paolo.'

‘A tiny glass, please Elsa. For the Signora.'

Sonia forced her eyelids open. ‘No, thank you, Signore. There's no need. But thank you. You're so kind.'

And she meant it. His kindness almost made her cry.

The young woman seemed to stumble. She raised a handkerchief to her eye. The man looked at Elsa. You see! He jerked his head, urging her to go to the distraught thing. Elsa was caught out, a little ashamed of herself, even a little sorry for the woman. Somehow her husband's approbation had made her remember: news was spreading of Jews being taken by the Germans. Nobody knew why. Elsa suddenly realised why the woman had been scared enough to empty her bladder. It hadn't crossed her mind.

‘Sit down, Signora,' Elsa said. ‘We have a little grappa left.'

‘No, no,' the woman said.

‘Come.' Elsa put her hand on Sonia's back and led her to a chair. And when Sonia sat heavily down, Elsa thought of the boy. She put her small hand over Sonia's bony shoulder. ‘No wonder you were frightened,' she said.

Her husband came towards them, a tiny glass in his hand. He shook his head at his wife, drew his brows together. Elsa kept quiet. He held out the glass and the woman took it. Her hand was shaking so much she almost couldn't find her mouth.

I don't know who this girl is. This woman. How many weeks has she been in my life, this time round, I mean? Is she married, divorced? Widowed? She mentioned a daughter's wedding. How many grandchildren do I have, I wonder?

I suppose I could have just asked her. Dora will want to know, and I feel such an idiot that I haven't managed to find out a damn thing. Oh, except that she has unserious relationships, like all the sane women do, you poor old thing. I'll just have to avoid Dora.

My face is very tender. If I tap at it under the eye, on the cheekbone, I can really feel it. I got a few looks when I walked up the aisle to my seat. Oh, well, it's not my responsibility, what goes on in other people's heads.

We're on the outskirts of Rome now. The heat-filled orientalism of cedar trees. Love them. I suppose when I get off I'd better catch the tram up to the supermarket. Might as well before I go home.

Oh, Lord, who is this? Is she stopping to talk to me? Big, anxious eyes, she places her hand on the seat where I'm resting my poor old leg. ‘Signora,' she says, ‘please, may I have a word?'

I ease my leg down. Not the simplest operation. The damn girl slides into the seat and leans towards me, hands joined on her knees. She's got a card or something between her fingers. I seem
to be on the other end of a length of string, for I lean towards her, too. What on earth does she want?

‘Signora,' she whispers. ‘Please take this. You don't have to put up with it.' She looks down at the card. She seems to be struggling with something, poor child. I urge her with my eyes to be brave, to continue. ‘Even at your age,' she says at last.

I nod. I am mystified. Our heads are almost touching. She suddenly thrusts the little card towards me. Her hand does a kind of waltz of approach with mine, but I am a bit too slow for the beat. It's my age, I suppose. As a result of my tardiness, she throws the card into my lap. She jumps up, and I am more than a little startled. Then she leans down again and murmurs in my ear, so close that the tiny hairs shiver with her breath, ‘God bless you, my dear.' And off she shoots, up the aisle. I rub my ear. I find that most uncomfortable, a stranger's breath.

I take a quick look at the card, and as I do the train pulls into a station, the doors slide open, the brakes and wheels screech against each other. Haven't got my glasses on. I hold the tiny white thing out as far as my arm can reach, narrow one eye. And a shadow rears over me. I nearly jump as I lift my gaze to the window, and there she is again, waving. I wave the card. What's it say, refuse or something? No. Refuge. Oh good God, a home for battered women. I have to bite my lip. She is still there. She joins her hands in silent supplication. I am going to laugh very loudly if she doesn't stop that.

The train moves along, she walks with it. And I have an immensely strong desire to stand up, open the window, poke my nose out and cry to her, ‘Have you got a refuge for newly discovered mummies?'

Guido, the portiere at my apartment block, nearly had a stroke when he saw me. I caught a cab back from the shops. The young fellow who drove it seemed a little overcome, too; he insisted on carrying the bags inside for me. Guido was in a sombre
mood behind his glass cage. Something had gone badly wrong, a collapse of his football team's back row, a complaint from one tenant about another, too much salami for lunch, the fall in the value of the dollar, who knows? Or perhaps his relentless failure to catch the invisible man has been gnawing at him again. Has he found spores in the storage room while I've been away? Guido crawled out of his den as the driver delivered me in, made to drag himself across the vestibule to us, and then saw my face. Hell broke loose.

We shuffled to the elevator, Guido, my overnight bag and three ‘green' shopping bags. And he insisted on carrying everything up the final round of stairs including my shoulder bag which he slung across himself. He told me to go to the hospital, and also to sue. I said I would. He came very close to unpacking and putting away the groceries, but thought better of it in the end. He looked a great deal happier as he left my apartment. I suppose I took his mind off it, whatever it was.

I pushed the playback button on my answering machine when he'd gone. Dora had rung, presuming I'd be back in Rome a couple of days ago. Then it was London calling, how is the new novel going, my pet? And two messages from Jim. Numero uno, am I back yet and am I all right, Francesca wants to know? I raced across the room; well, hobbled, but as fast as I could, and replayed that one. And numero due, here I am again, Lilian, it's Jim again, and I have an enormous effrontery for you; you know I told you about my daughter, Jane? She's arriving tomorrow morning. But I've had an emergency call to Dublin, the guy who's going to run our new outfit there isn't, he stormed out, I don't want to drag Jane on to Ireland after a long flight, also won't have two seconds for her, also she needs a woman's hand on her.

I pressed the stop button. I don't believe this, I said to myself.

So I left it. I unpacked. I changed. I poured myself a lovely rough glass of red and I'm reclining on my couch, my head sunk into my down pillow which I carried in from the bed. The wine
tastes of bread sopping up meat and olive juices, lavender and sea-salt in the air. I close my eyes.

And a minute or two of that is enough. Can't live there, not at this physical juncture of one's eternal life. So I get up, press play-back.

Jim is in mid-flight. ‘...in a hell of a state about this and I know what a bloody madman I'm being. But would it be all right, Lil, if she spent two days with you? God, I apologise for this.' He lowers his voice. He doesn't want anyone to hear this but me. ‘I can't ask Francesca, Lil. It's too awkward. Minding my kid for me, this early on.' There's an intake of breath. ‘I can't trust anyone else. She's terribly precious, Lil. Anyway, tell me to go to hell, but could you do it as soon as possible.' The machine clicks, gurgles, clicks and turns itself off.

I am reclining again. I lift my head to take another sip. And I say to the machine, ‘Go to hell.'

I can't finish the damn glass, of course. Try to. I find myself with the telephone on my lap, dialling my number at the farmhouse. As the line burrs, I worry about the novel. I've got agents ringing me from London, children arriving from Australia every second day. Don't they know I need a bit of peace and quiet?