Antonio Tabucchi - Letter from Casablanca

Nena’s pied-à-terre consisted of the blue canvas deck chair which had been Papa’s favorite and which she had propped against two terra cotta pots of privet to make a wall. On the lawn, which served as the floor, she had arranged all her dolls (her “little friends”), the poor Belafonte tied on a leash, and a red tin telephone, a present which Aunt Yvonne had given me the previous year for my Saint’s Day, and which I had then passed on to Nena. I had never liked it very much anyway. It was a stupid toy and absolutely inadequate for a boy of my age. But you had to have patience and be polite, said Mama. Aunt Yvonne didn’t have any children — not because she hadn’t wanted them, poor thing — and she didn’t have the slightest notion of what toys were suited to a boy. To tell the truth, Aunt Yvonne didn’t have the slightest notion of anything, not even of what to say in certain circumstances. She was so careless that she was always late for appointments, and when she came to our house she always left something on the train. “But even so, there’s no harm done,” said Mama. “It’s a good thing you forgot something, otherwise what would become of us?” And Aunt Yvonne smiled like a guilty little girl, looking very embarrassed at all the luggage that she had deposited in the entry, while in the street the taxi tooted to remind her that she still had to pay.

And so, characteristically, she had committed “an unpardonable gaffe,” as she had said, making the situation worse, while Mama sobbed on the divan. (But then Mama had forgiven her at once.) When she had arrived at our house immediately after the misfortune, she had announced herself by a telephone call which old Tommaso had answered, from which she had taken leave by saying, “Regards to the young gentleman officer.” And that stupid Tommaso had repeated it, crying like a calf. But what would you expect him to do? He was arteriosclerotic, and I had always heard it said that even as a young man he hadn’t been very smart. He had repeated it while Mama talked with the notary in the living room that infernal day in which she had had to think of everything, “of everything except what I really wanted to think of, alone with my pain.” But the fact was that Aunt Yvonne had repeated that leave-taking for years. It was a joke that went back to 1941, when Papa and Mama were engaged. He was an officer at La Spezia. So that she and Aunt Yvonne could have a vacation, he had rented a little villa in Rapallo, the proprietor of which was a very polite lady who did not miss an opportunity to emphasize her aristocratic origins, however questionable. She loved to make conversation while she watered the garden when Mama and Aunt Yvonne were outside on the terrace and, taking leave, she always said, “Regards to the young gentleman officer,” which made Aunt Yvonne break into giggles, promptly leave the terrace, and laugh herself silly.

So Mama, those summer hours after dinner, while she lay in an armchair with her eyes covered with a handkerchief, heard Nena whistling “Banana Boat,” sighed, and let it alone. “What do you want her to do, poor treasure?” I had heard Aunt Yvonne say. “If she’s not happy at her age, when do you expect her to be? Let her alone.” And Mama, with her eyes glistening, had nodded, wringing her hands. It was the first of May and Aunt Yvonne had come to say good-bye. She was contrite in her careless way. She said, “My dear, you realize there’s nothing else we can do. What do you expect? Rodolfo can’t stay here any longer. You know they all pounce on him like jackals. A day doesn’t go by that it isn’t in the financial pages. No one can live like this, not even the president of the Bank of Italy. And then you know the job in Switzerland is a prestigious thing. We haven’t had any children, unfortunately. Up to now his only satisfaction has been his career. I certainly can’t interfere with the meaning of his life — it would be inhumane . But Lausanne really isn’t the end of the world, is it? We’ll see each other at least once a year. In fact, we’ll surely be here in September, and when you want to come our house is always open.” It was a Sunday morning. Mama had put on a little black veil because she was already ready for Mass. She stayed motionless on her chair and stared beyond Aunt Yvonne, who was sitting opposite her, beyond the buffet in the living room, which was behind Aunt Yvonne, and slowly nodded her head yes, calmly, with resignation, and with an air of understanding and tenderness.

Sundays had become much sadder without Aunt Yvonne’s visits. At least when she came there was a bit of movement, even confusion, because she descended upon us unexpectedly, and the telephone rang as long as she remained in our house and even afterwards. Furthermore, she wore a kitchen apron that turned out to be very funny over those classy outfits that she wore — long silk skirts, chiffon blouses, a super chic little hat with an organza camellia — and dolled up in that way she declared that she would prepare a French delicacy — Versailles mousse, for example — because the food in our house was “horrifyingly mundane.” Then it happened that at the last minute Mama had to resort to horrifyingly mundane veal scallops with lemon and buttered peas because between one telephone call and another Aunt Yvonne would have finished the mousse at four o’clock in the afternoon, and Nena and I, impatient, were going around the kitchen stealing breadsticks and cubes of cheese. But even so, all that turmoil brought about at least a little bit of happiness, even if later on it fell to Mama to wash six or seven pyrex bowls. But anyway, the mousse kept until the next day and it was truly delicious.

For all of May and part of June the days passed quickly enough. Mama was extremely busy with her azaleas, which that spring were very slow. They seemed reluctant to show themselves, as if they, too, had suffered with all the family. “Flowers are so sensible,” said Mama, working the soil. “They are perfectly aware of what is happening. They’re sensitive.” And I was very much occupied with the third declension, kinds of parisyllabics, and the imparisyllabics. I never succeeded in remembering which took an um and which took an ium . The teacher had said, “This boy has done badly since the beginning of the year. He confuses all the declensions, and then what do you expect, dear lady? Latin is a precise language. It’s like mathematics. If one’s not cut out for it, one’s not cut out. He is much better in free composition. In any case, he can make up the work with study.” And so I had spent the whole month of May trying to make up, but evidently I had not made up enough.

June passed fairly well. The azaleas finally flowered, even if not as majestically as in the preceding year. Mama was very busy building them a little greenhouse out of mats, “because the sun bothers them,” it made them wither in the twinkling of an eye, and she placed the pots in the bottom of the garden by the boundary wall, where the sun beat down only after five o’clock.

Poor Tommaso bustled around like mad in spite of the tremor in his hands and the step that was no longer what it once had been. He tried to be as useful as he could. He cut the grass with the sickle, gave egg yolks to the lemon trees in pots on the terrace, even tried to sulphur the pergola of grapes, infested with parasites, in front of the garage door. However, he did more harm than good and realizing this he seemed terrified, although without reason. But it was difficult to make him understand this, and he spent the day repeating to Mama not to send him to the nursing home, for the sake of the young gentleman officer whom he had loved like a son, because at the nursing home they would keep him in bed and make him pee in a urinal. His cousin, whom he had gone to visit on Sunday, had told him this, and he rather preferred to die. He had never married. The last time his mother had seen him naked was when he was fourteen years old, and the idea of a young lady making him pee in a urinal sent him into a panic. Then Mama’s eyes grew shiny. She told him, “Don’t talk nonsense, Tommaso. You’ll die here — this is your home,” and Tommaso would have kissed her hands, but Mama drew back and told him to stop complaining, that she had enough sadness already, and he should think instead of pulling up that couch grass thriving under the privet and making the plants die.