Tim Parks - An Italian Education

For Michele, on the other hand, the difference between the number of noughts on a price tag and that of the notes in his wallet has always been a source of anguish, and he frets and saves and tries to get Stefi to save with him, which she will only do when whatever money she has is exactly enough to tip the scales and buy that expensive thing they both want immediately.

So, with my English pocket-money system Stefi buys a lot of junk, while Michele suffers and works himself into a lather calculating weeks against fives and tens of thousands. ‘Mamma, how many five thousands in eighty-six thousand?’ ‘Seventeen and one over,’ I tell him. ‘No, I want Mamma to say, MAMMA!’ ‘Seventeen and one over,’ she says. And then he suffers, he suffers terribly, wondering if he could ever be good enough to get his pocket money seventeen weeks on the trot (at which point Stefi will grant the one over), or whether he shouldn’t build into his calculation the inevitability that we will catch him kicking Stefi or using his catapult where he shouldn’t at least once a month and cut his pocket money, and it’s really too bad he can’t just be cleared of little misdemeanours like that with a couple of Paternosters the way the other boys can.

How much wiser those parents like Stefano and Marta, who just give their children gifts, a huge Lego set, a pair of skis, a proper bow and arrow, whenever and for whatever reason it occurs to them to do so. How much more fortunate those children whose grandparents are a constant shower of remote-controlled jeeps and dolls that cry and pee. Silvio’s Giovanni appears one day on a miniature mountain bike with more gears than he can probably count. Is it his birthday? No, it isn’t. But he asked for it. Or rather, he asked for something else, but they gave him this. Ask and something else shall be given. Another time I find him going back and forth behind the garages on a small electric car. No wonder Silvio felt he couldn’t afford another child. Later, as these children grow up it will be the splendid sports bike, the moped, the shiny Vespa, then the thrill of car keys, the small Fiat, the bigger Fiat, and finally, when the awful die is cast, the gold rings, the apartment, the furniture…

But no cash.

So the young Italian couple will eventually find themselves safely installed amid all that their parents have bought for them. At last, at last, they will be able to begin an independent life and start saving up their own money… to give things to their children. The first time they buy a property themselves will be when the first or, more probably, the only child marries.

Great generosity, total control. It’s a heady (even divine) mixture, and one that gives rise to another triumphantly Italian expression. For it allows the father, returning from that workshop where he slaves for love of his family from morn till night, to say proudly to anyone who questions him, ‘ Tengo famiglia ,’ which translates, ‘I support a family.’ But no, no, it’s more than that. Translation is helpless here in the face of the vast mental iceberg sailing beneath this apparently harmless semantic tip. For tengo famiglia lies at the crossroads of so many cultural highways. Tengo comes from tenere , to hold. The expression means, I hold a family, in the sense of both I support it and I control it. It contains the notions both of sacrifici and of power. Then given the sacred nature of the family in a Catholic society, where every family is a holy family, it also means, I am a pillar of the establishment, I am doing my social duty. So that if anyone ever asks what you have achieved in life, you need say no more than tengo famiglia to be beyond any possible reproach, and when the judge is about to pass sentence on you for theft or political corruption, your lawyer will always plead, ‘But your honour, my client tiene famiglia !’ He supports a family. And this both excuses him for what he stole (he stole it for his family!) and makes it more difficult to put him in gaol (what would become of his children?).

The more gifts you give, and the less cash, the more you can claim tengo famiglia .

Righetti has once again increased the price of the garage I am still not quite able to buy. Rather ingenuously, I accuse him of being an unprincipled property speculator. At which he protests, probably rightly, ‘I am only doing what any other builder would do, selling at market prices.’ Then with that way he has of pretending he is not rich, is just a modest employee of his father’s, he adds, ‘ Tengo famiglia anch’io sai .’ I support a family, too, you know.

‘ Naturalmente ,’ I reply. Bitterly.

My only consolation is that the man’s wife has just produced yet another bella bambina . A third. Silvio, Francesco, Giorgio and I had a very good long laugh about it. That’ll teach him for putting a refugee in our basement! Righetti is just not modern enough to imagine a girl running his company. Even if it would be him holding all the purse strings…

If you undo the strings of Stefi’s purse, you may not find any money, but you will often find a little letter. Now that she has learnt to write, she is obsessed by letters: ‘MAMATIVOLIOBENEANCEQANDOFACIOLACATIVA’ reads a very early one. Stefi prefers the technique the stonemasons use on hillside crosses of saving space by missing out the gaps. She also has the Veneto tendency to drop the double letters. A translation might read: ‘MUMYILU-VYUEVENWENIMNORTY.’ It’s interesting how early Michele and Stefi have become accustomed to these contradictory notions, enshrined for the other children in the confessional. Later, they will be able to feel they love Daddy even when they take a few thousand lire from his wallet, and later still that they are all good citizens even when they don’t pay taxes. Let he who has no sin throw the first stone.

Another letter might be addressed to Santa Lucia. The day the good saint hands out her presents is December 13th, but Stefi’s letters begin around Easter, and she stores them all in her purse before deciding which one to send:

DearSantaLucia, for SantaLucia I want a Carabambola [a brand of doll] with her highchair and pushchair. [Fair enough.] And if they don’t have that, or if your mule can’t carry such big things, then I would like a Lego set, but not any of the ones Michele has already got. I mean not the pirates and not the extraterrestrials. Buy any of the others. Millegrazie .

STEFI.

It’s impressive how much children are willing to write when it comes to letters to Santa Lucia. At eight, however, Michele’s missives show a sad and growing suspicion that all is not as he has been told.

‘Santa Lucia,’ he starts one of the last letters in the run up to the big day, ‘if you really exist, if it’s not just my dad and mum who sneak in at night…’ Thus people continue to send messages to God, just in case he might be there, or letters to old lovers, just in case they still care, or they make complex applications for state jobs, just in case the selection process might not be fixed.

Cara Santa Lucia, if you’re there and a hundredandtwentythousandlire is not too much [numbers are always written attached together in this cautious country to prevent anybody adding anything in between], then I would like a fishing rod and, if possible after that, all the things that go with a fishing rod like a reel and the line and hooks and weights and floats because I want to go out and catch lots of fish like my friend Beppino or like Huckleberry Finn [children’s literature, as indeed adult literature here, is almost all foreign]. I will try to be a good boy as much as I can. I was good all last week. Grazie . MICHELE. PS It must be a freshwater fishing rod, not a sea fishing rod because Beppe says they’re different.