Goliarda Sapienza - The Art of Joy

‘What are you saying, ’Ntoni? Come here! Where are you going?’

‘But I have lice, too! They torment me, Mody, they’re a torment!’

’Ntoni runs off. He must have noticed the horror that came over me, fool that I am! What did I expect — to see them return as they were before? I mustn’t be scared by his appearance. It’s ’Ntoni, it’s his voice! I run after him and grab him by the arms. He didn’t go far; he hasn’t got the strength. All I had to do was touch him and, there, he falls into my arms crying.

‘Oh, Modesta, finally you’re holding me! So long without a woman’s face, without a woman’s arms! A man can’t live without such tenderness. He can’t live!’

’Ntoni trembles in my arms the way he trembled in Stella’s arms when he was a baby. And nothing can warm him up, not a hot bath nor a cup of honeyed chamomile tea. ‘ Quannu pigghia friddu ’stu carusu diventa siccu siccu comu fussi manciatu du so stessu trimuri!.. comu a so patri ’ — Stella’s words — ‘When this boy catches a chill, he becomes skin and bones, like his father, as if his own tremors were eating him up.’

Day by day, ’Ntoni grows more gaunt under the covers. And when night falls, the chill reminds him of atrocious scenes from a past known only to him, which makes him shout out orders, entreaties, words in German … Those words erect an icy barrier between him and those of us who are impotent spectators before his struggle.

Bambù: ‘Oh, Zia, it’s awful! He has a scar. What can it have been? And you, Antonio, what kind of a doctor are you? Why don’t you say something?’

Antonio: ‘It’s not clear, or rather it’s plain as day: torture, experiments … I know of some, but only he can tell us.’

Bambù: ‘Look, even his hip! It seems like he can’t move his legs properly.’

Antonio: ‘No, no Bambolina, he’s not paralysed anywhere; the scars have been closed up for some time. He’s just very malnourished, and that doesn’t help any. The physical wounds will heal soon enough, but the wounds of memory won’t! Don’t cry, Bambù, the important thing is that … well, the important thing is that there’s nothing … well, he’s still a man.’

Bambù: ‘Yesterday he asked about Stella. He must have forgotten.’

Antonio: ‘It’s possible. Probably his body couldn’t handle that other sorrow and erased it. So much the better!’

Bambù: ‘I’m afraid, Antonio, so afraid! What about Prando and Jacopo? Why haven’t they returned? So many have come back…’

Antonio: ‘Don’t get upset, Bambù. Try to stay calm like Nina. She’s waiting too. Many have yet to return. I got the numbers down at the town hall: there’s still hope.’

Bambù: ‘Oh, Antonio, it seemed like it was all over!’

Antonio: ‘War is quick to come and slow to leave. Italy looks like a heap of ruins; the fields are still mined. In Milan, they’ve allotted a kilo and a half of coal per individual, twice a month. They’re warm this winter in Milan, Bambù, in the midst of armed gangs who ransack everything. In Naples, gangs of kids, one of them ninety-strong, attacked a train: the oldest member was seventeen.’

Bambù: ‘I’m scared, more scared than before, during the war. The house seems empty since Prando has been gone, and Modesta doesn’t talk, doesn’t smile. She comes and goes from Catania looking sadder and sadder.’

Bambolina speaks about me as if I weren’t there, and she’s right. In the evening I sit with them around the table and bring food to my mouth but I’m unable to speak. My mind is focused solely on a deep disappointment. On those men in Palermo, in Catania, who receive me with open arms as they slip around the old desks of power, the same gestures barely softened by white-striped grey suits, the same heads, though not wearing the Fascist beret: ‘ You, Princess, are a heroine, and today more than ever we need women like you. The future will belong to women! Like in America. With your past, you will attract crowds of women to us. You’ll be one of the first women deputies…’ Except for Pasquale, and I almost feel sorry for him, they’re all still there: their cheeks smoothly shaven, fragrant with bergamot. And though at home I’m silent, there at least I enjoy blanching those cheeks: ‘ You mean the first woman paid to collaborate? Why, isn’t the word “collaborate” used anymore? But of course, collaborate with the landowners, the barons, the priests? ’

‘ But Princess, democracy! It will be a democracy! All we have to do, as America has suggested, is demonstrate first through local elections that we Italians are capable of establishing this democracy! And with a democracy we … you’ll soon see … You’re not turning communist on us, are you, Princess? ’

‘Oh, Zia, please, say something!’

‘Sorry, Bambù. I was thinking about what I should say to those signori tomorrow.’

‘Did you say that with the fall of the Parri government and with the Americans in Italy there will never be a revolution?’

‘Yes, that’s right, Bambù. Parri falls and that Jesuit De Gasperi takes over the government. 108The Jesuits will reassume their influence, as Jose would have said.’

‘But there’s also Togliatti!’

‘For as long as it’s convenient, and certainly to circumvent the risk of revolution. Ah, that’s what I’ll say tomorrow! I want to have some fun.’

‘It doesn’t seem like you’re really having fun, Zia!’

‘I’ll say that I’m a communist and that I believe only in the revolution. We have to side with the opposition. I’ve thought about it. Nina is right. Especially women: we’re always part of the opposition.’

‘Why are you crying now, Zia? For the love of God, why are you crying?’

‘Because I’ve made up my mind! But above all, because … because I knew I would never see Jose again. I knew it, but he shouldn’t have died, he shouldn’t have!’

‘Oh, Modesta, is he dead? How did it happen?’

‘Yes, fighting at Cassino. He had enlisted in the Fifth Army. With him, this war took away one of the best. ‘ And if you two foolish little ladies thought for even a moment about celebrating this unfortunate peace, you were mistaken! I will never tolerate the sight of those shirkers who, while profiting from the absence of the best men, prepare to enjoy a peace based on theft and lies. War carries off the best men, always! ’

Nonna Gaia’s grey eyes pierce my pupils like daggers, and I have to lower my head to escape the pain they inflict … Months of abject conversations, full of inflated rhetoric, good intentions, plans. Meanwhile, in the countryside people are starving to death. And already, invisible shotguns are aimed at the heads of the godless reds. No, that’s what they said before; now they’re called ‘Bolshevik emissaries’. Already heads are falling in this time of peace, and now we can put a name to a few heads among the countless who have vanished into thin air: on 7 June 1945, union leader Nunzio Passalacqua is killed in Naro, with instigators and perpetrators acting in broad daylight, out in the open, so that everyone might see and reflect on it.

* * *

‘Indeed, the noblewoman we know gave everything she had to Don Calò. Yes, the same Calogero Vizzini from when we were young, Modesta. The Mafia in Palermo and Monreale encouraged her, let’s say, to support EVIS: 109a kind of militia formed by the right wing of the separatist party, the party of those who want to separate from Italy so they can steal better. And in the absence of a Mussolini, they finance and arm a certain bandit, Giuliano. Don Calò dealt with him personally. I’ve had confirmed reports.’

‘They don’t lose any time, do they, Mattia?’