Goliarda Sapienza - The Art of Joy

‘Put down the gun, ’Ntoni! Give it to me; it’s over now! You could have shot me, did you know that? Shot your Bambù!’

Your Bambù must be a magical expression between the two of them since it has the effect of turning the laboured panting of that cornered animal into convulsive weeping, as ’Ntoni falls to his knees crying, ‘Oh no, no, Bambù! You? Never, I would never want to hurt you, never! I’m insane, a lunatic! A lunatic and a coward! I even left the door unlocked!’

‘You locked it, ’Ntoni, unfortunately you locked it. But your Bambù is cunning, sly as a fox. Remember how you used to call me your sly fox?’

‘Oh, yes, yes … How did you get in?’

‘There’s a secret door.’

‘I’m so ashamed, Bambù! Don’t tell anyone: I’m a coward! I want to die! You’re so beautiful, a good person like Mama. I don’t want to hurt you like I hurt her. She died because inside me I had rejected her … I had judged her, put her out of my life. I’m like my father. Mama was right: like my father, I destroy what I love most.’

‘’Ntoni, ’Ntoni…’

For a second I’m tempted to take a step toward him and tell him the truth: that he’s not to blame. But my knowledge is theoretical, and those young people must discover their lives on their own, through their own senses, their own language. Indeed, like blind men trying to see, they hug each other now, touching one another in silence.

Quietly, so they won’t hear me, I leave the room.

On the long journey back through the endless corridors, stairs and more stairs, the anxiety that I might lose Jacopo too in that other struggle he has withstood for years — against a gentle face framed by graceful curls — makes me tremble; he hasn’t mentioned Inès, hasn’t asked about her. Only when I return to the parlour, now rustling like a crowded theatre — the same murmuring, the same occasional voices interspersed with a few silvery notes of an instrument as someone tunes a guitar, a mandolin — only when I see Jacopo where I left him, no longer hugging Prando but Nina, does my anxiety subside. And my surprise at how little time has passed between the peace his return brought us and the war that erupted in ’Ntoni — and which perhaps lies invisibly coiled in Jacopo’s serene smile as well — gives way to the first mandolin player’s melody. It charms Prando, who throws his head back as he listens. At every event, big or small, Prando always demands music and his gaze becomes tender, distant. My scar throbs under my hair at the sight of the beauty of that absorbed head, the large head of an adult man. I can’t sit still; I’m better off going back to ’Ntoni. But as soon as I turn to leave, Prando grabs me by the waist.

‘Where is my mamma bambina running off to? Always running away, always full of mysteries! Or is it just that, however you may do your duty as a mother, you really can’t stand me, can you?’

He forces me to turn around. When I meet his gaze, now bold and scathing again, I realize that he can’t help it. He will always be that way: he loves me just as I love him. Could it be otherwise? The love between a mother and a son is the ultimate romantic melodrama, simply because it cannot be consummated.

‘It’s no use running away, little girl, because this business of trying to escape me makes me love you more. At the front I was the laughing-stock of everyone! Oh, not that I spoke about you a lot, but they all noticed it and laughed at me. Oh, with respect, mind you … and you know how I responded? “Go on, laugh, laugh, you guys with mothers who are real dogs!” Then they’d start talking nonsense because they were all in love with their mothers as well. See what my mamma bambina does? I hardly say a word to her ca già gira l’occhi scappannu pi banni e banni . Already she’s looking all around, not knowing which way to turn. Ma unni vai? Ccà vicinu a mia hai a stari: madre mi sei e miniera mia! Where are you running to? Stay here with me, you’re my mother and my treasure. Come on, Pippo, play a courtly serenade! Maybe it will melt that precious stone she has in place of a heart.’

How did Prando come up with that forgotten language? Did he ever hear Carmine’s voice?

‘Oh, Pippo! She’s trembling against my chest like a frightened dove.’

‘You’re hurting me, Prando! Let me go! I can’t breathe!’

‘Do you know that if I really squeezed you, I could break you in two? But then if I needed it, where would I find a suitable glue to reattach this porcelain neck? If only I could find such a glue! I would enjoy breaking you into pieces to then have the pleasure of reassembling you piece by piece afterwards. Where to find it? I’ll have to look for it at the Civita, in that no man’s land. They say you can find everything there. You can buy anything: from the finest silks to candles for the dead, from one-hundred-carat gold to the sharpest knives, from a faceless picciotto — a thug who for a few liras will kill whoever decided to snub you by crossing the street — to silken ladies, vellute with perfumed hair … even fresh new corpses, if you really want to study anatomy on your own … You’re laughing! Laugh, bella , because when you laugh — no offence to decent, married women — you become the most beautiful of all!’

It must have been the guitar and mandolin that caused that spring — silent, earlier — to flow. Even his voice changed. The guitar, at first delicate, became deep, as though scoured by underground winds.

Pippo and Cosimo stand up as they play, and behind Prando’s back stare at my face or at some apparition behind me that enchants and transports them. Prando is silent. He knows that, after delivering his offer of love to everyone, it’s time to listen to other voices, other requests for love. And indeed, a jasmine-sweet voice breasts the wave to declare its anguish over an unrequited love:

‘ Bedda p’amari a tia ’stu cori chianci. Sinceramenti senza ca si fingi … Cugghiennu alivi pi ’sti munti santi … bedda p’amari a tia ’stu cori chianci … My sweet, for love of you my heart cries, sincerely, it’s no lie…’ 111

To whom is Crispina singing? Where did that mature voice come from? Or had the pall of war, marked only by anthems, silenced that living sap? After the sorrow over her unrequited love, Crispina, now pushed by unseen hands into the centre of the room, starts singing spitefully:

‘ Quantu è laria la mi zita, malanova di la sua vita … Ah, laria è, cchiù laria d’idda nun ci nn’è … Havi i spaddi vasci vasci ca mi parunu du casci … Ah, laria è, cchiù laria d’idda nun ci nn’è … How ugly my fiancée is! No one is uglier: her shoulders are so stooped she looks like a hunchback…’

At that expression of liberation from the shackles of a tormented love, Carluzzu widens his eyes, easily frees himself from the old man’s arms and toddles toward us. Held by that old man, he seemed small. Now, as he slowly approaches, the big-boned structure of his hips and shoulders makes him seem like a little man.

‘Oh, Mama, look at my son! He’s tugging at me! He must not be used to seeing me hugging a woman. What’s the matter, Carluzzu, are you jealous?’

‘Papa, I sing too!’

Stella’s voice seizes me by the throat; her trusting dark eyes stare at me. I have to bend down and touch him to feel her in my arms … The small sturdy body doesn’t struggle as he keeps saying, ‘I sing … I sing too with Crispina. Why are you crying, Nonna?’

‘Because I’m moved, Carluzzu. Crispina sings so beautifully.’

‘Me too, Nonna, I sing good.’

‘I’m sure you do.’

‘Nonna, Nonna…’