Goliarda Sapienza - The Art of Joy

Beatrice must really be afraid of that word, since her face becomes small and pinched and turns pale, so pale that it vanishes in the steam rising to the ceiling from the hot water. Has she gone? Don’t be afraid, Beatrice. Even the word ‘revolution’ lies or grows old. We need to find another one. If Carlo were alive, he’d find one. He was so good at it, a fount of new words …

A few strokes, and already my hand is touching the Prophet’s beard: long ringlets combed by the waves, where swarms of fish drift in the green silence of the algae. You can stretch out between the beard and the forehead, and the giant’s large hollow eye won’t blink, riveted as he is by millions of years looking out at sea. Before Modesta was able to swim, the distance of that gaze made her tremble with hope and misgivings. Now, only a profound peace invades her mature body at each sensation of her skin, veins, joints. A body that is its own master, made wise by an understanding of the flesh. A profound awareness … of touch, sight, taste. Lying on her back on the rocky ledge, Modesta observes how her developed senses can take in the entire blue expanse, the wind, the distance, without the fragile fears of childhood. Astonished, she discovers the meaning of the skill her body has acquired during the long, brief course of her fifty years. It’s like a second childhood, but with a precise awareness of being young, an appreciation of how to, touch, see, enjoy. Fifty years: the golden age of discovery. Fifty years: a happy age unjustly maligned by poets and birth records.

How to describe that summer afternoon lying on the rock, touched by the last caress of the setting sun? How to describe the joy of that discovery? How to tell others about it? How to communicate the happiness of each simple act, each step, each new encounter … with faces, books, sunsets and dawns, Sunday afternoons on sun-drenched beaches? ‘ Good for you, Nonna, I envy you! I’ve discovered that envy is the right attitude for wanting things. By envying you, I’m trying to imitate you, and maybe someday I’ll be like you. ’ How to describe the joy of listening to that boy? The emotion his voice communicates when he tells me: ‘ With you, Modesta — will you let me call you that? — with you, I feel like I have a buddy. So, buddy, the boss — my father — paid me. Shall we go to the movies and pass some time? I just have to see The Asphalt Jungle ; everyone is talking about it! The movies have now become a must. Come with me. It only lasts a couple of hours; then we’ll walk around and talk. I have so much to say about that Julien you introduced me to…’ It may be that after the movie we won’t talk about either the film or about Julien Sorel, 117but we’ll go to Nina’s instead and laugh and eat, and Carluzzu and Olimpia will play the guitar endlessly, passing it back and forth along with a glass of wine …

* * *

Stop here, in this joy bursting with the senses and the mind, and thus freeze for ever in me, in you, the best ten years of my life, those between fifty and sixty? The temptation is strong, but life doesn’t stop, and Carluzzu has entered the bookshop. His face has changed. His eyes blaze with hatred and he wipes his perspiring brow. He stares at me, and for a moment his gaze grows calmer. He needs me.

‘What is it, Carluzzu? What’s happened?’

‘What happened is that I had to beat up your son, that is, according to the civil registry — my father I mean, if you believe that stinking birth certificate! I didn’t mean to, I know I didn’t want to! But all of a sudden he slaps me. I tell myself: be good, Carlo, it’s just the usual little slap. But then he starts yelling, and I can’t stand being yelled at, Nonna, you know that. So I made him shut up by force. And I could have killed him too!’

‘And then?’

‘I went to the port to vent my anger, walking up and down amid the fishmongers’ cries. Then I stopped at the mussel stand and I must have eaten a hundred raw mussels, I think! I downed them with a glass of wine and the steam went out of me. Oh, Mody — it may have been the mussels or the wine at midday — I felt like I was flying in the sunshine, light as a gull among the white walls and the shouts, the hot sun pressing at my back and the cool wind on my forehead. And I told myself: “Why lose all this for that animal? And then it’s no use thinking about taking a train, a steamship — you’ve already done that so many times — you’ll always come back here, like Zio ’Ntoni and Zio Jacopo.” Then I think about that animal again, your son … I see him slammed against the wall by my fists, his head lowered like a tired lion, and I feel a little sorry and I tell myself: “Let’s go see if he’s lost a few teeth … He cares a lot about his teeth: that dazzling smile he can flash at the jurors.” I know, it’s no use you smiling, we all went to night school, as Nicola says: I know it’s age-old remorse, ancestral. Who would dare raise a hand against his own father’s mane, white or not, be he a believer or an atheist? Fine, so I go back home, I open the door without making a sound, I go into the hall and what do I hear? You won’t believe it: his voice, pompous and persuasive like in court, saying on the phone: “Yes, it’s true, Mattia … he beat me up, that’s all there is to it! When you have a son of your own blood who is not a weakling, but a real man, this, too, can happen. Lucky you, you only have two girls!”’

‘And what did you do?’

‘ Fischia! Damn! Hey, Mody, do you know that in Rome it’s popular for young people to say “ fischia! ”? Nicola told me. It’s awful, but it sticks in your mind like the lyrics to a bad song.’

‘And so?’

‘ Fischia! Oh, sorry! So I uttered a string of dithyrambs à la Miller, the great blasphemous Henry, 118and completely satisfied with my cultural skills, I came straight to you, the one who gave them to me … Now let’s go! I’ll take you to a restaurant. Your grandson is rich today.’

‘Why is that?’

‘I finished the thesis for Nicola. Remember, I came to you for information? I steal your ideas on Anglo-Saxon literature, add a little something of my own and sell the product to Nicola, who is rich and doesn’t know a damn thing! Then he looks good at home and with his professor. Complete thievery, Nonna, on your shoulders…’

‘What could be better in this case than to be robbed? If they rob you, it means you’re rich, right?’

‘So, ragazzaccia , what will you have, naughty girl?’

‘Spaghetti!’

‘Me too! Hey my friend, two spaghetti alle vongole and torrents of white wine!’

‘What sunshine, Carlo! One more week and then we can swim until October.’

‘Do you know that you’re a fabulous little nonna ?’

‘You gave me a stunning account of your morning, Carlo, but you didn’t tell me why you beat up my Prando.’

‘Are you fond of your Prando?’

‘No, but I love him.’

‘You have a clarity, Mody, that’s scary, as Nina says.’

‘So then, what did your old father want this morning?’

‘The same old story: “You’re young … you don’t know what it means to…” And always at the same time, at the table, when you’re famished and not in the mood: “Not everyone, son, has the good fortune of having a father who paves the way for him. Why pursue impossible things like archaeology when you have a law practice that yields like an oil well right here at your fingertips?” That was five years ago, remember? And to keep the peace, I said to myself: “Let’s make him happy; after all, he’s the boss, and with a boss, either you kill him right away, or you dupe him.” So I skip classes and repay him for what it cost him to raise me. Because that’s the point: all they want is for the money they spent on you to pay off. Forget paternal love! But is it true he was an anti-fascist, Mody?’