Goliarda Sapienza - The Art of Joy

Eriprando, still tightly wrapped like a sausage in his swaddling strips, was screaming. Beatrice, all huddled up on the floor, wasn’t moving. I leaned against the door and stared at her. Thin trickles of blood ran down the part of her forehead that could be glimpsed through her hair. They were knocking at the door and I had to open up. I started to move, but suddenly two arms grabbed me around the knees.

‘Forgive me, Modesta! I’ve been awful! You’re right, awful! It’s just that Nonna was so good to me.’

Stunned, I lifted her up. Her clear eyes shone and her swollen lips were smiling. Her hair fell onto her soft, inviting shoulders. And paying no attention to the calls coming from behind the door, we kissed each other the way we used to do in times past.

Eriprando, freed from the swaddling strips, no longer cried; he played with my nipple and with Beatrice’s hair which, loosened there in the sun, attracted him. When he pulled harder Beatrice yelled, and to get back at him took over my other breast and sucked. They fought over my body, and in that joyful tussle they became friends. I took advantage of it to rest, surrendering to those two creatures to whom, for the first time in my life, I felt wholly connected.

I needed rest. I was tired. Was that weariness perhaps a sign that I was no longer young? I had never felt tired before. Or was it knowing that I was now alone in having to nourish and protect them? That was it. I wasn’t old. I had just emerged from my early youth and I already had a past. That fatigue was merely a longing for something that one has had and thinks will never return.

It was that same yearning that prompted me to record my youth on these pages, because I don’t want silence to obliterate Beatrice’s long hair, illuminated by the sun, which held us with its inimitable narcotic warmth. I would like to stay in this moment. But even now, as I write, the sun is going down, someone is knocking at the door, a car is waiting at the gate …

The impressive Lancia Trikappa 27was waiting, gleaming in the sun, and even now that I knew it wasn’t a coach, the idea of a second trip into the unknown blurred my vision. Like an echo of fear, a feeling from the past crept into the joy of the moment, poisoning it. It was the child-me who edged her way between me and the present time. Closing my eyes, I saw myself as I was then, clutching Mimmo’s arm. I had to banish that little girl who would not be reassured no matter what. I turned my gaze to Beatrice, who was silent beside me, wholly absorbed in stroking Eriprando’s hair. She was always holding him. It was she, now, who didn’t want a wet-nurse to care for him, not even to wash or feed him, and she was a help to me as well. With the Princess’s death my work had doubled, and despite Carmine’s help I had very little time to myself …

The car was moving. Beatrice was laughing softly. She didn’t even turn to look at the villa, completely taken with her little nephew. They looked alike, two peas in a pod. For months and months everyone in the villa had been saying so. It was natural, but there, in that odd setting, the similarity was truly striking, even for children of the same father. I too did not look back. I wasn’t leaving anything in that house. Mimmo wasn’t there, and all of Jacopo’s books had already been sent off in a trunk with Signorina Inès, Ippolito and Pietro, who was pained by the devoted gaze his dear Prince, now reserved only for his new passion.

‘I’m aggrieved, Princess. Truly disappointed! I was hoping that in a month or so this infatuation for the Torinese woman would subside, but … ah well, men! You mustn’t take it to heart. You must have patience! Men, they’re all alike! Even my father, God rest his soul, was captivated by every new skirt! But you must believe me, it’s you my Prince loves, Voscenza … It embarrasses me to speak to you about such things. But, well, given the way things are, I think that in Catania — Voscenza will forgive me — I think we will need to distract him with some picciotta , 28ahem, yes, like we did in the days when the Princess, God rest her soul, was alive because — the point is — the Torinese is a virgin … what is it, are you crying?’

Poor Pietro! Certainly not crying! I had covered my face with my hands because I was about to burst out laughing. In Catania, the longed for Catania, I would have a large room all to myself with Jacopo’s books. So longed for and, to me, seemingly so far away that I nearly panicked when I heard Beatrice cry out:

‘Catania! Catania! Look how beautiful it is, Modesta, look! You too, Eriprando, look at your city!’

Stunned by its proximity, I opened my eyes and shut them again, dazzled by the expanse of dark rooftops shining in the sun, plunging into a blue sky that stretched to infinity, as far as the eye could see: the sea! Tuzzu’s blue sea!

‘Yes, yes, it’s the sea! And who is Tuzzu?… Yes, where it gets lighter, that’s the horizon.’

My eyes filled with that uncontainable expanse of light, which wouldn’t fade even with my eyelids tightly shut. I heard myself say:

‘Let’s go see it up close, now!’

At Beatrice’s command, the swift car began racing as though pursued by those high, dark walls, with their many windows and iron balconies, which hurtled behind us.

As soon as the car stopped I jumped out, breathless, followed by Beatrice. And maybe because I expected to see it from above like before, I had to look up to find that inverted liquid sky which flowed serenely toward boundless freedom. Great white birds glided in the dizzying wind. My lungs, released, opened up and I breathed for the first time. For the first time, tears of gratefulness rolled down my face. Or was it the strong, pungent taste of that wind that bent over my mouth to kiss me?

But the promise of freedom, repeated by the waves and the wind, shattered against the walls of palazzos springing with roses and vines sculpted from sharp lava. 29There was no freedom in those back streets and narrow alleyways, those confusing piazzas swarming only with arrogant men sporting straw hats and canes, watched by shadowy female figures hidden behind curtains or from the darkness of ground-floor doors, always partly open. The palazzo on Via Etnea opened its doors to a string of unwelcome receptions at which, two days after our arrival, a procession of impeccably dressed women, with white or black gloves and flowery hats, began parading in front of us, opening and closing their fans and offering protection and advice.

‘Oh, Jesus and Mary! No! Go alone to the Opera? Gesummaria , no! There’s our box, my dear niece…’

‘Absolutely! Indeed there was much talk about your absence on Sunday! Of course, you were both tired from the journey, naturally. But please, my little doves, Mass at noon on Sundays. It’s tradition. Absolutely.’

‘Go to the café by yourselves? Oh no, it’s unacceptable, dear cousin, unacceptable!..’

‘Of course, it’s quite unfortunate not to have a brother, a husband!’

‘Go to the cinema? That modern devilry? Oh no! We never go except on rare occasions, and always provided that one of our men makes certain beforehand that the film isn’t too licentious…’

‘An historical film, you say, cousin? Nonsense! History as a front for indecorous scenes, women in low-cut dresses, orgies … Not on your life! Everyone is still talking about that Cabiria ! 30A true disgrace! And those in parliament who go around spouting high-sounding words about freedom. But what can you expect with all those socialists in the government? And our Holy Father a prisoner! 31Meanwhile, immorality is rampant in our own homes as well! Yesterday I nearly had a stroke hearing my nephew, only fourteen years old … what a barren generation of misfits and selfish egotists we’re raising!.. but what was I saying? Oh yes, I nearly had a stroke hearing my nephew urging his sister to cut her hair like all those lunatics on the continent, the suffragettes. My husband, who saw them in Milan, says they look like men, with short hair and no corsets. All we need is for them to start wearing trousers and amen! Everything is being turned upside down, everything!..’