Goliarda Sapienza - The Art of Joy

‘It’s no use shrieking, you idiot! Can’t you see she wants to stay here with her dear old papa? Ah, the call of blood never lies, never! Isn’t it true that you want to stay with your daddy? Tell your mother you want to be with your papa.’

‘Yes, I want to stay with him!’

I had barely gotten the words out when my mother, still screaming, threw herself at me, grabbing me by the hair. But with his big hand, he slapped her away from me, saying mildly, ‘Careful, make sure you don’t lay a hand on the flesh of my flesh! Take your hands off her, or I’ll wring that shrivelled chicken’s neck of yours.’

In his grip my mother sagged like an empty dress: she looked like a heap of rags. And like a heap of rags, the big hands picked her up and threw her into the toilet. When the door opened, I saw Tina huddled in the corner. Surely it must have been he who put her there earlier. Now Mama went to join Tina, one rag pile on another. Then he calmly locked the toilet with a key and turning to me, made the comical gesture of washing his hands. My blood rejoiced, proud of his strength.

When he lifted me into his arms, my own stroking and Tuzzu’s caresses faded in comparison to the pleasure I felt between my legs, held by those hands, so heavy yet so gentle, covered with soft, blond hair. I waited. I knew what he wanted by the way he stared at me.

‘I didn’t scare you, did I? I didn’t hurt her. I just got her out of the way for a while. She’s too annoying, and I want to enjoy this fine daughter I didn’t know I had in peace and quiet. A true gift of destiny … are you afraid?’

‘I’m not scared. You did the right thing. That will teach her for always yelling at me and punishing me for everything.’

‘Good. I see we have the same blood and it gives me pleasure, great pleasure…’

He kept repeating the word pleasure, more and more softly and with growing urgency, as he placed me effortlessly on the bed. He was so strong that I felt as light as the skein of wool I always had to bring Mama when she was working. Now she wasn’t working. After being silent for a while, she started screaming behind the door with Tina. Or was it Tina? Or maybe it was both of them, but I didn’t care a fig. I myself had cried like that many times. Now it was her turn. I didn’t care. What mattered to me was following the big hairy hands as they undressed me. When I was completely naked he touched my chest and stopped whispering, laughing softly instead. ‘Look here, two little buds sprouting. Does it hurt if I touch them?’

‘No.’

‘Do you know what these little bumps are?’

‘No. Pimples, maybe?’

‘Silly! They’re your breasts beginning to develop. I bet you’ll have big, firm breasts like my sister Adelina. When she was your age, your aunt Adelina had the same colour nipples as yours, rosy pink.’

‘So where is this Adelina? I’ve never seen her.’

‘Aunt Adelina, you should say, Aunt Adelina. If you do what I tell you, I’ll take you to her. She’s in a big city with shops, theatres, markets … there’s even a big port.’

‘If there’s a port, then there’s also the sea?’

‘Of course there’s the sea. Ships too, and buildings. Adelina has become a fine lady! If you do what I tell you, I’ll take you with me to see her. I’ll not only let you meet this aunt of yours, the great lady, I’ll show you things you can’t even imagine, spectacular things. What do you say? Do you want to make your dear papa happy? If you make him happy, afterwards he’ll make you happy.’

And he seemed happy lying there next to me, naked. I had never seen a naked man. Without the blue jacket his shoulders looked like the white rocks in the stream in mulberry season when the ceusa 3ripened and the sun, high overhead, hung in the centre of the sky for days and days and months. I opened my eyes and there it was, pinned there. I closed them, but it was still there, motionless behind the window pane. Spying? I had to sleep. Even with my eyes closed, the sun’s gleaming blades pierced my eyelids and I had to sleep all curled up to hide from that light that peered in at me.

‘What are you doing? Trying to hide, all curled up like that? Are you afraid of your papa?’

How did he know? All naked and white like that, he was scary, but I mustn’t show it. I had to be strong, like him. If he sees that I’m scared, he’ll think I’m like Mama and he won’t take me away with him.

‘I’m not afraid. It’s those scimunite , those silly ninnies crying in there … they make me sick. If it’s true that you’re my father and you’re like me, use your fist to make them shut up.’

The rocks beside me were now slowly moving. He was burning and the wispy hair, blond as a field of rye, rose from his wrists to his shoulders. The rye was on fire. When had it been? We were gathering mulberries, Mama and I, and Tina was laughing under the fig tree, when a chunk of that stationary sun high above fell, and like a fiery serpent began slithering and burning everything around it. The blond hair was burning, the poppies, the clothes that Mama had hung out to dry, Tina’s skirts … the smoke from that scorched hair was choking me too.

‘How can I, figlietta , how can I shut those squawking chickens up when you’re caressing me like that? What a flower you are! A real rosebud.’

The blond rye was burning and the smoky serpent was strangling her throat, she had to get away … She had to run and climb the fig tree and scream like that time … Tuzzu would come and take her in his arms when he heard her screams.

‘ How did you save me from the fire, Tuzzu ?’

‘ You under one arm and poor Tina under the other: so singed she looked like a piece of wood when you make charcoal .’

‘ Why didn’t you leave her there to burn? You should have saved only me .’

‘ Just listen to this wicked picciridda , what a heart this little girl has! If you say it again, I’ll let you burn, so help me God, even if you are white and plump as a dove .’

She had to get away, but the rock had slowly rolled over on her, crushing her against the wooden planks of the big bed, and the flames were rising. Tina was screaming, but those screams gave her no pleasure. That man wasn’t holding her under his arm, wasn’t caressing her like Tuzzu did. Instead, he roughly spread her legs and stuck something hard and cutting in the hole where pee-pee comes out. He must have taken the kitchen knife and wanted to cut her up like Mama quartered the lamb with Tuzzu’s help at Easter. The blade was entering the lamb’s quivering thighs — the big hand sank into the blood to divide, split apart — and she would be left there on the planks of the bed, torn to pieces.

* * *

You couldn’t see anything. Had the sun gone down? Or was she already dead, quartered like the lamb? The knife’s pain was still there, rising up past her belly button into her stomach, then further up, shattering her chest. Yet she was able to move her arms. She searched for the knife with her fingers; there it was, shoved in from behind. Her chest was intact and her belly too, intact. Only the torn flesh below her belly burned and something thick and slimy, a strange fluid, oozed: not pee, blood. She didn’t need to look: she had known it for ever.

Better to lie still with my eyes closed and sleep, but the sun is splitting my head and I have to open my eyes: that glow isn’t the sun but the oil lamp that Mama used to light before so she could work … such a long time ago, before that naked man who was now asleep beside me had come — and with him the painful blood. Mama too, when the blood came, would press her stomach and cry; then piles of red-stained cloths would accumulate in the basin.