Goliarda Sapienza - The Art of Joy

Behind me, muffled thuds along with Menelik’s furious barking made me whirl around. I wasn’t afraid. Menelik was a trusted dog, and more than once I had seen him bite someone mercilessly. Indeed, he flung himself toward the shadowy figure, but strangely enough, at the foot of that shadow he quieted down. The shadow was a horse, and when I looked up I saw the familiar white curls coming toward me, magnetized by the moon.

‘Good boy, Menelik, you recognized me! Dogs, unlike people, have a good memory. See how the Padroncina is looking at me? What do you think? Should I greet her or not?’

‘I recognized you, Carmine. What are you doing around here?’

‘Ah, I’ve been roaming around here for three nights!’

‘Why?’

‘To see you.’

‘Couldn’t you knock at the door?’

‘Carmine doesn’t knock at the door. He waits for a sign from destiny.’

‘And why did you want to see me?’

‘I’m a condemned man, figghia . Here, my chest: angina. And in the time they’ve given me, three or four months, I got the urge to see you, assuming you still remember me.’

‘I remember you, Carmine. But you’re dead to me inside. I killed you.’

‘I know. That’s another reason why I came. My death belongs to you. I once had to wrong you, and wrong myself, but nothing ends, and Carmine has always cared for you. And now that I’ve seen you and spoken to you, I’ll go back home satisfied, because your voice was gentle in your response. Goodbye, Padroncina , and may God bless you! Come, Orlando, old boy, it’s time to go!’

The moon had sunk below the mountain and I could barely make out the white curls and broad back moving away behind the horse’s huge shadow. It was dark, but dawn was already peeking through here and there among the low shadows of the dunes; a chill suddenly made my teeth chatter, and I shivered. Those powerful shoulders and that slow gait rose up from my past, magnified. ‘A condemned man,’ he had said. Not a sign of that fatal sentence, either in his calm smile there in the moonlight, or in the sure-footed trot that was already putting an unbridgeable distance between us.

‘Come back! I want to see you, Carmine!’

Slowly the shadow came back toward me.

‘Here I am. Look at me.’

‘It’s dark.’

‘I can see you. Are you afraid? Is that why you’re trembling like that?’

‘I’m cold, Carmine.’

‘It’s the chill of dawn, figghia . Go back to the house.’

‘It’s a long way to the house. Like you once told me: going downhill is easy, but going back up…’

‘You remember that?’

‘I remember everything. You flushed me out of the fields like a hare.’

‘Of course, you were running like a hare.’

‘Take me home on Orlando, like you did that time.’

‘At your command, Padroncina .’

‘We’ve never been on the horse at night, Carmine.’

‘No.’

‘It’s lovely at night. Too bad we didn’t do it before.’

‘There’s still time to do it, for you at least.’

His arms clasped me tight and his chest seared my back; already beads of sweat were sliding down my neck and shoulders. He was silent and rode slowly. Why? I wanted to see him. I wanted to see him in the light.

‘Why are you going so slowly?’

‘Partly to be with you, partly because of poor Menelik. Don’t you hear him hobbling along behind Orlando?’

‘So leave him behind. He knows the way and I’m cold and sleepy.’

I saw him on the portico in the light of the large, moon-shaped lamp, a pale moon that was always lit, from sunset to sunrise.

‘Here you are, home. I’ll leave you.’

No, that light wasn’t bright enough, and I wanted to see him, to look closely.

‘What is there to see, figghia ? It’s not proper for you to receive a man at this hour of night.’

‘In this house I’m the mistress. Come in.’

‘Now that you’ve let me come in, can I have a little smoke?’

‘Of course you can.’

‘The Princess, God rest her soul, didn’t allow it. She said everything stank afterwards.’

‘I like the smell of tobacco.’

I watched him as he pulled out the little pouch and filled his pipe. Not a sign of that fatal sentence. I searched his features in vain, the creases of his skin. Not a blotch, not one wrinkle more ingrained, not a tremor in his hands. That iron-strong man, tamping the tobacco with his thumb as if time still had the same slow, cadenced measure it had had before he’d made an appointment with death, stood before me as though it were yesterday, and like yesterday, seeing him made me feel protected and fearful. He wouldn’t speak again, or look up at me, until a small flame appeared between his meticulous, long fingers.

‘One thing at a time, figghia . Running around left and right like that, you lose life’s flavour: a good cup of coffee, tobacco, your saliva … Slowly, that’s how I want to taste your mouth, slowly.’

Had he lied? No, Carmine was a man of honour. I had to get nearer, look at him up close, but clouds of smoke obscured his face. I had to at least touch that face of his.

‘Do you want me, figghia, ca mi tasti accussì ? Is that why you’re touching me like that, as if you can’t see me … Do you still want me? I would never have hoped! I desire you so much, but I don’t want to misread your intention.’

Riveted by surprise — how could I have known if he hadn’t told me? — I can’t move or speak. He was dead to me. I killed him, and I want his hot, heavy body on me. I should throw him out, pound my fists on that face I put behind me, that is now back smiling. But I missed the moment, and already his arms are lifting me up, light as a feather, and the hatred dissolves, leaving only a sweet languor in my arms and in my mind.

‘What are you doing, crying, figghia ? Once, you would have got angry with me and scratched me. Did you suffer that much?’

‘I didn’t suffer, and I hate you!’

‘And you’re right to. But don’t be ashamed. There’s no shame in suffering when fate opposes us. I, too — and I was an old man — suffered at having to wrong you, leaving you warm and loving, the way you had grown up in my hands. But now, during the three nights that I was wandering around, I was sure there would be someone with you, and I didn’t dare hope. That’s another reason why I was prudent, and didn’t knock on your door.’

‘Cowardly. Not prudent, Carmine, cowardly! Go back to your sons! What do you mean, coming back whenever you please like this? You do your duty as a father only when it’s convenient for you?’

‘No, figghia . It’s death that decides. Death has liberated me, and now that I’m free, I’ve come back to you.’

A tenderness I’d never felt before for that hefty body weighing so gently on mine makes my hands go to his mouth. To make him stop talking, because his voice, liberated by death, awakens a forgotten heat in my belly, and my nipples, now hard, are painful against the touch of his jacket.

‘You want me, Modesta. I can feel it in your hands.’

His mouth speaks to me through my fingers. No use denying the rain or wind or sun. All you can do is accept the blaze of summer, the chill of winter. I don’t answer, and with my hand, as he had done with me at one time when I didn’t yet know, I guide his mouth to that swell of pleasure and pain that my breasts have become. Forgetful, my body is aroused and my thighs open beneath him, but an icy chill worms its way into the warm waves of pleasure and, against my will, makes my hand stop that blind throbbing member that gives life.

‘What’s wrong, figghia , why are you stopping me like that? Has your anger frozen you so much that you can’t forgive?’