Goliarda Sapienza - The Art of Joy

‘What does that matter now! I have to take you home and that’s that … and then…’

‘Do you dislike being like Carmine? Is that why your mood changed?’

‘Being like Carmine! So what was Carmine like? According to my mother, God rest her soul, he was a god! Can you measure up to a god? Look, Princess, you can barely stand up and I have to get you home. I see you rather like my motorcycle. It’s nice to stroke it, isn’t it? Its skin is so smooth.’

‘Why shouldn’t I like it?’

‘Not all women like it.’

He’s challenging me now, exactly like Eriprando does when he wants to race. I have to accept the challenge to learn what Eriprando will be like … and I hear myself say:

‘Why don’t you take me home on the motorcycle? I’ll send someone to get the car tomorrow.’

‘A woman on a motorcycle? Whoever heard of such a thing! It’s dangerous. You have to know how to hold on.’

‘So teach me! How hard can it be?’

‘You have to have strong muscles.’

‘I can ride a horse. Don’t worry.’

‘Yes, of course — but what if you want to now, and then you get scared? I know how women are … What an idea! Still, the thought appeals to me, if only to tell my grandchildren.’

‘There, that’s the spirit! That way you’ll have something to talk about when you’re an old man.’

‘Witty too! Back in the house you seemed like a corpse. Why so sad over the death of a stranger, Princess?’

‘Don’t change the subject, Mattia. Admit that you’re afraid to have a woman ride on your motorcycle.’

‘Mattia isn’t afraid of anything!’

‘It doesn’t seem like it.’

‘I’ll show you, Princess. Come on, climb on behind me and we’ll see. Hold on tight, will you? Tighter. Feel how the engine makes everything vibrate? And that’s nothing! I wouldn’t want to lose you down the embankment.’

I looked at the road: it snaked along a ravine, profound darkness barely touched by the moon. My legs, tense from effort or from the jolting of that animal, were already trembling, and I almost regretted it; I was about to call out to him when a furious wrench made my heart, crazy with fear, leap into my throat. With all the strength I could muster, I gripped him like someone who’s drowning, while a burst of air, inexplicably transformed into razor-sharp lava, pelted my head, making me lurch.

‘Hold tight, for God’s sake, Princess, hold on!’

Mattia’s voice reaches me like a distant whistling. At sea, we’re on the open sea, I think, in the grip of a storm … What is he saying now? I too am screaming but my voice breaks up in the distance — or is it my heart leaping out of me? Finally, I feel my heart revive, as if fiery fingers had torn it out and violently massaged it. And to feel it alive, no longer grieving, I fix my eyes on the yawning depths of the night in front of us … an abyss swallowed up by a roar of wind and brass rumbling in unison, in a sweeping metallic song never before heard.

* * *

‘It’s spectacular, Mattia! Spectacular!’

‘You’re fearless, Princess! If I may say so, you seem like a young girl now.’

‘Oh, it’s fantastic! Let’s go back up and ride around all night. Afterwards you’ll teach me to drive it, won’t you? Tomorrow you’ll come back and teach me.’

‘Tomorrow? Well, who knows where we’ll be tomorrow! But do you really feel up to driving it?’

‘Why not?’

‘So then, it’s true…’

‘What is?’

‘What my father would say, not with words but with his eyes, whenever he heard you mentioned … Bacio le mani , my respects, Princess. But just one thing; no offence. Are you like this with all men? If I may say so, you shouldn’t be so quick to let yourself be accompanied by a man alone.’

‘So why didn’t you want Vincenzo to come with us? He offered to. What’s come over you? Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘I’m trying to understand…’

‘Understand what?’

‘Trying to understand, like I said.’

‘There’s no need to try to read me, Mattia! Stop staring at me. What do you want to know? You won’t answer? I was your father’s woman for a long time.’

‘The old wolf! Despicable Carmine! Not satisfied with having ruined Vincenzo’s life, he wanted to make me marry a silly fool as well, when all the time he had you.’

‘But you didn’t comply, and he had to accept it. Why are you shouting?’

‘I’m shouting because I hate him, and I hate you!’

Mattia shouts as he runs to the motorcycle and kick-starts the engine, which in a flash is raring to go. I should go inside, shut the gate and leave that young man to his grief. He too must have loved him if he can cry like that … I see him out there, bent over his iron horse, which gleams in the moonlight. Carmine didn’t understand a thing, either about himself or about others, and I should get on with my life. But the dark stretch of woods out there breathes such a strong odour of death and loneliness that the chill of that last kiss is roused in my flesh.

‘Why don’t you go into your house?’

‘And you, why don’t you leave instead of racing the engine like that?’

‘I turned the engine off. Can’t you hear the silence? You look like a corpse now…’

‘Don’t raise your voice, Mattia. Don’t disturb my household!’

‘I wish I could disturb your house like you disturbed mine! I hate you, Princess! Why did you have to reveal my father to me by telling me…’

‘You knew everything, Mattia.’

‘It’s one thing to imagine, another thing to know. You killed him for me a second time.’

‘No one could kill him. Carmine went when he was ready.’

‘Don’t say that name!’

‘Watch out, Mattia. What you think is hate is envy, envy of your father.’

‘What do you know about it?’

‘I, too, thought I hated him, but it was only envy. Because I’m envious as well as angry at the way he died.’

‘You’re not a woman. You’re a lava devil.’

‘I must be a woman, since Carmine loved me.’

‘That’s not true! He only loved my mother and us sons!’

‘Before. But after your mother died, he loved another woman for years.’

‘That’s not true!’

‘Her name was Assunta, if you didn’t know. There is a daughter in Acireale who is the spitting image of him. And another son of his is asleep in this house right now.’

‘Shut your mouth or I’ll kill you on the spot and send you with him, since you want him so much.’

‘Don’t come any closer. I have a gun in my hand.’

‘So it’s true, what he used to say, that nothing scares you. Who are you?’

‘Not a step closer! I’ll shatter your leg, Mattia, I’m warning you! Go home until you get over this hatred that’s gripping you.’

I should back up three steps, keeping him in my sights, and close the gate, yet in spite of this I find myself moving toward him.

‘How dare you, carusu , pass judgement on my life and that of your father? Was it lies you wanted to hear? You disappoint me. I thought I was talking to Carmine’s son. Instead, I find myself arguing with an arrogant lazzarolu who only wants to hear fatuous words. Go away! Go console yourself with some whore!’

‘No! It’s you who must console me.’

‘What?’

‘I changed my mind about you. You told me the truth right away. You have to console me.’

‘No one can console us.’

‘Let me touch you the way he touched you … let me know…’

His hand suddenly on mine, without turning the gun away, ignites a forgotten heat in my chilled flesh, as he whispers:

‘Shoot, go ahead, shoot!’

‘Did you love him that much, Mattia?’