Goliarda Sapienza - The Art of Joy

‘Don’t you even want to read the letter, Modesta?’

‘Oh, yes, Stella, of course.’

I opened the envelope. Just a few lines: ‘My dear friend, I commend Joyce to your care; she is like a sister to me. She has suffered greatly over the loss of her parents. She will tell you all about it. Look after her, my dear friend. Confident of your understanding, please accept the brotherly affection and gratitude of your good friend. Jose’.

‘Forgive me, Mody. I see you are lost in thought. Maybe I shouldn’t ask, but is it really Signor Jose’s handwriting?’

‘Yes, Stella, it is.’

‘Of course, I shouldn’t…’

‘You shouldn’t what, Stella?’

‘It’s just that that lady is odd, very odd!’

‘In what sense?’

‘I don’t know! Strange … looking at her flusters me. I can’t express it … Oh God, here she comes! Look, you see! She’s done that these past few days, like clockwork. Shut up in her room all day, then at this hour she goes out walking in the shade.’

‘Call her.’

‘Oh no, Mody, look at her. Look at her closely!’

‘Well? What’s so odd about her, Stella? You know I don’t tolerate prejudices. How many times do I have to tell you? She’s just a lot taller than our women. Maybe that’s what strikes you as odd?’

Was it the pearl-grey pant suit with its white pinstripes, paired with an elegant white silk cravat, that cowed Stella? Or the big Robin Hood style hat which, seen from a distance like this, hid her eyes, her expression?

‘If it were only the hat, Modesta, but she’s wearing trousers!’

In the shadow of the heavy brown felt brim, the eyes — two large, slanted eyes — sloped up toward the dark blur of the temples. Those eyes weren’t smiling, either as she came toward me, or as she displaced Stella who, ignored, quickly rushes off. In a split second, it was as if there had materialized before me one of those pretentious figures found in Parisian salons where our political exiles, between one drink and another, affected a restrained, polite disillusionment before the excited gaze of ladies delighted to have finally found a distraction from their perpetual boredom … I try to make out the sound those lips are surely producing, but I can only perceive their slow, elegantly composed movements. Either she is speaking very softly, or a distant storm is interfering with the imaginary cable, stretching for miles, that brings me the tremulous voice of Bambolina, somewhat breathless over the novelty of having a telephone … ‘You’re in Rome! Oh, Zia, I can’t believe that you’re talking to me from so far away! It’s a miracle! It’s almost scary. Jacopo and ’Ntoni are here tugging at me; they want to talk to you too. Come home, come back soon, we get bored without you!’ Soon, in ten years, maybe twenty … we will surely see the face too, flying thousands of miles, on a small screen sitting on the nightstand between an ashtray and a lamp … The earth was shrinking into a fist while the acrid, sweetish scent of that Turkish tobacco obliterated the large unfinished wooden table and the copper splendour of Stella’s pots as she now fled. I could run after Stella and forget that salon full of small naked ladies who, extending shapely arms, listlessly supported Liberty style lampshades of stained-glass, or the ladies who — crossing their long, slender, adolescent-like legs — listened, captivated and moved, to the misfortunes of our troubled country, recounted in the melancholy voice of some pale Jacopo Ortis …

‘Who brought you there? Who sets foot in those places? Just some fake anti-fascist lackey of the bourgeoisie. You’re right, they play at being heroes without taking any risks. But don’t be misled, Modesta, resistance to Fascism does exist! It’s here, in the factories, in our barber shops, in our bakeries! Listen to comrade Reggiani.’

I could have run to comrade Reggiani, but it was useless. I would never meet Jose. And anyway, Jose was telling me that I should respond to that woman, even though the smell of her long cigarettes was stupefying. The ashtray Stella had improvised from a flower-pot saucer held three white and gold cigarette butts. And already the long fingers were slowly fingering another one, almost gratefully. What was her name? Jose’s letter, left lying on the table, told the woman’s name, but it would have been rude to reopen it in front of her.

‘You, Princess, are exactly as Jose described you. And I see that he did so for my own good. Always provident, Jose!’

‘For your own good?’

‘A concise though exceedingly useful warning: “Don’t pay any attention to Modesta’s sudden absences, Joyce, or you might slip into the pool of indifference which the little princess, when you least expect it, always manages to place between her and whomever she’s speaking to.” Forgive me for persisting, Princess, but you haven’t answered, and this makes me unbearably anxious. Is it perhaps because you think it’s now impossible to find passage to South America, as it was for comrade Alessandro Giudice two years ago? Do you think that by now…’

‘If it was possible once, it will be so a second time. Don’t worry! Provided of course that you have a lot of money. Back then, I was able to meet Alessandro’s needs, but now that’s impossible for me. Everything is in decline and I have to be prudent.’

‘Oh, as far as that goes, for me it’s different. Alessandro is poor and he was in Italy on a mission. In my case, the situation is less edifying: I’m wealthy, and my coming to Italy was simply a sentimental choice, and as such, a mistake.’

‘If you have money, consider it done! It’s only a matter of waiting for the right ship.’

‘Will we have to wait long? I’m on pins and needles, and although I appreciate your discretion, Princess, my sense of guilt — which is huge, believe me — compels me to make my position clear: despite Jose’s warnings, I had been under the illusion that I could travel unnoticed. The fact that I didn’t have a political record in Italy … I’ll explain: I live in Paris and I only joined the Party two years ago. I deluded myself into thinking that I could rush off to my dying sister’s bedside. Certainly, had I left soon afterwards, as Jose had advised me … but Joland’s death … Forgive me, Princess, I’m not used to talking about myself, but I must do so to apologize for having somehow placed you at risk with my presence here.’

‘Calm down, Joyce! As Jose knows — he didn’t send you to me by chance — here in Sicily, things are less severe.’

‘That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have left as soon as Joland died! But seeing her agonizing death, knowing that, in the last year, she had had to endure illness and loneliness, all by herself … Or maybe, I don’t know … it all gripped me like a vice, and for three months I’ve been almost crazy with grief and remorse. I couldn’t think straight anymore! Only the news that they were looking for me brought me to my senses, that — and fear of my weakness. I realized that if they were to capture me I wouldn’t be able to withstand the methods they use. And unfortunately, I know many names and facts. I managed to make OVRA 65lose track of me, but only because I was afraid. I’ll be honest with you. It’s only thanks to fear that I’ve emerged from a state of prostration that was about to ruin me, while implicating many valiant individuals.’

‘But fear and terror, which you seem to spurn so, Joyce, carry within them the seed of courage.’

‘That thought, though it doesn’t convince me, calms me, Princess. I’m grateful to you.’

‘I didn’t say it to calm you; consoling people is not my calling. Only, I don’t believe in heroes.’