Goliarda Sapienza - The Art of Joy

‘No, Modesta, no! Stay here! Being close to you fills me with a joy I’ve never felt before.’

Since she told me to — not only verbally, but making room for me — I can lie down: me on top of the cover, her underneath.

‘You must have had a happy childhood if you can offer your children and me so much peace … You haven’t answered me, Modesta. You were happy as a child, weren’t you? When you’re like you are now, I seem to see you as a child in a happy home like this one, with a mother as serene as Stella.’

‘No, Joyce, no. My mother died early, and I was very poor before becoming part of the Brandiforti family.’

‘How can that be?’

Already her eyes were losing their smile, but I didn’t want to upset her with sad stories so I quickly added:

‘The facts don’t matter much. I’ve always been happy, as you rightly guessed, at least up till now. In time, if you want, I’ll tell you about my adventures.’

‘You’re right; facts don’t matter. I’ve always been well off. My mother died just two years ago, when I was already an adult and able to accept the loss. You see, Modesta, I must assure you that yesterday’s weakness will not repeat itself, at least not in this house. But it’s also my duty to warn you about me. Unfortunately, since my sister died…’

‘Joland?’

‘Yes, my sister, but not my blood-sister. You see, my father and mother … But never mind about me. It’s you I’m interested in. Tell me, maybe even though you were poor you had brothers or sisters who…’

‘No, I was alone.’

‘Incredible! You alone, and poor! You, who are so sociable and at ease in the midst of this swarm of exceptional children, in this austere elegance! One day you’ll tell me all about it, won’t you? You would greatly surprise an old friend and teacher of mine, to whom I owe the mental stability that has kept me going throughout these years — at least until this shameful act. I should tell you, Modesta, that I was already tempted by death in my early years, when I lived with my father and mother. My suicide attempt drove me to press on with my studies. I wanted to find the reason for suffering that was not only physical but also emotional. I studied medicine and later psychiatry in Milan. I knew Carlo in medical school.’

‘Oh! Why didn’t Carlo ever mention you to me?’

‘We parted ways none too amicably … Ideological arguments. He never spoke to you about a Jò?’

‘Oh, yes, Jò! But I thought it was a man! He mentioned someone who later went to Germany, to specialize. So it was you?’

‘Yes.’

‘But why “Jò”?’

‘Because, as I told you, I’ve always had only male friends. Carlo and Jose are alike, abstract or distracted, as you please. In time, in their hearts, they probably felt I was a man.’

‘But why didn’t you tell me right away? Now I remember this Jò … The nickname suits you.’

‘Oh, here comes Stella with our breakfast! Modesta, please, go back and sit in your chair.’

‘Why are you turning pale like that? What harm is there? We’re two women.’

‘But … really, I … Good morning, Stella.’

‘Good morning to you, signora . Oh, Mody, there you are. Good thing. I couldn’t stand the thought of you in that armchair. How delightful, my Mody and my signora chattering away like two sisters! It’s a relief, signora , to see you so rosy. I’ll bet you’re hungry.’

‘Very, Stella.’

‘There, another good sign! I’ll leave you now. Oh, how I always yearned to have a sister! But my dear departed mother, God rest her soul, produced nothing but boys!’

A flush I don’t understand defiles Joyce’s face. I want her for ever beautiful, with that smooth ivory brow which, tranquil or sad, has never been furrowed by doubt or stained by shame. Now I understood how a perfect face can look ugly, just as an irregular face can seem beautiful. It’s the coherence that counts. When Mela’s face — an amorphous triangle in which only the eyes could be called beautiful — became flushed, it made her little figure seem more attractive. The blush was somehow the logical extension of the uncertainty and insecurity the young girl bore within her.

‘Why are you moving away, Modesta?’

‘I’m not moving away. I just wanted to look at the sea. It’s all calm and serene, as if the earlier fury had never been. Nature’s imperturbability, or absence of remorse. She unleashes terror and death and then…’

‘Your ability to withdraw to a distant place while you’re just steps away from me — like yesterday during the storm — is upsetting. Did I perhaps say something that offended you again?’

‘No, Joyce.’

‘Or were you disappointed by my choice, like Carlo and Jose?’

‘What choice? I don’t understand…’

‘They never approved of the fact that I turned my back on politics and devoted myself body and soul to the study of psychoanalysis. Jose especially was furious. He said that only the revolution can heal people’s minds, and that those charming fantasies, more poetic than scientific, were nothing but the usual ingenious ideas the bourgeoisie produces to distract our thoughts from the main issue.

‘Wherever he is now, he’ll rejoice in knowing that only last year, even Reich published a work in which he asserts that what we psychoanalysts call the death instinct is the product of a capitalist society. Another pupil who betrayed his master … How we argued over it! To me, the impossibility of reconciling Marxism and psychoanalysis has always been clear. Yet I wasted years and years attempting to do so, both in my studies, and in my personal life. And today, at almost forty, I’m unable either to engage in politics or heal. I should have just studied.

‘Oh, Modesta, teach me to be happy! Because you chose to be happy. When you said, “The facts don’t matter much”, I sensed that your serenity was a deliberate act of will. How can it have been otherwise? You’ve suffered losses that were perhaps graver than mine … Prando told me that your husband, the Prince, after a few years of marriage fell ill with a terrible malady, and that you were left alone. What was it? I didn’t ask Prando — he’s so young — but I imagined it was syphilis. He was a womanizer by all accounts … progressive paralysis, I’d guess. Why are you looking at me like that? Shouldn’t I have said that?’

For the first time in my life I was seized by an intense desire to unburden myself with someone who wasn’t me. Joyce watched me, waiting, and for a moment I hesitated: should I go on being with her the way I was with others — maybe she herself wanted me that way — or tell her what I was really like, and lose her? I closed my eyes.

‘Why are you closing your eyes, Modesta? But what am I saying? You must be exhausted … a night in that armchair…’

In the darkness of my tightly shut eyelids I gauged every note of that voice, every slight pause or reprise, and decided that those sonorous depths, full of tortuous ravines, made no allowance for things left unsaid, for childish games or hiding places; at least not for me.

Without further hesitation, I opened my eyes again and poured into hers all the joy and bitterness of what then seemed to me my long life. And like a vase, her eyes took in emotion, tears, hardships and pleasures without cracking.

When my voice fell silent, an extreme weakness forced me to stop in the centre of the room and look around for something to lean on. While talking, I had probably wandered between the window and the now empty bed, which still held the imprint of Joyce’s body. She too had stood up, and was staring at me from a distance so unfathomable that for a moment it made me think: I’ve lost her. But after that split second of dismay, the warmth of her cheek on mine pulls me back from that staggering distance.