Goliarda Sapienza - The Art of Joy

Where was Joyce’s faint smile leading, so promising that it filled the days and months with an elation I’d never felt before? What was the alluring, confident note of that bambina driving me to? At times, it was so controlling that it inspired a profound terror, a sense of being hopelessly lost with no way out. What was she thinking when she broke free of my embrace without a word? What about those sudden recurrences of modesty that made her cry, no longer aware of Modesta’s presence? Or when, moving close again, the great moonlike arc of her brow compelled her to remember: to associate images, words, events and faces in order to make sense of the fanciful explosions of a dream seemingly generated by the caprice of an excited imagination?

* * *

In sand that was still warm at sunset, we were digging a hole down to where our fingers found sea water:

‘Gold! Gold!.. Bambù was the first to touch it!’

‘Yes, but Mela was the one who dug the deepest, Joyce! Come and see the mine. Put your own hands in the clear water and you’ll be rich for ever!’

Joyce no longer flushes at that word but she doesn’t want to touch the sea’s gold.

‘Don’t you want to be rich for ever? There now, come on! Your hands have to be covered by water up to the wrists … That’s it: Mela and I want you to have your share of this treasure too, right Zia?

‘Now let’s go up and prepare for this evening’s big performance. The great pianist Mela Bruno … What an ugly name “Bruno” is, Mela! No offence. We have to find you a stage name. Can a pianist like you, by God, be called Bruno? Bruno, Bianchi, Smith! We have to find a name for Mela … don’t any of you care? All right, I’ll come up with one. Bambù has to see to everything! And please: everyone must be in formal attire this evening. I want it to be like at the conservatory. What a success it was, right Zia? Jacopo will take care of the lights. We have to reproduce everything exactly the way it was for Joyce, since she wasn’t there.’

Europe is an enormous prison, and Jò can come and go in the villa, in the surrounding area, but only with great caution. To have gone to the conservatory in Palermo would have been folly. Is that why her face is growing sadder and paler? Or is it because even in summer she never goes out to the garden bareheaded? The wide-brimmed felt winter hats are replaced by shiny gossamer affairs of beige straw. Her face in shadow recedes from us: an inscrutable blur in the midst of faces and shoulders gilded by the August light. After running along the beach chased by Jacopo and ’Ntoni, a yearning for that shadow makes Modesta turn back to gaze closely into those eyes that seem about to take flight.

‘Where are you fleeing to, Jò, where?’

‘I haven’t moved an inch, bambina .’

‘They couldn’t catch me, did you see? Look at ’Ntoni, he’s panting! And Jacopo! After ten yards he quit. And to think I’m thirty-six years old, Jò! I like to challenge them. I’m quite proud of my legs and my wind.’

‘And you’re right. I was watching you as you ran; you look like a young girl.’

‘Oh, you were watching me? So you weren’t running away? Tell me again that you were watching me.’

‘Admiringly besides, if you want to know.’

‘Thirty-six years old! It seems like yesterday that I came back from Catania with all those books by Freud, remember? I was so afraid I wouldn’t find you here when I returned.’

‘But you did.’

‘Yes, yes, but I’m always afraid.’

‘That’s because of your childhood, not because of me.’

‘Maybe, but I’m not so sure, Jò. I’m not so sure about you psychoanalysts and your theories anymore. Don’t get angry, but so many things don’t make sense, and not only in my case. Did you hear Bambù a few moments ago? She was talking like Nonna Gaia. Her voice is striking; it’s taking on the same timbre as that grand old woman’s. And she never knew her.’

‘You must have spoken about her.’

‘Never! Since I decided to break with tradition, that is. Since I left Carmelo, never! Though you may be right as far as Beatrice is concerned: she was the victim of her childhood or, as you psychoanalysts say, of her unavoidable destiny … What a great title that would be for a novel!’ 76

‘Lovely, but you don’t work, Modesta! So many splendid ideas, but you don’t work.’

‘I don’t work? But I love you, I race with Jacopo … I work, and how! I work hard, but joyfully. You’re laughing? Finally! Don’t scold me, Jò. I’m so happy! Now it’s time to get dressed. I don’t want to get a scolding from Bambù as well. She’s always so elegant. I wonder what name she’ll come up with for Mela … That girl is a genius.’

* * *

Bambolina is waiting by the door. Her slender torso, stiffened by indignation, is drawn like a bow about to release its arrow, but Prando tilts his head of dense curls like those of a bronze statue and murmurs, ‘I will never forgive myself for being late like this, Ida, never!’

‘Go on, Prando, don’t make matters worse.’

‘My motorcycle broke down.’

‘You’re all greasy and muddy like…’

‘Bambù, please…’

‘But you’re the most handsome of all, and I forgive you.’

‘Thank you, little cousin. But I will never forgive myself!’

‘Come on, take your place! Can’t you see they’re all seated? And poor Jacopo perched up there should by rights turn the spotlight on us.’

But Jacopo, aware of the importance of his role as lighting technician — rather than his walk-on appearance as a silent sentinel in the performance of Hamlet that was so successful just a few months ago — is serious, and doesn’t take his eyes off ’Ntoni’s hand, which is ready to raise the curtain. Only he knows how to seize just the right moment during the audience’s silence to open the curtains. By now ’Ntoni knows everything about the theatre:

‘No, I missed the right moment, Bambolina!’

‘But they’re laughing like crazy!’

‘It was too much! Maestro Musco is right: they laughed too much. I tired them out so afterwards they didn’t applaud like the other time.’

‘ Uffa , ’Ntoni! Since you’ve been spending time with that clown, you’ve become pedantic and annoying.’

‘Angelo Musco is not a clown! Ask Modesta and Joyce; they’re not ignorant and provincial like you. Angelo Musco is a great artist! And if you dare say it again, I’m leaving. I’d like to see what a fine show you dabblers will produce then! Amateurs!’

They must have made up sooner than usual. Generally, after an argument Bambù and ’Ntoni didn’t speak to one another for two or three days. Was it the upcoming performance that reconciled them in just a few hours? ’Ntoni, dressed as Giufà, had asked Bambolina what she thought, and she had kissed him on the forehead before the first spectator entered the room. The first to arrive, shaved and wearing his formal Sunday best, was Pietro. Perhaps worried about his size, he sat down as soon as he came in in the last row next to his little daughter.

How would that child manage to see the stage, with the wall of heads belonging to all the local young people in front of her? Each year those friendships grew, and there wasn’t an empty seat in the little theatre, despite the absence of so many friends … of Paolo, Andrea and Franco, called into the army to fight for the Empire. Only the difference of a few years had kept Prando from following them, but nothing could console him over Franco’s death, not even the posthumously awarded gold medal the boy’s mother had shown him:

‘A hero! You had a hero as a friend, Eriprando, and you should be proud of it.’

‘You’re a fool as well as a woman, Donna Emanuela di Valdura, so don’t be offended if a Brandiforti snubs you. And if you really must be offended, send me that other idiot, your son, to avenge the insult.’