Nicola Gardini - Lost Words

The Maestra uttered these last words with a sob and turned her head in the other direction, where there was still a little daylight.

“Luca, I’m sorry!.. I’m crazy! Do you know the first word written in the first English dictionary? You don’t?… Abandon … you will abandon me, Luca. You, too.” Then she called herself an idiot, because her tirade had ruined everything. She laughed desperately, and I laughed with her, because I was fond of her and couldn’t stand the idea of losing her.

“You are crazy, too,” she concluded with a comic grin, wiping away a stubborn tear with the tip of her little finger. “Otherwise you would’ve already stopped coming here. But instead you come to see me every day. A young boy visiting an old lady… Unheard of… only in fairy tales, like God… I must tell your mother… Elvira, has Luca seen a doctor? If I were your mother I’d be worried. Why do you come here? You should be running around in the courtyard, playing with children your own age…”

She brushed aside the voile curtains and cast an almost cruel gaze across the street, where a group of boys was chasing a soccer ball on the muddy ground, illuminated by the Christmas lights.

“Yes, you are crazy, too, Luca. Life is going to be a journey through the ruins for you, too…”

*.

She’d never worked harder in her life, doing people’s ironing, cleaning apartments, knitting wool sweaters and trying to sell them. At night, after my father went to bed, she would work on the multi-colored blanket that sat heavily on her lap like a shaggy dog, billowing out in waves onto the floor.

She imagined that Aldrovanti would make the announcement with a very formal telephone call, or maybe in person. The sale of the establishment —how she loved saying that word! So much finer than “the building” or “the complex,” because it lent the seal of bureaucracy to her fantasies, conveying both security and durability— stability , that was the key, while the other words indicated something vague and confused that didn’t suit the long-awaited opportunity of a lifetime. It was hardly an everyday occurrence: Aldrovanti might very well want to speak with her one on one. To prepare for the big event she counted, over and over again, the money she’d managed to set aside. Her bed was covered with financial statements, banknotes, and pieces of paper on which additions and multiplications had been scribbled. Even my birthday savings, tucked away in the tin box, were included in the calculation. I saw her moving her lips silently and raising her eyes to the ceiling in search of a solution. My presence got on her nerves. “Go to the front room!” she would shout, “before some Jehovah’s Witness sneaks in. Go on! You’re only in my way here!” No matter how many times she counted, she was always a million lira short, but she still hoped that the sale would be announced as early as tomorrow. She was convinced that the missing money would appear out of nowhere, all of a sudden, by magic. It had to appear ! She had eighty percent of the total, and that was already a lot, a whole lot. From the depths of the armoire she dug out her checkbook and stared at it in disbelief, already savoring the moment when she would tear off the first check to write in the amount of the down payment. The very thought made her dizzy. Would she know how to fill out a check? What if she made a mistake? She’d look like such a fool! Oh, what did it matter. Some saint would rush to her aid. And if she made a mistake writing out the first check, she’d get the second one right… she had ten checks total. Plenty to spare!

The first half of January had passed and Aldrovanti still hadn’t made the phone call. My mother’s nerves were frayed — she prayed to the saints, to God, to the Virgin Mary. Her prayers alternated with curses. She cursed life, the apartment complex, the world…

With or without the intercession of some saint, the building manager finally appeared, shortly before the end of the month, accompanied by two consultants. The three of them inspected the building from top to bottom, inside and out. They also went downstairs to the boiler room. Under the stairs Aldrovanti noticed the lair of the gray cat. She wrinkled her nose at the stench of urine and reached back toward the outdoors, as if to grab a last mouthful of breathable air. When she turned around, she knocked over a saucer of leftover milk, brought there by someone or other. All hell broke loose.

She raced up the stairs and started to shout the most offensive words imaginable: saying my mother’s neglect had turned the building into a pig pen, that this wasn’t a public-housing project, that the landlord would die of a heart attack if he ever laid eyes on such filth! The cat had to go — and immediately! And to think she had told my mother, when she started working there so many years ago, that no cats were allowed in the building!.. My mother tried in vain to explain that the cat helped keep the mice away, which infiltrated the courtyard from the fields at night. Indeed, one cat was hardly enough…

“Oh!” the building manager laughed derisively, lowering her voice but not her contemptuous tone. “So, would you have us turn the building into a kitty mill? Don’t talk nonsense, Elvira! We’re not in your village anymore. If mice are a problem we call the exterminators! Do you or do you not know your duties? Do I have to write them out for you and tape them to your refrigerator door? And for heaven’s sake, get rid of that rag! This is first and foremost the loge, not your kitchen…”

The consultants determined that the tiles on the rear façade showed signs of deterioration, some had already started to detach from the cement wall, and the possibility could not be excluded that, unless work were done as soon as possible, they might fall. So from then on, no one was to venture into that area.

Aldrovanti’s tirade did not keep my mother’s spirits depressed for long. What she did mind, however, was that the reason for the visit of this unpleasant, domineering woman wasn’t the sale of the building. What if she was fooling herself? In fact, if the landlord wanted to sell, why was he so worried about maintenance? That should have been the new owners’ problem!.. Or maybe — and here I saw her succumbing to a new illusion — since the landlord, l’ingegnere , was a gentleman, a true gentleman! — he wanted the building to be in the best possible condition for the sale… “What more can we do?” she concluded. “Be patient?… I’ve been very patient, haven’t I, sweetheart? Hasn’t your mommy been patient? We’re almost there… I can’t wait to see the looks on their faces! Their jaws will drop. Ah, yes, my dears. Now I’m an owner, too! Time to go looking for another doorwoman !.. And your father had better not try to stop me! If he doesn’t back me up on this, I’m going to ask for a divorce. Anyone who thinks that only the rich can afford a divorce has got to be an idiot! I’ve got money, too — me, a nobody. I don’t need anyone! And there’s plenty of work to go around! Your father had better watch out! Patience, I just need a little more patience… Sooner or later the ingegnere is going to sell.”

*.

The knitting dropped from her hands. The door would’ve burst open if it hadn’t been held firmly in place by the crossbars.

“Don’t move, for the love of God!” she ordered me. Another colossal blow shook the wooden doorframe. The windows of the loge trembled. So did the cups and glasses in the cupboard. The Murano vase skated across the smooth Formica tabletop.

“What the hell is going on?” shouted my father, running out of the bathroom half-naked.

“Quiet!” The pounding stopped.