Nicola Gardini - Lost Words

The main door slammed with its unmistakable metallic clank. We both looked up, me from my Latin book, she from the pair of overalls she was mending. The moment they appeared behind the door, we knew. Right before standing up my Mom gave me a meaningful glance. The day had arrived. I was reminded of the words in the Gospel: “ Ecce ancilla Domini, fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum —Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to thy word.” She opened the glass door and greeted them calmly. With an almost imperceptible hand gesture she ordered me to leave.

“Good work, Elvira,” came the compliments of the ingegnere, ignoring her hello, “I can see you keep this building so clean you could eat off the floor.”

Although she hadn’t been forewarned of their visit, the lobby and the loge were sparkling. Finally all her diligence, all that cleaning, was going to pay off. Good work, Elvira. The landlord was there to give her the recognition she was due!

She invited him to have a seat but he preferred to remain standing next to the table. He was very tall with an easy elegance. You could imagine that a trusted servant had prepared him and, after the last stroke of the brush, had approved the image of the master. Even I, through the keyhole, could perceive the sobriety of his posture, which, combined with the undeniable superiority of his rank, lent him a unique appeal.

My mother uttered humbly, “I do my best, Sir.”

For fear of looking like an idiot in front of the manager, she displayed the scars on her wrists: “Every day, every morning, even at the cost of my health…”

“You don’t have an easy job,” Ingegner Spinelli acknowledged. “It takes a lot of physical strength. But you’re a young and energetic woman, I can see that — strong-willed, resilient, the kind of woman only the South can produce! We’re lucky to have you here…”

“Elvira is precious,” the manager interjected. Next to the tall and debonair landlord, she looked like a midget.

My mother — out of both surprise and a reflexive gratitude — could barely hold back her tears. The ingegnere paid no mind to the doorwoman’s show of emotion and without further ado extracted a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket, unfolding it on the table.

“My dear Elvira,” he said in a serious tone, signifying the start of a new era. “On this piece of paper you will find, in alphabetical order, the names of the tenants at Via Icaro 15. Can you see? Biondo, Bortolon, Caselli, Cavallo, D’Antonio, Dell’Uomo, Di Lorenzo, Lojacano, Lynd… Next to each name is written the price of the apartment. Two-bedroom apartments always cost three million more than one-bedrooms, and the prices increase from one floor to the next. Basically, the two-bedrooms on the fifth floor are the most expensive ones in the building.”

He spoke without any preamble, without any explanation, as if he knew the long wait was over. The truth was — I realized all too clearly — he couldn’t care less about explaining things to my mother.

“The variations in price, however,” he specified, “are not so appreciable. You, Elvira, within a week, need to let me know which tenants would like to buy their apartments, and after that, when I know who doesn’t want to buy, I’ll advertise that their apartments are for sale.”

My mother’s eyes twinkled. Perfect! At the end of the week she, the doorwoman, would step in, and upon returning the paper with the signatures, she would declare, “I will buy the Vignolas’ apartment.” From the restlessness of her fingers, constantly rubbing the scars on her wrists, I knew that she was tempted to reserve the apartment right away. But she refrained, afraid to voice her wish publicly for the first time, to ward off bad luck, or simply to avoid provoking the manager’s brutality. She limited herself to saying, “So, have you really decided to sell Via Icaro 15?”

And he, confidentially: “Yes, Elvira, I don’t want to leave behind any problems for my nephew… buildings are nothing but trouble… money pits… A furnace to change,walls to reinforce, and a thousand other things… Not to mention the estate tax…”

My mother brought out the gold-rimmed shot glasses and poured a thimbleful of grappa for everyone. “None for me, thank you,” said the engineer. The manager declined with a hand gesture — she did not say “Thank you.” The grappa sat there, filling the air with its aroma.

As soon as Ingegner Spinelli and Signora Aldrovanti left, my mother grabbed the piece of paper. With her index finger she went over the names and figures over and over again, up and down, but she couldn’t find what she was looking for: “Where the heck did he put the price?”

She sat down to catch her breath and then tried to pour the grappa from the glasses back into the bottle, spilling a most of it. Then she wiped down the table with a wet rag and studied the sheet of paper again.

“SIX MILLION LIRAS!”

She almost fell off her chair. Flabbergasted, she clutched the top of the stove and repeated, almost losing her voice, “SIX MILLION LIRAS!.. Where am I going to find that kind of money? What an increase! At the other buildings on Via Icaro the one-bedrooms were going for five! I don’t have six million. It was all I could do to come up with four and a half…”

“What a fool I am!” she suddenly brightened. “But of course! I’ll ask for a discount from the ingegnere! A million more, a million less, what will it matter to him, with all the money he’s got? And what should it matter to his heir? He won’t even notice. The ingegnere would never refuse me. You heard how nice he was earlier… Now there’s a man with a heart, not like that iceberg Aldrovanti…”

She was smiling, reassured.

“What if dad is against it?” I ventured.

She didn’t lose her smile. “Your father…” she whispered, lost in thought.

Indeed. When should she break the news to him?… Right away or toward the end of the week, after everyone had let their intentions be known? No, best to do it right away. She had to speak with him that very night and come right out with it: “The ingegnere dropped by…” And my father would exclaim, “The ingegnere? What did he want?” And she: “Can you guess…” And he: “He’s putting the building up for sale…” And then?… My father would realize that if he opposed her, she would go berserk and give him the silent treatment. And she wouldn’t let up. She would only say, “At last I’m going to buy a house, too. For twenty years I’ve been working myself to the bone…”

*.

My father came home from work later than usual. He washed his hands, turned on the TV, and sat down at the table without even glancing at the newspaper. My mother let him eat in peace. Then, before serving him coffee, in a forced voice, as if she were speaking with a stranger, she said that Ingegner Spinelli had dropped by. Dad didn’t lose his cool. He was too busy listening to the TV, or at least pretending to.

“Did you hear me? The landlord dropped by…” she tried again, already worked up, standing in front of the gas stove.

“The landlord?” he echoed her mechanically. “What did he want?” He wasn’t at all interested in listening to her reply. He started inveighing against Nixon: “The Americans are going to destroy us all, sooner or later. Fascists! They’re not republicans! They’re fascists!”

“What do you mean, ‘What did he want?’ Can’t you figure it out?”

“What do I know? He never comes by…” he mumbled, chewing on a tough piece of steak.

“He brought the sheet of paper with the price list… He’s selling! Do you get it? We’re going to become a condominium!”

The use of the first person plural instantly distracted my father’s attention from the Americans on the news.