Nicola Gardini - Lost Words

The dream was over. The fantasies were over. The perennial waiting was over. Over, over, over… My mother could forget about the Vignolas’ house; forget about the curtains; forget about the new sofa bed for me. A doorwoman she was and a doorwoman she would remain…

“Hey, enough of that?” she yelled at me. “Stop looking at me. Don’t you have homework to do?”

I retreated to the bedroom and started to cry, huddled up behind the bed, in the same place that I had cried over the Maestra.

I went back to my mother, picked up the pressed and folded overalls, and placed them in the armoire. From then on I would be the most helpful son in the world.

“Can I make you a coffee, mother?”

Through the window she was looking at the clock in the lobby. It was late for coffee.

“Sure, why not,” she said after a moment’s hesitation.

She no longer had the same long face as before. In her eyes a new light was shining. She smiled at me.

“What are you thinking?” I asked while handing her the cup.

She took a sip.

“Ah, you really know how to make a good coffee!.. What am I thinking? I’m thinking that I’ll get that money from Gemma. I find it hard to believe that she wouldn’t have a million to lend me… Alfio makes a decent salary from the railways, and when it’s not his shift, he earns something on the side as a house painter.”

*.

Two minutes later Gemma arrived.

“Well?” she asked impatiently.

My mother waited until she was seated.

“I’m about to buy!”

Gemma batted her eyelashes.

“Buy what?”

“What do you mean, ‘Buy what?’… the Vignolas’ apartment…”

“Oh!..”

She wasn’t showing any of the joy we expected — she didn’t even bother to smile.

“Who knows, maybe one day we…” she sighed. “But we’re just starting out. You, Elvira have been working yourself to the bone for half a century! Chino is grown up now and can help you to pay the mortgage and the expenses, which add up. Set him up as an apprentice to a plumber or mechanic — he’ll bring home a nice paycheck! Plumbers and mechanics, now those guys make serious money, those sons of bitches! — and so do cooks!”

I listened, holding my breath.

Adept at playing her cards right, even in the most stressful situations, my mother didn’t say a word about my future. “Gemma, also on Paride’s behalf, I want to ask a big favor of you and your husband. A huge favor… If I didn’t need to, I wouldn’t have the courage to ask… Paride doesn’t want to hear any talk about mortgages. We’re buying in cash. We have to! But I don’t have the full amount. The one-bedroom costs six rather than five million. I don’t know why, but in the end the landlord raised the price. Take it or leave it, he said — and if I don’t take it this time, it’ll be over. When am I going to get another opportunity like this? I’ve been saving my whole life. I’m almost there. But I’m short one million damn liras, and he refused to give me any kind of discount… Could you find it in your heart to lend me the money? Of course I’d lend it to you without a second thought! And I could pay you back within a year, I swear, with interest. You know how good I am at finding work and saving. I’m not like the signore at the building next door… Who knows where they got the money. If only I could wait another year… but I have to let him know by the day after tomorrow. If I don’t, someone else is going to buy the Vignolas’ place. I think the seamstress, that awful Signora Bortolon, has already got her eyes on it. And I would lose out. Lose out!.. ”

Gemma touched her arm. She wanted it to seem like an affectionate gesture, but it wasn’t. “If you miss this chance there’ll always be another. Maybe closer to downtown. Here we’re out in the boondocks…”

My mother jumped as if her friend had given her an electric shock. “But here houses cost less, don’t you understand?…” She rubbed her scars. “And I’ve become fond of Via Icaro. I don’t want to leave. The only thing I want is to have my own house. To close the door and not to have to see or hear anyone. Can you lend me that million? Please. In a year I’ll pay you back with all the interest…”

She wouldn’t even consider the idea of abandoning Via Icaro, that godforsaken road out in the sticks. If she was going to become a homeowner, it had to be here. Here, where they had humiliated her, where they had treated her like a servant. So only here could her claim to freedom become a form of revenge.

“I’ll have to speak with Alfio…” Gemma hesitated, “he’s the one that keeps the books in the family… I don’t know if we have a million. I really don’t know… You were right when you wondered how the signore get their money! But we’re not like that. Alfio works himself to death. And is it worth it in the end?”

My mother took her hands. “So you’ll talk to him tonight? Promise?”

*.

Another long wait had begun, even harder than the others: all of a sudden our entire future, our happiness, depended on Gemma.

Still ignoring the situation, my father, at supper, told us the plot of the film The Seduction of Mimi , down to the smallest details. Then he started criticizing Bertolucci. Brando’s monologue to his dead wife in The Last Tango was a joke… and so were the rape scene, the mumbled sentences, the finger in the ass — ridiculous!.. And The Canterbury Tales of Pasolini? Even worse. The work of a pervert. Dicks everywhere you looked…

He did all the talking. My mother and I kept looking in the direction of the telephone.

“Would you mind telling me what the hell is wrong with you two tonight?” he yelled, exasperated.

Her nerves were on edge and she turned around in a flash.

“Nothing,” she seethed, “what do you think is wrong?”

“You’re a couple of bores,” he said, the most offensive thing he could come up with.

By the following morning Gemma still hadn’t given her answer. I went back to school and my mother kept waiting. She didn’t dare telephone, fearing she would irritate her friend. But the clock was ticking. There was only one day left.

At two-thirty, with my encouragement, she decided to call. Her husband picked up. He said that Gemma had gone to Carmen’s for a coffee.

We waited another hour. My mother tried again. Luckily Gemma was back.

“Did you talk to Alfio?” she asked, getting right to the point. “You haven’t?… But Gemma, I told you I had to give my answer now — tomorrow, or I’ll lose the apartment! For heaven’s sake, put yourself in my shoes!.. Listen, let’s forget about it…”

She slammed the phone down, furious, and still wearing her clogs she hurried out the door.

“Where are you going?” I shouted at her from the window.

“To Carmen’s!”

She came back a few minutes later, all red in the face and sweating.

“I came so close to slapping her across the face. What a fool I am! Of all people to ask for a favor! In my opinion they’re in the cahoots. Fine friends they are… and who knows what they’re going to say behind my back now!”

She got back on the phone.

“Gemma, I apologize for what I said earlier. I’m a bundle of nerves, try to understand. I’ve been waiting for this moment for years. So can you please let me know by tonight , don’t forget!” And she added, a second before hanging up, “Thanks also on Paride’s behalf.”

A little before seven the telephone rang. My mother was about to drain the pasta. She dropped everything in the sink — pasta, boiling water, kettle — and ran to answer it. The only thing we heard her say was, “I see.” She hung up the phone, went back to the sink, and started retrieving the macaroni.