Nicola Gardini - Lost Words

She spent the evening in self-reproach. She should have been even harder on Dell’Uomo. She had turned into a coward. Even when she knew she was right, she no longer knew how to raise her voice.

*.

A long time went by before he returned to us. He looked so distinguished when he came in, a little thinner, with longer hair. He saw my copy of the Aeneid open on the table and lit up. He browsed through the first few pages, looked up at me, and, clearly articulating dactyls and spondees, recited from memory the entire scene of the shipwreck. My mother, spellbound, forgot all about the coffee on the stove as it boiled over and splattered onto the floor.

Ippolito declared that the most beautiful hexameter in all Latin poetry was in that passage: Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto —Scattered men appear, swimming in the vast swell. He repeated it various times. Did I hear the alliteration? Did I hear the rhyme? And the scene? Magnificent! But if you thought about it carefully, that scene was hardly possible. Who could have seen them, those poor floundering men? To whom might they appear ? Certainly not to the poet, who was not present at the event. Nor to anyone else, since there were no witnesses, except maybe the shipwrecked men, who hardly had the time or the desire to contemplate their sublime desolation. What did Virgil really mean when he used the verb apparent ? Had I thought about it? Well, they appeared to the gods, that’s whom they appeared to! Whom else? The gods were the witnesses— they were watching!

“Ippolito,” said my mother gravely, interrupting his improvised lesson on Latin literature and forcing herself to step down from her ecstasy. “I have to tell you something. It’s important… the other tenants have taken a dislike to you. Excuse me for speaking so frankly, but this is no time for joking around. I told you they were horrible people.”

Ippolito shrugged his shoulders. “What do you mean they’ve taken a dislike to me?”

“They think you’re strange.”

“Maybe I am.”

My mother started to get worked up. “Come now, please try to understand. Don’t be so hard-headed! For once you need to take me seriously. Nasty rumors are circulating about you.” She hesitated for a moment. “They think you’re conceited, arrogant .”

“Maybe I’ve become that way lately…”

“They hate you!”

“Not everyone is capable of love.”

“Ippolito, I’m not joking! These people can’t stand you!”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Because that’s the way they are. There’s no rhyme or reason. You live alone, and no one knows what you do for a living or how you pay the bills. You’re an oddball to them. There are only families here: the husbands work, the wives take care of the house, and the children go to school.”

“But there are a few spinsters here, too.”

“No one is worried about the spinsters, my dear Professor! At most, people feel sorry for them, because no one wants them. But a man, that’s another question… For the other tenants you’re a mystery . Can you get that into your head? They don’t know you, and since you’re always in your own world, inside your own house, they all come up with the wildest ideas. That’s the way people are. We all have people who dislike us. We have to be on our guard. Otherwise people will destroy us!”

“I would never have imagined my life could be the subject of so much interest. Besides, every person is a mystery, to himself and to others.”

“These monsters don’t care about your reasons! A word to the wise: if you don’t get them to stop immediately, they won’t give you a moment’s peace. Do something, please. That way they’ll stop talking about you.”

“Elvira, you underestimate me,” Ippolito observed with a hint of resentment. “Do you really think they can take away my peace and quiet so easily? I can’t believe the opinion you have of me! Do you really think I’m so weak?”

His words did little to reassure her. “Listen to me, Professor. With everything I’ve seen, I know what I’m talking about.”

To put an end to the discussion, he finally gave in. “Alright, I’ll try to do something. But what do you suggest I do, you, who are so wise?”

She was too jealous to advise him to talk with the signore of the building. “Why don’t you invite Signora Dell’Uomo’s husband to the stadium?” she suggested, half-heartedly.

“You’ve got to be kidding. And please don’t tell me to invite him to lunch. I don’t know how to cook.”

“Well, promise me that you’ll do something. Something nice, that will show everyone how good you are, how kind… how normal !”

*.

“Children! Children!” he started calling from the balcony.

Since no one paid him any mind, he called on the intercom to ask me how to get them to come upstairs. He went down to the courtyard and managed to recruit only Rita, Rosi, and the Cavallo’s son, Mirko. Everyone else said no. Signora Vezzali’s son, Andrea, said the Professor was a pervert.

“A what?” asked Rita, wrinkling her nose.

In the end, Andrea came along, too.

The Professor cleared his table, and in the spot where I was used to seeing his Olivetti, he had placed a layer cake. What was the cake doing there? What were the others doing there, in my house ? What did they know about the Maestra, about the Professor, about the dictionary? And why was Mirko sitting in the Maestra’s armchair? Why was that little idiot Rosi leaving dirty fingerprints where I — and I alone — had the privilege and the right to lay my hands?

“You can sit there on the ground,” the Professor said to Rita, who was giggling like a ninny. “Unfortunately I don’t have any more chairs. You can take turns. I’ve never had so many guests at once… Well now, here we are, all settled in. I’m happy that you came. Thank you. I’m sorry if I interrupted your games, but I wanted to meet you. My name is Ippolito.”

He shook everyone’s hand and repeated his name. Then he cut five slices of the cake and served it. No one dared to speak. The only thing you could hear was the sound of mouths chewing.

“There’s plenty more, if you like,” he encouraged them. “Andrea, hand me your plate and I’ll give you another helping. You, too, Mirko. Don’t be shy. Tell me about your vacations.”

Andrea said that he had been in Puglia, at summer camp. He said that he’d kissed three girls in one night. Mirko boasted that he’d touched his cousin’s breasts.

“Enough of that!” Ippolito interrupted them. “This is getting too personal. Certain secrets shouldn’t be told. Let’s hear from the girls.”

Rita had visited the mother of Father Aldo in the mountains. Rosi had gone to Venice. Her aunt took her to Jesolo, on the seaside, and they ate on the beach .

“Why aren’t you married?” Andrea asked Ippolito.

“Not everyone gets married. Do you want to get married?”

Andrea made a face that meant nothing. The two girls said that they really wanted to get married.

Mirko picked the Olivetti up from the ground and started playing with it. “Leave it alone!” I shouted, as if a thief were trying to rob me. I had never had the courage to touch the Olivetti. To me it was something prohibited, inviolable. Something divine .

Ignoring my jealousy, Ippolito slipped a clean sheet of paper under the roller and indicated to Mirko the letters of his name. Mirko hit the keys slowly and clumsily, and then he showed everyone the word, his name, like a trophy.

Frustrated, I stuttered: “I have to go.”

He didn’t try to stop me.

I remained outside with my ear against the door, listening to the snickering of the two boys and the striking of keys at irregular intervals by clumsy fingers.