Nicola Gardini - Lost Words

Without wasting a second, my father grabbed a ceramic vase and slammed it against the arm. A shout rang out and the flashlight fell to the ground. My mother rushed to the kitchen. He kept squeezing the vase, which hadn’t even cracked, as if he wanted to strangle it. We heard someone running down the driveway. My mother rolled up the blinds and saw two men rushing through the gate, but she couldn’t recognize them in the nighttime mist. A moment later you could hear the sound of a car taking the road through the fields.

For once, my father was not so sure of himself.

“What if they have a gun?”

My mother tried to calm him down, but she, too, was upset, and she, too, was afraid that the thieves would come back soon for their revenge. She pushed the armchair against the door, but it was only as tall as the doorknob, leaving the hole in the glass uncovered. She leaned the table-top against the window, leaving two legs sticking out. Then she put the coffee pot on the fire.

“What are you doing? Call Cavallo’s husband on the intercom,” Dad ordered her. “He’s big. Call everyone before the burglars come back. Wake everyone up, for Christ’s sake! Those guys will be back with reinforcements and all hell will break loose!”

“You’re crazy! I’m not calling anyone. You want a revolution? Let’s call the police, instead.”

Dad didn’t want to have anything to do with the police — the only thing they were good for, as far as he was concerned, was killing innocent bystanders.

“You’ll see, first they’ll beat me up then they’ll throw you in jail.”

After a long wait, during which the criminals had all the time in the world to take their revenge on us, a squad car finally arrived. First, the cops requisitioned the burglar’s flashlight, which had rolled under the table and was stuck between the foot of a chair and the stove. One cop stayed outside to inspect the lock on the gate and reconstruct the movements of the thieves. The other, an older man, sat comfortably on my bed, and told my dad, in a mocking tone: “You’re a brave man.”

My Dad, standing by the window, shrugged his shoulders.

“What was I supposed to do? Welcome them in? Hand my son over to them?”

“You’re lucky they ran away. One time there was a burglar who started shooting at a tenant who caught him in the act… Play the hero and you’ll end up with a bullet in the head!”

“Maybe they learned from you…”

The policeman didn’t take the bait — he gulped down his coffee.

Although my dad couldn’t provide any information that would help identify the criminals — the dialect they spoke, the accent they used, or the clothes they wore — it was determined that they must have been gypsies.

“Well, what did they want from us?” Mom asked. “What were they looking for in a doorman’s loge? We’ve got nothing worth stealing.”

But she was thinking about the checkbook and the pocket change — my pocket change! — that she kept hidden in the toolbox.

“The usual things you find in any loge,” the policeman explained laconically. “The keys to all the apartments.”

Everyone’s eyes turned toward the white wooden cabinet on the wall above my bed, next to the circuit breakers.

Before leaving, the policeman advised us to replace the window as soon as possible and also to reinforce the door.

“Will they be back?” Mom asked.

“What do you want me to say, signora? Let’s hope not…”

To avoid a fight, my father withdrew to the bedroom.

“What an asshole,” he repeated, “like all policemen.”

We waited for daybreak in front of the glass door, staring into the hole. Between one coffee and another my parents decided not to tell anyone what had happened. The demands for protection would only increase — and what more could we do?

“We have to move away from here as soon as possible,” was Mom’s suggestion.

At seven Dad left for the factory as usual. One hour later, without taking her eyes off the door, Mom called the building manager and told her what had happened. Signora Aldrovanti made no comment. She didn’t say she was worried or that she was sorry. Luckily the break-in had taken place at night, or the doorwoman would have had to put up with all kinds of criticism. But given the circumstances, no one could blame her for anything.

“I don’t feel safe anymore, Signora Aldrovanti,” she whined. “Our boy actually sleeps in the front room of the loge. He was the one who gave the alarm, imagine how much courage that took. Another couple of inches and the intruder’s arm would have touched his face… The very thought makes me…”

Aldrovanti was not one to let herself be swayed by emotions. What did we expect? For her to hire a bodyguard? For someone else to do our job?…

My mother allowed herself to say that she wanted the door and the window reinforced — it was the least they could do, just like the other doormen on Via Icaro already had. The manager said we were free to reinforce whatever we wanted, but under no circumstances would the building reimburse us. The glass would be covered by the insurance, but everything else would have to be paid for by the doorwoman. One final and very important matter: since it was being vacated, Petillo’s apartment needed cleaning from top to bottom. Miss Lynd deserved to be welcomed with the utmost regard.

The glass was replaced that very afternoon; the carpenter came the next day. He took the measurements and promised to deliver — within ten days — two dark wooden accordion boards, one for the glass in the door, the other for the glass in the window. He also convinced my mother that the door had to be protected with two iron bars. The metalsmith also came immediately to install the four wall-braces that would support the iron bars (but the bars wouldn’t be ready for at least two weeks) — the loge took on the appearance of a jail cell.

Now it was my father’s turn to sleep on the fold-out bed. Call it sleep! He spent most of the night on his feet, in front of the glass door. He would pull back the curtains to look out at the deserted lobby. Then he would get back in bed. The main door would slam. He would stand up and start spying again. From the bedroom, my mother could see the light. “Paride, go back to bed!” she would say in a muffled voice. But he ignored her. Someone was standing still in front of the elevator. Who was it? Then he would call for her help. “Christ, Elvira, come and see! How am I supposed to know everyone? Who signed the contract, Mary Mother of God, me or you?”

*.

My mother’s gestures started to become maniacal, betraying a nervous haste that tore objects from her hands or led her to use excessive force. She had gotten clumsy and careless — she, of all people, who usually handled everything so easily and skillfully. Now whenever she served dinner she’d spill food on the table. If a meatball fell on the floor, she’d pick it up. But at the sight of the stained marble she’d go nuts. “Look! Look at this mess!” she’d yell, as if it were my fault. And before getting out a rag and scrub brush, she would slap me across the face without realizing it. She slammed doors, caught her dress on the chairs, tripped on invisible obstacles. Every day she broke something: a glass, a cup, an ashtray… In the kitchen, while she was using the knife, she cut her fingers and, more often than not, while she was eating, she would bump against the iron braces, which stuck out of the walls like giant teeth (I called them “fangs”). Her arms were always covered with bruises.

The trash chute got blocked up. Someone, to spare themselves the effort of going downstairs to the trash room, shoved a box or a fruit crate into it. Lately this was happening a little too often.