Nicola Gardini - Lost Words

“Brilliant,” Dell’Uomo attacked her, “all we need now is pneumonia!”

“Pneumonia would be a blessing!” her husband intervened. “All this smoke causes cancer!”

Once they had finished ranting, they went upstairs and quickly rounded up articles of clothing, and to the beat of carefully-staged coughing, migrated en masse toward the homes of friends and relatives. The only thing left in front of number 15 was our car and the car of the Professor.

The firemen finished carrying out the debris.

“You weren’t able to save anything?” my mother asked the chief.

“What is it we were supposed to save, signora?” he replied ironically.

*.

Before Christmas the tenants had another meeting. The result of the vote was announced in a letter from the manager, sent by certified mail.

This is to inform you that the residents of Via Icaro 15, at their meeting of December 10, 1973, have decided to abolish doorman service for budgetary reasons. The rooms should be vacated by March 31, 1974. You are being offered the possibility to remain in the apartment with your family for a monthly rent of fifty thousand liras.

They were taking away both her job and her home, punishing her in the most vile manner possible. Yet she, the doorwoman, was not upset. A veil of relief had been spread over her tired soul. Finally she would be leaving that place. Finally she could turn her back on those people — it was an honor to be kicked out!

My father, instead, found the situation humiliating and dishonorable. He asked his trade union for help but, finding there was little they could do, said he was ready to pay rent. My mother, scandalized, called him crazy and threatened to ask for a divorce.

“If only you had let me buy an apartment when I wanted to,” she threw in his face, although now she was glad she hadn’t bought a home in that vipers’ nest.

On December 24, in the late afternoon, there was a knock on the door. I was studying the subjunctive mode in ancient Greek. My mother was watching television. We weren’t expecting anyone.

“Who is it?” I asked.

Silence.

“Who is it?” my mother repeated.

More silence.

She got up and peeked through the shutters.

“What are you doing there like a mummy? Come in, come in!”

He was almost unrecognizable. He had turned older, uglier — years seemed to have passed since the fire. Even before he sat down, she told him we were being evicted.

“How is that possible? I’m so sorry!”

“Don’t be sorry, Professor! I’m happy. They wanted to punish me, too. They never forgave me for being your friend. I’m the one who is sorry for you — I should’ve opposed them more staunchly. But who would’ve believed those witches could go so far?”

“Where will you live?”

“I’m sure we’ll find a place somewhere. I’m not worried. I’m not worried about anything anymore. What’s the point?… We’re going to apply for public housing, then we’ll see. I’ve set aside some money. Maybe one day my husband will resign himself to the idea of getting a mortgage.”

I was still angry with Ippolito. I’d forgiven him for abandoning me — I understood that to keep his distance from my mother, he also had to keep his distance from me — but I couldn’t forgive him for the loss of the dictionary. He was the one who was really responsible for its destruction. The fire had been set by his blindness, by his stupid ideals… Since that night I hadn’t been able to stop thinking of all the words that had been lost, words that would never again return. Never again. So much of my life had gone up in smoke along with them. The scene was still playing out in my mind: the seamstress and Vezzali vandalizing the apartment while Dell’Uomo stood look-out on the landing. And the seamstress who dumped all his papers on the ground and lit the match… And then, in a flurry, each of them racing home.

“Listen, Elvira,” the Professor resumed in a deep voice, reaching his hand out to the cup of coffee being offered to him, “I wanted to propose something… I don’t think you need to apply for public housing. Who knows how long it would take?… Why not take my house?”

My mother gave him a severe look.

“Really. Please accept it,” he insisted, “I won’t be coming back here.”

“What are you talking about?” she said defensively, like the time he’d given her the pearl necklace. “I couldn’t possibly… don’t you realize?”

She took the sponge and wiped down the surface of the gas stove.

“I’ll sell it to you!” he proposed, with a melancholic enthusiasm. “Didn’t you say that you wanted to buy a house? I’ll give it to you for half of what I paid. It’s not a lot of money… and with what you have left you can fix it up the way you want. There’s a lot of damage.”

“I couldn’t. I mean it,” she repeated.

“Pay me when you can! Please, say yes…”

“You are too kind, but really, I couldn’t. I can’t live in a place where they did this to us. Professor, do you realize what they did to you?… You are a true gentleman… You’re a genius . I knew it the first time I met you — even though all of your arguments tried my patience. I told those witches, but look at how they treated you instead! You didn’t deserve it — that’s for sure… And I wasn’t strong enough to help you when we still had a chance…”

Succumbing to tenderness, which restored the color in her cheeks and the spark in her eyes, she wasn’t worried that my father might return or that I was there in the room, hearing and seeing everything.

“You are a true gentleman, Ippolito,” she repeated, unable to find another way to express what she had been feeling in her heart for too long. “I mean it. I admire you so much, Professor… I don’t know what I wouldn’t do for you… You did notice, didn’t you? Everyone else did…”

He shook his head, disconsolate.

“Please stop, don’t say that, Elvira. You need to be happy with your life, with your husband, with your son.”

“You’re the best man I’ve ever met.”

“You’re wrong. You don’t know anything about me!”

“I’m not wrong. I know everything about you!”

She shivered, as if she had a fever. She took one of his hands in hers, kissed it, and in a sudden gesture wrapped an arm around his neck.

“What are you doing, Elvira?” he scolded her, trying to break her away from him. “Come now, we’re not children! Stop!”

Since he couldn’t pull her arms off him, he slowly and compassionately hugged her sobbing shoulders. In the sudden silence, the only thing you could hear was the electric hum of the refrigerator. I placed my hand on her shoulders, too. For a moment we became one person. For a moment the barriers that divided us disappeared. For a moment…

My mother’s tears stopped. She straightened her spine and her head. A thousand thoughts flashed through her mind and vanished into an unknown distance amid the batting of her moist eyelashes.

“Where have you decided to go?” she asked him.

“Me?… Well, I was thinking of moving… I’d like to go to Africa or maybe return to India. I don’t know yet.”

She had no comment.

They spoke to each other like two strangers.

The Professor stood up and reached for the doorknob. “Oh, I almost forgot something.” He reached into the left pocket of his overcoat and took out a packet. “This is for you, Luca. Merry Christmas.”

I followed him with my gaze from the bedroom window all the way to the gate. He took a few more steps and vanished into the darkness.

I withdrew into the bathroom and ripped away the newspaper pages in which it was wrapped…

What was it? A steel comb, all black, in the shape of a shell?… A closed fist of many fingers?… The skeleton of a fan?… No, it was a mechanical spider that moved its legs over my palm like a living, breathing creature… No, it wasn’t that, either. So what was it? All of a sudden I understood. The Professor had given me the heart and soul of his beloved Olivetti! Those impatient, movable legs were the typebars! The fire hadn’t consumed them. It had only blackened them. You could still see the letters perfectly.