The Novel of Ferrara

by André Aciman

  I asked her if she meant to go along to the Temple later on.

  She said she wasn’t sure. Perhaps she would, but perhaps not . . . The way she felt at the moment she couldn’t give me any guarantee it was at all likely.

  She hung up without inviting me to come round again in the evening, and without arranging how or when we might see each other again.

  That day I avoided ringing her up again. I didn’t even go to the Temple. But around seven, passing by Via Mazzini, and noticing the Finzi-Continis’ grey Dilambda parked behind the corner of the cobbled stretch of Via Scienze, with Perotti wearing his driver’s beret and uniform seated at the wheel waiting, I couldn’t resist the temptation of installing myself at the entrance of Via Vittoria to keep watch. I waited a long time, in the biting cold. It was the busiest time of the evening, the pre-prandial passeggiata. Along the two sidewalks of Via Mazzini, cluttered with dirty, already partly melted snow, the crowd was rushing in both directions. At last I had my reward. Suddenly, even though at a distance, I saw her emerge from the Temple’s entrance and pause there on the threshold. She was wearing a short leopardskin coat, tied at the waist with a leather belt. Her blonde hair shining with the light from the windows, she was looking around her as though searching for someone. Was I the one she was looking for? I was about to emerge from the shadows and come forward, when her relatives, who had evidently followed her down the stairs at a distance, arrived in a group behind her back. They were all there, including grandma Regina. Turning on my heels, I hastily made my way down Via Vittoria.

  The next day and the days that followed I kept on with my phone calls, yet only occasionally did I manage to speak to her. Nearly always, someone else came to the phone, either Alberto, Professor Ermanno, or Dirce, or even Perotti, all of whom, with the solitary exception of Dirce who was curt and impassive as a telephone operator, and for that very reason daunting and disquieting, entangled me in long, futile conversations. At a certain point I would cut Perotti short. But with Alberto and the Professor things were harder for me. I let them talk away. I always hoped that it would be they who mentioned Micòl. But in vain. As though they had decided to avoid all reference to her, and had even discussed the matter with each other, both her brother and her father left it up to me to take the initiative. With the result that very often I hung up without having found the courage to ask for what had prompted me to call.

  I then resumed my visits, in the morning, with the excuse of the thesis, and in the afternoon, I’d go to see Alberto. I did nothing to make Micòl aware of my presence in the house. I was sure she knew of it, and that one day or another she would appear.

  Although my thesis was actually completed, I still had to copy it out. So I would bring my typewriter along with me, and its tap-tapping, as soon as it first broke the silence of the billiards room, immediately called forth Professor Ermanno to the doorway of his study.

  “What are you up to? Are you already copying it out?” he called out merrily.

  He came over to me, and wanted to have a look at the contraption. It was an Italian portable, a Littoria, which my father had given me a few years earlier when I’d passed my final school exams. Its trade name did not, as I’d feared it might, provoke a smile from him. On the contrary. Claiming that “even” in Italy now they made typewriters, like mine, which seemed to work perfectly, he appeared to be impressed with it. There at home—he told me—they had three of them, one for Alberto’s use, one for Micòl and one for him—all three were American Underwoods. Those of his children were undoubtedly hard-wearing portables, but not nearly as light as this one (at this point he weighed it on his hands). His own, on the other hand was the usual kind, an office typewriter. Yet . . .

  Here he gave a little start.

  Did I know, though, how many copies it let one make, if one wished?—he added, winking. As many as seven.

  He led me to his study and showed it to me, lifting, not without some effort, a black, funereal cover, probably made of metal, which till then I hadn’t noticed. In front of such a museum item, evidently hardly ever used even when it was new, I shook my head. No thanks—I said. Using my Littoria I’d never be able to make more than three copies, and two of them on the thinnest paper. All the same I preferred to keep on with my own.

  I typed out on its keys chapter after chapter, but my mind was elsewhere. And it wandered elsewhere also when, in the afternoons, I went upstairs to Alberto’s studio. Malnate had returned from Milan a good week after Easter, full of indignation at what was happening at that time: the fall of Madrid—ah, but it wasn’t over yet; the conquest of Albania—what a dreadful disgrace! What a total mess! As for this last event, he told us what certain Milanese friends of his and Alberto’s had said to him. Rather than it being a scheme of Il Duce, the Albanian business had been a pet project of “Ciano Galeazzo.” Obviously jealous of von Ribbentrop, that disgusting coward had wanted to show the world that he was a match for the German in matters of lightning-diplomacy. Could we believe it? It seems that even Cardinal Schuster had expressed himself on the subject in disparaging, warning terms, and though he had spoken in the utmost secrecy, the whole city soon knew of it. Giampi also told us other things about Milan: about a performance at La Scala of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which he had luckily been able to attend, of an exhibition of paintings by a “new group” in Via Bagutti, and of Gladys, herself, whom he’d met by chance in the Galleria all wrapped up in mink and arm in arm with a well-known industrialist who dealt in steel. Gladys, friendly as ever, had while passing him given him a tiny sign with her finger which meant without any doubt “Phone me,” or else “I’ll phone you.” What a shame that immediately after he’d had to return “to the factory!” It would have been a joy to cuckold that famous steel magnate, soon-to-be war profiteer . . . he’d have done it most willingly . . . He talked on and on, as usual addressing me in particular, but, at least in the end, a bit less didactic and peremptory than in the previous months—as though after his trip to Milan, having enjoyed once more the affection of his family and friends, he had discovered a new temperament, far more indulgent toward others and their opinions.

  With Micòl, as I’ve already noted, I only had the odd brief talk on the telephone, during which both of us avoided reference to anything too intimate. But some days after I had waited for more than an hour in front of the Temple I was unable to resist complaining about her coldness.

  “Did you know,” I said, “that the second evening of Passover I did see you?”

  “Oh, is that right? Were you at the Temple too?”

  “No. I was passing by Via Mazzini when I noticed your car, but I preferred to wait outside.”

  “How odd of you.”

  “You were most elegant. D’you want me to tell you what you were wearing?”

  “No, really, I’ll take your word for it. Where were you lurking?”

  “On the sidewalk opposite, at the corner of Via Vittoria. At a certain moment you turned to look toward me. Tell me the truth—did you recognize me?”

  “Don’t be so silly. Why should I wish to deceive you? But as for you, I don’t understand what you were thinking of . . . I’m sorry, but couldn’t you have managed to put a foot forward?”

  “I was about to. Then when I realized that you weren’t alone, I abandoned the idea.”

  “What a surprise that I wasn’t alone! But you’re a strange type. I reckon you could have come over to say hello all the same.”

  “It’s true when you think about it. The trouble is one can’t always think clearly. And anyway, would you have been pleased if I had?

  “Good Lord. What a fuss about nothing!” she sighed.

  The next time I managed to speak to her, not less than twelve days later, she told me she was ill, suffering from a terrible cold and some signs of fever. What a bore! Why didn’t I ever come to visit her? I’d quite forgotten her.

  “Are you . . . are you in bed?” I stammered, disconcerted, feeling myself a victim of a huge injus
tice.

  “I certainly am, and between the sheets to boot. Tell the truth—you’re refusing to come for fear of catching the flu.”

  “No, no, Micòl,” I replied bitterly. “Don’t make me out to be more pampered than I already am. I’m only astonished that you can accuse me of having forgotten you, when the truth is . . . I don’t know if you remember,” and as I continued my voice came out stifled, “but before you left for Venice phoning you was really easy, while now, I have to admit, it’s become a complicated business. Didn’t you know that I’ve come round to your house several times these last few days? Haven’t they told you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well then! If you’d wanted to see me, you knew quite well where to find me—in the billiards room in the mornings, and in the afternoons downstairs with your brother. The truth is you had no desire to see me.”

  “What nonsense! I never like going to Alberto’s studio, especially when he has friends round. And as for looking in on you in the mornings, aren’t you hard at work? If there’s one thing I hate doing it’s disturbing people when they’re working. Still, if it’s really what you want, tomorrow or the day after I’ll call in for a moment to say hello.”

  The morning of the day after, she didn’t come, but in the afternoon, when I was with Alberto—it must have been seven o’clock—Malnate had brusquely taken leave of us a few minutes earlier—Perotti came in carrying a message from her. The “Signorina” would be grateful if I should go upstairs for a moment—he announced, impassively but, it seemed to me, in a bad mood. She had sent her apologies. She was still in bed, otherwise she would have come down herself. Which did I prefer—to go up immediately, or stay for supper, and go up afterward? The Signorina would prefer me to go on up straight away, since she had a bit of a headache and wanted to turn the light off very soon. But if I decided to stay . . .

  “Heavens, no,” I said, and looked at Alberto. “I’ll go right now.”

  I got up, preparing myself to follow Perotti.

  “Please make yourself at home,” Alberto said, accompanying me considerately to the door. “I think this evening at dinner Papa and I will be alone. Grandma is also in bed with the flu, and Mamma doesn’t leave her room even for a minute. So, if it suits you to have something with us, and go up to see Micòl later . . . it would make Papa happy.”

  I explained that I couldn’t, that I had to meet “someone” “in the Piazza,” and rushed out behind Perotti, who had already reached the end of the corridor.

  Without exchanging a word we soon arrived at the foot of the long spiral staircase which led up and up to the little tower with the skylight. Micòl’s rooms, as I knew, were those situated at the top of the house, only a half-flight below the topmost landing.

  Not being aware of the lift, I began climbing the stairs.

  “Just as well you’re young,” Perotti said with a grin, “but a hundred and twenty-three stairs are a fair number. Wouldn’t you like us to take the elevator? It does work, you know.”

  He opened the black external cage, then the sliding door of the cabin, and only then stepped back to let me pass.

  Getting into the elevator, which was an antediluvian big tin box all aglow with wine-colored wood and glittering slabs of glass adorned with the letters M, F and C elaborately interwoven; feeling my throat seized by the pungent, slightly suffocating smell, a cross between mold and turpentine, which impregnated the shut-in air of that narrow space, and being suddenly aware of a motiveless sense of calm, of resigned fatalism, even of ironic distance—these all collided and combined into a single sensation. But where had I smelled something like this before?—I asked myself—and when?

  The elevator began to ascend quickly up through the stairwell. I sniffed the air, and at the same time looked at Perotti in front of me, at his back clad in pin-striped cotton. The old man had left the plush, velvet-covered seat entirely at my disposal. Standing, at a couple of hand’s breadths away, self-absorbed, tense, with one hand grasping the brass handle of the sliding door and the other resting on the button panel—this too of glowing, well-polished brass—Perotti had closed himself once again in a silence open to all kinds of interpretation. But it was then I remembered and understood. Perotti was keeping silent not because he disapproved, as at a certain point I’d conjectured, that Micòl was receiving me in her room, but rather because the opportunity offered him to operate the lift (perhaps rare enough) filled him with a satisfaction as intense as it was private and intimate. The lift was no less dear to him than was the carriage, left down there in the coach-house. On such things, on such venerable witnesses to a past that was by then also his own, he could express his difficult love for the family he had served since he was a boy, the angry loyalty of an old domestic animal.

  “It moves very well,” I exclaimed. “Who are the makers?”

  “It’s American,” he replied, half-turning his face round, and twisting his mouth in that characteristic grimace of distaste behind which countrymen often conceal their admiration. “She’s been at it for more than forty years, but she could still haul up a regiment.”

  “It must be a Westinghouse,” I guessed at random.

  “Mah, sogio mi . . . ”* he stammered. “Some name like that.”

  After this he started out telling me how and when the contraption had been “put in.” But then—to his evident displeasure—the lift shuddered to a sudden halt and forced him to interrupt his story then and there.

  • 2 •

  IN MY frame of mind just then—a fragile serenity shorn of illusions—Micòl’s welcome surprised me like an unexpected, undeserved gift. I’d been afraid she’d treat me badly, with the same cruel indifference as she had of late. And yet as soon as I entered her room (having introduced me Perotti had discreetly closed the door behind me) I saw she was smiling at me in a kind, friendly, open manner. More even than the explicit invitation to come on in, it was her luminous smile, full of forgiving warmth, which convinced me to move out from the dark end of the room and approach her.

  So I came right up to the bed, laying both hands on the bed rail. With two cushions supporting her back, Micòl was sitting with the covers only up to her waist, wearing a long-sleeved, high-necked, dark-green pullover. Above her breasts the little gold medallion of the shaddai glinted over the wool . . . When I came in she had been reading—a French novel, as I’d quickly gathered, recognizing from a distance the familiar red-and-white covers, and it was probably reading rather than the cold which had made the skin under her eyes look tired. No, she was always beautiful—I told myself then, gazing at her—perhaps she’d never been quite so beautiful, so attractive. Beside the bed, at the height of the bolster, there was a walnut-wood trolley with two shelves, the upper one occupied by a lit articulated lamp, the telephone, a red earthenware teapot, a pair of white porcelain cups with gilded rims and a nickel silver thermos. Micòl stretched to place the book on the lower shelf, then turned in search of the hanging electric-light switch on the opposite side of the headboard. Poor me—she muttered at the same time between her teeth—it’s not right I should be kept in a mortuary like this! The increase of light had hardly been effected when she greeted it with a long “Aah!” of satisfaction.

  She kept on talking: of the “vicious” cold which had forced her to stay in bed for a good four days; of the aspirins with which, unbeknownst to Papa, and equally to her uncle Giulio, a sworn enemy of all sudorifics—in their opinion, they damaged the heart, but it wasn’t true at all!—she’d tried in vain to bring her illness quickly to an end; of the boredom of endless hours being stuck in bed without even the desire to read. Ah, reading! Once, at the time of the famous flu and fever she’d had when she was thirteen, she’d been capable of reading the whole of War and Peace in a few days or the complete cycle of Dumas’s Musketeers, while now, in the course of a miserable cold, though it did affect her head too, she had to be thankful if she managed to put “out of its misery” a little French novel, of the kind printed in big let
ters. Did I know Cocteau’s Les Enfants terribles?—she asked, picking up the book again from the trolley and handing it to me. It wasn’t bad, quite amusing and chic. But weighed beside The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After and The Viscount of Bragelonne? Those were real novels! Let’s be honest about it—even considered from the point of view of “chic-ness” they worked “much better.”

  Suddenly she interrupted herself.

  “But why are you standing there like a garden pole? Good heavens, you’re worse than a baby! Take that little armchair”—as she pointed it out—“and come and sit closer.”

  I hurried to obey her, but that wasn’t good enough. Now I had to drink something.

  “Is there nothing I can offer you? Would you like some tea?”

  “No thanks,” I replied, “it’s not good for me before supper—it swills about in my stomach and takes away my appetite.”

  “Perhaps a little Skiwasser?”

  “That has the same effect.”

  “It’s boiling hot, you know! If I’m not wrong, you’ve only tried the summertime version, the one with ice, an essentially heretical version of the Himbeerwasser.”

  “Really, no thanks.”

  “Good Lord,” she whined. “D’you want me to ring the bell and have you brought an aperitif? We never take them, but I believe there’s a bottle of Bitter Campari somewhere in the house. Perotti—honi soit—will undoubtedly know where to find it . . . ”

  I shook my head.

  “So you really don’t want anything!” she complained, disappointed. “What a pain you are!”

  “I prefer not to.”

  I said “I prefer not to” and she burst out laughing loudly.

  “Why are you laughing?” I asked, a bit offended.

  “You said ‘I prefer not to,’ just like Bartleby. With the same face.”