The Novel of Ferrara

by André Aciman

  I then told him in minute detail the story of our relationship, going right back to the beginning and not concealing that episode of last May, in her room, an episode which I’d come to believe, I said, decisive in its negative impact, and irremediable. Amongst other things I wanted to describe to him how I kissed her, or at least how, time and again, and not only on that occasion in her bedroom, I’d tried to kiss her, as well as her various responses, sometimes more and sometimes less disgusted.

  He let me get it all out, and I was so intent on, so lost in these bitter reconstructions that I paid little heed to his silence, which in the meanwhile had become hermetically sealed.

  We’d been standing for almost half an hour outside my house.

  I saw him give a start.

  “Lord,” he murmured, checking his watch. “It’s a quarter past two. I really have to go. Otherwise how will I get myself up tomorrow?”

  He leaped onto his saddle.

  “Well, bye . . . ” he said, leaving, “and life goes on!”

  I noticed his face had a strange grey look. Had my confidences annoyed or angered him?

  I remained watching him as he quickly rode away. It was the first time that he’d left me standing like that, without waiting for me to shut the gate.

  • 9 •

  ALTHOUGH IT was so late, my father had still not switched off his light.

  Ever since the summer of 1937, when the newspapers took up the racial campaign, he had been afflicted by a severe kind of insomnia which reached its most acute phase in summertime, with the heat. He passed whole nights without shutting his eyes, reading for a while, then wandering around the house, listening for a while in the breakfast room to the radio’s Italian-language foreign transmissions, chatting for a while with my mother in her room. If I got back after one o’clock, it was rare indeed for me to be able to reach the end of the corridor along which all the bedrooms were disposed (the first was my father’s, the second my mother’s, then came those of Ernesto and Fanny, and finally, at the very end, my own) without him hearing me. I would get a fair way down on tiptoe, having even taken off my shoes, for my father’s very sharp ears would pick up the least creak or rustling.

  “That you?”

  On that night too, as might be expected, I failed to duck under his radar. Usually, in response to his “That you?” I would immediately quicken my step, going straight on without replying, making as if I hadn’t heard. But not that night. Though I could well imagine, and not without irritation, the kind of questions I’d have to answer, always the same for years on end (“How come you’re so late?” “D’you know what time it is?” “Where’ve you been?” etc.), I chose to stop. As the door was shut, I put my head through the hatch.

  “What are you doing there?” my father said at once, scanning me above his glasses. “Come on in for a moment.”

  He was not lying down, but seated in his nightshirt, leaning with his back and his nape against the headboard of blond carved wood, and covered no further than the base of his stomach with a single sheet. It struck me how everything about him and around him was white—his silver hair, his pallid, exhausted face, his white nightshirt, the pillow behind his kidneys, the sheet, the book open on his chest, and how that whiteness (a clinical whiteness, I thought at the time) was in keeping with the surprising and extraordinary serenity, the unexpectedly benign expression, full of wisdom, that lit up his bright eyes.

  “How late you are!” he commented with a smile, giving a glance at the Rolex on his wrist, a waterproof affair he would never be parted from, not even in bed. “D’you know what time it is? Two twenty-seven.”

  For the first time, perhaps, since being given the front-door key at the age of eighteen, this recurrent phrase of his caused me no irritation.

  “I’ve been wandering about,” I said quietly.

  “With that friend of yours from Milan?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does he do? Is he still a student?”

  “You must be joking. He’s already twenty-six. He’s employed . . . he works as a chemist in the industrial zone, in a Montecatini synthetic-rubber factory.”

  “Just goes to show. And I thought he was still at university. Why don’t you ever ask him round to dinner?”

  “I don’t know . . . I thought it wasn’t right to give Mamma more work than she already has.”

  “Nonsense! It wouldn’t be any trouble. It’s just an extra bowl of soup after all. Bring him over, please do. And . . . where did you have dinner then? At Giovanni’s?”

  I nodded.

  “So tell me what dainty dishes you had to eat?”

  I complied with good grace, surprised at my own lack of contrariness, listing the various courses—those ordered by myself, and those by Malnate. In the meantime I’d sat down.

  “I’m glad,” my father concluded, satisfied.

  “And after,” my father went on after a pause, “duv’èla mai ch’a si ‘ndà a far dann, tutt du?§§§ I bet” (here he raised a hand as though to forestall any denial of mine), “I bet you’ve been running after women.”

  On this subject, there had never been any exchange of confidences between us. A fierce modesty, a violent irrational need for freedom and independence, had always driven me to stifle at birth any of his timid attempts to broach this subject. But not that night. While I looked at him, so white, so frail, so old, it was if something inside me, a kind of knot, an age-old secret tangle, was rapidly unravelling.

  “It’s true,” I said. “You guessed right.”

  “You’ll have been to a brothel, I suppose.”

  “Yes.”

  “Excellent,” he gave his approval. “At the age you two are, especially at your age, brothels are the best solution from every point of view, including that of health. But tell me—as regards money, how do you manage it? Does the weekly pocket money Mamma gives you suffice? If it’s not enough, you can also ask me for some. Within the limits of possibility, I’d be happy to help.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Where have you been? Round at Maria Ludargnani’s? In my time she was already holding the fort.”

  “No. A place in Via delle Volte.”

  “The only thing I’d advise you,” he continued, suddenly switching into the language of the medical profession he had only ever practiced in his youth, having then, after my grandfather’s death, devoted his energies exclusively to the administration of the land in Masi Torello and the two houses he owned in Via Vignatagliata, “the only thing I’d advise you is to never neglect the necessary prophylactic measures. I know it’s annoying. One would gladly do without. But it takes nothing to catch a nasty blennorrhagia, otherwise known as the clap, or worse. And above all: if you wake up in the morning and find something’s not right, come immediately to the bathroom and let me see. In which case, I’ll tell you what you should do.”

  “I understand. Don’t worry.”

  I could feel he was searching for the right way to ask me more. Now that I’d graduated—I guessed he was about to ask—did I by chance have any ideas for the future, any plans? But instead he took a detour into politics. Before I’d come home—he said—between one o’clock and two, he’d managed to receive several foreign radio stations: Monteceneri, Paris, London, Beromünster. And now, on the basis of the latest news, he was convinced that the international situation was rapidly worsening. Unfortunately, there was no getting away from it—it was a real “afàr negro.”¶¶¶ It seemed as though the Anglo-French diplomatic mission in Moscow was already on the point of breaking up (obviously without having achieved anything). Were they really prepared to leave Moscow just like that? There was reason to fear so. Which left nothing to be done but commend everyone’s soul to God’s care.

  “What did you expect!” he exclaimed. “Stalin’s hardly the type to have many scruples. If he found it useful, I’m sure he wouldn’t hesitate for a second to reach an agreement with Hitler!”

  “An agreement between Germany and Russia?” I
smiled weakly. “No, I don’t believe it. It doesn’t seem feasible to me.”

  “We’ll see,” he replied, smiling in his turn. “Let’s hope God hears you!”

  At this moment a moan was heard from the room next door. My mother had woken up.

  “What did you say, Ghigo?” she asked. “Is Hitler dead?!”

  “If only!” my father sighed. “Sleep, sleep, my angel, don’t worry yourself.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Almost three.”

  “Send that son of ours to bed!”

  Mamma uttered a few more incomprehensible words, and then fell silent.

  My father stared me in the eye for a long while. And then in a low voice, almost a whisper:

  “Forgive me speaking to you about these things,” he said, “but you’ll understand . . . both your mother and I have been well aware, since last year, that you’ve fallen in love with . . . with Micòl Finzi-Contini. It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how is your relationship going? As badly as ever?”

  “It couldn’t get worse than it is now,” I murmured, suddenly realizing with absolute clarity that I was speaking the exact truth, that effectively our relationship really could not have got worse, and that never, despite Malnate’s opinion to the contrary, would I be able to clamber back up from the bottom of that slope where I had been vainly groping for months.

  My father let out a sigh.

  “I know, these things are hard to bear . . . But in the end it’s much better this way.”

  I had lowered my head, and said nothing.

  “It’s the truth,” he continued, raising his voice a little. “What were you really hoping to do? Get engaged?”

  Micòl herself, that evening in her room, had also put the same question to me. She’d said: “What was it you were hoping for? Did you really think we should get engaged?” It had taken my breath away. I could think of no reply. Just the same then, I thought, as now with my father.

  “And why not?” I managed all the same, and looked at him.

  He shook his head.

  “D’you think I don’t understand you?” he said. “Even I can see how attractive she is. I’ve always liked her, since she was a baby . . . when she’d come down at the Temple, to receive her father’s berachah. Attractive, no, beautiful—perhaps even (if that’s possible) too beautiful!—intelligent, full of spirit . . . but to get engaged!” here he stressed both syllables, widening his eyes. “To get engaged, my dear boy, means getting married. And in difficult times like these, without above all a reliable profession you can fall back on, tell me if you . . . I imagine you hadn’t reckoned on me being able to support your family (and indeed I wouldn’t have been able to lend you enough, I mean, to meet the need) nor that you’d planned to depend on her. The girl will certainly come with a magnificent dowry,” he added, “there’s no doubt about that! But I don’t imagine you’d . . . ”

  “Let’s forget the dowry,” I said. “If we loved each other, what would that matter?”

  “You’re right,” my father agreed. “You’re absolutely right. Me as well, when I got engaged to your mother, in 1911, I took no thought of such things. But the times were different then. We could look ahead, to the future, with a certain amount of tranquility. And even if the future hasn’t shown itself as happy and easy as the two of us imagined it would be (we got married in 1915, as you know, with the war having begun, and soon after I had to leave as a volunteer), the society we lived in was different, then, a society that guaranteed . . . Besides, I’d studied to be a doctor, while you . . . ”

  “While I . . . ”

  “That’s what I mean. Instead of medicine, you chose to study literature, and you know that since the moment came to decide I haven’t ever tried to impede you in any way. That was your passion, and you and I, both, have done what we ought to—you choosing the route you felt you had to choose, and I doing nothing to stop you. But now? Even if, as a graduate, you’d aspired to a university career . . . ”

  I shook my head to say no.

  “So much the worse!” he went on. “While it’s quite true that nothing, even now, can stop you continuing your studies on your own account . . . to keep on developing so as one day to try, if it’s possible, to become a writer, a most risky, difficult career, or a militant critic such as Edoardo Scarfoglio, Vincenzo Morello, Ugo Ojetti . . . or else, why not? A novelist, or . . . ”—here he smiled—“ . . . or a poet . . . But precisely for these reasons: how could you, at your age, being only twenty-three, with everything before you still to do . . . how could you think of taking a wife, of starting a family?”

  He was speaking about my literary future—I told myself—as though it were a lovely seductive dream which could not be translated into something tangible, real. He was speaking as though both he and I were already dead, and now, from a point outside space and time, together we were discussing life, everything which in the course of our respective lives might have happened and yet didn’t. Had they reached an agreement, Hitler and Stalin?—I even asked myself. And why not? Most likely they had.

  “But apart from this,” my father went on, “and apart from a whole pile of other considerations, can I be frank with you, and give you the advice of a friend?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I know that when someone, especially at your age, loses his head over a girl, he isn’t going to enter into a whole set of calculations . . . and I also know that you have a rather special character . . . and don’t think that two years ago when that poor wretch Dr. Fadigati . . . ”

  In our house, since his death, Fadigati’s name had never been spoken by any of us. So what had Fadigati to do with all this now?

  I looked at his face.

  “Please let me go on!” he said. “Your temperament—I reckon you got it from your grandma Fanny—your temperament . . . you’re too sensitive, that’s what I mean, and so never satisfied . . . you’re always in search of . . . ”

  He didn’t finish. A wave of his hand conjured up ideal worlds inhabited purely by chimeras.

  “And forgive me,” he continued, “but even as a family the Finzi-Continis were not suitable . . . they weren’t people cut out for us . . . Marrying a girl of that kind, I’m sure that sooner or later you’d have found yourself in trouble . . . but yes, yes, it’s the truth,” he insisted, perhaps fearing some word or gesture of mine in protest. “You well know what my opinion has always been on that subject. They’re different from us . . . they don’t even seem to be Judim . . . Eh, I know: she, Micòl, perhaps for this reason was especially attractive to you . . . because she was superior to us . . . socially. But mark my words: it’s better it’s ended this way. The proverb says: “Choose oxen and women from your own country.” And that girl, regardless of appearances, was certainly not from your own country. Not in the least.”

  I had once again lowered my head, and was staring at my hands poised open on my knees.

  “You’ll get over it,” he continued, “you’ll get over it, and much sooner than you think. I am sorry: I can guess what you’re feeling at this moment. But, do you know, I envy you a bit. In life, if you want to understand, seriously understand how things are in this world, at least once you must die. And so, given that this is the law, it’s better to die when you’re young, when you still have so much time before you in which to pick yourself up and recover . . . To come to understand when you’re old is unpleasant, much more unpleasant. It’s hard to know how. There’s no time left to start again from scratch, and our generation has made one blunder after another. In any case, you at least are still young enough to learn, God willing! In a few months, you’ll see, all this that you’ve had to go through will no longer seem real. Perhaps you may even feel happy. You’ll feel yourself enriched by this, feel yourself . . . I don’t know . . . more mature . . . ”

  “Let’s hope so,” I murmured.

  “I’m glad to have been able to talk, to have got this lead weight
off my chest . . . And now a final bit of advice, if you’ll let me?”

  I nodded.

  “Don’t go round to their house anymore. Start studying again, busy yourself with something, maybe set about giving some private lessons—I’ve been hearing it said there’s a great demand for them . . . And don’t go round there anymore. Apart from anything else, it’s more manly not to.”

  He was right. It was, apart from anything else, more manly.

  “I’ll try,” I said lifting up my eyes. “I’ll do all I can to keep to it.”

  “That’s the way!”

  He looked at the time.

  “And now go to sleep,” he added. “That’s what you need. And I myself’ll try to shut my eyes for a second or two.”

  I stood up, and leaned down over him to kiss him, but the kiss we exchanged turned into a long embrace, silent and very tender.

  • 10 •

  AND THAT was how I gave up Micòl.

  The next evening, keeping faith with the promise I’d made my father, I abstained from going round to Malnate’s, and the day after, which was a Friday, I didn’t show up at the Finzi-Contini house. A week passed like this, the first, without me seeing anybody: neither Malnate, nor the others. Luckily, in all that time, I wasn’t sought out by anyone, and this fact certainly helped me. Otherwise it’s very probable I wouldn’t have been able to resist. I would have let myself get caught up again.

  Ten or so days after our last meeting, around the 25th of the month, Malnate called me. It had never happened before, and as it wasn’t me that had answered the phone, I was tempted to have them say I wasn’t home. But I immediately repented. I already felt strong enough: if not to see him again, at least to speak to him.

  “Are you all right?” he began. “You’ve really beached me high and dry.”

  “I’ve been away.”

  “Where to? Florence? Rome?” he asked, not without a flicker of irony.

  “This time a bit farther still,” I replied, already regretting the pathos of the phrase.

  “Bon. I don’t want to pry. So: are we going to meet?”