All Our Yesterdays

by Natalia Ginzburg

  The snow had come and they were cold walking about the avenues, they went every day now to the café that seemed like Paris. They were together every day but not on Sundays, on Sundays Giuma went off ski-ing, sometimes he had to take Mammina with him who did not ski but sat, all dressed up in furs, in the hall of the hotel and played bridge. Giustino also went off ski-ing if he could manage to scrape together a little money by selling some old books or passing on his mathematical exercises to his school friends, because Giustino was good at mathematics. He used to pass on his mathematical exercises to Giuma too, he said he made Giuma pay double rates, because he could not stand him and because he knew he was always full of money. When he had scraped together the money he went up into the attic and started hammering, his skis were never in good order, they were old skis with the fastenings all coming to pieces. Then he put on Ippolito’s army trousers with a big patch in the seat, and a waterproof of Concettina’s which Signora Maria had cut down as a jacket for him. Giuma told Anna later that he had seen Giustino on the ski slopes, it was enough to make you die of laughter, Giustino in a woman’s blue jacket giving great shouts and whistles and rolling down like a sack, he was covered with snow from head to foot. On Sundays Anna stayed at home, she sat at the table in her room and did her homework for the whole week, and every now and then she put down her pen and thought about the revolution.

  Gradually these Sundays became very gloomy for her. She had her usual thoughts, gunshots and flights over the roofs, but at the back of these thoughts was the face of the real Giuma, laughing with his wolf-like teeth, and it became more and more difficult for her to pluck out this real face from her heart. At the back of these thoughts there was the figure of the real Giuma who did not make his escape over the roofs but went out to the ski slopes or had tea in the hotel with Mammina all dressed up in furs, so very remote from the revolution and from her. She knew from Giustino that he had taken to ski-ing always with a girl, a girl with white velvet trousers, they held each other round the waist as they ski-ed, and Giustino admitted that she was rather an attractive girl. Anna begged Giustino to take her out ski-ing just once. But Giustino said that she had neither the skis nor the costume, she couldn’t possibly go ski-ing in a skirt and ordinary shoes, besides she didn’t know how to ski and he certainly had no intention of sticking behind her all the time. Anna said that Giuma would teach her. But Giustino shrugged his shoulders and laughed, just imagine the great Giuma bothering himself about her on the ski slopes, the great Giuma had the girl with the white velvet trousers. In the end Giuma himself also spoke to her about this girl, she was called Fiammetta, she was not stupid and she ski-ed well. Anna asked him if he was in love with this girl. Giuma said no, he had never been in love, if by any chance he fell in love perhaps he might fall in love with this girl but for the moment he was not in love, he liked her just to go ski-ing with. Anna on the other hand he liked for talking to and also for kissing. For kissing there was no need to be in love, it can easily happen that a boy and a girl when they are great friends can give each other a few kisses now and then. Anna asked him whether he had kissed the girl Fiammetta. He said no, he hadn’t kissed her, at least not for the moment. All of a sudden Anna started to cry, they were sitting in the Paris café and outside the windows you could see the river going away into the mist, between telegraph-poles and banks patched with snow. It seemed to Anna that there was nothing in the world so horrible as that river, those telegraph-poles and that café, and that snow, those patches of snow, suddenly she was seized with longing for a scorching summer that would make all traces of snow vanish from the whole earth. Giuma frowned at her tears, he ran quickly over to the cash-desk to pay and told her to come away, she couldn’t possibly start sobbing there in the café. They walked along together in the evening light, Giuma kept his hands in his pockets and his face hidden in his coat-collar, she was sobbing and giving little sudden starts, and nibbling her thumbs inside her gloves. All of a sudden, with a weary, resolute air, he drew her behind the bushes on the river bank, they kissed and he begged her not to get such silly ideas into her head, he showed her that she had made a hole in her gloves by her nibbling. They had to make their way through clumps of bushes to get back to the bridge, he pulled off the brambles that had got entangled in her coat as he had done before with the chestnut-shells, there were no chestnuts now, the time of the chestnuts was over. Their shoes were muddy and they cleaned them with a newspaper before they came back into the town.

  Giuma told her that Mammina was feeling ill because Franz and Amalia were on the point of arriving. He knew how matters stood, Mammina had been very much in love with Franz before Franz and Amalia got married, and now she did not know what attitude to take on finding herself face to face with him again. So she lay in bed in the dark and would not allow anyone into her room, she would not allow anyone to see her while she was thinking of what attitude she should take. He, Giuma, was not a puritan and it did not matter to him if his mother had had a love affair with Franz, poor Mammina, so much the better if she had had some days of happiness, so much the better for men and women if they could enjoy themselves together. Emanuele, on the other hand, was a puritan and would have found it scandalous to think of Mammina having a love affair with Franz, perhaps it had occurred to him but he had buried the thought in his mind, he was good at burying in his mind all thoughts that he did not like, burying them so deeply that he forgot they had ever existed. After Papa’s death Franz for a moment had been undecided whether to marry Amalia or Mammina, but he had decided on Amalia because Mammina had only the usufruct whereas Amalia had the shares. And so poor Mammina had been left with nothing but her bridge.

  Later, Mammina put on a resolute, imperious expression as she waited at the garden gate with her fox fur thrown over her shoulders and her lorgnette ; Emanuele had gone in the car to the station, Giuma had stayed with Mammina by the gate. The car came back and they saw Amalia and Franz get out, Mammina kissed Amalia on the brow, to Franz she put out a long, limp hand without turning her head.

  Emanuele went across to tell Ippolito how transformed Amalia was since her marriage, she had taken to giving orders and making decisions for everyone, for herself and Franz she wanted the red room, not the green room which Mammina had had prepared for them, which was so far from the bathroom and so sunless. And Franz was to start work at once at the soap factory. And poor Franz was subdued and sad, he whispered to Emanuele that he would have preferred the green room because at least you couldn’t see the soap factory from its windows, it distressed him deeply to think of the soap factory and he would have preferred not to go and work there at once, he felt rather shaken in health, he had heard nothing at all about his parents and every night he had horrible dreams, he woke up all panting and sweating and Amalia gave him camphor injections, the course she had taken as a student-nurse had left her with a mania for giving injections, Franz’s behind was as full of holes as a nutmeg-grater. It was by no means certain that the camphor was good for him and he would have liked to consult a doctor, but Amalia maintained that camphor was what he needed. He realized that he had to work at the soap factory, he realized that he had to work and could hot always remain in idleness, his life had been full of errors, it had been a long chain of idle hours and acts of cowardice and lies, he told Emanuele that some day perhaps he would tell him the whole story of his life. He had made up his mind to turn over a new leaf but not at present, at present everything frightened him, he could not help thinking all the time about the Germans and the concentration camps and at night he saw his parents in those ditches in which they burned the dead. But it was Amalia who gave orders and a few days after their arrival Franz was working in the soap factory, sitting at a desk with an unhappy expression, and in the evening Franz and Emanuele came home together, and now it was Franz who complained about the managing director, and Emanuele contradicted him, saying the managing director was really a fine fellow. Emanuele was sorry for Franz and at the same time irritated with him, and w
as always wanting to contradict him, and his voice was always a little harsh when he spoke to him.

  12

  Emanuele came to wake Ippolito one morning at seven o’clock. The Germans had landed in Norway. He had heard this news on the radio, there were not many details. It was the beginning of April and there had been long days of rain, but now the sun was shining on the mud in the town; Anna thought that the snow up in the mountains would certainly have melted and now Giuma would stay with her on Sundays, and the Germans had landed in Norway and they would be thrown back into the sea and scattered, the long winter with the cold war was over. Ippolito went to his office but Emanuele stayed with them, limping round after Signora Maria as she swept; that morning he had no desire to go to the factory and at his own home there were Mammina and Amalia who were quarrelling over the red room and the green room.

  They spent a few happy days hearing of all the German ships that were going to the bottom. By now the German navy was lying at the bottom of the sea, and the landing in Norway had not been a success for Germany, in a short time Norway would shake off the Germans and throw them to the bottom of the sea where the cruisers and other ships already were, all that was needed was just a little shake, Norway was in no hurry. For Germany there was no longer any hope of winning, now that her navy was at the bottom of the sea. Emanuele had brought over the radio from his own house and put it in the sitting-room, and again Emanuele and Ippolito and Danilo were together in the sitting-room, gathered close round the radio to pick up the thin thread of a voice from the forbidden stations. Ippolito again had the anxious, feverish look of the time when they were trafficking in pamphlets and newspapers, perhaps he was thinking of the revolution, perhaps he was thinking that as soon as the Germans were beaten it would at once be possible to start the revolution in Italy. Danilo said they must not be too optimistic, it was quite possible that the affair would go on for a long time yet, he was not too pleased about the landing in Norway. But certainly it was no joke for Germany that her entire fleet should have perished like this, at a single stroke.

  Giuma said to Anna that he didn’t care in the least about Norway, or about Germany and the fleet. Only he had been annoyed when Emanuele took away the radio, he had taken it away as though it had been his own property, the other radio was in Mammina’s bedroom and now it was no longer possible to hear a bit of music if Mammina happened to be resting. Anna said that when he wanted to listen to music he could come over to the sitting-room in their house. But Giuma said he had no wish to find himself in the company of “those people.” “Those people ” were Emanuele, Ippolito and Danilo. He was irritated by the air of mystery they assumed when they were all three together, an air of mystery and of triumph, as though it were they who had sunk the fleet. Sometimes Anna and Giuma met Danilo and his wife in the street, Danilo used to go and fetch his wife from the gate of the foundry and they went for a little walk. Giuma would greet them with a little bow and go very red in the face, perhaps he was recalling the time Danilo had thrown his hat and coat at him and turned him out of the house. And as soon as Danilo had turned the corner Giuma would burst out laughing, Danilo walked through the town like a great victorious general, like Nelson after he had won the Battle of Trafalgar. Giuma had left school because the marks he was getting were altogether too bad, he told Anna he had been getting these bad marks on purpose, so that Mammina should make up her mind to let him leave school. At last Mammina did make up her mind, Amalia however did not agree, Amalia and Mammina quarrelled over Giuma’s education and over a thousand other things and there was never a moment’s peace in the house. But Franz left them to quarrel and roamed about the house, he too with the air of a great victorious general, he too like Nelson, Giuma told Anna that those four German ships that had been sunk had gone to Franz’s head too. Giuma was very pleased not to be going to school any more and in the mornings he took his books into the garden and did his work there, he worked very well on his own like that, at school they made you waste such a heap of time. Giuma no longer went ski-ing now but still he was not free on Sundays, he had to go with Mammina to visit her friends or he went to play tennis, Anna saw him from the window going out with his racquet and his white trousers. Anna asked him whether the girl Fiammetta played tennis with him. Giuma said yes, sometimes ; whenever they talked about the girl Fiammetta he used to blush and speak in a thin little voice. And so Anna had nothing to do on Sundays, after her homework she would go into the sitting-room and sit with the others beside the radio, the Germans had started advancing in Holland and Belgium. There was nothing strange about that because in the other war they had advanced at the beginning too, then they had gone back again, but in the meantime it was painful to hear that they were advancing. Holland and Belgium fell in a few days, the Germans crossed the French frontier, and there was no need to worry there, said Emanuele, the Maginot Line was impenetrable. Danilo said that it was indeed impenetrable but they were in the act of penetrating it.

  Giuma told Anna how Franz had all of a sudden lost his Nelson airs, and in the evening waited for Emanuele’s return in order to know whether the Germans had come to a halt, to know also what Danilo had said, for he too had come to believe in Danilo as a kind of prophet. Giuma said he was pleased if the Germans were advancing a little, so that he might enjoy the faces of Emanuele and the others, Emanuele came home in the evenings more and more mortified and from his way of going upstairs you could tell that the Germans had advanced still further. Only he was annoyed that Franz refused flatly to play tennis nowadays. Anna said there was always the girl Fiammetta for him to play with. But Giuma said that the girl Fiammetta was not free always, he said it in a thin little voice. Anna asked him why he did not teach her to play tennis, but Giuma said he hadn’t the patience to teach anyone anything. But he had taught her to play ping-pong, Anna said. But they were children then, said Giuma, as a child he had done a great many things that he had left off doing later, for instance he had played ping-pong which was a very boring game, he remembered how he had tormented his father to play ping-pong with him, his father did not know how to play and he wanted to teach him. But now he wouldn’t have the patience to teach anyone anything. It was hot and when they went to the Paris café they sat outside under the big pergola, at the iron tables, and ate ice cream in big wine-glasses. It was hot and the countryside was all green and humming, with a smell of damp, tender grass amongst loosened earth, with high, white, swelling clouds in the sky. Giuma said that now it was no longer like being in Paris at that café, now that they were sitting outside under the big pergola, with the peasants’ carts and the flocks of sheep passing close by, and the town in the distance no longer hidden in mist and darkness, the town with the iron roofs of the soap factory. Giuma sat facing her and sometimes his face was neither proud nor tender, it was perhaps as it was when he was alone in his room, the lips soft and surly and the eyes sleepy and wandering. He seemed suddenly to wake up when they brought the ice cream, he ate his ice greedily as if it was for that alone that he had come to the café, he licked his spoon greedily, sticking out his red wolf-like tongue. Anna felt that something had got lost between them, something that had been there when they were eating chestnuts in the public gardens, it was perhaps still there in the first days at the Paris café, but since then little by little it had got lost, goodness knows why or how. They went away and he drew her down amongst the bushes on the river bank, and they lay a long time kissing in the grass, and he kissed her harder and harder, he held her tighter and tighter and kissed her harder. At home she told herself that nothing had got lost, because Giuma kissed her harder and harder. And so one day they started making love, they lay clinging together in the grass and the world round them was green and humming between the warm puffs of air from the grass and the high clouds in the sky, and Giuma’s expression was one of absorption and fury and secrecy, and his eyelids were tight closed over his eyes and his breathing was quick. At home she sat down bewildered at the little table in her room, and with a
stab of pain at her heart saw again that expression on Giuma’s face, that expression that seemed as it were plunged in a furious, secret sleep, that expression that had lost all trace both of words and of thoughts for her. And afterwards Giuma had stayed a long time lying beside her in the grass, and from time to time he gave her a look and winked his eye at her, but without either gaiety or slyness, the faint wink appeared and disappeared like a shadow on the face that was so remote from her. They had walked home in silence. Anna had sat down at the table in her room and had taken up her pen to do her homework, but she could not manage to write, her hands were trembling violently. She would have liked someone to come and scold her for not doing her homework, to come and tell her never to go again with Giuma amongst the bushes on the river bank. But no one came to say anything to her, no one even came to see if she had come home, Ippolito was thinking of nothing but the Germans advancing in France, Signora Maria spent her days at Concettina’s making clothes for the baby that was to be born, Giustino was working for his exams with the tall, thin girl. She was alone, she was alone and no one said anything to her, she was alone in her room with her grass-stained, crumpled dress and her violently trembling hands. She was alone with Giuma’s face that gave her a stab of pain at her heart, and every day she would be going back with Giuma amongst the bushes on the river bank, every day she would see again that face with the rumpled forelock and the tightly closed eyelids, that face that had lost all trace both of words and of thoughts for her.