7
The police-sergeant’s wife was sent home from the hospital because there was no hope for her, and she died in the autumn, she died without knowing she was dying, very happy at not being in hospital any more but lying in her big mahogany bed that had been bought with Cenzo Rena’s money, and with the window open on to the village square and the mild autumn days. Her room was on the top floor of the police station, and every two or three hours the Turk could be heard ringing the bell, for he had had orders from the police-sergeant to ring often, and now the sergeant was in despair at having given him these orders because these continual bell-ringings disturbed his wife’s rest, he looked out of the window and shouted to the Turk to ring more gently. For the three old women it was enough to ring just once in the morning, for it was impossible that they, being so old, should run away ; yet nevertheless they came to see the police-sergeant at all moments to complain about sometthing or other, now that someone had not paid them for their mending, now that they had not closed an eye because the children of the tailor who gave them their room screamed all night. The police-sergeant answered that he himself never closed an eye all night because the twins cried and his wife complained.
The death of the police-sergeant’s wife moved the whole village, they had never been able to endure the police-sergeant, but now they grew tender over the widower and his little orphans. The contadini had taken to coming to Cenzo Rena’s house again, partly because he had now made peace with the police-sergeant, partly because they wanted to talk about the sulphur for the vines which was not to be got, even sulphur had disappeared owing to the war, and the few San Costanzo vines, tossed always by the wind on the ridge of the hill, were devoured by phylloxera. The contadini hoped that Cenzo Rena would know some trick or other to get sulphur, but he too had vines and he too could not get sulphur, he took the contadini to look at his few vines with their sickly leaves, only the mayor had any sulphur and goodness knows how he managed to get it. The police-sergeant had no vines, but nevertheless it was unlikely that he would ever be left without wine, because those who did not want to go to the war brought flasks of wine to him by night. People soon stopped feeling any tenderness for the police-sergeant, because he had taken into his house a young sister of his wife’s and they said he had at once started making love to her on the big mahogany bed that had been bought with Cenzo Rena’s money. Everyone regretted the dead woman who had been good and gentle, on the other hand this younger one, whom the police-sergeant would certainly end by marrying, was trying to order the whole village about, she came out on the balcony of the police station and called to the women to come and wash the clothes or mind the twins and never dreamt of paying them, but none of them dared refuse for fear of the police-sergeant. There was also the midwife who was in love with the police-sergeant and who had been going about with swollen eyes and a troubled face ever since that girl with the two pear-shaped breasts had been at the police station, the midwife was saying all over the village that those two breasts in the police station were a scandal. Cenzo Rena was hugely amused by these stories, of which he came to know from La Maschiona and the contadini, and there were even some who said that the police-sergeant had deliberately brought about the death of his wife, perhaps he had not exactly killed her but he had brought about her death by taking her too late to the hospital, so as not to have those two diseased breasts in the house but two pear-shaped breasts instead, and so, if the police-sergeant’s wife was dead, it had not been the fault of the old doctor but of the police-sergeant himself. No one thought now of trying to get the doctor sent away, and even Cenzo Rena had gradually ceased to think of it and said that everything could now be put off until after the war if there was ever to be any after, if they called in another doctor now it might well happen that another useless old bore might arrive, even worse than the one they had.
All of a sudden came the news of a heavy air raid on Turin, with thousands and thousands of people killed. Anna rushed to telephone to the Pensione Corona but it was not possible to get through, and Cenzo Rena walked up and down restlessly in front of the post office where the telephone was, they stayed the whole day in front of the post office waiting to get through. In the evening Cenzo Rena said that probably there was now nothing but a hole in the place of the Pensione Corona. Anna wondered whether perhaps Giuma was dead too.
Some days later they had a letter from Concettina. She had been surprised by the arrival of a large parcel of towels, all scorched, and then had had a letter from the landlady of the Pensione Corona which said that Signora Maria had been killed on the staircase of the boarding-house, she had been swept away in the collapse of the staircase together with a large suitcase, in which were these towels. All the inhabitants of the boarding-house had gone down into the cellar when the siren sounded, but Signora Maria had not gone down with the others, always, at every air raid warning, she was the last to come down, because she was busy in her room putting shoes and clothes and towels into suitcases, and the landlady had to go up two or three times and knock at her door at the risk of her own life. And this time, too, the landlady had knocked at the door and Signora Maria had abused her, she had shouted that she was old enough to look after herself. The landlady had gone, down into the cellar with the other boarders. And then they had heard an immense crash, and when they came out of the cellar there was nothing left of the Pensione Corona but the walls, and everything else was flames and dust, and they had found Signora Maria in the ruins of the staircase, clinging to her big suitcase.
Concettina said she had written several times to Signora Maria telling her to come away from Turin. But Signora Maria had paid no attention. Signora Maria had been offended with her over some piece of stupidity, In any case it had been entirely the fault of Emilio’s mother, some nonsense about an apple, Concettina had now had a deadly quarrel with her mother-in-law and did not intend to stay with them any longer. She was now at Le Visciole with the baby because she was not at all sure that their little town was safe, with that stupid soap factory which someone might take it into his head to bomb. They had started bombing Turin and Milan so violently and it looked as if you could no longer be safe anywhere. Giuma had come back from Turin frightened to death, he had been saved by a miracle and they had seen him arrive with his hair still full of plaster, the cellar in which he was had collapsed on top of him. He had been saved because he had crouched back in a corner, against the main wall of the house which had held. And now he and Mammina had gone off together to Lake Maggiore, Emanuele was the only one who had not moved and he was playing the hero a bit, saying that he could not leave the soap factory. It was now some time since Concettina had had any news of her husband, and Giustino had not written either, there was no knowing whether they were still alive, either of them. Concettina was going to remain at Le Visciole, she remembered how bored she had been at Le Visciole as a girl but now it did not matter in the least whether she was bored, all she minded about was that her baby should not be mixed up in the war. She was filled with remorse on account of Signora Maria but she knew it was foolish to feel so much remorse, because nobody was really to blame that she had been killed like that. Cenzo Rena wrote Concettina a letter in which he said that on the contrary it was quite right that she should feel remorse, because she had behaved like a monster to Signora Maria and had allowed her to go to the Pensione Corona where she had been killed, and he too felt remorse when he thought of her dead on the staircase of that boarding-house with her suitcase. But then he tore up the letter without sending it, recalling that he had made up his mind never to mortify anyone again, and he felt glad that he had never flown into a rage with the contadino Giuseppe during all the long hours they had spent together, for now the contadino Giuseppe was also away at the war. And he himself would have liked to hear again : “Lived and died a Socialist”, and instead, he had to spend his evenings with the police-sergeant, for it was probably not true that the police-sergeant made love to the pear-shaped breasts, probably he was quite indif
ferent to these new breasts, seeing that he came to spend his evenings with Cenzo Rena.
Another winter went past, another long winter with people waiting for letters from Russia, but certainly the soldiers there had no time now to sit down and write, because every day they had to run away. The Germans too had now started running away, it seemed impossible that they who had always rushed forward should now be running away, and the police-sergeant sat sadly in his cloak and told Cenzo Rena that he did not like the turn the war had taken. Cenzo Rena said that it was indeed a strange turn, he took great care to mind his words when he spoke of the war to the police-sergeant, and as soon as the sergeant had gone away he would puff and snort, because it had become a torture for him to spend whole evenings with the police-sergeant, who always brought the conversation round to the war and you had to be careful to answer him only in vague words. The police-sergeant was always complaining of the Turk who came every moment to ring his bell, he came even during the early hours of the afternoon when he lay down to sleep, he could not bear this Turk any longer and begged Cenzo Rena to tell him to ring a little less often. Cenzo Rena had tried very often to explain this to him but the Turk was very obstinate, the police-sergeant had given him orders to ring the bell and ring the bell he did, and he had got it into his head that if he rang the bell often and behaved himself well, the authorities would perhaps grant his request to be transferred to somewhere further south, because there he was altogether too cold and the only thing he liked about San Costanzo was talking Turkish sometimes with Cenzo Rena, it was such a rare occurrence to find anybody in Italy who spoke Turkish. He said in a whisper to Cenzo Rena that it looked as though the war might be only a matter of a few days now, with the Germans running away and the Russians entering Germany. He was not very fond of Russia because he did not like Communists, but now whenever he thought of Russia he kissed his fingertips, he would never have believed that so much pleasure could come to him from that direction. Once he had been afraid of the Communists but now he was afraid only of the Germans, he thought that even if the Communists took the whole earth they would not trouble a person like him who went round selling carpets, the Communists at least did not do anything to the Jews. He had sciatica and walked always with one hand on his back, and he said that at the inn he had less and less to eat and was colder and colder, and the war must come to an end because he could not bear it any longer. Cenzo Rena invited him to lunch but he refused so as not to go far from the police station, where he had to go and ring the bell every moment.
Cenzo Rena said that perhaps the war would really be over in a short time, and Fascism would go up in smoke both in Italy and in Germany, only perhaps when it went up in smoke it would bring the whole earth to ruin. It seemed to him as though the earth were already starting to go to ruin, with whole cities collapsing all over the place, and people trying to escape all over the place, and those long sealed trains in which the Germans put thousands and thousands of Jews. Cenzo Rena recalled the cheerful trains in which he used to travel once upon a time, and he wondered whether some day a train might become a cheerful thing again, into which people got in order to travel and amuse themselves and arrive. He had heard about these sealed trains from the internees at Scoturno, who knew of their own relations and friends who had been lost on these trains, and he went to Scoturno on purpose to talk about these trains, to the Turk he did not talk about them because the Turk did not know that they existed. But he could not help picturing the Turk on one of these trains whenever he met him, and so he was very kind and patient with the Turk and let him complain about his sciatica and about the landlord of the inn, and talk about the war as a thing that must come to an end at once or else his sciatica would never get better. Soldiers and more soldiers were passing along the San Costanzo road, and they sang Lili Marlene, a song which Cenzo Rena had learnt and which seemed to him extremely sad, he said it was the song of the earth going to ruin.
He awoke in the morning and floundered about in the tub for a little, but he floundered without joy, and without joy he went outside in his bath-gown to see what the weather was like. The sky was motionless and pure above the pines and the shaggy hills, spring was beginning and there were a few blossoming boughs to be seen in the gardens sloping down to the river, but in that motionless, pure sky there suddenly became visible a small aeroplane glistening like a silver finger-nail, Cenzo Rena knew it was an Italian reconnaissance plane, yet he felt distress and fear at seeing this far-off finger-nail, with its little streak of white vapour that dissolved very slowly in the sky. He went back into the house and pulled the child in after him, and he asked Anna whether perhaps he was growing very nervous in his old age, never would he have believed that he could have felt uneasy because of a passing aeroplane. For some little time now he had been conscious of a feeling of distress which weighed upon him all the time. And then Anna was conscious of a feeling of distress too, and she thought of the Pensione Corona and of the little glistening aeroplanes which had killed Signora Maria. Cenzo Rena said that to be conscious of a feeling of distress was the least thing that could happen, since possibly in a short time the whole earth would go to ruin in one immense crash.
8
One day Anna saw Franz getting out of the bus. He was all dressed in white, as he used to be when he played in tennis tournaments, and he was carrying a big suitcase and some tennis-racquets in presses, and was looking all round the village square, and Anna went across to meet him and then his face lit up with pleasure. Emanuele had advised him to get himself transferred to San Costanzo, because in the village where he had been before there had been gossip which at the moment he could not explain.
Anna and Cenzo Rena took him to the police station and then to the municipal office, and then went with him round the village looking for a room. But he did not like any of the rooms, he explained that in the village where he had been before he had rented a ducal palace, he asked whether at San Costanzo there wasn’t also some kind of empty palace. The police-sergeant sent to the Marchesa to ask whether she would be willing to give up a room to this new internee, but the Marchesa had already heard that he was someone who knew Cenzo Rena and sent a rude answer. Franz said he would be comfortable only in Cenzo Rena’s own house, with that big pine wood behind it where he could take the fresh air in the mornings. But Cenzo Rena told him he could not bear anyone in his house, he had a horror of living with anyone and for that reason Communism would never suit him, for he had been told that a large number of people had to live together in the same house. Otherwise he might possibly even have liked Communism. Franz finished up at the inn with the Turk, In the room next to the Turk’s, and in the company of the Turk, in the back kitchen, he ate the black stew of tough mutton and the other evil things that they cooked at the inn.
Anna asked him where his wife was. He answered in rather a confused manner, they had had some small disagreements but nothing serious, she had now gone to stay with Mammina for a little on Lake Maggiore, and by living apart for a little they were giving themselves time to collect their thoughts. There had been gossip in the village where they were, a story about a woman chemist, he had not even touched this woman but Amalia was always so very jealous. Now he was quite pleased to be alone, in marriage there should always be short periods of separation from time to time, so that one might pause and collect one’s thoughts. He was very pleased at the Germans having started running away, it would last another month, perhaps two, and then the mental suffering of the war would be over for good. He asked if there wasn’t a tennis-court at San Costanzo. Cenzo Rena took him to the window and showed him San Costanzo, he asked him whether it looked like a place for tennis-courts.
Franz and the Turk never made friends, in fact they took a violent dislike to each other and did each other little spiteful turns, at table Franz would turn on the radio to a programme of light music and the Turk would turn it off again, Franz would open the window and the Turk would shut it again. Franz came to Cenzo Rena to relieve his feelings
about the Turk but Cenzo Rena told him he was wrong, the Turk was really a charming person. Cenzo Rena told Anna that Emanuele had made him a fine present in sending him this silly little man in tennis-shorts, what fine friends Anna had, what fine sort of people they were in that house opposite. Anna told him he had said he never wanted to mortify anyone again, so he must be kind even to this man Franz, besides he was a Jew and might end up in one of those sealed trains ; then Cenzo Rena remembered about the sealed trains and made a great effort to be kind to Franz, even though it put him in a great rage to see him arrive at their house hopping up over the rocks, with his little muscular legs in their tennis-shorts.
All Our Yesterdays Page 23
