Lost Words

by Nicola Gardini

  To prevent more accidents, I made five signs, one for each floor of the building, which I taped to the balcony doors.

  IT IS PROHIBITED TO THROW GLASS

  BOTTLES DOWN THE TRASH CHUTE

  Now my father had to do the chores before leaving for the factory. He got up at five, raked the leaves in the courtyard, mopped the landings, dusted the main entrance, and polished the elevator panels and the mailboxes. During the day the trash bags were replaced by the neighboring doorwoman, from Via Icaro 18, whom mother had promised to compensate with a wool sweater as soon as her wounds were healed. She kept watch—the only thing she could still do—with her forearms resting on the table.

  Idleness was making her even more irritable. She was constantly yelling at me: “Stand still!” “Don’t touch!” “Shup up!” Or, if another little boy was within range, she would start picking on him for getting mud on the hall carpet or yelling at him for not saying hello when he passed by on his way home from school. She would follow him up the stairs like a woman possessed, raising her bandaged wrists. “Hey, you!” she would shout. “What did I tell you?” The child would stutter, “Excuse me,” not knowing what he was being accused of. Ignoring his apologies, she would make a scene that always culminated in an attack on the upbringing he’d received from his parents: “Go ahead and tell them. I’ve got a piece of my mind for them, too!”

  *.

  Hoping to lift her spirits, Dad thought it would be a good idea to invite a colleague to lunch the next Sunday. He explained that the guest was Tavazzi, a union organizer, who, like all union organizers, had sold out to the bosses. Not to mention that he was an opera lover, a loggionista. But for now, given what had just happened to him, they had to turn a blind eye. Two of his three children had been hit by a car on their way to school, dying instantly. The only one left was the youngest, who was more or less the same age as me.

  My mother was happy to invite the poor things over, especially since we had no friends apart from the two neighboring doorwomen, who every now and then dropped by for a cup of coffee.

  On Sundays the loge was closed. Even if we were having a grieving family over, we could still pretend it was a holiday. Despite the curtains pulled over the door and window, the iron braces in the wall, the fuse box and the intercom, we could still act like we were living in a normal house, like everyone else. My mother, cursing the bandages on her wrists, cooked enough for an army.

  If we hadn’t been aware of the tragedy, we wouldn’t have noticed anything amiss about our guests. When mother said, “Condolences,” according to the ritual she had been taught since childhood, they reacted as if it were the dumbest thing they had ever heard. We looked like the ones who were in mourning.

  They ate heartily. Signora Tavazzi was not particularly friendly—she seemed more shy than suffering, even a little surly, in the unique manner of certain southern Italian women (she was, in fact, from Puglia—she reminded me of one of the tenants, originally from Molfetta, Signora Perotta, who had lived on Via Icaro for only a short time but stood out for her haughty peasant airs). She didn’t even ask mother why her wrists were bandaged, a fact that couldn’t have escaped her. So Mom volunteered the information, though obviously minimizing the gravity of her injuries—the accident was nothing compared to losing two children simultaneously. Signora Tavazzi, having heard the explanation, remained emotionless.

  Signor Tavazzi, on the other hand, was cheerful and light-hearted. He treated Dad like an old friend, and Dad played along with it. He was also friendly to Mom and me. In moments of silence he whistled. He spoke to us about Russia—what a strange place! People lining up everywhere, and total silence, even in the subways. Not to mention the prohibitions: don’t go there, stop here . . . it was all you could do to keep from breaking the rules. The streetcars were operated by women. And everywhere they sold ice cream, even in that polar cold. And the Moscow subway—it reeked! But the Bolshoi was gorgeous. And only the best of the best went to school. And the chambermaids at the hotels, they could be had for the price of a Bic pen. And you could only buy caviar at stores for foreigners. Oh, and another good thing to buy was amber.

  “Filomena,” he said to his wife, “show them the necklace I brought you back from Moscow.”

  With two fingers, she lifted up a string of pink beads from her chest. Mother exclaimed: “Oh, so that’s what amber is! I thought it was plastic . . . Filomena, did you go to Russia, too?”

  “No, not me . . .” Pointing to the child sitting next to her, she added, “but he went . . .”

  The boy didn’t bat an eye, as if he hadn’t even been mentioned. He had a nasty look on his face. We didn’t talk at all. He even avoided my gaze. But I was so fascinated by what I knew that I couldn’t take my eyes off of him—although I’d never met them, I could see the faces of his two dead brothers in his stare.

  Once the long lunch ended, Dad and Signor Tavazzi went out. Dad had convinced him to go to the movies.

  The women started clearing the plates. To break the silence, Mom told Signora Tavazzi, who was passing her the dirty dishes and glasses, that we would soon be moving: the landlord was selling and we were going to buy the Vignolas’ one-bedroom apartment upstairs. The woman, as mechanical as a robot, listened without a trace of curiosity. She said that she and her husband had no intention of buying. They were fine with low-income housing. Some months they didn’t even have to pay rent, since no one would come by to protest. And then, even if they did come by, who cared about the municipality! . . . She wouldn’t say a word about the dead children. Not a word, even in passing.

  “What a tragedy,” Mom said, to draw her out, unable to restrain herself any longer. “I’m so sorry—did they at least arrest the driver?”

  Signora Tavazzi ignored her. Mom found nothing more to say and took a few deep breaths while she dried the dishes.

  “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” the woman said out of the blue, “and we gotta learn to accept everything He sends us.”

  *.

  Mantegazza threw the grocery bags under the fuse box and flopped down on a chair. It took her a few minutes to catch her breath. She rummaged through her patent-leather purse, lit a cigarette, and after inhaling a puff of smoke, started to speak.

  “Elvira, you’re never gonna believe what happened to me today!” She hissed the words, as if a band were playing in the pit of her stomach. “At three in the afternoon, who should arrive, without warning, but the Tax Inspectors! Thank God they wasted time in the Manager’s Office. I rounded up those four southern bumpkins that work off the books. I threw some of our customers’ furs at ‘em and told ‘em to scram for a couple hours. You shoulda seen how happy the real fur coat made ‘em! Would you believe they left by the front door, still wearing their work clogs, and those idiot officers didn’t even notice ‘em? Thank God! Then I scrammed, too . . .”

  “You?!” mother was amazed. “Why would they go after you?”

  “I’m retired and getting my pension, my dear Elvira.” She started toying with the doily beneath the ceramic vase. “If they catch me still working—penalties to pay! I didn’t know which way to run. For a second I even thought of diving in the swimming pool. Total desperation. But I hid inside a locker in the locker room. I thought I’d suffocate to death! And those guys took their sweet time. I almost started coughing. God, what torture! I was dying for a cigarette. Finally they left. ‘Everything’s in order,’ they said. What an ordeal! When I stepped out of the locker I was more dead than alive. I told the manager, ‘I’ll be expecting a bonus at the end of the month.’”

  Every now and then Mom would give me a look, as if to say, “Does she think we really care about all this baloney!”

  Mantegazza seemed to catch her drift.

  “Elvira, I’m worried about my mother. She spends too much time alone.”

  She opened her purse, took out her compact, checked her makeup.<
br />
  “And you? Why do you keep working?” mother asked. “If I were you, I’d enjoy my money and call it a day . . .”

  “And then what? Me, sitting around smoking all day? . . . Ma keeps telling me, ‘Paola, it’s time to retire . . . you need to rest . . .’ She wants me to spend my time with her . . . She’s lonely . . . Elvira, I was thinking. In the afternoons, around two, you could maybe go upstairs and keep her company? Only for a little while. You could chat, have a cup of coffee . . . ”

  Mother burst out laughing.

  “Are you kidding? No way! I have to guard the door. I’d be in big trouble if I stepped away from my post! What kind of a custodian would that make me? . . . Not to mention the constant threat of burglars!”

  The fat powdered cheeks of Mantegazza shook with disapproval—she hadn’t expected no for an answer. She placed the compact back in her purse and started to roll back the edges of the doily.

  “But I’d pay you!” she whispered conspiratorially.

  “Maybe I could send Chino up,” Mom proposed, after a very short pause for reflection, “He could do his homework while keeping Signora Armanda company . . .”

  The sound of those words knocked the wind out of both Mantegazza and me. She even twisted her head around, as if someone had stuck a knife in her back.

  “For heaven’s sake!” she exclaimed, without making the least effort to hide her contempt. “My mother detests children! . . . Do you know what I think? My mother could come downstairs to you, here in the loge, and . . .” Rather than finish her sentence, she removed a can of coffee from one of her shopping bags. “Just half an hour . . . two or three times a week, after lunch . . . All you have to do is call her on the intercom and say, ‘Signora Armanda, come on downstairs. We can have a cup of coffee together.’ As if it were the most natural thing in the world . . .”

  “But . . .” Mom tried to object.

  Whatever she was going to say remained stuck in her throat, because at that point Mantegazza opened her wallet and plucked out a nice pink banknote.

  “Take it!” she ordered, looking away. “And don’t go telling Signora Armanda I gave it to you, or she’ll start screaming and yelling. You know how she is . . . She’s still pretty feisty. If she finds out I threw away money on this, there’ll be hell to pay.”

  *.

  Mantegazza was right: her mother detested children. The first time she came into our apartment, in addition to the disgusted look she gave me, she kicked me in the shins, striking me with the tip of her foot while I was helping her to sit down. My jaw dropped, more from shock than from pain. What had I ever done to her? I barely knew her!

  “Come, come, Signora Armanda,” my mother soothed her, “sit there, that’s good, in the corner . . . There you won’t bother anyone. Now no one will find anything to say . . . In the meantime I’ll put a nice pot of coffee on the stove . . . Chino, come here and twist on the top of the coffee maker. I’ve got no strength left in my hands . . . How are you? Did your cough finally go away?”

  The old woman emitted a long sigh. She was wracked with pain, she said. Everything hurt: her legs, her shoulders, her head. She couldn’t go to the bathroom, couldn’t sleep, her diabetes was getting worse . . . And now she couldn’t digest anything. All she could eat for lunch was a small plate of pasta, a grilled beefsteak, and an apple. Mom raised her eyebrows as if to say, “Well, then. You certainly won’t die from starvation.” She nodded at me and I went into the bedroom.

  I pulled the curtains aside and looked out the window. The sun had become colorless and no longer hurt the eyes. It stood still in the middle of the sky, hovering over the desolation of Via Icaro like a worn-out coin. The leaves were shriveled on the cement of the courtyard: swept by the wind, they would swirl about, stop, and start racing again as if they had a will of their own. The branches on the sycamore trees had whittled down to a few naked stubs. Only the rows of thorn bushes remained unchanged, as red now as in summer, like blood against the pale white of the air and the grounds. Without the foliage, whose shadows created tremulous wandering shapes during the fair months, the courtyard looked bigger, as gray as the sky looming over it from every side. No one played out there this time of year. Only Rita continued to come down despite the cold. I could see her jumping up and down to keep warm, speaking to someone, either aliens or the cat, holding a bunch of yellow leaves.

  Signora Mantegazza’s voice carried all the way to the bedroom—she was defending the Milanese dialect: “Who speaks it anymore? Only old people like me. The younger generations might understand it—but can they speak it? Forget about it. The only ones who speak dialect in Milan anymore are those southern bumpkins. They speak their own dialect, which is garbage. Arabic. They’ve taken over the city. Animals . . . Abyssinians!”

  Southerners, to her, were all thieves, liars, and lazy bums. All the post offices were run by them. Who knows why—and they were always on sick leave! Poor Milan! Everything had changed! Even during the war Milan had been beautiful. And then there was Him. A god! In 1937 they had their picture taken together. It seemed impossible that there had ever been a man like him, who filled you with strength and hope. And order!

  “Long live the Duce! Long live the Duce!” she shouted in a frenzy.

  She tried to stand but fell back down in the chair like a sack of potatoes, huffing and puffing. Mom patted her hand and rearranged the clump of hair on the nape of her neck, reinserting the comb that had fallen on the floor. The old woman’s face was aflame, flushed by the renewed surge of energy, but her body, unequal to her passion, shook with empty tremors. All the while she kept grumbling that nowadays the world was going to hell in a hand basket. No one wanted to work. Young people were a disgrace! They all belonged in reform school, maybe there they’d learn some manners. Or better yet, to war with them—no better school than that! We needed another war. Without war no one learned anything. You didn’t know whether it was the parents’ fault or the teachers’. Back in her day—ah, those were the days—if you didn’t do what you were told, you got a good kick in the pants. But today’s parents and teachers were always explaining how and why to children. What is the world coming to? Children are supposed to obey orders without demanding explanations!

  “Chino!” my mother called. “Go outside. You need to rake the leaves, sweetheart . . .”

  *.

  Rita said it was fun to rake. We were in front of the fountain with the gold fish, where the remaining dry leaves had crumbled to dust. “Would you like to be a fish?” she asked.

  “Of course,” I replied, because right then I hated everything—the leaves, the cold, and especially nasty old Mantegazza.

  I stared enviously at the motionless school of fish, gaudy against the green muck on the bottom of the pool.

  “Not me,” said Rita, “I’d want to be a bird, because birds live in the sky, like astronauts.”

  Pietro and Matteo came by. They told us they had just been to the home of the disabled to steal cookies from the spastics.

  “If you don’t believe us, look,” said Pietro.

  Both boys opened their jacket pockets wide to show us the loot.

  “What the hell are you two doing?” asked Matteo, kicking at the rake and the bag.

  “Nothing,” said Rita, “we were playing rake the leaves . . .”

  “I know a better game!” suggested Pietro with a malicious smile. “You ask me a question and I answer. If I don’t tell the truth, I have to pay a penalty.”

  “Fun!” Rita exclaimed.

  “Yes, lots of fun,” Matteo confirmed.

  He told us the rules: for every wrong answer, you had to remove one piece of clothing. The first one to be bare-chested was the loser.

  Rita, the fool, said it was okay with her. She was already laughing at the thought of seeing the two of them with their teeth chattering from the cold.

  I said I didn’t
want to play, hoping that would convince them to drop the idea and leave us alone.

  “Who asked you, anyway?” Matteo sneered.

  We went behind the building, where no one ever went and hardly anyone looked out the window.

  “Rita,” Matteo began, “answer the question, true or false. Do I like pussy?”

  “True!” she said with a hand over her mouth.

  “Are you stupid or what?” Matteo shouted at her. “What makes you think I would like that stinky hole you’ve got between your legs? Wrong. Take off your coat . . .”

  Rita quietly obeyed.

  Pietro didn’t want to be outdone by his friend.

  “In your opinion . . . is it true or false . . . true or false . . . that . . . you’d like to take it in your mouth?”

  “Take what?”

  Pietro squeezed his crotch.

  “My banana!”

  Flailing her arms, Rita shouted, “False! False! No, no!”

  “Wrong!” Pietro decided. “You’re dying to suck it. To suck both of us . . .”

  Rita shook her curls with a dismayed expression that filled me with anguish.

  “No, it’s not true, I swear it’s not . . .” she tried to defend herself.

  “Never tell a lie!” Matteo interrupted, “or you’ll end up in hell. Better to take it in your mouth than to tell a lie . . .”

  “Exactly,” Pietro confirmed. “Now take off your sweater!”

  The other boy repeated the order.

  I mustered up my courage and tried to stop them: “Stop torturing her . . .”

  Pietro shook his fist under my nose.

  “Well look at that . . . the little doorboy has spoken!”

  He took the plastic sack, turned it upside down, and scattered all the leaves we had raked.

  “If you don’t like the game,” Matteo added, “then scram. No one asked you to stay.”