Lost Words

by Nicola Gardini

  I missed her more and more: time passed and she hadn’t come looking for me. In my ears I could still hear the last time she called out to me: “Luca . . .” I still regretted not answering her, not going straight back to her.

  “Oh, alright . . .” she consented, turning red in a fit of jealousy. “But you’ll never hear the end of it if . . .”

  I didn’t let her finish.

  I climbed the stairs two at a time. When I got to her door I hesitated. Was she waiting for me? Would she rejoice the way she used to every time I came to see her unexpectedly?

  She had turned into a shadow of herself, the shadow of a shadow. Her face was of a glacial pallor. Her forehead had widened. Her withered and stooped body was awash in clothes that were too big. Her dignity remained intact, but she had taken on a wounded, macabre appearance.

  She appeared neither surprised nor happy to see me. Her eyes looked in another direction, and not only because she was slightly cross-eyed. Every trace of nostalgia drained from my heart. The only thing I felt was a great desire to run away.

  “I came up to tell you that the landlord is selling . . .” I whispered.

  She closed one eye and leaned her head toward her left shoulder. I reworded my message: the building was being put up for sale, and the tenants could buy their apartments. If she was interested in hers, she should put her signature on this piece of paper . . .

  Even after my long explanation she did not emit a sound. She moved a hand in the direction of the paper, in slow motion, as if to say she didn’t want to hear about it, that I should take it away. And she closed the door. Or rather, she withdrew into the shadows, like an image which, having emerged from the depths of a black sea, sinks back into it.

  I was turning around to go back home when, from the other side of the wall, I heard an echo of laughter—the bitter laughter of the Maestra.

  By suppertime my mother had only managed to get two signatures: the signature of Signorina Terzoli and of Signora Vezzali. There had been no sight or sound of the Vignolas. We left my father on guard duty, so to speak—since he was comfortably seated in his armchair, with his legs spread out, reading the newspaper—and went upstairs to the second floor.

  Signor Vignola opened the door and immediately told us that his wife was in bed—she had started to feel some suspicious pains. He hadn’t gone to the office that day out of fear that something might happen to her (which is why we hadn’t seen him coming or going). My mother had no comment. During the day she had perfected the best formula and she was there to recite it.

  “The landlord has decided to sell. If you are interested in buying the apartment where you live, you have to put your signature on this piece of paper as soon as possible.”

  I had already heard her act out the formula, with the most varied intonations, depending on the tenant, but with Vignola she threw it in his face with one breath, without personality, as if she were spitting out a cherry pit for fear of choking.

  At first he twisted his face, then he repeated the words to himself, and finally, having turned them over in his head, his features relaxed into a crooked smile. In those few seconds, my mother’s expression must have changed a hundred times.

  “No thank you, we’re not interested,” he finally said. “My wife and I are looking for a larger home. This place is a hole . . .”

  She felt so happy she almost hugged him. But she limited herself to asking: “Do you already have an idea of when you might leave? I mean, when you would be moving . . .”

  “By the end of the year, we hope . . .”

  He provided no details. But for the moment, that would be enough for her.

  *.

  The crook, to hell with him! What would it have cost him to leave everything the way it was? It was always the others who ended up paying! . . . Their curses extended to his heir, the nephew. The landlord—as Signora Vezzali had established—was selling because of that spineless creature who spent all his time living the good life on the French Riviera. And with his dissolute lifestyle how long was the money going to last? . . . Was he even the son of his sister? Had anyone ever seen the ingegnere with a woman by his side? As far as Dell’Uomo could tell, he’d never been married—and whatever the case, he had no children. Odd, for such a strong and healthy man . . . There had always been something suspicious about his fastidious elegance, for that matter . . . Not to mention he was always so rushed, so aloof, as if he had something to hide.

  After a few days, malice and insults waned. Acceptance started to take hold and disgust mutated into curiosity. Now the same people had started to talk about the future more cheerfully. The building was up for sale? Good! Who was buying? Who wasn’t buying? . . .

  Everyone wanted to know everyone else’s next move, but no one dared to ask anyone else directly. And no one revealed their own intentions. As a result, everyone asked the doorwoman.

  “They’re going to make me crazy,” my mother kept repeating, running back and forth between the intercom, the door, and the window, but in her heart she was having the time of her life, because she could see them tormenting each other and could keep them guessing with ambiguous allusions and partial—if not downright wrong—information.

  The third person to sign was Mantegazza. The others, however, couldn’t stop thinking and rethinking, wanting to know if their neighbor was buying—and if so, maybe they would try to buy both their own apartment and their neighbor’s. And if not, then they wouldn’t buy either. Or they would rail against the prices of the apartments. D’Antonio, who was the fourth person to sign, said—and he wasn’t wrong—that the walls were made out of cardboard, so thin you could hear your upstairs and downstairs neighbors belching, not to mention that the pipes were old and rusty . . .

  By the end of the week—after the nos had become yeses and the yeses had become nos and the nos had gone back to being yeses—it was a done deal. A little because of outright antagonism, a little—but less—out of vanity, and very little out of any real desire, all the tenants had decided to become owners, which they consecrated by solemnly applying their signature to the now wrinkled price list.

  The only ones who didn’t want to buy were the Vignolas, the D’Antonios (he stopped by to erase his signature just a few hours after he applied it), the Casellis, and . . . Miss Lynd.

  *.

  My mother was waiting by the gate. She had gathered her hair behind her neck with black bobby-pins—the kind you can’t see—applied lipstick, and rouged her cheeks. She was wearing a blue polka-dot Sunday suit and her one pair of high-heeled shoes. She had even put on her gold earrings. She was unrecognizable.

  “Get a move on it, Chino, I have to go! . . . The spaghetti is already on your plate. I don’t know what time I’ll be back. It shouldn’t take me too long. But the landlord’s office is way the heck out there, near Piazza San Babila. It’ll take me almost an hour to get there . . . Come on, sweetheart, we’re in the final stretch! Today your mother is going to conclude the deal of a lifetime!”

  She checked her appearance one more time in the window of a parked car.

  “No, no earrings . . .” she decided, bending forward. With a little difficulty, since she wasn’t used to it, she removed them from her ears and placed them in her jacket pocket. “If he sees me with my jewelry he might say, ‘Do you really expect me to believe you’re short of money!’ But these earrings are the only memento I have from my poor mother . . . How do I look? . . . Am I or am I not a beautiful signora? . . . I hardly look like a doorwoman! Give us a kiss . . .”

  She gave me a quick peck on the lips and ran toward the gate, holding her bun with her right hand. I continued watching her until she disappeared behind the hill.

  I was only able to eat a couple of bites. I cleared the table and went to sit by the window. The day was magical, blue, fragrant. The cat was making its rounds of the courtyard. Lately it had taken to walking with diff
iculty, lazy and disoriented. The birds flitted nearby, unafraid—and she made no attempt to catch them.

  Almost three hours had passed when I recognized her dark outline in the distance. She walked slowly through the clouds of dust, looking like she had just returned from war. Her hair had mostly come undone—long locks tumbled down her neck and over her pale forehead. Not a trace of makeup or blush remained.

  She didn’t want to speak. She undressed, splashed some water under her armpits, then put on the clothes she normally wore during working hours. She gathered up my father’s overalls, which had been in the pile behind the bedroom door, placed them on the armchair, opened up the ironing board, plugged in the iron, and started ironing. Moistened by steam, the fabric released the greasy smell of the factory.

  I took the leftover spaghetti and went down to the space beneath the stairs. The cat arrived a little later with an appreciative meow and stuck her face into the saucer. I waited for her to finish eating.

  When I got back home, my mother was ironing another pair of overalls. “I’m not running some kind of a white sale,” she recited in her usual voice, without interrupting her ironing. She worked artfully. The iron guided her hand rather than the other way around. The tip was inserted firmly into the corners, stopping at exactly the right moment, as if it had a mind of its own. The iron glided over the fabric—not a single motion was wasted—racing headlong, slaloming, zigzagging, speeding up and slowing down as needed. Using the most suitable pressure, she ironed out every wrinkle.

  “That’s what he said to me: ‘I’m not running some kind of a white sale.’ Get it? Not another word. No, wait—one more thing he told me: ‘Where do you want to go, Elvira? The condominium needs someone like you’ . . . Oh, dear Chino, no discounts . . . He left me speechless . . . Who would’ve expected it? It took him a minute to send me packing. He got right to the point. ‘I’m not running some kind of a white sale.’ . . . But he kept me waiting for an hour . . . What does he care if I can’t buy the house? . . . I was so wrong about him . . . I thought he was refined, I believed—what a fool I am!—that he admired me, and instead he’s just like Aldrovanti. Actually he’s worse. At least she doesn’t try to sweet-talk you with a lot of hogwash . . .”

  The dream was over. The fantasies were over. The perennial waiting was over. Over, over, over . . . My mother could forget about the Vignolas’ house; forget about the curtains; forget about the new sofa bed for me. A doorwoman she was and a doorwoman she would remain . . .

  “Hey, enough of that?” she yelled at me. “Stop looking at me. Don’t you have homework to do?”

  I retreated to the bedroom and started to cry, huddled up behind the bed, in the same place that I had cried over the Maestra.

  I went back to my mother, picked up the pressed and folded overalls, and placed them in the armoire. From then on I would be the most helpful son in the world.

  “Can I make you a coffee, mother?”

  Through the window she was looking at the clock in the lobby. It was late for coffee.

  “Sure, why not,” she said after a moment’s hesitation.

  She no longer had the same long face as before. In her eyes a new light was shining. She smiled at me.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked while handing her the cup.

  She took a sip.

  “Ah, you really know how to make a good coffee! . . . What am I thinking? I’m thinking that I’ll get that money from Gemma. I find it hard to believe that she wouldn’t have a million to lend me . . . Alfio makes a decent salary from the railways, and when it’s not his shift, he earns something on the side as a house painter.”

  *.

  Two minutes later Gemma arrived.

  “Well?” she asked impatiently.

  My mother waited until she was seated.

  “I’m about to buy!”

  Gemma batted her eyelashes.

  “Buy what?”

  “What do you mean, ‘Buy what?’ . . . the Vignolas’ apartment . . .”

  “Oh! . . .”

  She wasn’t showing any of the joy we expected—she didn’t even bother to smile.

  “Who knows, maybe one day we . . .” she sighed. “But we’re just starting out. You, Elvira have been working yourself to the bone for half a century! Chino is grown up now and can help you to pay the mortgage and the expenses, which add up. Set him up as an apprentice to a plumber or mechanic—he’ll bring home a nice paycheck! Plumbers and mechanics, now those guys make serious money, those sons of bitches!—and so do cooks!”

  I listened, holding my breath.

  Adept at playing her cards right, even in the most stressful situations, my mother didn’t say a word about my future. “Gemma, also on Paride’s behalf, I want to ask a big favor of you and your husband. A huge favor . . . If I didn’t need to, I wouldn’t have the courage to ask . . . Paride doesn’t want to hear any talk about mortgages. We’re buying in cash. We have to! But I don’t have the full amount. The one-bedroom costs six rather than five million. I don’t know why, but in the end the landlord raised the price. Take it or leave it, he said—and if I don’t take it this time, it’ll be over. When am I going to get another opportunity like this? I’ve been saving my whole life. I’m almost there. But I’m short one million damn liras, and he refused to give me any kind of discount . . . Could you find it in your heart to lend me the money? Of course I’d lend it to you without a second thought! And I could pay you back within a year, I swear, with interest. You know how good I am at finding work and saving. I’m not like the signore at the building next door . . . Who knows where they got the money. If only I could wait another year . . . but I have to let him know by the day after tomorrow. If I don’t, someone else is going to buy the Vignolas’ place. I think the seamstress, that awful Signora Bortolon, has already got her eyes on it. And I would lose out. Lose out! . . .”

  Gemma touched her arm. She wanted it to seem like an affectionate gesture, but it wasn’t. “If you miss this chance there’ll always be another. Maybe closer to downtown. Here we’re out in the boondocks . . .”

  My mother jumped as if her friend had given her an electric shock. “But here houses cost less, don’t you understand? . . .” She rubbed her scars. “And I’ve become fond of Via Icaro. I don’t want to leave. The only thing I want is to have my own house. To close the door and not to have to see or hear anyone. Can you lend me that million? Please. In a year I’ll pay you back with all the interest . . .”

  She wouldn’t even consider the idea of abandoning Via Icaro, that godforsaken road out in the sticks. If she was going to become a homeowner, it had to be here. Here, where they had humiliated her, where they had treated her like a servant. So only here could her claim to freedom become a form of revenge.

  “I’ll have to speak with Alfio . . .” Gemma hesitated, “he’s the one that keeps the books in the family . . . I don’t know if we have a million. I really don’t know . . . You were right when you wondered how the signore get their money! But we’re not like that. Alfio works himself to death. And is it worth it in the end?”

  My mother took her hands. “So you’ll talk to him tonight? Promise?”

  *.

  Another long wait had begun, even harder than the others: all of a sudden our entire future, our happiness, depended on Gemma.

  Still ignoring the situation, my father, at supper, told us the plot of the film The Seduction of Mimi, down to the smallest details. Then he started criticizing Bertolucci. Brando’s monologue to his dead wife in The Last Tango was a joke . . . and so were the rape scene, the mumbled sentences, the finger in the ass—ridiculous! . . . And The Canterbury Tales of Pasolini? Even worse. The work of a pervert. Dicks everywhere you looked . . .

  He did all the talking. My mother and I kept looking in the direction of the telephone.

  “Would you mind telling me what the hell is wrong with yo
u two tonight?” he yelled, exasperated.

  Her nerves were on edge and she turned around in a flash.

  “Nothing,” she seethed, “what do you think is wrong?”

  “You’re a couple of bores,” he said, the most offensive thing he could come up with.

  By the following morning Gemma still hadn’t given her answer. I went back to school and my mother kept waiting. She didn’t dare telephone, fearing she would irritate her friend. But the clock was ticking. There was only one day left.

  At two-thirty, with my encouragement, she decided to call. Her husband picked up. He said that Gemma had gone to Carmen’s for a coffee.

  We waited another hour. My mother tried again. Luckily Gemma was back.

  “Did you talk to Alfio?” she asked, getting right to the point. “You haven’t? . . . But Gemma, I told you I had to give my answer now—tomorrow, or I’ll lose the apartment! For heaven’s sake, put yourself in my shoes! . . . Listen, let’s forget about it . . .”

  She slammed the phone down, furious, and still wearing her clogs she hurried out the door.

  “Where are you going?” I shouted at her from the window.

  “To Carmen’s!”

  She came back a few minutes later, all red in the face and sweating.

  “I came so close to slapping her across the face. What a fool I am! Of all people to ask for a favor! In my opinion they’re in the cahoots. Fine friends they are . . . and who knows what they’re going to say behind my back now!”

  She got back on the phone.

  “Gemma, I apologize for what I said earlier. I’m a bundle of nerves, try to understand. I’ve been waiting for this moment for years. So can you please let me know by tonight, don’t forget!” And she added, a second before hanging up, “Thanks also on Paride’s behalf.”

  A little before seven the telephone rang. My mother was about to drain the pasta. She dropped everything in the sink—pasta, boiling water, kettle—and ran to answer it. The only thing we heard her say was, “I see.” She hung up the phone, went back to the sink, and started retrieving the macaroni.