The City and the House

by Natalia Ginzburg

  I shall go to the cemetery before I leave. I haven’t been there for quite a while. My parents are there, and Aunt Bice, and in another part away from them, my wife. Aunt Bice is the one I think of most often. She was stupid and full of good will and above all full of an immense faith in herself. This faith filled the rooms, the sideboards and the balconies of her house. She was an optimist and was quite certain that everything she came across, every thing she could see and touch, would turn out well and happily. No one wanted Alberico; she didn’t have a moment’s hesitation, she immediately took him in. She had sky-blue eyes that were clear as water, a great head of white hair and a radiant smile. When we went wandering through the streets looking for Alberico and we couldn’t find him that smile faltered a little, but only a little. When she died Alberico was nineteen. He was doing his military service in Messina. I don’t know if Aunt Bice had ever realized that Alberico was a homosexual. I don’t think so. There were no homosexuals in her world. She died more or less unexpectedly, of a heart-attack, while visiting a neighbour. But she must have felt ill a few days before because she had contacted her solicitor. Then she had written a letter to Alberico but she hadn’t had time to post it, it was in her handbag. She had drawn up a list of every thing she had and left it to him - the flat in via Torricelli, her stocks and shares, three shops in Naples and some gold in a safe deposit. Lastly she asked him to look after her cat. Alberico came for the funeral and immediately went off again. The cat was entrusted to a neighbour. When he had finished his military service Alberico came to fetch it and took it to a flat where he was staying with some friends. He didn’t come and live in via Torricelli for the moment. He preferred his friends’ flat, a commune where six of them were living. He took the cat in a dome-shaped basket that he had bought specially. But as soon as the cat arrived in the commune it escaped over the roofs and was lost.

  Later Alberico went to live in via Torricelli with one of his friends, a Brazilian painter called Enrique. There were photographs everywhere, hanging from strings to dry, and Enrique’s paintings of forests and jaguars were everywhere too. Aunt Bice’s flat became a den in a few days. Now the den has been sold and there is no trace anywhere of Aunt Bice’s optimism or of her faith in herself, or of her blue polka-dot aprons and white fat legs and spongy down-at-heel slippers.

  Egisto has just phoned me. He will call here and we shall have dinner together somewhere. I shall give this letter to him and he can take it to you on Saturday, because as I have already told you I shall not be coming on Saturday.

  Giuseppe

  EGISTO TO LUCREZIA

  Rome, 25th October

  I meant to come to Le Margherite today but I shan’t because the spark-plugs on my Dauphine are dirty, and anyway I have to finish an article. I tried to phone you but there was no answer. That Sicilian you have now must be deaf. The one you had before, from the Abruzzi, was better.

  I have a letter for you from Giuseppe and I will give it to Albina who is coming by train. I will also give her these few lines of mine.

  I’m sorry, I would have liked to have come to stay with you and play tennis with Piero. It’s true that your tennis-court is wretched after that last storm, it’s full of holes and the last time I almost sprained my ankle. But it doesn’t matter.

  I met a very pleasant person the other night, at the Rotunnos’. He is called Ignazio Fegiz and he is a picture-restorer. He took me home because I had come on foot. He has an olive-green Renault. He is very intelligent. If you like, when I come next Saturday I will bring him with me. You have that still-life Piero bought in Salerno, the one that is full of stains and cracks, and perhaps you could have him look at it. It seems a mess to me but I know that Piero values it. He will be able to tell you how to get rid of the stains, and perhaps even the cracks too.

  I’ve seen Giuseppe. He seems to me very depressed. We were supposed to go and eat in a restaurant but then his cousin arrived and asked if we would like to eat something downstairs with her. She is called Roberta. I think you know her, she has come to Le Margherite a few times. She is blonde, with big hips, and big teeth that stick out. She is a cheerful, interfering, busybody of a woman. We went down and she made us spaghetti in a very complicated way that I can’t remember. It involved spinach, cream and eggs. The spinach was frozen, that I know. She is on a diet and didn’t eat the spaghetti. She only ate an apple and a little plate of chicory without oil or salt.

  Roberta’s flat is similar to Giuseppe’s but bigger. She and I talked about flats. Giuseppe has sold his. I think he has made a real cock-up of it. He had already been to the solicitor’s and signed the contract. A family called Lanzara are buying it. He is a psychoanalyst who is quite well-known.

  With the money from the sale of that flat Giuseppe is going to buy some Treasury Bonds. So he will have something if he decides to come back. Or they will be there for his son if he should need them. His son is rich because he inherited a lot from an aunt, but he has no desire to do anything. He has been in prison on a drugs charge. He’s a lost soul.

  Princeton is a tiny, very beautiful town. It was founded by the Quakers. It has big parks and lots of trees. The trees are full of squirrels. When Giuseppe opens his windows he will see squirrels. But I think he will soon come back here, in less than a month. America is not at all his kind of place. It’s because he no longer wants to go that he is so depressed.

  We’ll see one another next Saturday, I’ll bring Ignazio Fegiz.

  Egisto

  LUCREZIA TO GIUSEPPE

  Monte Fermo, 26th October

  Albina gave me your letter and also one from Egisto. She rummaged in her handbag with that greenish lizard’s claw of hers and pulled out first a handkerchief, then a comb, and then some tampax and then the two letters. I was in the kitchen bottling wine with my mother-in-law and that general help who arrived a few days ago from Piazza Armerina and who has no idea how to help do anything at all.

  I left them all there and came up to my room and locked myself in.

  What a strange person you are. We’ve said almost nothing to each other for so long and then all of a sudden you write me a long letter. There was a period when we wrote each other letters, you and I, but there weren’t many of them and they weren’t very long either, and that period was quite some time ago, four, five years ago. Afterwards we didn’t write to each other any more and neither did we talk to each other very much. How many times have we been alone together during these years, you and I, how many times have we gone for long walks in the woods, and you said nothing more than ‘How are things?’ and ‘What are you doing?’, and I was just the same.

  I don’t know why you say I’m spiteful to you. It’s not true. I don’t have any spiteful feelings for you. I wouldn’t have any reason to. We had an affair which lasted a few years and ended. A simple story.

  You annoy me when you say that Graziano is an insignificant child. It’s not true. None of my children is insignificant. All five of them are very special and very good-looking. Everyone says so.

  Graziano is yours. But if you prefer to pretend that he isn’t, it doesn’t matter.

  In your letter you mention only four of the children. You don’t mention Augusto. I don’t know why. Perhaps he is the one that is most like me. Even if he has red cheeks and not ‘my splendid pallor’.

  I was pleased that you wrote that phrase. It re-echoed in my head all day long. Every so often I go in front of the mirror to look at ‘my splendid pallor’.

  Today I am going to Pianura with Serena and Albina. Serena has got it into her head to open a ‘centre’. Her landlord’s family have a warehouse. Serena has asked them if she can rent it. Serena is bored. She wants to open a centre in this warehouse which she will call ‘The Women’s Centre’. There will be a library and meetings once a week on Friday evenings. We shall recite poetry and act plays together. Serena enjoys acting. She particularly enjoys acting Alfieri’s Mirra. Serena was a very bad student and she can’t remember anything of what sh
e studied, but she does remember Alfieri’s Mirra, goodness only knows why. She wants to be able to stand in a theatre, in front of people who have come to listen, and say, ‘When I asked you/ You should have given me the sword, Euriclea/ I would have died innocent/ Now I shall die guilty.’ Mirra is the story of someone who is in love with her father. Though Serena has never been in love with her father. No, not even in her wildest dreams. But she says that when she thinks of that ending it always makes her want to cry.

  What a strange person you are. In your letter you tell me about your son. You have never talked about him to me, nor to Piero, nor I think to the others. When we asked you about him you always answered briefly and changed the subject. But I know everything about your son, from Roberta. I already knew what you wrote to me. Aunt Bice, the cat, the California Bar.

  Later.

  I don’t know why you think I feel spiteful towards you. No, not at all. Why should I. We had an affair that lasted for quite a while. Then it finished. Simple.

  I wanted to leave Piero and come and live with you. It would have been a big mistake, but I didn’t see this. It would have been a mistake because we were already tired of each other, you of me and I of you. But I didn’t see it, I hadn’t realized. Youofthat told me that I should not leave Piero, that I shouldn’t even think of doing so. You said the children would suffer. I said that I would bring them with me and they wouldn’t suffer much; Piero could have seen them sufficiently often. That house where you live is big enough and with a few little rearrangements we could have all fitted in. Then you got very frightened. I read the fear on your face. You probably envisioned your house being turned into a camp-site. I don’t know how to tell you how much that fear of yours hurt me. You said that you didn’t feel up to being a father to the children. You didn’t feel you could take on the role of father. Your usual obsession. You are always afraid that someone will make you take on the role of a father. Then I told you that you were a coward. We were in your house. You hate that hotel in Viterbo, but I hate your house. I decided that day not to go back there ever again. But as it turned out I went back there a couple of times, later on.

  That day I broke some ashtrays too, not just one but three or four. I grabbed the ashtrays I saw within reach and hurled them on the floor. You knelt down on the carpet to pick up the pieces and I cried. I despised you and I cried.

  I don’t remember the name of that hotel in Viterbo. I remember there were red curtains that had a vile smell. We talked very calmly, sitting on the bed. Then we went out and went to the cinema. The Four Feathers was on. I can’t remember anything about the film. Just the name. I cried, my tears cascaded down, but you took no notice.

  After Viterbo I fell in love two or three times. Once with one of Piero’s clients, someone who had a ceramics shop in Perugia. But he was always worrying about his financial affairs and took no notice of me. Another time with an English archaeologist, a friend of Serena’s. Neither time was it very important and it was quickly over. As you know I fall in love easily. Months passed, I was sad and I thought I wanted another child, because I like being pregnant. At first Piero was rather against this, and then he accepted it. When Vito was three months old I stopped feeding him with my milk and I couldn’t find the right way to wean him. I was recommended to a doctor. He came from Perugia almost every day to see Vito and sometimes he stayed for lunch. I waited for him very anxiously because he used to reassure me, and perhaps waiting so anxiously made me fall in love with him. I think you saw him at our house once, his name was Civetta. He was neither handsome nor young, he was white-haired and he stooped a little. I went to bed with him twice, in his surgery in Perugia. But it wasn’t anything important and I didn’t mention it to Piero. Only Serena knew. But he told his wife, he had a short, plump wife who was always walking around Perugia with a little dog. His wife said he shouldn’t see me again. He immediately agreed. Then he was transferred to Vicenza. All the same, for a while I continued to wear his tattered old red and black check jersey, which he had left on a peg in the hall and forgotten, and then never asked for it back, and Piero used to ask me how ever I could wear that horrible jersey that reminded him of Doctor Civetta and that time when I couldn’t find the right way to wean Vito.

  One day when I was crying Piero asked me if I was crying because of you. There were two or three Saturdays when you didn’t come and you had phoned to say you couldn’t because you were writing something or other. But that time I wasn’t crying because of you, I was just crying, for no earthly reason. Then Piero said that you had many fine qualities but that you lacked back-bone. He kept consoling me as though I were crying for you, even though I kept telling him that everything with you had been over for a long time.