I’ll stop now, Serena; write to me here at Luco, where I’m bored stiff. Give me your news, and news of Lucrezia, of everyone. And I’d like to know if you read your poetry at the Women’s Centre as you wanted to. Write to me, because I don’t have anyone to talk to here, and a letter would be company for me.
Albina
SERENA TO ALBINA
Pianura, 10th February
Dear Albina,
You’ve got hold of some crazy ideas in Luco dei Marsi. Lucrezia is not in love with Ignazio Fegiz and he is not in love with her. I have never suffered from a lack of affection. In fact I even had too much affection when I was a child. Giuseppe didn’t go to America to be protected by his brother but for a much simpler reason, he didn’t have any money here, or it seemed to him that he had very little. His brother told him that he could teach in America. They pay teachers well in America. And now his brother is dead. I didn’t like his brother. He thought too much of himself. But when someone dies you immediately start to think of him with respect and admiration even if you didn’t like him, goodness knows why. It’s not as if death were something meritorious. It comes to everyone sooner or later.
I haven’t read my poems at the Women’s Centre and perhaps I never shall. I bet no one comes on Friday evening. I’ve lost heart. Last Friday only two turned up. There were precisely two, the chemist and a boy, the caretaker’s son. We played records. I danced with the boy. I closed the place at ten.
I don’t like Ignazio Fegiz. I don’t find him handsome, and I don’t even find him particularly intelligent. He has a girl friend he’s very attached to. She is rather ugly, with beautiful hair. I know because various people have told me. She is on drugs, they say. He and I argue furiously with one another. When I know he is at Le Margherite I don’t go, I stay in Pianura. I eat something in my room. I curl up in bed and read. At the moment I like being alone. Being alone doesn’t suit everyone. It doesn’t suit you because you think about things which exist neither in this world nor the next. But being alone suits me and I like it.
Yours
Serena
GIUSEPPE TO LUCkEZIA
Princeton, 14th February
My Lucrezia,
I received Piero’s letter and your few, quick words. You tell me to come back at once. I can’t. There are so many things that have to be done here, business that has to be finished off. And I can’t leave Anne Marie alone at the moment.
Tell Piero I’ll write to him soon.
Roberta left a few days ago. Yesterday Danny and Chantal left. They are Anne Marie’s son-in-law and daughter. They live in Philadelphia. I don’t know whether I’ve written to you about them. They slept in the sitting-room, Roberta slept in a little room which is used for storing suitcases.
Yesterday we packed up all my brother’s clothes and odds and ends and sent them to a home for the blind. One of our neighbours, Mrs Mortimer, helped us. She phoned the home. She is very kind and has been a great help to us.
Roberta was a great help to us too, while she was here. Chantal is eight months pregnant and mustn’t tire herself. Danny is someone who’s full of problems. And so Roberta and Mrs Mortimer had to think of everything.
Roberta is someone who makes friends with everyone and she immediately made friends with Danny and Chantal. This Danny constantly needs to talk about his problems with someone. He would sit himself down in front of Roberta with a glass of whisky and talk to her about himself till two in the morning. Roberta is very patient and she stayed and listened to him. I don’t have her kind of patience. When he planted himself in front of me I sent him about his business.
Now Anne Marie and I have been left alone. She is a strong woman, but she’s tired and needs me. And in a way I need her too. I’m very tired too.
The thought that relations were so cold between me and my brother during those last days won’t leave me alone. To be honest they were cold from the first day I arrived here. So many times he came and asked me to go for a walk with him and I refused to. What wouldn’t I give to have him in front of me now, to stand up and follow him. I used to refuse coldly, and perhaps rather rudely. It even happened the day before he died. And when I did agree to go out with him we used to walk along exchanging a few cold words with one another. I have to go back years and years before I can rediscover a happy intimate relationship between us.
Yesterday Anne Marie and I went to the cemetery. I took her arm. She cried, but she doesn’t stop smiling even when she cries. It’s a smile that doesn’t reach either her cheeks or her eyes, it stays fixed between her chin and her lips. When we got back to the house I sat in the kitchen, she came and stood beside me and str.oked my head. Then I rested my head against her, against the black woollen dress she was wearing over her thin belly. She made me some mint tea, that damned mint tea that she is obsessed with. Then we reheated and ate a bit of roast that Mrs Mortimer had cooked. Anne Marie sat opposite me and ate - self-possessed, dressed in black, with her long neck, her slender shoulders, her smile. Anne Marie and I never talk about my brother. We talk about day-to-day things, the shopping, the washing-machine, Mrs Mortimer, and we talk about Danny’s problems and Chan-tal’s character. We don’t have many things to talk about, except these which however are soon exhausted. But Ignazio Fegiz once said to me that it’s not important to have something to talk about - two people can stay together without having anything special to say to each other and without looking for something, each immersed in his own thoughts, in silence.
Sometimes those friends of my brother’s, Schultz and Kramer, come and see us in the evening. Anne Marie talks to them about scientific subjects and things to do with the Institute. I stay quiet. When they go I walk to the gate with them, and at the same time take the rubbish out. Anne Marie hasn’t started work again at the Institute yet, but she will do in a few days. And I shall start my lessons at the school again in a few days. Perhaps, I’m not sure, I’ll start work again on that thing I’ve been writing. But at the moment I’m unable to do anything. I spend hours sitting in an armchair in my room staring at the bear-cubs. But I leave the door open and watch Anne Marie who knits in the sitting-room. Mrs Mortimer told her that when things are difficult knitting is a great comfort.
Giuseppe
ALBERICO TO GIUSEPPE
Rome, 20th February
Respected father,
I have been in Rome for a week. I stayed with Roberta, who had just returned from America. I’m sorry about your brother. I saw him three times in all. Once when I was little, in my grandparents’ house, and the other two times in your house. He told me to study civil engineering all three times, and all three times I told him I had other plans. Though to be honest I’ve changed these plans continually over the years. At the present moment I don’t have any.
Roberta has found me a flat. Someone called Egisto, whom I think you know, lives on the floor above. He’s a short, squat, dark chap. He has come down two or three times and asked me if I needed anything. We needed some bouillon cubes and he brought me some. There are three of us in the flat; me, Nadia, Salvatore. You know Nadia, you saw her that day in Florence. She’s pregnant. Roberta told me that you also have a pregnant girl in the house, in Princeton. Nadia is an idiot. She uses her pregnancy as an excuse to do nothing but read magazines. Salvatore and I do the shopping and cook, and we have started to paint all the rooms white. Salvatore is a graphic artist. But he hasn’t any work and he’s looking for some. We met in Berlin, in a Chinese restaurant.
Roberta suggested that I come to America with her, but I didn’t come, I thought I’d probably just be in your way.
With love from
Alberico
GIUSEPPE TO ALBERICO
Princeton, 27th February
Dear Alberico,
You address me as ‘respected father’ as if I were a priest. However I’m grateful to you for your letter. I haven’t had many from you, in your life. I will keep this one in my wallet, next to my heart, like something rare and precious.<
br />
You write ‘If I’d come, I would have just been in your way’. I stopped and thought for a while about that ‘just’. I asked myself if you really believe that a meeting with you would give me nothing but the feeling that you were in the way.
I had Anne Marie read your letter. She smiled. She really does smile the whole time. Sometimes - very rarely - she turns the corners of her mouth right down. But perhaps you don’t know who Anne Marie is. She is my brother’s widow. My brother loved her, and as it’s turned out, she is the only thing of his I still have.
With love from
your father
ROBERTA TO GIUSEPPE
Rome 29th February
Dear Giuseppe,
As soon as I got back to Rome I phoned you but neither you nor Anne Marie were at home and Mrs Mortimer answered. She said you’d gone out shopping. I didn’t phone again but in any case it’s often impossible to say anything on the phone.
Alberico is in Rome and he has moved into his flat. Three of them are living together; Alberico, that girl Nadia who is six months pregnant, and a friend of Alberico’s called Salvatore. He isn’t the child’s father. The child’s father is a Viennese who is in Vienna and who Nadia has finished with. Salvatore is one of those like your son. He doesn’t go out with girls. It seems to me that the three of them get on perfectly. The flat is pretty filthy but Salvatore says he is going to clean it thoroughly. He has a long, bony face, a big black moustache and black side-whiskers. Nadia has a great belly. She wears black silk harem-pants and a sweat-shirt with ‘/ want to decide’ written on it. She has a little pale face that seems all eyes and hair. She hasn’t got anything ready for the baby yet, but a friend has lent them a pram which they keep in the sitting-room and which is at the moment piled high with saucepans. When I saw them, she was stretched out on the sofa reading comics. Her parents send her money but they don’t want her in Sicily. Your son was typing, he’s writing the screen-play for a film. Salvatore was doing the ironing. In the flat there’s a typewriter, an ironing-board, a table, some beds and a telly. The clothes are all piled up on a bed they are not using.
Now I’ll talk to you about yourself. I’d like you to tell me what you intend doing, because I asked you in Princeton but you always answered vaguely. I imagine you will come back to live in Rome. I don’t think you will want to stay in America now that you no longer have your brother there. And so I’ll have to find you a flat. As for the money, well you’ve been fretting over this recently but that’s just self-indulgence, you have land in Puglia that you could sell for a pretty good price. With the money from the flat you sold you could buy another flat - much smaller and much worse than the other one of course. Those fine Lan-zaras led you up the garden path. Enough. We all make mistakes. Anyway, let me know what you plan to do. With love from
Roberta
LUCREZIA TO GIUSEPPE
Monte Fermo, 5th March
Dear Giuseppe,
I received your letter and it has made me very melancholy. I don’t understand why you don’t say when you intend to come back. I phoned Roberta and she told me that she doesn’t know either. You wanted to live with your brother but now he is dead, so whatever are you doing there?
You talk a lot about Anne Marie and Mrs Mortimer and other people I don’t know and never will know. I don’t understand why you don’t just leave them all to stew in their own juice.
Ignazio Fegiz came and I told him about your letter. It had really chilled me, made my soul feel stone-cold, and I had to talk to someone about the cold feeling it had given me. We went for a long walk with the children and when we came back it was dark. Piero and Egisto came out with torches to meet us. Piero had become worried when he didn’t see us coming back.
I don’t like writing 'Ignazio Fegiz’ because I don’t like the name Ignazio, and I don’t like his surname much either. And so when I mention him in my letters I shall just ppt the initials ‘I. F.‘ ‘I.F.’ sends his regards. He doesn’t generally write letters, but perhaps he’ll write to you some day.
Lucrezia
GIUSEPPE TO ROBERTA
Princeton, 10th March
Dear Roberta,
You ask me if I want you to find me a flat in Rome. Good God, I don’t know. I haven’t decided anything.
Thank you for your concern, and for the affection with which you think of me. When I start thinking of coming back I’ll write to you. Then will be the time to look for a flat.
Chantal’s baby was born yesterday. They’ve called her Margaret. Danny phoned from the clinic. We will go to Philadelphia to see her within the next few days. I bought a bottle of champagne and a cake. Mrs Mortimer came round too and we celebrated Margaret’s birth.
Giuseppe
PIERO TO GIUSEPPE
Perugia, 10th May
Dear Giuseppe,
I heard from Lucrezia that you are not coming back at the moment. I haven’t seen your letter to Lucrezia. Lucrezia wouldn’t let me read it, as is right seeing that it was addressed only to her. She simply told me that for the moment you aren’t coming back. Certainly it must be difficult to separate yourself from the places and people that made up your brother’s world. I understand you. Lucrezia doesn’t understand you. But sometimes Lucrezia can be lacking in sensitivity. She views human feelings in a rough, business-like way.
I am going through a difficult time. I work reluctantly, and everything wears me out. These days I can’t bear my partner, Doctor Corsi. It bores me to see people and I prefer to be alone. The best time for me is here in my office when Doctor Corsi and the secretary have gone home, and I see the sunset over the rooftops, through the window, and then the greyness of the dusk, and then darkness. I go home when it has already been dark for a while. I find the children’s noise tiresome and I prefer to arrive after supper is over. The noise continues because we have brought the children up badly and they go to bed late, but at least I don’t have to put up with the chaos at supper. I eat alone. It’s a really terrible time for me. It’ll pass. No point in worrying.
Last Saturday Egisto brought your son and two friends over to see us. You never introduced us to your son, and you rarely talked about him. Now, as you know, he lives in the same building as Egisto, on the floor below.
I liked your son, and also his two friends, a girl who is pregnant and a chap with a black moustache. I thought that one of them was the baby’s father - either your son or the other one - but Lucrezia said no, and that I had got hold of quite the wrong end of the stick.
The girl upset me because she is so tiny, and she had a lost look about her. She wanted to see the garden and I went out into the garden with her. She told me she is terrified of dying in childbirth and that she doesn’t sleep at night. I told her that millions of women give birth every day without dying. Yes, but every now and then there’s one who dies. I told her that I had seen Lucrezia give birth five times. I’d always wanted to be present when her children were born. I told her it wasn’t anything to be frightened of. We chatted affectionately for a long time. Meanwhile your son and his friend had gone to Pianura with Lucrezia and Ignazio Fegiz, because Serena wanted to be photographed at the Women’s Centre, while she was acting a new play in which she is Jocasta - wearing a sheet with a long military cloak over it. Your son and his friend are good photographers, and then Serena had got hold of the notion that they know people in the theatre world and that they could help her break into it. An argument erupted over supper between Serena and Ignazio Fegiz, less of an argument than a real row, about Pirandello whom Serena adores and whom he can’t abide. Ignazio Fegiz loses his temper easily, and it seems to me that he has no respect for any one else’s opinions. I like Pirandello and I don’t find him at all artificial and false as he says, but I’m no expert on the theatre, I rarely go to the theatre. Anyway, I was bored by this argument, and your son and his friends must have been bored to death. Lucrezia was irritable and she finished up arguing with Serena too, not about Pirandello but because Serena had said tha
t the children eat badly and that they are pests.
Your son isn’t like you at all. You are both very thin, but his thinness is loose and lazy, whereas yours is angular, straight and lean. I like him, even if he seems a bit strange to me, as young people are these days; you never really know what they think of you, whether they respect you a little or consider you a perfect imbecile. He always seems sleepy and abstracted, but you sense that hidden inside him there is a sharp curiosity about others, and that he conceals his judgements - which are as prickly and sharp as thorns - of other people.
Your son and his friend slept in the room that has the quilts with dragons on them, and the green wardrobe in it; the girl asked if she could sleep with Cecilia because she gets frightened when she sleeps alone in a new place.
Although I don’t want to see anyone these days, as I told you, I enjoyed seeing your son here at Le Margherite, where you always came without ever bringing him - goodness knows why.
With love from
Piero
20th May
The City and the House Page 7
