The City and the House

by Natalia Ginzburg

  With love from

  Alberico

  I’ve just realized that the last phrase in my letter could be misinterpreted. In fact the colour of my underpants has no special significance. I don’t like black. I buy black underpants so that I won’t have to wash them so often.

  ROBERTA TO GIUSEPPE

  Rome, 4th July

  Dear Giuseppe,

  Yesterday evening Alberico’s film Deviance was shown. It was shown in a little private hall on via Flaminia. It was a great suecess. There were lots of people. Alberico wasn’t there. I phoned him and he said he hadn’t come because he had a headache. Nadia, Salvatore, Adelmo - all the friends I meet when I go to see him - were there. Nadia had a little, round, black straw hat perched on top of her head.

  The film was lovely. It is well-directed. It all happens in a big restored farmhouse in the country. The rooms are large and half-empty with white curtains fluttering about, and tiled floors. There’s a constant bright white light. I shan’t tell you the plot, mainly because I couldn’t follow all of it, there was something wrong with the soundtrack and I was sitting in the last row at the back. There is a boy, a girl and an old man. Then guests come. There are some drugs hidden in the farmhouse but no one knows where. It’s an upsetting film because the white light is there the whole time, and because little by little everyone dies. But the most upsetting thing is the light, the white walls, the tiled floors and the fluttering curtains. Alberico told me that it cost very little to make because the farmhouse belongs to Adelmo’s father and he let them have it for a small sum. The actors were amateurs, taken off the streets.

  I was there with Lucrezia and the Lanzaras. However Lucrezia left half-way through the second half. She said she couldn’t stand that kind of film. She was bored to death and wanted to sleep. But in fact as we went in we saw Ignazio Fegiz with his friend Ippo. They were sitting in the front row, next to Salvatore. As I told you, it’s all over between Lucrezia and Ignazio Fegiz.

  Lucrezia isn’t well. She is run-down and is always very pale. She never recovered after the birth and loss of her baby. On top of which 'I' has left her. She must think that she has destroyed her marriage for nothing, for a relationship with someone who has other relationships that are clearly more binding. I often go to her house but I don’t know if she likes seeing me. She is always saying she likes to be alone. If you’ve gone all the way across the city to see her and keep her company for a while, you feel put out. She says that Rome is a hateful city inhabited by hateful people. She wants to live in another city, she doesn’t know which one. Nevertheless at the same time she says she needs a house in Rome. In a few months time she will have to leave the one she is in. I tell her that a psychoanalyst might help. She gets annoyed. She doesn’t believe in psychoanalysis. She doesn’t like psychoanalysts. She doesn’t like Dr Lanzara. She thinks it’s a crazy idea having that bald head in front of her and having to tell him about herself. I tell her she could go to a different one. But a different one would have some other unbearable characteristic. And anyway psychoanalysts cost money and she has very little money. I try to point out that she doesn’t have so little. She is very open with me and I know how much she has. Not that little but when someone gets it into her head that she doesn’t have much money, it’s difficult to convince her that it’s not true. You were the same when you went to America, you’d got it into your head that you didn’t know how you could manage here. You remember how I tried to point out to you that you did have money and that you would be able to get by very well indeed? You left, and I don’t know whether you did well or you did badly to move to America. Perhaps you did well seeing that you’ve got married and settled down.

  A few evenings ago, Mirra had its opening night in a very small inconvenient theatre, a long way away, on via Olimpia. Serena was acting in it. You know that to act in Mirra was always the great dream of her life. Lucrezia and I went. Serena’s father was there, he’d come down from Genoa. He sat in the front row, with his great white moustache. Albina was there, she had come specially from Luco dei Marsi. Egisto was there. It was a modern dress Mirra. Serena was wearing black slacks and a jumper. The stage was empty, there was just a little iron ladder. There wasn’t much applause and the newspapers the next day tore it to pieces. Nevertheless, Lucrezia told me that Serena was very happy. She seemed happy on the evening of the first night too, when we went to see her in her dressing-room, and she wasn’t, at all aware that there had been so little applause. She was going to have supper in a pizzeria near the theatre, with the director and the other actors, and she asked if we would like to go with them, but it was perfectly clear that she wanted us to disappear. Her father was tired, he took a taxi and went back to his hotel. We - Lucrezia, Albina, Egisto and I - went to a pizzeria a little further away, but after a while we saw Serena and her group arrive, perhaps because the other pizzeria was closed. Serena made great hello-there gestures but didn’t come over to us, she sat with her group at a table at the end of the room. Egisto remarked that she was very rude, and that she should have invited us to sit at her table. But Albina said that she could understand her, that she was in her new surroundings, and that she didn’t want to see our old faces around her. So we tried to chat among ourselves and not to look at the other table. Egisto and Albina started to talk about the Women’s Centre in Pianura, when Serena acted Gemma Donati, but all of a sudden Lucrezia said that she was tired and felt sleepy, she got up and left, going straight between the tables without turning round. We thought that she was offended by Serena’s behaviour, and Serena must have thought so too, because I saw her glance towards the door. Lucrezia told me later that she couldn’t care less about Serena’s rudeness, but that she had suddenly felt very sad when she remembered Pianura, the Women’s Centre, Monte Fermo, those places, those people, those years. Albina went to sleep at Egisto’s because Serena lives in her bedsit now, perhaps with her director, who is called Umberto and with whom she is very happy.

  Albina, as you know, is married, but her life is the same as before, except that now she has to cook for her husband as well, and iron her husband’s shirts as well as her brother’s and father’s.

  Alberico’s film had very favourable reviews. I will send you the cuttings. I phoned to congratulate him, but he said that they were all idiotic. He is already working on another film.

  With love from

  Roberta

  LUCREZIA TO GIUSEPPE

  Rome, 10th July

  I went to see your son’s film. I thought it was really awful. However, I was the only person who thought it was really awful. Everyone else praised it to the skies.

  'I' was there with Ippo. So I’ve finally seen her. I’ve seen the famous hair.

  I also went to Mirra. I can’t remember whether I’ve told you that Serena has finally been able to say ‘Now I am dying, Empia’ in a theatre. Now she says it every evening. She has a man, and she’s very happy. She hardly ever phones me.

  I saw Albina. She came to Rome to see Mirra. She came alone, in her station-wagon. She has got her licence and bought a second-hand station-wagon. She uses it for going around the countryside looking for timber. Her husband has a furniture factory. To look at she’s just the same, with her dry lizard’s claws, and her handbag that’s always open with kleenex and biscuits spilling out of it. But inside she has changed. It’s as if she has become dry inside too, serious and hard. She and I no longer had anything to say to each other. I asked her if bed were still a problem for her. She didn’t smile, she remained serious. She said no and quickly changed the subject. I think it’s a very big problem for her.

  Yours

  Lucrezia

  EGISTO TO GIUSEPPE

  Rome, 20th July

  Dear Giuseppe,

  Roberta told me she would phone you. But I don’t know if she has or not. Something terrible has happened. Nadia is dead.

  It happened five days ago. Nadia, Salvatore and Adelmo went to the cinema. Alberico stayed at home and two of his fr
iends who are always there were with him, Giuliano and Gianni. It was around midnight when Adelmo phoned. He was phoning from the General Hospital. Nadia was in the emergency ward and she was dying.

  What I know I learnt from Adelmo. But Adelmo remembers everything in a very confused way. They came out of the cinema. They had bought an ice-cream from a kiosk. They were walking towards the car which was parked in piazza Tuscolo. Two men appeared on a scooter. They were a couple of kids, Adelmo says, they must have been seventeen or eighteen. They came up to Salvatore and said they wanted a word with him. And then four others got out of a Fiat 500 that was parked on the corner. One of them had a long blond pony-tail. They all went for Sajvatore together and started beating him up. Nadia threw herself into the middle of it all and yelled out for them to leave him alone. Salvatore’s jumper was torn and one hand was bleeding. Nadia got in front of him. One of them opened fire. Adelmo thought it was the one with the pony-tail but he isn’t sure. They wanted to shoot Salvatore but it was Nadia who fell. People came. Someone called the emergency services. All of a sudden Adelmo could see neither Salvatore nor the two on the scooter nor the others. He thought he could still see the pony-tail for a moment. Nadia was lying on the ground. An ambulance arrived and immediately afterwards two police jeeps.

  Alberico called me. We took my car and went to the General Hospital, to the emergency. Gianni stayed in the flat with the baby.

  Nadia was already dead. Her clothes were in a corner on the floor, her jeans, her underclothes, a sweatshirt stained with blood. Pepsicola was written across the sweatshirt, just where the bullet hole was. Her sweatshirts always had something written on them.

  Alberico wanted to pick up the clothes. But a sister told him that he must not touch them because the police would need them. She told him to go home and bring some other clothes. She asked him if he were her brother or husband or her companion or what. Her companion he answered.

  I went to the house to get some other clothes. Gianni and I started looking for something suitable. But there wasn’t much to choose from. Her clothes were all just rags. I finally found a blouse and a long skirt.

  Alberico was questioned by the police. Adelmo was questioned too, at great length, and they kept him in. But the parking-lot attendant said he wasn’t one of those who were doing the beating up. Adelmo came out yesterday.

  This morning the police came to search the apartment. They turned everything upside down but they didn’t find anything. Afterwards Alberico and I and Zezé, the woman who comes to do the cleaning, had to put everything back again.

  Over these past few days I have been with Alberico a lot. I asked him if he knew who the two on the scooter and the others in the Fiat 500 were. He told me he didn’t know anything about it, and I believe him. Salvatore was very close, and he never told anyone anything about himself. Sometimes he spent the night away from the house. Sometimes he used to disappear for a week and not say a word to anyone. When he came back he didn’t say where he’d been, but he’d have a bag full of eggs and sausages and perhaps he’d been to his mother’s, in Frosinone. We realized we were talking about Salvatore in the past tense, as if he too were dead, or had disappeared for good.

  Roberta telephoned Nadia’s parents. Her father arrived with a cousin. The mother hadn’t come because she has a heart disease.

  Nadia’s name was Nadia Alba Desiderata Astarita. Her father’s name is Altiero Astarita. He is a little old man with a small bristly grey beard. There was a mass said in the chapel at the hospital. All Alberico’s friends were there. Zezé was there and also Ignazio Fegiz with Ippo. Nadia was taken back to Catania, where there is a family tomb.

  Altiero Astarita told Roberta that he would begin civil proceedings against persons unknown.

  He kept telling Roberta that he would come and take the child. Alberico told Roberta that he didn’t want to give her to him. She was legally his child, and he could decide what to do about her.

  Alberico couldn’t sleep at night and I stayed with him till late. He kept thinking the same thing, that if he had also gone to the cinema that night, if he had been there in piazza Tuscolo, Nadia would not be dead. He would have held her back, away from all the fighting. He could have left the baby at home with Gianni, or taken her along with them as they had done so many times when they had all wanted to go to the cinema.

  Alberico says that now, without Nadia and without Salvatore, the house seems empty. Though it’s not empty, there’s still the usual coming and going. Alberico has packed all of Nadia’s clothes into two parcels and is sending them to Sicily. But they were just rags. The baby found one of her hats - a hard round hat made of straw - and she puts it on her head and wanders through the rooms with this hat on that comes down as far as her mouth. Zezé and Gianni are arguing about her magazines, she had thousands of them.

  Giuseppe, I’ve heard that you had half a mind to come over, and now is the right moment, so come. Alberico is going through a difficult time, and there is the risk that they will try and take the child away from him; perhaps you could be of some help to him, I don’t know.

  Egisto

  EGISTO TO GIUSEPPE

  Rome, 2nd August

  Dear Giuseppe,

  I’ll continue from where I left off in the letter I wrote to you ten days ago. I haven’t had any reply. I know that you have phoned Roberta for news.

  Nadia’s father, Altiero Astarita, came back here, talked to Alberico for a whole afternoon, collected the child and took her off to Sicily. I was there when he talked to Alberico, because Alberico wanted me to be present.

  Altiero Astarita said that he would leave for Sicily immediately with the baby, and he begged Alberico not to oppose him, otherwise he would refer the case to the courts. And then a long drawn-out legal dispute would be initiated and this would be sad and humiliating for everyone. The child would do well in Sicily. He and his wife live in the country, in a village called Acquedolci near Catania. They have a big house there and many hectares of land laid out as orchards. The child would have fresh air, fresh fruit, fresh eggs and she would grow up healthy. If Alberico wished to see her he could come and stay at their house in Acquedolci for a while and he would be made extremely welcome. He and his wife knew that he was not the child’s real father and that he had given her his name because of a generous and noble impulse, which they greatly appreciated. They were also ready to give him some money to compensate him for all the expenses he had incurred. Alberico stayed silent. He was sitting at the table, doodling on a sheet of paper.

  Altiero Astarita turned towards me and continued talking. Here in Rome, he said, the child was not doing well. The apartment was not a suitable place for a child. It was quite chaotic. It was in fact, to be quite clear about it, a real shambles. The courts would never consent to allow the child to remain here, in such a shambles. Then Alberico screwed up the sheet of paper he had been scribbling on; he stood up and said he had had enough. He was tired. He didn’t want money, it wasn’t of any use to him, and if he started to talk about money again he would grab him by the jacket and throw him downstairs. Altiero Astarita said he could not put up with such language. Alberico said he couldn’t put up with his face. If he would please leave immediately. Please. Altiero Astarita left.

  He came back the next morning and he had two suitcases and his cousin with him. He also had a strapping girl of about fourteen with him; she was slow and sullen, the daughter of a labourer in Acquedolci, and she had been brought along to look after the child on the way back. I was on the floor below, because Zezé had phoned me when she saw them arriving. Altiero Astarita told me that their train left at midday. He preferred trains to aeroplanes. He told me that he was pleased to see me because I seemed to him to be the one person in all that shambles who had his head screwed on properly.

  Alberico was in his room typing. Renato and Gianni were with him. He said to me that if that bearded little shit wanted to take the child, let him take her. He didn’t want to fight about it. And besides, p
erhaps it was true that the child would be better off in Sicily than with him. Happier, perhaps. He didn’t want to see the child again and he would never go to Sicily to see her, never. He didn’t want to see her whilst they were taking her’away. He didn’t want to say goodbye to her. He had always hated goodbyes, he hated them.

  Altiero Astarita ordered the cousin and the labourer’s daughter to put the child’s clothes and toys in a suitcase. The child didn’t have many clothes, and she didn’t have any toys, or rather she had just one, a three-foot-high inflatable penguin that squawked when you squeezed its belly - Salvatore had won it on a shooting-range. Usually the child didn’t even look at it, but that morning she did nothing but squeeze its belly and listen to it squawk. The labourer’s daughter wanted to deflate it and put it in the suitcase, but the child wouldn’t let her touch it. Altiero Astarita was in a hurry, but there were various hold-ups, jumpers that had been washed and were not dry, the penguin, the child who didn’t want to be washed, the labourer’s daughter who went around looking for a plaster because she had a blister on her foot. Alberico never left his room. They finally called a taxi and left, the child crying in the cousin’s arms, the labourer’s daughter carrying the two half-empty suitcases, Altiero Astarita in an irritable state. The penguin was left in the hall, half-deflated, and later Gianni took it away.

  Salvatore was discovered in Frosinone, in his mother’s house. They kept him in jail for two days, then they let him out. Adelmo went to his house. He said he was sitting in the kitchen near the window, with a bandage round one hand, and that he didn’t say a word. His hand had been wounded with a penknife that evening, and it didn’t get better because it was infected. Adelmo stayed there for a while but was unable to get a single syllable out of him. His mother said that he was always like that now, silent, motionless, with those staring eyes. His mother is an elementary school teacher.