New Italian Women: A Collection of Short Fiction

by Anna Banti

  Out of habit Carlo would not answer. From the kitchen would come the smells of garlic and onion that he found reassuring. The work day was over. In other times, which seemed far away but were not, they would see friends in the evening, go to the theater or a movie.

  He had turned sixty-two the day before. Many said he was a great writer, but not too prolific. He had noticed that after sixty almost all writers, for one reason or another, become great writers. The public is lavish with its praise and then forgets all about them.

  He gazed at the books, the objects of various size and value, pictures, rugs, arm chairs, divans, and observed that this was what remained of the many words used, which formed neither emotions or memories. They had materialized there around him as if he had been the manager of a small, agoraphobic business for forty years.

  For him and Iris almost forty years of artistic activity had transformed themselves into a series of objects contained in that middle-class apartment and in the small seaside apartment. His stories were born one after the other with relative ease, and he was convinced that they were always significant. Iris had said repeatedly in the face of his uncertainties and anxieties: just write and don’t think about it too much. It’s all right, it’s all right. You are an artist.

  And the future? the future? This had been the past: an introduction, indeed a necessary introduction. He was sure that the future would be different in the sense that he finally would grasp something that he had only vaguely sought inside himself, he would plunge into the surging depths that exist below human surfaces. Maybe he would sell the two apartments. Maybe he would move abroad. Maybe Iris would die.

  Iris kept saying with love or with scorn or with a particular maternal inflection that he was an eternal child. This was the way she forced him in bed to touch the depths of his weakness, and at the moment he understood it she would brush it away with a slight-of-hand. In a kind of dream, a show ad absurdum, he found himself practicing a virility without tenderness, only frenzy, and in that kind of game or dream he was the tyrant and she the slave.

  Iris was very fat and had become old. She didn’t care. She seemed to believe that their nights would never change. She had assumed the role of trainer and in the morning Carlo was ready for the ring of his studio, at the desk, strictly tied to her and to that room, unfit for life or any other kind of woman. He still desired Iris because she allowed him the vices his mind needed. Iris barred any novelty, she obliterated defeats. She prevented a calm reflection on the meaning of existence, but she also prevented thought from sinking into darkness, beyond the curtain of flowing images.

  For a month his depression had deepened and his headaches, anxiety, and tiredness had increased. He was forced to withdraw into himself. The doctor and Iris consulted behind his back. He had come to a passage, perhaps providential: he had to reflect, to understand something that had escaped him. Then he could go on.

  He was not writing anymore. That didn’t matter. He was too tired, trapped in a dismal listlessness. His face played annoying tricks, but the doctor said the symptoms were entirely gratuitous and connected with his nerves. The same with the nausea that every once in a while rose from his guts for no reason. He had to let himself rest.

  He went out on the balcony and looked to the left toward the neighboring balcony. Almost dark. The other window was illuminated. He heard the regular, muffled noise of the electric typewriter. Short pauses, followed by a clicking. He sat down, even though the cool wind bothered him. He watched the wind shaking the stems of the long, thin, nearly wilted carnations that Orlando, the next door neighbor, didn’t take care of. They drooped over the railing in small dry clusters.

  He was aware of the traffic on the street. He listened to the stopping and starting of the electric typewriter. With an idiotic joy every day he tried to imagine what in the world Orlando was writing. It might be a new novel. He had already written two of them, very much like two stories, and not much longer. Competent representations. Pleasant female characters. Plausible dialogue. The stories that Orlando told were easy to understand. Orlando himself was more difficult to understand.

  Since he had to rest, Carlo often amused himself by inventing stories to the rhythm of the electric typewriter. He was free to tell himself nonsensical stories, imitating the avant-garde buried before his youth. He drew out and put together odd bunches of images in the surrealistic manner, or composed obscene love songs, or sonnets in the manner of Carducci. It was his solitary and entirely new way to play in the dark silence and also to feel that his mind, like an enclosed reservoir, was full of words that mingled in amazing fantasies even without his willing them. He seemed to have regained a sense of freedom, a taste of childhood, of adolescence.

  From Orlando’s apartment came a longer caesura than usual. Immediately Carlo imagined in the darkness before him the gigantic ectoplasm of a hand suspended over the keyboard and he waited. He thought only one exact phrase: maybe that clicking will never start up again.

  In that case, in such an extraordinary and un-precedented case, the silence would become high, magnificent, charged with emotion. Orlando and he, like two astronauts detached from their spaceship would move away into empty space grasping each other tightly, quickly disappearing, exactly alike and mute. But the clicking recommenced and Carlo heard within it the arrogant superiority of youth.

  Orlando lived alone. He wrote articles for a newspaper and was a researcher at the university. A girl named Gina visited him at irregular intervals and lived with him for two or three days. Carlo had never understood their real relationship. One could suppose it a stability that had lasted for years. Or a complete casualness that had kept them apart as it had united them. He spied on them. They kept a rhythmical pace on the street as they walked in step. They dressed alike, faded jeans and nice sweaters, colored shirts, jackets. They gave the impression of cautious confidence and harmony. They had the habit of stopping every once in awhile as they walked and looking into each other’s eyes with a slight smile. Gina would toss back her long straight hair with a loose, careless motion, and bending her head would gather it in one hand, bringing it forward over her shoulders.

  Carlo watched them as if they were two people to be robbed. Their affectations as a couple, their over-harmonious movements made him feel spiteful. He criticized them: according to him they were showing off on a stage and Orlando would have to watch out because that was not life.

  In a certain sense he desired both of them. He allowed himself sexual fantasies or extravagant erotic impulses because he knew he was depressed and wanted to amuse himself. Orlando was thirty, slender as a fifteen-year-old but without the aggressiveness. He went through the world taking his pleasures with a casual elegance and a secret obstinacy. Carlo envied him with an intensity and confusion so strong that at times it seemed like love.

  The doorbell rang. Carlo shuffled down the hall and opened the door.

  “Excuse me for bothering you. Can you lend me your Collins?”

  Orlando spoke with a pleasant urbanity.

  Carlo made a brusk gesture, turned on the lights, preceded him into the studio. Orlando’s self-assurance was stupid. Why on earth did he have to have that particular dictionary? He bent over with difficulty and his head spun. A whirl, a dangerous dizziness, passed through his brain.

  “Here is the Collins,” he said, panting a little. “I have it by chance.” He was observing Orlando’s body: his well-built arms with long muscles, his chest and slender hips. He possessed a supple gracefulness, a suggestion of boyishness with his sudden gestures. His eyes were slightly convex, clear and very still, like those of certain insects.

  Orlando looked around, a little unsure of himself. “I see,” he remarked, in a tone of respect by no means humble, “that you have the Tommaseo Bellini dictionary in the first edition of eight volumes!” He made a slight gesture toward the volumes.

  Carlo said nothing. There was a pause. Orlando began to say that he would be leaving for New York the next day. “On a
scholarship for one year. I wanted to say good-bye because I’m leaving my apartment. I’m sorry I didn’t see more of you.” He stopped. He frowned and added, “Naturally it was unavoidable. It’s hard for anyone who writes in the province....”

  Carlo gave him an uncomprehending look and interrupted him: “The province? What has the province to do with it?”

  “I meant Italy. The games they play everywhere....”

  He smiled.

  Silence reigned. Carlo straightened some newspapers. “One can write anywhere,” he mumbled. He was about to add something else but Orlando was heading rapidly toward the front door. “I’ll bring it back right away,” he said in a high voice. Shrill, a sort of warble.

  Carlo was alone again. He turned off the lights. Over Orlando’s bed was an Escher poster. In the living room a few pieces of light wood furniture, red and black director’s chairs. Basically the boy was almost poor and, compared to him, lived like an ascetic. He didn’t own a house and earned little. He owned only an electric typewriter. But Orlando made him angry: he didn’t realize the complexity of the problem, he didn’t even understand that he was dealing more with an enigma than a profession. Or both? At this point he became angry with himself also. That happened to someone suffering from nerves: small exterior events, little upsets resulted in inner disturbances. Orlando was going to New York and consequently Carlo wouldn’t be able to know what turn that life had taken. This bothered him, annoyed him very much. In six months of being close neighbors they had talked only foolishness, letting the two women take the lead in their rare encounters. Did he like Conrad? Did he like James? Had he read, for instance, Kiss of the Spider Woman? What was the plot of the novel he was writing? and his novels? what did he really think of them?

  He didn’t hear the clicking any more. A particular silence fell over the house and over him.

  The lock turned and in a moment Iris was in the studio.

  “Well,” she said at once. Her voice left no doubt of her invasion. “Still in the dark?” She turned on the light and began taking in everything with her inspection. “Nasty weather outside. It seems like winter. Better to stay in the house.” She threw a newspaper on the desk. “The interview came out. The photograph of you doesn’t look bad. If I were a young reader it would give me wicked thoughts.” She giggled. She took the ashtray.

  “What is there to eat?” Carlo asked.

  “Nothing, why?” She broke into one of her typical laughs. It would be a special dish, then. She went into the hall exclaiming, “I can’t wait to take off my shoes!”

  For a moment he thought of following her, of taking her by the shoulders, of making love quickly, before supper, as they used to do when they were young. He sat down and lowered his head in his hands. Again the doorbell as he tried to rouse himself from his torpor. Orlando was already back with the dictionary and was looking at him quizzically. “Aren’t you feeling well?” He stepped forward to hold him up or give him support, but Carlo shook his head, overcome by anger and drowsiness. “Certainly not,” he managed to say in a kind of whisper. “Nothing is wrong, nothing, do you understand?”

  Orlando moved back to reestablish the space he had violated.

  “Just remember!” Carlo believed he was shouting, “just remember that you don’t kid around with words!” But he only thought he was shouting and he had lost the thought again. That wasn’t what he wanted to throw in Orlando’s face to waken him from his conventional faith.

  The only words that came to his mind were even more senseless: have you read Tolstoy? Have you read Stendhal? and Dickens? and De Quincey? and Dickinson? and Chekhov? and Goethe? and Dostoevski? and....

  He was forming a kind of litany in his head that numbed him as though he were counting sheep to go to sleep. He closed his eyes.

  Orlando stood there stock still, in amazement, looking at him. He barely murmured, “I wanted to say good-bye, excuse me.” Nothing happened. Carlo’s heavy body folded over in a slow-motion faint and his eyelids opened and closed as if he had swallowed poison. His eyes were rolling wildly.

  Orlando backed away in little steps. “Signora Iris,” he murmured again. “I don’t think Signor Carlo feels very well.”

  Iris came out unconcerned and shook her head. “It’s nerves, depression,” she said.

  “I’m so sorry,” whispered Orlando. “I’m sure he’ll feel better soon. Please give him my best wishes.”

  Carlo heard Iris and Orlando talking and saying good-bye. He heard him go out. He heard the noises that punctuated his afternoons: the turn of the lock, the click of light. He felt that he was sinking into a deep hell: perhaps it was really the well he had dreamed up, the darkness that leads to consciousness, to the horror that right words come from. He had avoided it all his life and he wasn’t sure he wanted this ordeal. “Iris,” he shouted, “Iris! Iris!”

  A menacing silence fell. The shadow assailed him, forced pain on him. What was this empty room of knowledge that, like a twin to torture, his nightmare symbolized? He thought confusedly of Orpheus, of Pamino, of efforts, of hard labors described in fables and was about to grasp the meaning of what he was seeking, as if it were something struggling to enter his heart with simple clarity. Perhaps they were the true words, the unforgettable stories. “Iris!” he shouted again. He stood up staggering, nerve-racked and shaken by so much emotion. Suddenly he vomited.

  The doorbell rang for the third time. Iris ran to the door and opened it.

  “How is he today?” the doctor said as he entered.

  Iris dried a tear with the palm of her hand. “He seems worse to me.” She spoke softly to keep Carlo from hearing. “Much worse. But he doesn’t realize...he has never realized anything....”

  The doctor clapped her on the back. “Cheer up, Signora,” he said good-naturedly. “Let’s go and have a look at him.”

  Translated by Martha King

  * * *

  Pink

  by

  Monica Sarsini

  Pale, gentle, effeminate, sweet-smelling, blushing delicateness. The sunsets on the highway from Rome to Florence with black mountains standing out against a limpid summer sky. Women with their gray hair in a bun, crocheting as they linger in bed, while the house moves along to the pace of the housekeeper’s steps, not over-concerned with time. Sled-riding downhill over the snow, or going down the slides in the melancholy city-parks, muddled by an aimless confusion of colored balloons. Pigs, spring fruit blossoms, tongue and gums, tonalities of the ear. Heat, warmth, sugar-coated almonds. Apologetic attempts, an oasis, a limbo that falls apart as everything around it closes in. Flamingos, abundance of bourgeois objects, gaudy, affected, wanting to appear lovely, but not even decently passable. Nausea, cotton fluff, fear of solitude, of growing up in silence without accomplices. Unnatural nature, spectacular Epiphanies. To abstain from declaration, to fear judgment, to refrain from argument, to be tired of fighting; to wish to go back and stay innocent. Arms akimbo, listening to the confessions of someone half-reclining, elbow resting on the bed-table, legs all hugged up tight. Bits of Carnival-time, lotions, hair drawn at the back of the neck, making peace, having no one to wait for. Family ideology, some fish, hard candy. Antique but not old laces, cobwebs, soap. Pink with black, pink with orange. Illusions, hopes, mirages, unkept promises, when one wishes to believe that the enthusiasm with which we embrace a cause is genuine. Dazzling angel faces in the clouds, Pontormo-pink, rose-pink. Going on singing when the others in the choir have stopped. A promising future. Habit, unpretentious desire. Black people’s palms. Kindergarten girls’ collar bows, ribbons on doors and in shop windows when a baby girl’s birth is not to be kept a secret. Ostrich feathers, clouds, vapors, fumes, nebulous billows evaporating against the metallic gray of the city. Cactus flowers, dog teats, tender skin in the midst of aged pachydermic roughness. Color without substance, color that does not take wing, does not become a vegetable, does not reach maturity. Rosolio rose liqueur.

  Lavender

  With le
ftovers from dawn, lavender drew together in a faint light and, from the pavement, gazed on the familiar indifference of places still uninhabited by the devourers of time. Lighting a cigarette, its long tender legs non-chalantly strolled into a puddle and waited there, in that vague position, for the corner cafe to open. It kept disap-pearing and reappearing, gently vanishing, like someone trying to come into the world although already there – knowing it would not have a voice, but hoping for a sudden joy, like the surprise at a party, long put off because of shyness.

  It was up early; the city streets were deserted. At the newspaper stall, the bored vendor waited, looking out from the wall of magazines, for the daily newspapers to arrive by bicycle.

  Lavender saw the daylight, the swift dissipation of people addicted to rushing even though no one is chasing them. Habitually lazy, it tried to feign an air of initiative, which quickly faded away because it had no memory for how things should be imitated. It changed its mind again, still keeping that ambiguous peace that comes from knowing we’re not observed. Stumbling among the motorbikes that leave a wound in the asphalt as they brake, it slipped into the cafe, to take shape again over the tablecloths covering the newly-dusted tables, and along the glass-divider that keeps the dust off the spongy muffins and crisp cookies.

  It lingered there for a long while in a sort of doze, resigned to the wait, indifferent to its haphazard mood, and then went on to idle, void of purpose, over faces that must be re-composed after the secret battle of night, so that no trace of a powerful dream may remain on the vanquished cheeks and burnt-out gaze. It searches for itself in a shop window, surprised to meet itself. Silence intertwines with its fingers like a long thread that is hard to unravel. The fear of death returns, and this feeling dissolves all consciousness of necessity. Its understanding of death is a dispassionate awareness that cannot be shaken off.