Innocence

by Penelope Fitzgerald

  Not long after Chiara had left her aunt suddenly reappeared from Vienna. It was a city for old people, she said, for the superannuated and depressives and for women wearing felt hats — but think what they have suffered, my dear, said Giancarlo — human sufferings aren’t to be thought about, said Maddalena, only the human future. One thought might lead to the other, he replied, and then broke the news of Chiara’s engagement. ‘A young doctor, very well thought-of.’ Maddalena remembered something, though not exactly, about a concert.

  That evening Monsignor Gondi rang up, the family duty call, which, however, he always made as useful as possible. Before the engagement could be so much as mentioned he launched, once again, with his usual insane persistence over small details, into the matter of L’Inconsolabile. He was trying to complete his case notes before presenting the entire report on the city’s activities to the Cardinal Archbishop of Florence. These notes, by the way, showed that Rossi senior had been a communist activist and an associate of Antonio Gramsci.

  It was Maddalena who took this call. All day she had been out at the Ricordanza. For some reason, perhaps connected with her visit to Vienna, she had arrived there in her ‘English’ mood, and caused consternation by saying that the place looked cheerless and that she would ‘do the flowers’. To do the flowers all ’inglese she needed gloves, scissors, a certain kind of pinafore, a pantry with a cupboard full of vases and glass jars and a sink, none of which were to hand at the Ricordanza — and of course, flowers, which the Ricordanza did not provide either. Behind the evergreen private garden there were quantities of rambler roses, of a variety peculiar to this one villa alone, the result of a cross made in 1913 by the Ridolfi gardener between a wichuriana and the deep purple old-fashioned Tuscany — but ‘rambler’ was not the appropriate word for the rose, which in defiance of the seasons, and even of gravity, extended in deeper and deeper masses over the south-western wall. The notion of pruning had been given up for many years. Roses could be seen even in the darkness at the heart of the bushes. But they were in no way suitable for decoration or arrangement, only branches several metres long could be dragged down, spattering a myriad petals and, even in a dry autumn, drops of moisture. Apart from these roses there was only what was growing in pots on the front terraces. ‘You should have given detailed instructions,’ Giancarlo pointed out. Maddalena felt, every year, that she must have done so.

  At the Ricordanza it had not been possible to check discussion of the Contessina’s arrival there, a week earlier, with a man. The gardener had been told by a friend who was delivering a roll of barbed wire at Sangallo that she had been driving a farm truck from the direction of Villa Harrington and a man had been following her on a Vespa. The gardener himself had been coming and going, because this was the day which he reserved for selling the plants he grew on his own account, and, since these were women’s matters, he had to tell his story, in an indirect way, through his wife. He had heard the van going away and seen it leave for Florence, but not the Vespa, it must have gone back to Lo Scampolo. No-one could identify the man, but everyone was ready to speculate.

  Maddalena couldn’t see any advantage in her brother knowing what was being said either at the Villa or by the Monsignore. Her heart sank at the thought of making further enquiries. The Ridolfi were puzzlers, rather than schemers. Without enthusiasm she learned that Dr Rossi was brilliantly clever. Clever people are not happy. Another piece of information was that the doctor didn’t have girl-friends, but a mistress, in the old-fashioned way. This, perhaps, might be considered reassuring.

  ‘I shall be here rather longer than I thought,’ she said. ‘I shall have one or two things to arrange which I didn’t expect, I mean before we announce the engagement.’

  To her surprise, Giancarlo told her that he didn’t like to see her looking so worried.

  ‘You mean I’m looking ugly.’

  ‘I do mean that, yes. Evidently Vienna wasn’t a success. Perhaps there was some miscalculation. Perhaps after all the von Hötzendorfs don’t much like you.’

  ‘They do like me. You can’t be mistaken about that. About being loved yes, about being liked, no.’

  ‘In any case, I think you need a little more rest.’

  ‘You can’t have been listening to me. I told you I had a number of things, or I suppose you might call it one thing, to see to.’

  ‘How long will you need?’

  ‘I don’t know yet, you must let me take my own time.’

  ‘Of course, my dear, who else’s? But I still believe that it would be a good idea, grateful though I am for your company, for you to take a little holiday.’

  ‘In God’s name, a holiday from what?’ asked Maddalena. It struck her that he was almost anxious for her to go. In this she was quite right. Giancarlo was afraid that she might find out, if she stayed in Florence much longer, what Annunziata had repeated to him on hearsay from the gardener’s wife’s sister-in-law, who had called at the Ricordanza not knowing that it was still half shut-up, and hoping that extra help might be needed in the house. The Contessina had been seen walking through the limonaia and into the house with a man, who must have induced her to go upstairs, and later shutters had been thrown open and the white summer bedcovers had been flung out to air and they had been laughing, the two of them, like children at a joke.

  ‘Not much concealment there,’ said the Count. Annunziata and he had been allies for so long (drawn even closer now, if possible, by their dread of Barney) that he did not need even to hint at instructions. He did not need to say that by means of one threat or another the depositions of the gardener’s wife’s sister-in-law must be silenced. But poor Maddalena mustn’t on any account be concerned with the matter, and above all he wanted to avoid asking Chiara about it, because she would tell him the truth.

  39

  Maddalena’s mind moved from point to point not rationally but in a series of clear bright pictures, showing what had been and what ought to be. Her memory worked for her without the inconvenience of regret. It was in good repair. Called upon, it reminded her that at the beginning of the summer one of the Corsini, or it might have been one of the Capponi, or both, described Chiara as getting wet, or soaking wet, during the interval at the Teatro della Pergola because she had been talking to a man, a doctor, introduced by Mimi Limentani. He was said to have done Mimi a great deal of good.

  She called on Mimi who was back from her first summer vacation. Mimi, out of sheer kindness of heart, treated all visits as an unexpected honour. She paced her gleaming apartment on seven-centimetre heels, nodding her head apparently as a hen does, as a necessary part of the movement, ringing for tea, and picking up this thing or that thing which might interest or please her caller. Maddalena, she knew, had imposed a kind of pact on her not to discuss either her grandchildren or her illnesses. Nothing about those, then, but there must be other subjects; there was a vast new book she had just bought in via Tornabuoni, drawings attributed to Bertoldo di Giovanni. On huge expanses of thick paper appeared reproductions of faint scribbles in red chalk, a nose, part of a ladder, a horse’s rump.

  ‘They’re so interesting, one could look at them for hours.’

  She lowered the weighty volume onto Mad’s fragile knees.

  ‘Are you quite well, Mimi?’

  Maddalena shut her book, the great pages closing with a voluptuous slap. Mimi’s short-sighted, swimming gaze brightened. She could scarcely believe her luck.

  ‘Oh, but you haven’t come here to listen to my aches and pains. In any case, I don’t really want to talk about them.’

  This was manifestly untrue, and Mimi began to explain how a certain pain, originating at the base of her spine — she wouldn’t try to show exactly where because that would mean twisting round and might start it off again — how this pain travelled gradually upwards, always towards the right shoulder, then across to the left shoulder, then, unless she was very lucky — she called those her white days — it began to travel back again, but here was what she
was always told was the unusual and interesting thing, it didn’t always take the same route back again, sometimes it even seemed to waver a little, as though wondering which direction to take.

  ‘Who told you your pain was unusual and interesting?’

  Mimi seemed a little dashed.

  ‘I mean, which doctor told you that? Weren’t you consulting someone in particular?’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid I’ve consulted rather a lot of people. I don’t ask much of them, you know. All I’m really looking for is freedom from pain even for a few weeks so that I can sort out my life a little and have more of it to give to my friends.’

  Perhaps she really does suffer, Mad thought. I must bear that in mind.

  Under close interrogation, Mimi remembered seeing Chiara at the Teatro della Pergola quite well, or said she did. Dear Chiara, such a fair complexion, sometimes she had a good colour, sometimes she looked for all the world like the Bimba Ammalata. This doll, the Sick Child, was one of the latest products of the delicacy and ingenuity of Italian commercial design. Mimi, as she now admitted, had bought three of them for her descendants, and she tapped and nodded away to her bedroom to fetch them. The dolls had little girls’ faces of waxen pallor, and seemed to be on the point of living and breathing.

  ‘I can’t bring myself to wrap them up. Believe me, I’m dreading the moment when my grand-daughters come to fetch them.’

  ‘You can always get yourself a couple of dozen more at Anichini’s,’ said Maddalena tartly. ‘Put them away, Mimi, and never mind Chiara’s complexion. Don’t forget, we were talking about your health.’

  Mimi sat down.

  ‘You’re so good to me today, Maddalena.’

  ‘I’m exactly the same as usual.’

  ‘As a matter of fact there’s something I wanted to ask you. You asked me just now who I’d been consulting, and that made me think of it. I’ve heard, only I can’t remember where, that there’s a very good young doctor, a nerve-doctor, at one of the hospitals, a young man called Salvatore Rossi. Do you know anything about him?’

  I should never have come here, Maddalena thought. It was idiotic.

  40

  On the day after next, however, there appeared under Ringraziamenti, the Thanks section of the Nazione, a paragraph repeated twenty-five times, so that it filled the entire column:

  Ringraziamento. I wish to thank from the bottom of my heart Doctor Salvatore Rossi of this city, who has cured me of innumerable grievous illnesses which have tormented me for many years. The burden has now been lifted from me and I wish only to express the depths of my gratitude.

  Miriam Limentani, Piazetta Spini-Ferroni 2.

  Maddalena had all the Ridolfi trust in the triumph of good intentions. She was not surprised, but she felt justified. Sheer gratitude at having been allowed to discuss her ailments must have induced in Mimi a sense of unworthiness, and guilt must have prompted the memory. Or more likely she had summoned another friend to help her with her recollections, more tea, more nodding and tapping, more vaguely diffused benevolence, and the waxen Sick Children no doubt brought forth again — these, for some reason, had been a particular irritation to Maddalena — still, there it was, honourable amends, twenty-five paragraphs from one who thought she had been done good to.

  By way of an answer to the Monsignore’s telephone call she sent him a copy of the Nazione, writing across one corner that Dr Rossi was known throughout the city and its environs as the Angel of Healing. Giancarlo never read the newspapers, and professed not to know what she was doing.

  41

  Nothing would have kept Chiara in London except the sight of Barney’s collapse. She didn’t dare, in the name of humanity itself, to leave Kensington until Barney, reviving, had begun to hector her again in the old way. It was heartening to be told once again what to do and what not. There was a reassurance, as though some familiar domestic force, gravity perhaps, had been temporarily overwhelmed and reasserted itself.

  ‘Cha, you’ll have to make up your mind quite seriously to do something about him. You’d better draw up a list and stick to it very carefully. I expect your father and your aunt are going to Florence at this very moment, trying to make out that he’s not as frightful as he seems.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ asked Chiara absently, seeing that it would be all right for her to book into the next flight for Pisa.

  But she arrived a day later than Salvatore, who was furious to find out that she was still away, and immensely glad to have the extra time to dispose of. Having made a first agreement to the sale at Mazzata, he had to see his lawyer at once, and then (for he too tried to work to a list) put aside the evening for the purpose of having an explanation with Marta.

  When he got the appointment in Florence Salvatore had determined, at the grave risk of seeming old-fashioned and provincial, to make a regular arrangement with a reliable young woman. In that way he would keep both freedom and control. Greatly to his irritation, Marta was a dressmaker. A dressmaker, what else, what a comedy, and on that account he would probably have broken with her long ago, except that it’s difficult to put an end to something that has started for no particular reason. If a reason had to be given it might have been convenience, since she lived not so very far from the hospital.

  Marta’s great attraction, on the other hand, had always been considered by her family to be her hair. She kept it long. On Tuesday evenings, since there was no hot water in the flats where she lived, she had it washed next door at the hairdresser’s for whom in return she did a little sewing. Her married sister, with whom she shared a flat, had told her never to cut it, as it was something a man couldn’t resist.

  This hair of Marta’s was somewhere between blonde and brown, a colour which, Marta’s sister continued, rapidly drove men mad. Franca claimed the right to say these things, presumably, by right of seniority and of possessing the experience of marriage, although it was pretty clear that Dr Rossi was not being driven mad in the least and that Franca’s experiences in the Empire style matrimonial bed were not very different from Marta’s in the top room. This room was next to a kind of loft open to the sky where the washing was hung up to dry; it was divided by a curtain. Behind the curtain was a divan bed, a looking glass and a row of hooks, so that the customers could hang up their things when they came for fittings. The floor was usually covered with long pieces of white tacking thread which Marta energetically pulled out and threw down as the fitting advanced. Near the window she had her Necchi on its own table, her armchair and a pile of back copies of Vogue and Moda and Marilyn, tattered with leafing through. Marta also liked Funny-Books. Some of these told the story of the film in pictures, others the lives of the saints. Waiting for her to come upstairs one evening Salvatore had been reduced to looking through a Funny containing the story of a charitable monk, who caused a beggar’s fleas, through prayer, to be transformed into pure gold. Marta came upstairs tired, but with her hair washed and shining.

  ‘Why do you read this rubbish?’

  She looked at him with the tolerance of a household pet who has learnt to consider anger as a game. Besides, how could anyone be angry about a book?

  This evening Marta was at home, still in her black dressmaker’s overall. She gave him her usual smile and began to undress. A mistress in an attic, waiting from one Wednesday to another, why doesn’t she break into an aria, or both of us into a duet? They would have to finish the duet in harmony, in spite of the fact that he would be singing ‘we must part’ while she, an octave above, was repeating ‘forever’. Marta stood looking at him with her tailored blouse in her hands. She was thirty-eight. Without this blouse and her Favorita bra, the only thing she wore that she didn’t make for herself, her untidy breasts fell sideways. ‘Get dressed again,’ said Salvatore. The next thing, from long-established habit, should have been for him to take off her glasses.

  ‘Don’t you want it?’

  ‘I want to talk to you seriously,’ he said, walking about the room. ‘I wa
nt you to attend to me, but without any feeling of resentment, there mustn’t be any question of that.’

  Afterwards he usually took her out to dinner at Frizzi, although she scarcely ate anything, so that she could wave at her friends and show them that she was still going with that doctor of hers. No Frizzi tonight.

  The speech prepared by Salvatore as he came along a little while earlier had a political and indeed a moral basis. We were now half way through the nineteen fifties, the war had been over for more than ten years. ‘It’s time that we began to accept, for good or ill, the changes that have been forced upon us.’ Marta, he had reflected, might interrupt him at that point and say, ‘Don’t I know it, no-one cares for anything now except easy money,’ but he would tell her he meant something of greater importance than that. ‘I mean the question of using our own free will to break out of prison — we all of us live in our own self-created prisons and we may be in danger of forgetting that this is what they are. In Italy the relationships between men and women have been fixed I suppose since long before the Christian era, but it doesn’t mean that because they have lasted so long that they are necessarily right, or that there is no hope of changing them. Italy has been hurried into the twentieth century, we’re all aware of that, and we must face it with reason and courage. The relationship between us has been, I hope, one of affection, but also of physical need and financial convenience. Has it ever occurred to you, Marta, that whereas you’ve accepted overnight the miracles of Olivetti and Necchi, your dependence on men as a sex and your subservience to them is quite archaic? The truth is, however, and it’s your duty to recognize this clearly, that every human relationship should be equal partnership. It’s here that I think you’ll have to admit that you’re falling short.’