The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories

by Jhumpa Lahiri

  He went on: ‘Paolo, you’re lucky to bear the name of the one apostle who had a bit of culture and a smattering of reading under his belt. Though Jerome would have been better. The other names you Christians carry around are truly contemptible. The names of slaves.’

  I was disappointed again. He really seemed like nothing more than a typical anticlerical academic with a pinch of Fascist Nietzscheism thrown in. Could it be?

  He voice rose and fell appealingly as he continued to speak, with the ardour, perhaps, of someone who had passed a great deal of time in silence. ‘Corbera … Is that not one of the great names of Sicily, or am I mistaken? I remember that my father paid the annual rent for our house in Aci Castello to the administrator of a House of Corbera di Palina, or Salina, I can’t recall which. He’d always joke and say that if there was one thing that was certain in this world, it was that those few lire weren’t going to end up in the pockets of the “demesne,” as he called it. But are you one of those Corberas, or just a descendant of some peasant who took his master’s name?’

  I confessed that I really was a Corbera di Salina, the sole surviving specimen, in fact. All the opulence, all the sins, all the uncollected rents, all the unpaid debts, all the political opportunism of the Leopard were concentrated in me alone. Paradoxically, the senator seemed pleased.

  ‘That’s fine, just fine. I have a great deal of respect for the old families. Their memory is … miniscule, of course, but still it’s greater than the others’. It’s as much of physical immortality as your sort can hope for. Think about getting married soon, Corbera, seeing as how your sort haven’t found any better way to survive than scattering your seed in the strangest places.’

  He was definitely trying my patience. ‘Your sort.’ Who was that? The whole contemptible herd that was not fortunate enough to be Senator La Ciura? Who’d attained physical immortality? You’d never know it from looking at his wrinkled face, his sagging flesh …

  ‘Corbera di Salina,’ he continued, undeterred, ‘You don’t mind if I call you tu, as I do with my students in their fleeting youth?’

  I professed to be not only honoured but delighted, and I was. Moving beyond questions of names and protocol, we now spoke of Sicily. It had been twenty years since he’d set foot on the island, and the last time he’d been ‘down there,’ as he called it in the Piedmontese manner, he’d stayed a mere five days, in Syracuse, to talk to Paolo Orsi about the alternating choruses in classical theatre.

  ‘I remember they wanted to take me in a car from Catania to Syracuse; I accepted only when I learned that at Augusta the road passes far from the sea, whereas the train follows the coastline. Tell me about our island. It’s a beautiful places, even if it is inhabited by donkeys. The gods once sojourned there – and perhaps in some endless Augusts they return. But don’t on any account speak to me about those four modern temples of yours, not that that’s anything you’d understand, I’m sure.’

  So we spoke about eternal Sicily, the Sicily of the natural world; about the scent of rosemary on the Nebrodi Mountains and the taste of Melilli honey; about the swaying cornfields seen from Etna on a windy day in May, some secluded spots near Syracuse, and the fragrant gusts from the citrus plantations known to sweep down on Palermo during sunset in June. We spoke of those magic summer nights, looking out over the gulf of Castellammare, when the stars are mirrored in the sleeping sea, and how, lying on your back among the mastic trees, your spirit is lost in the whirling heavens, while the body braces itself, fearing the approach of demons.

  The senator had scarcely visited the island for fifty years, and yet his memory of certain minute details was remarkably precise. ‘Sicily’s sea is the most vividly coloured, the most romantic of any I have ever seen; it’s the only thing you won’t manage to ruin, at least away from the cities. Do the trattorias by the sea still serve spiny urchins, split in half?’

  I assured him that they did, though adding that few people ate them now, for fear of typhus.

  ‘And yet they are the most beautiful thing you have down there, bloody and cartilaginous, the very image of the female sex, fragrant with salt and seaweed. Typhus, typhus! They’re dangerous as all gifts from the sea are; the sea offers death as well as immortality. In Syracuse I demanded that Orsi order them immediately. What flavour! How divine in appearance! My most beautiful memory of the last fifty years!’

  I was confused and fascinated: a man of such stature indulging in almost obscene metaphors, displaying an infantile appetite for the altogether mediocre pleasure of eating sea urchins!

  Our conversation stretched out, and on leaving he insisted on paying for my espresso, not without a display of his peculiar coarseness (‘Everyone knows kids from good families are always broke’). We parted friends, if you disregard the fifty-year difference between our ages and the thousands of light years separating our cultures.

  We proceeded to see each other every evening; even as my rage against humanity began to wane, I made it my duty never to fail to meet the senator in the underworld of Via Po. Not that we chatted much; he continued to read and take notes and only addressed me occasionally, but when he spoke it was always a melodious flow of pride and insolence, sprinkled with disparate allusions and strands of impenetrable poetry. He continued to spit as well, and eventually I observed that he did so only while he read. I believe that he also developed a certain affection for me, but I didn’t delude myself. If there was affection it wasn’t anything like what one of ‘our sort’ (to adopt the senator’s term) might feel for a human being; instead it was similar to what an elderly spinster might feel for her pet goldfinch, whose vacuousness and lack of understanding she is well aware of, but whose existence allows her to express aloud regrets in which the creature plays no part; and yet, if the pet were not there, she would suffer a distinct malaise. In fact, I began to notice that when I arrived late the old man’s eyes, haughty as ever, were fixed on the entrance.

  It took roughly a month for us to pass from topical observations – always highly original but impersonal on his part – to more indelicate subjects, which are after all the only ones that distinguish conversations between friends from those between mere acquaintances. I was the one who took the initiative. His spitting bothered me – it had also bothered the guardians of Hades, who finally brought a very shiny brass spittoon to his spot – such that one evening I dared to inquire why he didn’t seek a cure for his chronic catarrh. I asked the question without thinking and immediately regretted risking it, expecting the senatorial ire to bring the stucco work on the ceiling raining down on my head. Instead his richly toned voice replied calmly, ‘But my dear Corbera, I have no catarrh. You who observe so carefully should have noticed that I never cough before spitting. My spitting is not a sign of sickness but of mental health: I spit out of disgust for the rubbish I happen to be reading. If you took the trouble to examine that contrivance’ – (and he gestured at the spittoon) – ‘you would realize that it contains hardly any saliva and no trace of mucus. My spitting is symbolic and highly cultural; if you don’t like it, go back to your native drawing rooms, where people don’t spit only because they can’t be bothered to be nauseated by anything.’

  His extraordinary insolence was mitigated solely by his distant gaze; I nevertheless felt the desire to stand up and walk out on him then and there. Fortunately I had the time to reflect that the fault lay in my rashness. I stayed, and the impassive senator immediately passed to counterattack. ‘And you then, why patronize this Erebus full of shades and, as you say, catarrh sufferers, this locus of failed lives? In Turin there’s no shortage of those creatures your sort finds so desirable. A trip to the Castello hotel in Rivoli, or to the baths in Moncalieri and your squalid aspiration would soon be fulfilled.’

  I began to laugh at hearing such a cultured mouth offer such precise information about the Turinese demimonde. ‘But how do you come to know about such places, Senator?’

  ‘I know them, Corbera, I know them. Anyone spending time with po
liticians or members of the Academic Senate learns this, and nothing more. You will, however, do me the favour of being convinced that the sordid pleasures of your sort have never been stuff for Rosario La Ciura.’ One could sense that it was true: In the senator’s bearing and in his words there was the unmistakable sign of a sexual reserve (as one said in 1938) that had nothing to do with age.

  ‘The truth is, Senator, it was precisely my search for some temporary refuge from the world that first brought me here. I’d had trouble with two of just the sort of women you’ve so rightfully condemned.’

  His response was immediate and pitiless. ‘Betrayed, eh, Corbera? Or was it disease?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. Worse: desertion.’ And I told him about the ridiculous events of two months earlier. I spoke of them in a light, facetious manner; the ulcer on my self-regard had closed, and anyone but that damned Hellenist would have teased me or possibly even sympathized. But the fearful old man did neither; instead he was indignant.

  ‘This is what happens, Corbera, when wretched and diseased beings couple. What’s more, I’d say the same to those two little trollops with respect to you, if I had the revolting misfortune to meet them.’

  ‘Diseased, Senator? Both of them were in wonderful shape; you should have seen how they ate when we dined at Gli Specchi. And as for wretched, no, not at all: Each was a magnificent figure of a young woman, and elegant as well.’

  The senator hissingly spat his scorn. ‘Diseased, I said, and made no mistake. In fifty, sixty years, perhaps much sooner, they will die; so they are already now diseased. And wretched as well. Some elegance they’ve got, composed of trinkets, stolen sweaters and sweet talk picked up at the movies. Some generosity too, fishing for greasy banknotes in their lover’s pockets rather than presenting him, as others do, with pink pearls and branches of coral. This is what happens when one goes in for those little monstrosities with painted faces. And were you all not disgusted – they as much as you, you as much as they – to kiss and cuddle your future carcasses between evil-smelling sheets?’

  I replied stupidly, ‘But Senator, the sheets were always perfectly clean!’

  He fumed. ‘What do the sheets have to do with it? The inevitable cadaver stink came from you. I repeat, how can you consent to carouse with people of their kind, of your kind?’

  I, who already had my eyes on an enchanting sometime seamstress, took offense. ‘It’s not as if one can sleep with nothing but Most Serene Highnesses!’

  ‘Who said anything about Most Serene Highnessess? They’re bound for the charnel house like the rest. But this isn’t something you’d understand, young man, and I was wrong to mention it. It is fated that you and your girlfriends will wade ever further into the noxious swamps of your foul pleasures. There are very few who know better.’ Gazing up at the ceiling, he began to smile; a ravished expression spread over his face; then he shook my hand and left.

  We didn’t see each other for three days; on the fourth I received a telephone call in the editorial office. ‘Is this Signor Corbera? My name is Bettina Carmagnola, I’m Senator La Ciura’s housekeeper. He asks me to tell you that he has had a bad cold, and that now he is better and wishes to see you tonight after dinner. Come to 18 Via Bertola at nine, second floor.’ The call, abruptly interrupted, became unappealable.

  The building at 18 Via Bertola was a dilapidated old structure, but the senator’s apartment was large and – thanks, I suppose, to the diligence of Bettina – well maintained. In the entrance hall began the parade of books, of those modest-looking, economically bound volumes found in all living libraries; there were thousands of them in the three rooms I crossed. In the fourth sat the senator, wrapped in a very ample camel-hair dressing gown that was smoother and softer than any I’d ever seen. I learned later that the fabric wasn’t camel at all but was made from the precious wool of a Peruvian animal, and that the gown was a gift from the Academic Senate of Lima. The senator refrained from rising when I entered but welcomed me with considerable warmth. He was better, completely fine, in fact, and planned to be back in circulation as soon as the bitter cold spell that had descended on Turin in those days had passed. He offered me some resinous Cypriot wine, a gift from the Italian Institute of Athens; some atrocious pink lokums from the Archaeological Mission of Ankara; and some more sensible Turinese sweets purchased by the provident Bettina. He was in such good humour that he gave two full-mouth smiles and even went so far as to apologize for his outbursts in Hades.

  ‘I know, Corbera, I know. I was excessive in my words, however restrained – believe me – in my concepts. Don’t give it another thought.’

  I really didn’t think about it; indeed I was full of respect for the old man, whom I suspected of being tremendously unhappy notwithstanding his triumphant career. He devoured the revolting lokums.

  ‘Sweets, Corbera, ought to be sweet and nothing but. If they have another flavour they are like perverted kisses.’ He gave large crumbs to Aeacus, a stocky boxer that had entered the room at some point. ‘This creature, Corbera, for those capable of appreciating him, more closely resembles the Immortals, despite his ugliness, than your little temptresses.’ He refused to show me his library. ‘It’s all classics, stuff that wouldn’t interest someone like you, a moral failure in Greek.’ But he did lead me around the room we were in, which was his study. There were few books, among which I noted the theatre of Tirso de Molina, Fouqué’s Undine, Giraudoux’s play of the same name, and, to my surprise, the works of H.G. Wells; but in compensation, on the walls, were enormous life-size photographs of archaic Greek statues, and not the typical photographs that any of us could procure for ourselves but stupendous reproductions, clearly requested with authority and sent with devotion by museums around the world. They were all there, the magnificent creatures: the Louvre’s Horseman, the Seated Goddess from Taranto that is in Berlin, the Warrior from Delphi, one of the Korai of the Acropolis, the Apollo of Piombino, the Lapith Woman and the Phoebus from Olympia, the famous Charioteer … The room shone with their ecstatic and at the same time ironic smiles, gloried in the calm arrogance of their bearing. ‘You see, Corbera, perhaps these, if one is so fortunate; the local “maidens,” no.’ Above the fireplace, ancient amphorae and craters: Odysseus tied to the mast of his boat, the Sirens casting themselves down onto the rocks in expiation for having let their prey escape. ‘Lies, Corbera, the lies of petit bourgeois poets. No one escapes, and even if someone did, the Sirens would never destroy themselves for so little. In any case, how could they die?’

  On an end table stood a faded old photograph, simply framed, of a young man around twenty, almost nude, his curly hair disheveled, with a bold expression and features of rare beauty. Perplexed, I stopped myself for a moment. I thought I understood. Not at all. ‘And this, countryman, this was and is, and will be,’ he stressed, ‘Rosario La Ciura.’

  The broken-down senator in a dressing gown had been a young god.

  Our conversation then turned to other matters. Before I left he showed me a letter in French from the rector of the University of Coimbra inviting him to be a guest of honour at a Greek studies conference in Portugal in May. ‘I’m very pleased. I’ll go aboard the Rex in Genoa along with the French, Swiss and German participants. Like Odysseus I’ll plug my ears in order not to hear the drivel of those moral cripples, and there’ll be beautiful days of sailing: the sun, the blue sky, the smell of the sea.’

  On my way out we again passed the shelf containing the works of Wells, and I ventured to show my surprise at seeing them there. ‘You’re right, Corbera, they’re ghastly. There’s one novella there that, were I to reread it, would make me spit nonstop for a month; and even you, salon lapdog that you are, you would be appalled.’

  Following my visit our relations became decidedly cordial – on my part at least. I went to great lengths to have some exceptionally fresh sea urchins brought in from Genoa. When I learned that they would arrive the following day I procured some Etna wine and farmer’s bread and n
ervously invited the senator to visit me in my tiny apartment. To my great relief he very happily accepted. I picked him up in my Fiat 508 and dragged him all the way to Via Peyron, which is something of a backwater. In the car he displayed some fear and no confidence whatsoever in my driving skills. ‘I know you now, Corbera; if we’re unlucky enough to encounter one of your abortions in a frock, you’re liable to turn your head and send us both smashing into the corner of a building.’ We met no skirted monstrosity worthy of note and arrived safely.

  For the first time since I met him I saw the senator laugh – when we entered my bedroom. ‘So then, Corbera, this is the theatre of your vile exploits.’ He examined my few books. ‘Fine, fine. Perhaps you’re less ignorant than you seem. This one here,’ he added as he picked up a volume of Shakespeare, ‘this one here understood something. “A sea-change into something rich and strange.”1 “What potions have I drunk of Siren tears?”’2

  When the good Signora Carmagnola entered the drawing room carrying the tray of sea urchins, lemons, and the rest, the senator was ecstatic. ‘This was your idea? How did you know they are the thing I long for more than any other?’

  ‘You can safely enjoy them, Senator; this morning they were still in the Ligurian Sea.’

  ‘Yes, of course, your sort are always the same, slaves to your decadence, to your putrescence; your long, asinine ears always straining to make out the shuffling steps of Death. Poor devils! Thank you, Corbera, you’ve been a good famulus. It’s a shame they’re not from the sea down there, these urchins, that they haven’t been steeped in our algae; their spines have surely never drawn a drop of divine blood. You’ve done what was possible, certainly, but these urchins, having dozed on the cold reefs of Nervi or Arenzano, they’re almost boreal.’ It was clear that he was one of those Sicilians for whom the Ligurian Riviera – considered a tropical region by the Milanese – may as well be Iceland. The urchins, split in half, revealed their wounded, blood-red, strangely compartmentalized flesh. I’d never paid attention before now, but after the senator’s bizarre comparisons they really did seem like cross sections of who knows what delicate female organs. He consumed them avidly but without cheer, with a meditative, almost sorrowful air. He didn’t want to squeeze any lemon over them.