Letter from Casablanca

SATURDAY AFTERNOONS

He was on a bicycle,” said Nena. “He wore a knotted handkerchief on his head. I saw him very well. He saw me, too. He wanted something here at home. I understood him. But he went by as if he couldn’t stop. It was exactly two o’clock.”

Nena then wore a metal contraption on her upper teeth, which persisted in growing crooked. She had a reddish cat that she called “My Belafonte” and spent the day singing “Banana Boat” to herself — or preferably whistling it, because thanks to her teeth the whistle turned out very well, better than mine. Mama seemed very annoyed, but usually she didn’t yell at her. She limited herself to saying, “Leave the poor animal in peace.” Or, when you saw that she was very sad and was pretending to rest in the armchair, and Nena ran into the garden under the oleanders, where she had installed her own pied-à-terre, Mama would appear at the window pushing back a lock of hair that was stuck to her with perspiration, and wearily, not as if she were scolding but almost as if it were a private lament, a litany, she would say to her, “Stop whistling that nonsense. Does it seem right to you? You know that respectable little girls shouldn’t whistle.”

Nena’s pied-à-terre consisted of the blue canvas deck chair which had been Papa’s favorite and which she had propped against two terra cotta pots of privet to make a wall. On the lawn, which served as the floor, she had arranged all her dolls (her “little friends”), the poor Belafonte tied on a leash, and a red tin telephone, a present which Aunt Yvonne had given me the previous year for my Saint’s Day, and which I had then passed on to Nena. I had never liked it very much anyway. It was a stupid toy and absolutely inadequate for a boy of my age. But you had to have patience and be polite, said Mama. Aunt Yvonne didn’t have any children — not because she hadn’t wanted them, poor thing — and she didn’t have the slightest notion of what toys were suited to a boy. To tell the truth, Aunt Yvonne didn’t have the slightest notion of anything, not even of what to say in certain circumstances. She was so careless that she was always late for appointments, and when she came to our house she always left something on the train. “But even so, there’s no harm done,” said Mama. “It’s a good thing you forgot something, otherwise what would become of us?” And Aunt Yvonne smiled like a guilty little girl, looking very embarrassed at all the luggage that she had deposited in the entry, while in the street the taxi tooted to remind her that she still had to pay.

And so, characteristically, she had committed “an unpardonable gaffe,” as she had said, making the situation worse, while Mama sobbed on the divan. (But then Mama had forgiven her at once.) When she had arrived at our house immediately after the misfortune, she had announced herself by a telephone call which old Tommaso had answered, from which she had taken leave by saying, “Regards to the young gentleman officer.” And that stupid Tommaso had repeated it, crying like a calf. But what would you expect him to do? He was arteriosclerotic, and I had always heard it said that even as a young man he hadn’t been very smart. He had repeated it while Mama talked with the notary in the living room that infernal day in which she had had to think of everything, “of everything except what I really wanted to think of, alone with my pain.” But the fact was that Aunt Yvonne had repeated that leave-taking for years. It was a joke that went back to 1941, when Papa and Mama were engaged. He was an officer at La Spezia. So that she and Aunt Yvonne could have a vacation, he had rented a little villa in Rapallo, the proprietor of which was a very polite lady who did not miss an opportunity to emphasize her aristocratic origins, however questionable. She loved to make conversation while she watered the garden when Mama and Aunt Yvonne were outside on the terrace and, taking leave, she always said, “Regards to the young gentleman officer,” which made Aunt Yvonne break into giggles, promptly leave the terrace, and laugh herself silly.

So Mama, those summer hours after dinner, while she lay in an armchair with her eyes covered with a handkerchief, heard Nena whistling “Banana Boat,” sighed, and let it alone. “What do you want her to do, poor treasure?” I had heard Aunt Yvonne say. “If she’s not happy at her age, when do you expect her to be? Let her alone.” And Mama, with her eyes glistening, had nodded, wringing her hands. It was the first of May and Aunt Yvonne had come to say good-bye. She was contrite in her careless way. She said, “My dear, you realize there’s nothing else we can do. What do you expect? Rodolfo can’t stay here any longer. You know they all pounce on him like jackals. A day doesn’t go by that it isn’t in the financial pages. No one can live like this, not even the president of the Bank of Italy. And then you know the job in Switzerland is a prestigious thing. We haven’t had any children, unfortunately. Up to now his only satisfaction has been his career. I certainly can’t interfere with the meaning of his life — it would be inhumane. But Lausanne really isn’t the end of the world, is it? We’ll see each other at least once a year. In fact, we’ll surely be here in September, and when you want to come our house is always open.” It was a Sunday morning. Mama had put on a little black veil because she was already ready for Mass. She stayed motionless on her chair and stared beyond Aunt Yvonne, who was sitting opposite her, beyond the buffet in the living room, which was behind Aunt Yvonne, and slowly nodded her head yes, calmly, with resignation, and with an air of understanding and tenderness.

Sundays had become much sadder without Aunt Yvonne’s visits. At least when she came there was a bit of movement, even confusion, because she descended upon us unexpectedly, and the telephone rang as long as she remained in our house and even afterwards. Furthermore, she wore a kitchen apron that turned out to be very funny over those classy outfits that she wore — long silk skirts, chiffon blouses, a super chic little hat with an organza camellia — and dolled up in that way she declared that she would prepare a French delicacy — Versailles mousse, for example — because the food in our house was “horrifyingly mundane.” Then it happened that at the last minute Mama had to resort to horrifyingly mundane veal scallops with lemon and buttered peas because between one telephone call and another Aunt Yvonne would have finished the mousse at four o’clock in the afternoon, and Nena and I, impatient, were going around the kitchen stealing breadsticks and cubes of cheese. But even so, all that turmoil brought about at least a little bit of happiness, even if later on it fell to Mama to wash six or seven pyrex bowls. But anyway, the mousse kept until the next day and it was truly delicious.

For all of May and part of June the days passed quickly enough. Mama was extremely busy with her azaleas, which that spring were very slow. They seemed reluctant to show themselves, as if they, too, had suffered with all the family. “Flowers are so sensible,” said Mama, working the soil. “They are perfectly aware of what is happening. They’re sensitive.” And I was very much occupied with the third declension, kinds of parisyllabics, and the imparisyllabics. I never succeeded in remembering which took an um and which took an ium. The teacher had said, “This boy has done badly since the beginning of the year. He confuses all the declensions, and then what do you expect, dear lady? Latin is a precise language. It’s like mathematics. If one’s not cut out for it, one’s not cut out. He is much better in free composition. In any case, he can make up the work with study.” And so I had spent the whole month of May trying to make up, but evidently I had not made up enough.

June passed fairly well. The azaleas finally flowered, even if not as majestically as in the preceding year. Mama was very busy building them a little greenhouse out of mats, “because the sun bothers them,” it made them wither in the twinkling of an eye, and she placed the pots in the bottom of the garden by the boundary wall, where the sun beat down only after five o’clock.

Poor Tommaso bustled around like mad in spite of the tremor in his hands and the step that was no longer what it once had been. He tried to be as useful as he could. He cut the grass with the sickle, gave egg yolks to the lemon trees in pots on the terrace, even tried to sulphur the pergola of grapes, infested with parasites, in front of the garage door. However, he did more harm than good and realizing this he seemed terrified, although without reason. But it was difficult to make him understand this, and he spent the day repeating to Mama not to send him to the nursing home, for the sake of the young gentleman officer whom he had loved like a son, because at the nursing home they would keep him in bed and make him pee in a urinal. His cousin, whom he had gone to visit on Sunday, had told him this, and he rather preferred to die. He had never married. The last time his mother had seen him naked was when he was fourteen years old, and the idea of a young lady making him pee in a urinal sent him into a panic. Then Mama’s eyes grew shiny. She told him, “Don’t talk nonsense, Tommaso. You’ll die here — this is your home,” and Tommaso would have kissed her hands, but Mama drew back and told him to stop complaining, that she had enough sadness already, and he should think instead of pulling up that couch grass thriving under the privet and making the plants die.

The worst days came at the end of July when a heat wave like nothing that had been felt in years broke out. The morning was quite bearable. I put on my roller skates and got a little exercise on the brick avenue that went from the front door to the boundary wall. Mama was busy with dinner. At times she even kept the radio on, and this was a good sign — but only talk programs like the news or “Our Listeners Write to Us.” And if there were songs, she immediately changed the station. But the hours after dinner were sultry and monotonous, heavy with sadness and silence. Even the faraway drone of the city quieted. It seemed that on the house and on the garden a bell of misted glass descended in which the only surviving living things were the cicadas. Mama sat down in the armchair in the living room with a damp handkerchief over her eyes and leaned her head back. I was at the little desk in my anteroom — from where I could see her if I stretched my neck — trying to imprint on my mind nix-nivis and strix-strigis in order to take the make-up exam in September. Nena I could hear messing about in her pied-à-terre singing “Banana Boat” to herself or else shuffling along the avenue because she was taking her Belafonte for a walk as far as the main gate, poor beast, and she whispered to him, “Let’s go see a bit of the world, dearie,” as if in front of our house there was who knows what? But the avenue at that hour was completely deserted, not that it was much frequented at other times either. From the street there, beyond the clearing where the first villas sprang up, you could see the city immersed in a flickering haze, and on the left the avenue ended in the yellow countryside punctuated by trees and isolated farm houses. Toward five o’clock, but not every day, the little ice cream cart passed, with a large chest made like a gondola on which were painted the view of San Marco and the inscription Venetian Specialities. There was a little man who pedaled with great difficulty, blew into a brass trumpet to attract attention, shouted at the top of his lungs, “Two cones, fifty francs!’’ And then there remained silence and solitude.

From the time, after it happened, when Mama had taken to locking the gate so that no one could come in and we could not go out, even to see the ice cream man was better than nothing. My teacher had said that it would have been opportune to have me take private lessons, but Mama had replied that it seemed a bit difficult. We all led a very retiring life, she hoped she understood, and that if it had not been for the tradesmen, she would even have had the telephone cut off. She kept it only for that necessity or if sometime one of us fell sick, and furthermore she kept it off the hook all day because she couldn’t stand its ringing. This was perhaps an excessive precaution, because whoever would have telephoned after Aunt Yvonne moved to Lausanne?

Nena had taken harder than I did Mama’s new habit of not going out anymore, but she didn’t have my luck of being able to fill the after-dinner hours with the plurals in ium. She had nothing to do, poor little thing. In the elementary school they don’t take make-up exams in September. For a little while she tried to while away the time in her pied-à-terre, or she dragged her Belafonte on his leash as far as the gate in order to see a bit of the world. But then she got fed up, she even lost the desire to sing “Banana Boat’’ and she came on tiptoe up to my window and said to me, “I’m bored. Come to my pied-à-terre a little while and play 'Visiting.’ I’ll be the lady and you be the architect who comes to court me.” I sent her away in a low voice so as not to disturb Mama, and if she insisted I told her, strix-strigis strix-strigis, which was an offense she understood very well, and she went away with a furious look, sticking out her tongue at me.

But Mama wasn’t asleep and I knew it. I was aware that at times she cried silently with her head bowed. I would see two tears slide down her cheeks under the handkerchief that covered her eyes. And her hands in her lap, apparently motionless, were imperceptibly trembling. Then I would close my Latin grammar for a while, stare lazily at the sepia-colored Minerva on the cover, and then slip out into the garden by the screen door of the back-kitchen and through part of the garage in order not to be involved in Nena’s stupid games in which I would have to be the architect. On that side the grass was rather tall because Tommaso was not able to cut it, and, immersed in the sticky heat, feeling the savoy cabbage brush against my bare legs, I liked to walk there, as far as the metal grating of the low wall that bordered on the open country. I would go to look for lizards, which nested in that part and which sat on the stones motionless in the sun with their heads raised and their eyes pointing at nothing. I even knew how to catch them with a reed snare which a schoolmate had taught me to make, but I preferred to observe those small bodies, uncomprehending and suspicious of the least little noise as if absorbed in an undecipherable prayer.

I often felt like crying, and I didn’t know why. The tears ran down without my being able to do anything about them, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of my Latin — by then I knew the parisyllabics and the imparisyllabics from memory. Mama was right after all — for these things there’s no need to take lessons or leave the house, a little study is enough. It was just that I felt like crying. And then I sat on the wall watching the lizards and thinking about the previous summer. The memory that made me cry the most was an image of Papa and me on a tandem, he in front and I behind, and Mama and Nena following us on a tandem shouting, “Wait for us!” In the background was the dark pine grove of Forte dei Marmi and in front of us the blue of the sea; Papa wore white trousers, and whoever arrived first at the Balena bath would be the first to eat bilberry ice cream. And then I couldn’t hold back the sobs and I had to cover my mouth with my hands so as not to let Mama hear. My repressed voice was a weak muttering that was like the sound Belafonte made when he refused to be dragged along on his leash. And the saliva, mixed with tears, soaked the handkerchief that I desperately stuffed in my mouth, and then I felt like biting them — my hands — but slowly, very slowly, in nibbles. How strange! At that point everything was mixed up, and I tasted on my palate, sharp, very distinct, with an unequivocal aroma, the flavor of bilberry ice cream.

It was that taste that succeeded in calming me. I felt suddenly exhausted, without strength to cry anymore, to move, to think. Around me in the grass the gnats buzzed and the ants walked by. I seemed to be in a well. I felt an enormous weight inside my chest. I couldn’t even swallow. I remained staring beyond the hedge at the pall of heat that dimmed the horizon. Then slowly I got up and went into the kitchen again. Mama was still pretending to sleep in the armchair, or maybe she really was asleep. I heard Nena scolding her Belafonte. She said, “You silly thing! How is it possible you don’t appreciate a bow like this? Why do you insist on ruining it, silly? None of the other cats have one.” I raised the latch of the window screen and called to her in a low voice, “Pst, pst, Nena! Come into the house and we’ll have a snack. Do you want bread or ricotta? Or would you rather have jam? I’ll open a jar.” And she ran cheerfully, leaving Belafonte, who tried in vain to untie the bow from his neck, in the lurch. She was completely satisfied that I had finally remembered her. Perhaps she still had the hope she would succeed in convincing me to be the architect.

Mama usually came alive around six. She walked through the house putting in order whatever there was to put in order, moving a knickknack an inch or two, smoothing a wrinkled lace doily under a vase. Then she came into the kitchen, washed the dishes that she had not had the heart to wash after eating, and set about to get supper, but without any hurry because there was nothing else to do all evening. Tommaso would not return before ten o’clock. They would give him some soup at the nursing home, where he spent all his days now because his cousin was sick and the young ladies let him stay with him the whole day. “Indeed, they’ll do a favor for anyone who’ll do their sweeping for them,” said Mama disdainfully.

It was the nicest part of the whole day. At least we were together with Mama. We finally talked a little, even if il wasn’t really a proper conversation, but there was always some small satisfaction. The radio, for example, which could be turned on, and even if it broadcast songs, Mama didn’t change the station as long as the volume was low and provided that Nena implored, “Please, Mama, give us a little music.” And how could you resist her when she made her voice both cajoling and sad? But I preferred a gentleman who talked about the whole world and evoked the capitals which were represented in my geography book. How I liked to stay and listen to him! He would say, “Today in Paris General DeGaulle in consultation on the Suez problem …” and I closed my eyes and saw the Eiffel Tower of my book, slender and all openwork, the pyramids, and the Sphinx with her face gnawed by the weather and the desert dust.

In bed I found it hard to fall asleep. I remained with my eyes open staring at the glimmer from the windowpane, listening to the regular breathing of Nena, who slept peacefully. Before going to bed Mama came to make an on-the-spot investigation, because Belafonte often slipped under Nena’s bed and then during the night slept curled up at her feet, and Mama said that it was not hygienic. But by this time Belafonte succeeded in getting away with it because he understood the method and got out from under the bed only when the house was perfectly quiet. I didn’t say anything, even though I didn’t like Belafonte, because it was obvious that Nena needed a little company.

So, in the dark of the bedroom, while Nena slept and Belafonte purred or scratched the sheet with his claws, I remained listening to the noise of the trains that whistled as they left the city. Often I imagined going away. I saw myself get on one of those trains at night, stealthily, when the train slowed down because of work in progress on the roadbed. I had a tiny suitcase with me, my watch with the luminous hands, and my geography book. The corridors had soft carpets, the compartments were lined with red velvet and had white linen headrests, there was an odor of tobacco and upholstery, the few travelers slept, the lamps were low and light blue. I settled myself in a deserted compartment, opened my geography book, and decided that I would go to one of those photographs. Sometimes it was “The City of Light from the Top of Notre Dame,” sometimes “The Parthenon in Athens at Sunset.” Bui the photograph which attracted me the most was the port of Singapore, swarming with bicycles and with people in cone-shaped hats, and strange-looking houses in the background. Vapors from the heat of a hazy dawn woke me. Through the strips of the Venetian blinds, the first rays of the sun drew on the floor a yellow staircase that climbed obliquely up the fringes of Nena’s bedspread.

I had no desire to get up. I knew that I was again about to begin a day identical to the others: cod-liver oil, bread with butter and jam, coffee with milk, the morning lost in waiting for dinner, and finally the interminable hours after dinner, my Latin, Mama dozing in the living room, Nena singing “Banana Boat” to herself in her pied-à-terre dragging Belafonte behind her. All this until that afternoon when Nena crossed the garden at a run, stood under the living room window, called, “Mama! Mama!” and made that statement. It was a Saturday afternoon. I remember the day because Saturday morning the grocer came, stopped the delivery van in front of the main gate, and unloaded what Mama had ordered by telephone. That particular morning he had also brought the caramel puddings that Nena adored. I would have liked them, too, but I tried to control myself because they hurt the cavity in my molar and I had to wait until September to go to the dentist because Aunt Yvonne was coming for a week in September and she would take care of it. Can you imagine for one moment Mama being willing to take me down to the city? I was concentrating on studying Jupiter-Jovis, which had an infamous declension, even though it fortunately lacked the plural, and so at first I took no notice of the statement. Besides, Nena often came to bother me or to distract Mama with sentences like, “Hurry, quick, Belafonte hurt himself!” or “Mama, when I’m grown up can I make my hair blue like Aunt Yvonne’s?” And if you consented to listen to her, heaven help you — she would begin to be impertinent and wouldn’t stop. The best thing was to discourage her from the beginning by pretending not to hear. So that time it took me perhaps a minute to realize what she had said. I had my head in my hands and was desperately repeating the ablative. Nena’s statement seemed like more of her usual nonsense. But all of a sudden I felt a blast of heat rise to my forehead. Then I began to shake, and I realized that my hands were trembling on the Minerva of my Latin grammar, which had closed by itself.

I don’t know how long I remained motionless, with my hands inert on the book, unable to stand up. It seemed that a glass bell had descended over the house and plunged it into silence. From my table I could see Mama, who had got up from the armchair and was leaning on the windowsill, very pale. The handkerchief had fallen to the floor. She supported herself on the windowsill as if she were about to fall, and I saw her move her mouth as she talked to Nena, but by a strange magic I heard nothing. Her slowly moving lips looked like the mouth of a fish in the agony of death. Then I made a sudden movement, the little table my knee had bumped groaned on the floor, and it was as if I had pushed a button — the sound returned around me, I heard again the concert of the cicadas in the garden, the whistle of a train in the distance, the buzzing of a bee which attacked the screen, and Mama’s inexpressive voice, automatic and distant, saying, “Come into the house now, love. It’s too hot. You need to take a nap. You can’t stay out there in that humidity — it’s not good for children.”

It was a strange afternoon. Nena resigned herself without raising objections to rest on the divan, something that had never happened before, and when she woke up she stayed quietly in the kitchen drawing pictures. That day I wasn’t able to study Latin no matter how hard I tried. I forced myself to concentrate on the adjectives with three endings and I repeated them stubbornly, but my mind was far away. It ran as if crazed after that statement of Nena’s that perhaps was my misunderstanding, that surely was my misunderstanding, and Mama would tell me was a misunderstanding if only I would ask her. But the fact is that I had no desire to ask her.

On Monday a letter arrived from Aunt Yvonne, and we were very close to tears. She was not coming to visit us in September as she had promised when she left. She and Rodolfo went to Chamonix, not because they liked Chamonix: “I can’t stand the mountains, you know, they make me sad, but everyone comes here in the summer, all of Rodolfo’s colleagues, I mean. And if you don’t have at least a minimum of social life here, I mean if you don’t put yourself forward a little, they look at you as if you’re a baboon. They already have a superiority complex about Italians. If you even hint that you don’t like the chic places, you’re laughed at, no one looks at you anymore. Rome was really almost better, except for the bother and the salary. At least there was sun there. The climate here is infamous…”

Perhaps it was because of that letter that Mama’s silences began, or maybe because of that nonsense that Nena had said — who knows? — but more probably because of the letter. Not that Mama was moody, and not even melancholy. Rather she was absent. You saw that something occupied her thoughts. You said to her, “Excuse me, Mama. May I have the caramel pudding that was left over from dinner?” or whatever, and she didn’t answer you. After a few minutes she said, “Oh, did you ask me something?” And her eyes were fixed far away beyond the kitchen window on the avenue that ended in the country, as if someone were about to arrive. And you repeated the same question to her as before: “I asked you for the leftover pudding, Mama.” But the answer didn’t come this time either, only a vague gesture in the air that could mean, “All right, do whatever you want. Don’t you see that I’m thinking of something else?” And so even the desire for the dessert left you, so what sense was there in sitting down to eat the caramel pudding? Wasn’t it better to go and study Latin in order to occupy your mind a little?

I learned the fourth declension perfectly. It’s true that it didn’t present the same difficulties as the third — you can’t even compare them. Even the directions in the first paragraph said so: “The fourth declension does not present particularities of any kind, save for rare exceptions to be learned from memory, for which see paragraph four,” and I very nearly felt like mourning the third declension. If that week I’d at least had a really difficult thing to learn, I’d be distracted a little, but with that stupid domus-dornus I did nothing but think of that statement of Nena’s, of Aunt Yvonne who wasn’t coming, and Mama’s silences. In my notebook I wrote little sentences like silentium domus triste est, which I then cancelled out with many little crosses connected to each other like barbed wire. It was a method my desk-mate had taught me. He called it “erasure by barbed wire,” and I liked it very much.

After that exceptional day in which she had taken an afternoon nap, Nena had resumed her habits and again spent the afternoons in the pied-à-terre. But she didn’t sing “Banana Boat’’ anymore, she realized that it wasn’t right. And by then she didn’t come under the window anymore to bother me or to invite me to be the architect who was courting her. She resigned herself to being alone in the garden. Who knows how bored she was, poor Nena. Now and then, glancing from the window, I saw her intent on combing Belafonte with a large pink comb that had arrived for her from Lausanne together with some hair curlers and a drier with batteries that blew real hot air. They came in a little box on which was pictured a doll covered with curls and the inscription La petite coiffeuse. But she played wearily, as if against her will, and who knows how much she wanted to come to invite me to be the architect? And I, too, at times would have liked to close that stupid book, go to her and tell her, “I’ve decided to be the architect who’s courting you. Let’s play. Don’t be so quiet. Why don’t you sing a little ‘Banana Boat’ that I like so much?” And instead I remained with my forehead in my hands, looking at the faraway countryside that quivered in the thick summer air.

But the next Saturday something new happened. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. Mama was in the armchair with the blinds closed. I was doing an exercise entitled Dumus Aurea, all full of adjectives with three endings referring to substantives of the fourth declension — a torture. Nena must have been near the main gate. Perhaps she had taken Belafonte for a stroll. I lost sight of her for a few minutes. I saw her arrive out of breath, emerging from the corner of the house on the veranda side. Then she stopped dumbfounded, looked behind her, hurried on a short distance, stopped, turned around again. The noise of the gravel under the soles of her sandals was the only sound in the afternoon silence. At first she seemed undecided which window to choose. Then she rejected Mama’s window, maybe because the blinds were completely closed. She came under my window, called me, but did not pronounce my name. She said only, “Listen! Listen! Please listen!” And her voice was imploring, but not like it was when she was teasing for something. Now she was really different. I had never heard Nena like this before. It was as if she were crying without crying.

I don’t know why I didn’t go to the window. Or rather I know perfectly well because I felt it. I understood with a great sense of emptiness and loss what she would have told me, and I knew that what she would have told me would have been unbearable. It wouldn’t do to listen to her. I might have begun to shout and hit out at her wildly, to pull those stupid pigtails of hers she was so proud of. And then I would have begun to cry uncontrollably, without any more fear of being heard, to sob as much as I wanted to. I remained silent, holding my breath. We were very close to each other — a few inches. Only the window screen separated us. But Nena did not reach the windowsill and she couldn’t look inside. I hoped with all my strength that she would believe I was asleep, and I touched the metal of the inkpot with the calendar as I did every time I wanted something to happen, for good luck. Nena quieted down and I heard her deep, excited breathing, then the sound of her footsteps on the gravel. I realized that she was heading for the veranda door. I took off my shoes and socks, avoiding making the least noise, went to the window, and closed the blinds. I opened the door of the passage just a crack and lay down on the bed. From that position I would be able to hear everything, even if they talked in low voices. If I had put my eye to the crack in the door, I would have been able to see Mama in the armchair, but I preferred not to risk my face being seen. It was enough for me to stay and listen, even though I already knew everything.

This time Mama cried. Maybe she couldn’t stop herself, I don’t know, probably she was in a moment of great weakness. Anyhow, it wasn’t like the first time when she had reacted almost indifferently. She drew Nena into her arms and said, “My little treasure,” and then she put her away again and dried her tears, emitting little smothered sobs, like someone swallowing. And then she asked her if I knew about it, and Nena said, “He’s sleeping.” “Better so,” said Mama. “Leave him in peace. He’s so busy with his Latin, poor dear, he studies all day.” And then she sighed. “But why do you tell me these things, Maddalena? Don’t you understand how much pain your mother has?” I plunged my face into the pillow so they wouldn’t hear me. Nena’s chattering was muffled when it reached me, but I already knew much of what she reported, that she said, “Why, yes. Why is it so, Mama? I swear to you, he was on a bicycle. He had a knotted handkerchief on his head. He wanted something here at home. I understood him. I saw him very well. He saw me, too, but he went by as if he couldn’t stop. Please believe me, Mama.”

I don’t know how that week went by. Fast, that’s it, it went by fast. I should have done a review exercise of all the exceptions, but I let it go. On my paper flourishes appeared, absurd scribbles behind which I lost myself, barbed wire with which I cancelled a statement that came to me obsessively, without stopping. Next week Nena will take a cap and a note from Mama. I even translated that sentence into Latin, and in that language it seemed even more bizarre, as if the strangeness of that language underlined the absurdity of its significance, and it frightened me.

But I didn’t say anything to them nor let them know I understood. Apparently my behavior was the same. In the morning I watered Mama’s azaleas. The garden was pleasant then. It still smelled of the nighttime cool, the sparrows hopped from one branch of the oleanders to the other, and the cicadas had not yet begun their crying. You could see the city distinctly in the clear air, and all around there was something happy and light. After dinner I helped Mama clear up as usual, and when I had finished I said, “I’m going to do homework.” I went into my bedroom, closed the door of the anteroom, half-closed the shutters, stretched out on the bed, and looked at the ceiling, where the slats of the Venetian blinds drew a rainbow in light and shade. I had no desire to think. I closed my eyes but I did not sleep. Under my eyelids passed the most diverse images. I arrived in the port of Singapore. How curious! It was identical to the photograph in my book. The only difference was that I was in the photograph, too. And Saturday came very quickly.

That morning I said nothing, did nothing, tried to let myself be seen as little as possible. Mama was in the kitchen and I was in the living room. She came into the living room and I went into the garden. Nena went out to the garden and I went into the bedroom. But they did so only to show that their behavior was normal, which complicated things terribly because they forced me to pretend that I didn’t notice anything. The worst moment of this game of hide-and-seek came when I suddenly went into the kitchen, thinking that both of them were outside, and surprised Mama while she was passing a note to Nena. That stupid thing turned all red and hid the note behind her back, but it was so obvious that I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t noticed it, otherwise they would really have become suspicious, so I had to resort to a shameful pretense and said carelessly, “It’s useless for you to hide the letters from Aunt Yvonne. I know she writes to you and not to me. You’ve always been her favorite.’’ And then Mama said, “Stop it! Don’t fight because of jealousy. It’s a mortal sin between brother and sister.’’ And I felt relieved, but my shirt was soaked with sweat.

Immediately after dinner I said that I was going to take a nap, that I felt very lazy, it must be the humidity, and my declaration was received with much understanding. From my bed I heard them clattering around in the kitchen, but it was all a sham. In reality, they were talking very softly. I heard an indistinct chatter. Anyway, I was indifferent, I had no interest in deciphering what they were saying.

Nena went out at precisely quarter to two, exactly as the clock was striking one and then the three little pings for the forty-five minutes. I heard the creaking of the back-kitchen screen door and the light shuffling that went away on the gravel toward the main gate. And this caused in me distressing anxiety because I realized that I, too, was waiting, and there was something both absurd and dreadful about it, like a sin. The clock struck twice and I began to count: one — two — three — four — five — six — seven — eight — nine — ten. I felt it was the most stupid thing I could do but I couldn’t stop myself, and while I was thinking of the absurdity of that counting I continued to count by accenting the seconds, as if for good luck, a kind of protection — from what I didn’t know, or rather I didn’t have the courage to admit. When I reached one hundred and twenty I heard Nena’s footstep. I judged that she was still far away, at the beginning of the avenue. On her return she avoided the gravel, but I heard her just the same. I got up on tiptoe, bathed in sweat, and through the slats of the blinds I saw her approach slowly with her eyes lowered. She had on her face an expression of sadness that I had never known — Nena who was always so happy. In one hand she held a hat and in the other a piece of paper which she worried between her index finger and her thumb. Then I returned to bed and went to sleep.

And it was as if I woke up the following Saturday. Because that week hurried away very rapidly in its slowness, lined with silence, interwoven with the glances that Nena and Mama exchanged, while I tried to be present as little as possible with the excuse that the make-up exercises took me all afternoon. But in reality they didn’t take me any time at all, because my notebook was full of barbed wire.

The morning of the following Saturday Mama made ravioli with ricotta. We hadn’t eaten ravioli with ricotta for a long time. We had almost forgotten it. For months we had eaten only food that was horrifyingly mundane. Mama got up early. I woke up at six and heard her moving quietly in the kitchen, working. It was a pleasant morning. When Nena and I got up we found the table covered with strips of pasta already ready to be cut into shapes like a shell, which then had to be filled with ricotta. We had to have our coffee and milk on the little radio table, then we threw ourselves into cutting the pasta. Actually, it was Nena who cut the shape, I filled it with a spoon and passed it to Mama, who saw to the closing of the edges with a little fold and a light pressure of her fingers, with great caution, because if you pressed too hard the filling squirted out and the tortello was ruined.

“Today we’ll have a little party,” said Mama. “It’s a special day.” And then, without knowing exactly why, I felt again that blast of heal inside my chest that I had felt when Nena had made that statement. And then I began to sweat and I said, “How hot it is already this morning.” And Mama said, “Well, of course, today’s the third of August. Remember this day — today is Saturday, August third.” And I said, “If you don’t mind, Mama, I’ll go to my room for a little while. If you need any help, call me.” I don’t know why I didn’t go outside. Maybe it would have been better. The humidity had not yet descended on the garden. I could have checked the state of the pergola — that is, do something. But I preferred the shade of my room.

Mama was happy during dinner, too happy. The ravioli was delicious and Nena wanted two plates of it, but Mama seemed to be in a hurry for us to finish and frequently looked at the clock. At quarter past one we finished dinner and Mama cleared away hurriedly. She said, “We’d better leave the dishes for later. Now let’s all go and rest. It will do you good, too. We all got up too early this morning.” Nena, contrary to her custom, did not make a fuss and went straight to the divan in the dining room. Mama settled herself in the living room in her usual armchair, with the blinds closed and a handkerchief over her eyes. I lay down in my clothes, without turning down the bed, to wait. In the silence of my room I heard my heart beat tumultuously, and I felt that that dull noise could be heard even in the other room.

Perhaps I dozed off, but probably for just a few minutes, then I jumped at the sound of the clock which struck quarter to two and I stayed motionless, listening. I got up when I heard the creaking of the armchair in the living room. It was the only noise. Mama was truly quiet. I waited a few seconds behind the blinds. I realized that I was trembling, but certainly not from cold. I had to grit my teeth so they would not chatter. Then the back-kitchen door slowly opened and Mama went out. At first I didn’t think it was really she. How strange! It was the Mama in that photograph on the chest of drawers, where she was arm in arm with Papa. Behind them was the Basilica of San Marco and below was written “Venice, April 14, 1942.” She wore the same white dress with the big black polka dots, the shoes with the funny straps fastened around her ankles, and a white veil that covered her face. On the collar of her jacket she wore a blue silk camellia, and slipped over her arm she carried a crocodile purse. In one hand, delicately, as if she were carrying a precious object, she held a man’s cap that I recognized. She walked slowly as far as the entrance to the avenue, between the large pots of lemons, with a graceful gait that I had never seen. To watch her like this from behind, she seemed much younger, and only then did I realize that Nena walked exactly like her, with a slight swing and the same position of the shoulders. She disappeared around the corner of the house and I heard her footsteps on the gravel. My heart beat harder than ever. I was all sticky with sweat. I thought that I ought to get my bathrobe, but at that moment the clock struck two, and I couldn’t take my hands off the windowsill. I moved two slats of the blind slightly in order to see better. It seemed an interminable time. “How long she’s staying!’’ I thought. “Maybe she won’t come back.”

And at that moment Mama emerged from around the corner. She came forward with her head held high, staring in front of her with that distracted, faraway look that made her resemble Aunt Yvonne, and on her lips there lingered a smile. She had slipped her purse over her shoulder, which gave her an even younger look. At a certain point she stopped, opened her purse, took out a little round box of powder with the mirror inside the cover. She released the hook and the box opened by itself. She took the powder puff, rubbed it on the powder, and, looking at herself in the mirror, she slowly powdered her cheeks. And then I felt an enormous desire to call her, to tell her, “I’m here, Mama.” But I couldn’t say a word. I was aware only of a very strong taste of bilberries that filled my mouth, my nostrils, that invaded the room, the air, the whole world.