The Communist

by Guido Morselli

  In the mail was also a summons to appear in the party section, on via Alessandria. Signed by one Enrichetta Pignatti, never heard of her, who had scribbled a note, “Ask for me personally.” She was about to toss it in the wastepaper basket but then she thought, I haven’t been back since I became a member. Better go. She would do it the next day, Saturday, in the afternoon.

  And so at five on Saturday she left work. The shop was full of people, and to be as quick as possible she didn’t even take her bag, just stuffed her cigarettes in her pocket. She ran all the way to via Alessandria, where she was told that Pignatti would be in any minute. She showed up after five thirty, blond, just married, with a shiny new wedding ring displayed on her finger. Very polite, all smiles.“Come join me in here; I’m so sorry I’m late.”

  She showed her into a small empty office and carefully closed the door behind her. Nuccia realized that she would have to defend herself.“I’m not much of a regular, in fact, to be precise, this is only the second time I’ve come to the section. The thing is, even when all goes well, I don’t get out of work until nine.”

  “Ah no, Comrade Lonati, it’s not about that.”

  Comrade Lonati? Her face darkened. “My name is Anna Corsi.”

  “You are married to Comrade Commendatore Cesare Lonati,” the blonde insisted.

  “I was. But so far as the section is concerned, I am Anna Corsi, which is the name written on my card. Excuse me, who are you?”

  The smile she received was not quite affectionate.

  “I’m in charge of the women’s committee; I teach at the Antonietti trade school. I think you’ve understood what the matter at hand is. I’ve been charged with a confidential mission. Comrade Lonati, your husband, is now in Rome.”

  Nuccia felt herself shiver. Making an effort, she said, “He’s often here.”

  “No, now he’s living here. And he wishes, he aspires, to reunite with you and put an unhappy time behind him, wishes to have his child, his wife, in short, his family back. His health, it seems, is not what it could be. It’s natural for him to want to resolve what must be a painful situation for both of you.”

  “And so he talks to you about it. And not to me. If Comrade Commendatore Lonati knows that I’m signed up in this section, he must know where to find me at work.”

  “Your husband has been concerned about you for some time. With understandable devotion. He turned to us to employ our good offices, which is our job.”

  Nuccia delved mechanically into her pocket for her cigarettes and was unable to find them. She tried to control herself. Her voice dull, she said, “And what business is it of yours? Tell me that. The section is not a parish.”

  “And yet it can play a similar role. The section is a great family, you’ll see.”

  “Oh Mamma mia!” said Nuccia loudly. She closed her eyes, feeling icy and numb, her fists rigid in the pockets of her overcoat. She had forgotten where she was, and the other woman’s presence.“Comrade, are you ill?” the other said, standing up. “No, I’m fine. Allow me to go now. I believe I’ve understood.”

  “Please be aware, I didn’t mean to offend you. The party is not simply a political association like other parties, it has the responsibility to keep an eye on and assist comrades, both men and women, with all their needs.”

  “Even in this.”

  “You can count on our complete discretion. But do allow me to hope that our intervention will prove beneficial to the welfare of your family. That’s the only reason we summoned you. Please think it over, and we’ll expect an answer from you after you have.”

  “I’ll give you my answer right away,” Nuccia said, rising from her own seat. “I find your lack of respect for a person’s private life incredible. For the private life of a party member. And if I don’t follow your directives, well, that’s the way it is. Draw whatever conclusions you like.”

  Out on the street a driving rain wet her face and the wind stung; she felt liberated, cleansed. Physically she was better, but inside there was a furious, crushing avalanche of thoughts. At the first bar she drank a cognac and smoked half a cigarette, tasting nothing. Then back in the “shop,” which felt as irritating and alien as books, work, everything now, she shut herself up in her little office, and there, finally, the clock on the wall struck six, reminding her of Walter. At eight, Walter would be there with her, as he was every Saturday, at least there was that certainty, and she understood it had been holding her together. Walter was there, her man was close by, she would see him soon. They would eat dinner together. And the rest? All gone, Frascati, her serenity, the order she’d put in her life, her pitiful happiness. Gone.

  The only reason she didn’t cry was because she couldn’t. I weep dry tears, I don’t cry, I don’t let it out, she once said. I’m destined for a gastric ulcer. Once again, her insides turned icy, and she sat for an hour by the radiator, sending Holzener, the chief salesman, away. The bookstore was buzzing with people and he would come and knock on the door of her office.

  But she pulled herself together again. She had some vital instinct that kept her balanced and functioning; at times she’d even reproached herself for it. She began by ripping up the brief telegram she’d jotted down to send to her parents: “Plans off. Giulia stays with you.” Her mistaken haste to destroy, to do herself more harm. Better to talk to Walter first, that would help. And accept that she would have to see a lawyer. What rights could Lonati claim when in four years he hadn’t bothered even to ask about the girl, hadn’t sent his greetings once or a box of sweets? And why should she give up like that without first trying to defend herself? Walter would help. She tried to think about immediate, practical ways he could help. Lonati was mobilizing the party to get his way, but she was connected to a man who counted in the party, who really should count more. Cesare, with all his money, was a parasite on Italian Communism; Walter was one of its strengths. Self-effacing, reserved as much as you like, but he had a name and qualifications, even official ones. He’d been sent to Rome by his people in Reggio with several thousand preference votes. He was fully capable of neutralizing Lonati. And if Lonati wanted to make legal trouble, she had some arguments of her own. She could be stubborn too. Yes, she would have to fight. But there she had no inhibitions. She would fight.

  Her heart was bitterly calm and her pale, drawn face composed when she arrived (a quarter of an hour early) at their meeting place on the corner of via Firenze in front of the trattoria.“On Epiphany,” Ferranini announced as soon as they were seated, “we’re going to see La Bohème. I went by the opera house and they’re doing Bohème with a tenor I know. Gianni Raimondi.”

  “Two bohemians in the gallery,” she tried to joke. “Okay! But at the same time we’re going, and we’ll go again.”

  In honor of opera, one of the few things he was receptive to in the world of culture (and other than socialism in the world at large), Ferranini spoke while he dined, for once. He was not short of ideas on the matter, even if none of them were revolutionary.“Italian opera comes to an end in 1896 with La Bohème. There’s nothing after that. The score of La Bohème, meanwhile, is beautiful and presents no special difficulties for the singers, and so it’s fine even for voices of our times.”

  “Walter.”

  “It’s music that sings. Today, Menotti writes operas without melodies. It’s like saying we make cheese without the milk.”

  “Walter.”

  “Have some cheese, by the way. You haven’t eaten a thing”

  She had scarcely eaten a thing. She’d drunk her couple of glasses of Valpolicella, and the alcohol gave her strength to begin to tell him what was going on. She needed strength; listening to him and watching him eat had made her feel how far away he was.

  Ferranini didn’t interrupt her or ask for details.

  When Nuccia had finished, he said, “You didn’t expect this?”

  “Should I have? I haven’t heard from him for five years. I saw him last month on the train, you remember the circumstance
s. The company he was in. I was supposed to think he would turn up again just like that? To destroy me?”

  Ferranini pushed aside his plate and sat with his arms folded on the table, his gaze trained above her head.

  “We let ourselves be seen, Nuccia. We were visible. Something had to happen. Now he’s come to live in Rome, he’s found a way to make money in Rome as well, and not only that but he’s gotten himself a role in the party.”

  “So you knew. And said nothing to me.”

  “Look, the less I have to talk about him, the better off I am. He got himself appointed to some kind of high position in the Press Office.”

  “Oh yes, they feel an affinity with his ink supplies. But Walter, it’s of no concern to us what he does in Rome. Our concern is to defend ourselves. If I may say ‘us’?”

  “Why, aren’t you sure?”

  “If I weren’t sure I’d be crazy. Lonati playing the bully is no surprise; he’s always been a bully. But where did this Pignatti woman come from? Why did the party get involved?”

  “Because we’re out of line.”

  Nuccia was incensed; she flushed. “Togliatti’s also out of line. In the very same way. Your dear Togliatti. You know it, too; and everyone knows it.”

  “He has merits that I don’t.”

  She banged her fists on the table. “Merit has nothing to do with it! I’m telling you. And in any case, I don’t think he’s doing anything wrong. These are problems that bother the bourgeoisie. My sister, for example. My sister would denounce me for the life I’m living. She’s married to a colonel, she’s bourgeois. Are Communists bourgeois?”

  “Maybe.”

  The two of them were silent. Ferranini saw before him that little room in Turin, poor Mazzola feverish and shouting.“However,” he said, “if Comrade Pisani were here he’d tell you that revolutions always finish in moralism. Robespierre said that every attack on morality (sexual morality, that is) is an attack on the Republic.”

  “That was a revolution made by mill owners; I was talking about communism. About the communist revolution.”

  “Okay, so here is Lenin: ‘Free love does not coincide with our principles.’ ”

  “So I’m opposing Lenin? Walter, don’t you see? You say: You’re just a woman in love. Not true! I’m a thinking being. And I maintain that there’s no point in battling for a revolution if it’s going to preserve bourgeois morals. It’s said that when Russian youth dance, the Komsomol prescribes a gap of at least twenty centimeters between the guy and the girl.”

  “Stories.”

  “I’m beginning to think it’s the truth. Once upon a time communists thought differently. In 1919 in Russia they used to say that a husband’s ownership of his wife had to be abolished along with other sorts of ownership. The lawful husband’s powers over his wife. Don’t you remember Alexandra Kollontai?”

  Ferranini closed his eyes.

  “It was 1919. We were in the subversive phase, after which came the constructive phase, the revolution became consolidated, and there was a return to morality. Is there anybody who doesn’t know these things?”

  He thought of Comrade Pisani and changed his tone. He had to be patient.

  “That’s how it was, Nuccia. Think of Soviet films, of the nightclubs that don’t exist there, of the propaganda to increase the population. Of the families that win prizes for being prolific.”

  “And I tell you that the degree of liberty and progress in a society corresponds to the degree of evolution in the sexual domain. You can turn everything upside down, even destroy everything and rebuild it from the ground up. But so long as your morality requires a government stamp to legalize love, Walter, you have changed nothing. Not a thing, I tell you. Sorry. My voice is too loud. People are staring.”

  Ferranini shook his head without looking up.

  “I’m beginning to think,” said Nuccia, lowering her voice, “that no other human instinct is as powerful as order. We start out intending to make a revolution, and maybe we even do, and then we decide that order is absolutely necessary. Order, rules, tranquillity. Not that I don’t appreciate order as much as anyone—although I couldn’t give a damn about the government stamp. But I’m no revolutionary, while you want to change the face of the world. And you harden into formalism.”

  “One becomes pigheaded,” Ferranini admitted glumly.

  “Yes. But I can be pigheaded too. I joined the party at the beginning of the month, now I’ve had my experience, and we’ll see what happens between me and my husband. You’ll help me find a lawyer, and I’ll see what he says. As for my party card, I’m taking it back to Signora Pignatti. She can keep it.”

  “Nuccia, you’re forgetting something.” At last he turned his head to look her in the face. “There are two of us in this situation. Renounce your membership; no one can stop you. You’ll only have your conscience to come to terms with. But you’ll be renouncing me, too. I remain inside, in the place where I’ve been put.”

  Nuccia said nothing. Her arms hanging limp, hands in her lap, she stared at the chop and peas on her plate, now quite cold. She thought of what she’d said to Pignatti. The section is not a parish. Perhaps not, but the party was a church. For once, you had to give credit to the bourgeois newspapers that always said so. And I, she thought, am having an affair with a bishop.

  The grotesque thought did not make her smile.

  And yet as they walked back home under his umbrella, close to each other and silent, she was already trying to buck up. She was a courageous lady, after all. Literary references. Well, better than nothing. To love politics you must be able to take advantage of its game, and women are too jealous of politics to be able to do so. Where had she read those words? In Sainte-Beuve, most likely.

  8

  THE LETTER came in a yellow envelope marked “Strictly Personal.” It was mimeographed, nothing more than a form letter; okay, so not something unusual. The letterhead read: “The Direzione” (the Central Committee) “Confidential.”

  With regards to the Rivoli visit and interview with Engineer Roberto Mazzola, member of Section G. Bravin, Turin. Comrade Deputy Ferranini is hereby invited to formulate his opinions as to:

  a) the above-mentioned Roberto Mazzola’s political conduct [several blank lines followed]

  b) the opinions expressed by the same [more blank lines]

  The recipient is further invited to indicate the appropriate sanction in his view: Reprimand/Admonition. Formal Admonition. Condemnation with Injunction. Suspension from All Responsibilities. Expulsion. (Indicate the applicable measure by underlining.)

  Please return this communication, properly completed and signed, to the Direzione, headquarters, within two (2) days of receipt, in person or by registered mail.

  Giordano, the cabinetmaker who doubled as the building’s doorman and to whom the party messenger must have handed the letter, hadn’t bothered to leave his workshop for this, as usual. The next morning his little girl handed the envelope to Ferranini as he was going out. He couldn’t bring himself to open a letter from the Direzione marked “Strictly Personal” and read it on the street, so he climbed back up the stairs and shut himself in his room. He was ready to get the message and ready to reply to it. Without giving it a moment of thought, he leaned over his chest of drawers and began to write, he who was always so unsure whenever he found himself with pen in hand. It took just a few minutes. “Conduct: honest and sincere, a Communist of integrity.” On the opinions expressed: “A certain practical intransigence.” He took out the word “practical” and added “maximalism and.” Sanctions to apply: “None. In my view there are no substantive grounds to punish Mazzola.”

  He signed his name and stuck the sheet back into the envelope. He would take it over today.

  Now he was free to go out again. He had to pass by the Ministry of Public Instruction. Comrade Fubini had written from Reggio asking him to find someone at the ministry to deal with the case of his brother, a middle-school teacher in Parma who had been
the victim of an error (a genuine error) when the results of a job competition were posted. Professor Amleto Fubini had already been down to Rome to protest, to no avail. The ministry, in its wisdom, was in no hurry to repair an error at the expense of a Communist, the brother of a Communist. Ferranini had never before performed this office, the one that kept most of his colleagues in parliament so busy. He didn’t want to be someone’s political patron. And to tell the truth, up until that moment no voters had called on him for help, at least not on the personal level. Fubini was the first to ask him a favor, and Fubini deserved help. A true friend, serious, intelligent, one of his few remaining friends.

  He was just turning the key in the lock of his room. A cold, sour stench rose up the stairway from the cellar. He inhaled it uneasily: a whiff of dead air that seemed to drive away all his composure. He opened the door again and went back in.