The Communist

by Guido Morselli

  “Hey, come and work with us,” she shouted. “Forget about Communism, come work with us. I’ve got a dozen Dubied machines in my shop and a dozen girls, and it’s going great, you know. I need a man! Why not you?”

  It was true, she had a knitting factory. She’d earned it the year before with the Allies. An American battalion had planted their tents between Reggio and Parma, and Alda had gone with a few others to offer her services. She earned canisters of gasoline, to barter for sugar, oil, and pasta. Between bed and the black market she’d made herself a pretty penny, and though she had no wish for a husband to order her about, she could sure use a man, if only to guard the factory and drive her finished products to Reggio in the van.

  “Come on, Walter. What do you care about politics, you’re eating sliced hunger and bread and drinking water from the millrace! Come work for me!”

  Yes, well. There was much to be said for Comrade Fanny Filippetto’s objections to his love life; nevertheless, Communism was something he had earned. Temptations, large and small, had presented themselves, but he’d resisted. He could look straight into the eyes of someone like Bolognesi and say, “You are a traitor.”

  •

  They’d last seen each other Monday night. In front of Germini’s shopwindow on via dei Due Macelli after the business about the record player; since then, they’d been apart. On Tuesday, Walter had invited Nuccia to Formia; Wednesday afternoon he took the train to Reggio. It wasn’t the first time she’d felt abruptly forgotten, but this time it was worse. He must have known very well how she was feeling. That calm of hers that Walter said he admired, the strength and loyalty he was so proud to count on, where were they? It had been two days of feeling barely alive and very tense, with a rabid desire to weep or scream. When she thought of Frascati and Bianca Weiss, of Giulia at Frascati, of the future she’d dreamed about, she felt nothing but poisonous resentment. Bianca telephoned. She had them say she was busy. When Bianca insisted, she said to her, “You know, maybe Giulia is too young to stay with you. I’ve reconsidered.”

  That resistance inside her, the thing that set her apart from others (or so she’d always thought), her determination to put things back together, her instinctive control of her nerves: it was all shattering bit by bit. She was just a common female, like all the others. She had better put the phone on silent, stay away from customers in the store. Thursday morning, just before Christmas, she began to revive. She made herself undergo what she called the purification, a sort of ascetic remedy she had used since she was a girl when she wasn’t happy with herself (infractions of the sixth commandment, that is, impure acts committed by introspective girls). All day long she went without smoking, without coffee, without any nourishment apart from a glass of milk. By evening she was worn out, but her mind was cold and clear. Reason had returned and her first decision was that tomorrow she would leave Rome. She must go and spend the holidays (such as they were) with Giulia and her parents at Monticello.

  She left on Friday morning, knowing full well that her publishing house would not be happy that she’d left on Christmas Eve, the prime day of the year for selling books. But she had to get to Milan in time to see the lawyer. For a few minutes at Orte she and Walter were almost reunited, their trains passing on parallel tracks. Nuccia had no idea that Walter had left Reggio at 2:00 a.m. in his hurry to see her.

  The lawyer she’d decided to consult was Vigezzi in Piazza della Repubblica, near the Stazione Centrale. Enrico Vigezzi was a young man she’d known since September 1944, in those valiant days when she and a few other partisans had put out a little paper called Ossla da Fer (“Ironclad”) at Domodossola, a title that wasn’t pure rhetoric since three of the five journalists, among them Enrico, who’d been tortured, fell injured in a shootout at Vogogna. Now Enrico was a successful professional; he came in late, and she had to sit two hours in the glass-walled waiting room on the twenty-second floor, full of the sky and silent as the bunk room in a lighthouse. She spent the two hours in a disheartening review of the years gone by. From her youth in Val d’Ossola, in fourteen years (or perhaps, worse, in just a few days) she’d plunged into drab, worn-out, irrevocable maturity. On the train, the mirror in her handbag had revealed a small, weary face with strands of gray swirling around.

  As she went in, Vigezzi studied her.

  “So you’re in Rome. Sirocco doesn’t suit you. See what a nice northerly wind we have here, from our beautiful Alps.”

  After he listened to her story, he was optimistic.

  “There’s no way Lonati can harm you. Although you’re not legally separated, for more than four full years he never objected in any way to your de facto separation. Which is to say, he endorsed it.”

  “Now he regrets it. Now he wants his wife and daughter back.”

  “This late it makes no difference that he’s changed his mind. But I will give you one piece of advice. If your husband has taken up residence in Rome and put down roots, so that it would be difficult for him to move away, leave him there. Come back to Milan. In these cases distance makes all the difference.”

  Nuccia was groggy from the train ride, hoarse. She opened a second pack of cigarettes, lit one. Leave Rome? So Enrico had not understood.

  “There’s the child,” she said.

  “Is she Lonati’s child?” he asked, looking out the window. “Sorry, you know.”

  “Yes. Just as I’m my father’s daughter. Unfortunately. But he has ignored her for five years. Never even sent her a postcard. And obviously, not even five lire. He knows her grandparents are well-off, and that the child is with them.”

  “And what is it that the good man expects now? To get her back because it’s convenient? Have no fear, patria potestas is both a right and a duty, and when you neglect it, you lose it. At the same time, look: I deal with patents, and that’s pretty far away from matrimonial law. But I know a specialist; I’ll write you a line of introduction.”

  Half an hour later, while paying for the doll she’d stopped to buy for Giulia on her way to the other station to get the train to Monticello, she fished out the card Vigezzi had given her.“Atty. Commendatore So and So, Counsel, Cassation Court.” She tore it into pieces. To go to some hotshot lawyer, unpack all her woes, her personal life, and this time in front of a stranger. To what end? Even with Vigezzi she hadn’t had the courage to mention Walter. Their relationship. And that was the point. The point Lonati could appeal to. And not merely because of the ongoing adultery. She knew very well that the law was accommodating when it came to male sins, just like popular morality and the church. But there was one church that was severe, one set of morality that sinners could not escape, and she had joined that church, and even worse, her lover was part of it. Very much part of it. Did he have a position, was he loyal!

  Ferranini, too, had begun to pay for his sins. What a hateful day it was, Christmas Eve, the whole city now frantic with acquisitive furor like a rowdy market fair. He’d arrived at Termini at 7:00 a.m. He wanted to run straight to Nuccia, to her apartment on via Ovidio, but he held back. He had a stubble of a beard and hadn’t slept for forty-eight hours; on the bus someone turned around to look.

  He got back to his room, and while he was shaving, Giordano, who hadn’t seen him come in, apologized and gave him Nuccia’s letter informing him she was off to Milan. “I don’t know what to do, Walter, what to decide. I was thinking I’d spend the holiday with you and then go to Monticello at the New Year and bring Giulia down. But now? It seems unwise to leave the child in Frascati when Cesare is quite capable of going there and taking her away, and then blackmailing me. As for your help, Walter, I know I mustn’t rely on it. I’m having a hard time these days, Walter; forgive me if I’m not selfless enough to keep that to myself. Tomorrow night I’ll be in Monticello; back, I expect, on the 31st. In time to mark the end of 1958 with you (if you’ll have me).”

  He hadn’t been expecting this sudden turn of events. For a moment he felt he’d been betrayed.

  He threw him
self on the bed, swearing. Among other things, he wasn’t used to missing his sleep; he had a manual worker’s habits, early to bed, a sound sleep. His head was so painful and prickly it felt like it was putrefying. In theory he had things to do; an “invitation” from the Rome Federation had assigned him no less than three sections to visit (the usual administrative inspections), all in the outskirts, the projects: difficult to reach for someone without an automobile. He’d have to be out every afternoon. He sat down at his table, took his papers out of his briefcase distractedly, and saw the five or six pages he’d written in Reggio, that bad night. It was (in a first draft barely legible) the “piece” Moravia had asked him for. He reread it and was amazed to find it worked. It was consistent, complete, clear. Even read well. How strange: he was never able to write even the most ordinary report with facility. He read it again. Yes, why not? Well then, I’ll get it off my back; I’ll copy it right out. Oh, the typewriter. He didn’t own a typewriter and usually Nuccia loaned him her portable. “What a fool beggar I am”—the words came to him in Reggio dialect—and then, in a better humor, he began to recopy the pages by hand.

  He really was a beggar, or nearly. Parsimonious, completely unattached to money. For six months he’d donated half of his pay as a deputy to the party, keeping just enough to live on. In Reggio, he’d been every bit as spartan. Once, after his friend Oscar Fubini affectionately accused him of being a fanatic, he decided to give him the lie and try speculation. Food interested him, so he invested some money saved from his salary in a cooperative restaurant, a very nice one that had just opened on Corso Garibaldi, and he began to frequent the place at lunch and dinner. After three months it closed down. Ferranini lost his little wad and gained a case of gastritis thanks to the high-quality butter and lard that the manager (from Vimondino and a relative to boot) had acquired for the kitchen. Fubini laughed. Walter said, “Yeah? I got what I deserved.”

  It took him less than an hour to recopy his article. He read it again. No two ways about it: it flowed. He thought it was good, and even felt rested. Now he would take the piece to be reviewed by the Press Office. To get the imprimatur. He decided to go immediately.

  Via delle Botteghe Oscure. It was Christmas Eve at party command, too. Fewer people than usual, fewer bells ringing and buzzers buzzing, doors slamming. He even felt less the dog in church than he usually did. The people in charge at the Press Office were out, so he left his piece in a sealed envelope with a clerk, giving him the necessary instructions. On his way out he exchanged a few unsatisfying words with Comrade Della Vecchia, who was on his way in, his big head of hair sticking out of his scant beret, his large belly prominent, in contrast to his small, thin, hesitant voice.

  “Comrade Ferranini, it’s been while since you’ve been back to Ferrara, hasn’t it?”

  “Excuse me, comrade, I’m from Reggio. I was there just yesterday.”

  “Yes, you’re from Reggio. And what fine things are you accomplishing in Reggio?”

  And he was off with an evasive wave of the hand. Della Vecchia was one of the party grandees—not obliged to know much about Ferranini. But it was odd that he addressed him with the formal you. Usually he was friendly. Did it have to do with Filippetto and her mission?

  Back on the street, he tried to distract himself by looking up at Comrade Togliatti’s windows. From the layout of the floors, he knew that Togliatti’s office sat directly above the Press Office he’d just passed though. The lights were on; the room was probably occupied. He was there. The famous office, not very large, with the green blinds and the desk to the left as you entered and long shelves loaded with books to the right. And what had particularly impressed him: next to the desk was a table with a telephone and above it, a buzzer panel. And on a shelf below, a cat, a plain tabby cat, sleeping. A live cat.

  For Ferranini had been there. At the beginning of the term, Togliatti had received the newly elected deputies and senators in groups of fifteen or twenty, welcoming and inspiring them. Antonio Amoruso was in Ferranini’s group. Togliatti spoke, the new parliamentarians rapt with attention.“

  During the first thirty years of our century, which began with Sarajevo, Italy was extraneous to the concrete and urgent process of History. It shall be our job to make it a permanent part—”

  “Excuse me, comrade,” Amoruso had jumped up to say, “I would suggest pushing the beginning of the century back further—to the Russian Revolution of 1905, say. The march, Father Gapon.”

  Who could shut him up, that incorrigible Neapolitan?

  •

  He turned toward the Forum. Father Gapon. Gapon. That was it: capitone. The stewed eel they ate in Rome on Christmas Eve. A peculiar train of association had led him to the word. He realized he was very hungry, thanks to not having slept. When he got to the trattoria they were just setting the tables.

  “Porca matina, I’m going to stuff myself,” he said in a loud voice as he was being seated. At that moment, the best thing he could think of to do was to fill his stomach.

  He ate vigorously, bent over his plate, a napkin protecting his front. Oblivious.

  When he got to the cheese, he looked up. The owner of the place had been staring at him briefly.

  “Deputy Ferranini, sir. I know you don’t wish to be disturbed. But there’s someone who wants to see you.”

  “Who’s that? I come here for my food poisoning and to be left alone, and you want to bust . . . . Who is it?”

  “Don’t know him. He didn’t come for dinner.”

  No, Roberto Mazzola had not come to dine, he looked like a man who never ate—who never even thought about it. He was thin, his eyes fanatical in their bony sockets. And tall; he filled the space of the doorway where he was standing.

  “Come over here, Mazzola. We need to talk.”

  Strangely, the visit was not unexpected. But who did Mazzola remind him of? He must have seen someone similar somewhere. He pulled out a chair.

  “I’m bothering you,” Mazzola said, limping forward.

  “I know that and I’m not apologizing. I’d only offend you if I asked your pardon.”

  “And in fact you don’t have to. Sit down.”

  “I left Turin last night. Just like that, suddenly. I was so agitated. I think you can imagine.”

  Ferranini had to lean toward him to hear: he spoke very quietly and stared at his hands, joined tightly at the table’s edge. They shook.

  “How did you find me?” said Ferranini.

  “They gave me your address in parliament; the doorman told me to look for you here. You know, they gave me the sanction. Formal Admonition with Injunction.”

  “Injunction,” Ferranini repeated. “Damn, they hit you hard. They laid it on.”

  He was unhappy, he really was. And then he thought: that sanction, so much more severe, wasn’t his doing. He had proposed a simple Admonition, and only after a morning of thinking it over. He had not signed that sentence, and so he could offer some comforting words.

  “Don’t lose heart, Mazzola. It happens.”

  “To traitors.”

  “Not always. In the early days of the NEP they detested Lenin.”

  Who did Mazzola remind him of? Father Gapon? What did Gapon have to do with it? The name, however, got him on the right track, Russia. At the Zlatoversky monastery in Kiev in ’54, he’d seen someone like Mazzola, a tall saint with glazed eyes, painted in the apse of a church.

  “It happened to the greats; it can happen to us.”

  Mazzola shook his head in desolation. “You speak of the NEP. That was a war maneuver, because even a retreat is a maneuver. Today’s de-Stalinization is in no way a retreat in the battle against the bourgeoisie. We’re being infiltrated by a bourgeois mentality. It’s not an armistice, it’s peace, peaceful coexistence while the enemy takes advantage of us. Our social environment is contaminated, and each of us would need permanently active antibodies to resist. Look what a spectacle Christmas is. So corrupt. We’ve been infected by consumerist reificatio
n.”

  “Yes,” said Ferranini, who was more concrete, “it’s the quest for the Christmas bonus.”

  “It’s obvious that we’ve let ourselves in for being infected. I meant to explain, not justify. I was trying to make other people more vigilant, to build up their antibodies. In my own little range of action, speaking and writing for young people. They accuse me of engaging in politics. Politics is what you do here in Rome. Comrade Pisani, you.”

  Ferranini scowled. “Oh, bravo! You make me laugh.”

  “I’m treating you as my equal, Ferranini. I have no right, it’s only because I remember how good you were to me in Turin. What a day that was, and what came after. The ground opened under my feet. Just before you arrived I got a letter from the company where I was working, a tire factory, and they fired me. The owners tolerate workers of the socialist creed (if they do nothing, if they aren’t activists), but the managers and the technicians don’t want socialists. I come from a wealthy family, but I have nothing to do with them apart from my mother, and I depend on my wages. I was married in August and we’re expecting a child. I’ll find another job. But there was nothing selfish about my speaking out. I swear! And I’m a sincere man. Mine was a crisis of conscience. It was disappointment and despair at finding that no one would listen.”

  Ferranini pursed his lips and exhaled; such considerations put him off. Unmanly confessions, too effusive, too personal.

  Both were silent for a few moments. Ferranini felt aggrieved, his encounter with Filippetto came back to mind. In that case, he had been the accused. And just after that meeting, hadn’t it been Mazzola (or his ghost) scolding him? All that rigorism. That presumption.

  “Now listen, I don’t understand crises of conscience. And I don’t approve of them. First comes unity, then comes conscience. We are socialists. Resisting factionalist tendencies is our first obligation.”

  Mazzola folded his arms on the tablecloth and put his head down. In that state of humiliation and surrender, he spoke again. A doleful voice that came up from the soul, a fine, firm vibrato. “Listen to me, Ferranini. You, at least. Teresita and I love each other, and we’re united, but I’ve said nothing (not a word!) so as not to upset her. And out of a kind of embarrassment too. I’d feel ashamed if I needed to involve a woman.”