The Novel of Ferrara

by André Aciman

  “Hi,” Micòl said, motionless on the threshold. “It’s good of you to come.”

  I had foreseen everything most exactly: everything except for the fact that I would kiss her. I had got off my bike, and replied, “Hi. How long have you been here?” and she had just enough time to say, “Since yesterday afternoon—I travelled down with my uncles,” and then . . . then I kissed her on the mouth. It happened all of a sudden. But how? I was still there with my face hidden in her warm and scented neck—a strange mixed scent of a child’s skin and talcum powder—and already I was asking myself how. How could it have happened? I had embraced her; she had managed a feeble effort to resist, and then let me carry on. Is that how it happened? Perhaps that was it. But what now?

  I drew back slowly. Now she was there, her face a few inches from mine. I stared at her without speaking or moving, incredulous, that’s it: incredulous. Her back against the door jamb, her shoulders covered with a black woolen shawl, she too stared at me in silence. She looked me in the eyes, and her steady, straight, hard look entered me with the shining ease of a sword.

  I was the first to look away.

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured.

  “Why sorry? Perhaps it was my mistake coming down to meet you. It’s my fault.”

  She shook her head. Then tried to give a good-natured, affectionate smile.

  “Such a lot of lovely snow!” she said, nodding toward the garden. “Just imagine, in Venice not even a centimeter. If I’d only known so much had fallen here . . . ”

  She stopped, making a gesture of her hand, her right hand. She had drawn the shawl out from below, and I immediately noticed a ring.

  I took her by the wrist.

  “What’s that?” I asked, touching the ring with my fingertip.

  She winced, as though with distaste.

  “I’m engaged. Didn’t you know?”

  She immediately burst out in a loud laugh.

  “No, don’t take it like that . . . can’t you see I’m joking? It’s just any old ring. Look.”

  She took it off with an exaggerated movement of her elbows, handed it over, and it was indeed an insignificant ring: a little circle of gold with a small turquoise stone. Her grandmother Regina had given it to her many years ago—she explained—concealed inside an Easter egg.

  Once she had the ring again, she replaced it on her finger, then took me by the hand.

  “You’d better come along now,” she murmured, “or else, upstairs, they might”—she laughed—“start getting ideas.”

  As we went, she kept hold of my hand, and never stopped talking for a moment. Only on the stairs she stopped, inspected my lips in the light, and concluded the examination with a detached “Excellent!”

  Yes—she was saying—the whole affair of the thesis had gone better than she’d dared hope. In the viva for graduation, she’d “held forth” for a good hour, “orating unstoppably.” In the end they’d sent her out, and happily ensconced behind the examination hall’s frosted-glass door, she’d been easily able to hear everything the gaggle of professors had said about her work. The majority were opting for a cum laude, but there was one, the Professor of German (a dyed-in-the-wool Nazi!) who wouldn’t hear of it. He’d made himself very clear, the “worthy gentleman.” In his view, the cum laude could not be given her without provoking a serious scandal. What were they thinking!—he had shouted. The Signorina was Jewish, and not even excluded as she ought to have been, and now they were talking of awarding her this distinction. What a disgrace! She should be thankful they’d let her graduate at all . . . The chairman, who taught English, also supported by others, had energetically countered by saying the school was a school, intelligence and hard work (so kind of him!) had nothing whatsoever to do with blood relations, etc., etc. However, when the moment came to do their sums, obviously, the Nazi carried the day. And she’d had no other consolation, apart from the apologies which later, running after her down the stairs of Ca’ Foscari, the Professor of English had given to her—poor thing, his chin was trembling, he had tears in his eyes . . . —she’d had no other consolation apart from greeting the verdict with the most impeccable Roman salute. In the very act of giving her the title of “Doctor,” the president of the Faculty had raised his arm. How was she supposed to have reacted? Limited herself to a charming little nod of the head? Not a chance.

  She laughed joyfully, and I laughed too, drawn into her force field. In turn I recounted my eviction from the Public Library, dwelling on all the comic details. Yet when I asked her what had kept her in Venice for another month after her graduation (in Venice—I added—which, to listen to her, not only had she never found agreeable as a city but which was also a place in which she’d never found any real friends, male or female), she turned serious, withdrew her hand from mine, and her only reply was to cast a quick sideways glance.

  We had a foretaste of the happy welcome we would receive in the dining room from Perotti, who was waiting in the vestibule. As soon as he saw us coming down the big staircase followed by Jor, he gave us an unusually joyous, almost conspiratorial smile. On a different occasion, his behavior would have annoyed me; I would have been offended by it. But for some minutes I’d found myself in a most peculiar frame of mind. Suppressing within myself every reason for unease, I felt enriched by a strange lightness, as though borne up by invisible wings. At the end of the day Perotti’s a good fellow—I thought. He too was happy that the “Signorina” was back home. Why should one blame the poor old man? No doubt from then on he’d stop his grumbling.

  Side by side, we made our appearance at the dining room doorway, and our presence was greeted, as I said, with the utmost rejoicing. All the diners’ faces were rosy and lit up, expressing warmth and benevolence. And even the room itself, as all of a sudden it seemed to me that evening, was far more welcoming than usual—a rosy glow seemed to have spread over the furniture’s polished wood, and the fire’s tongue-like flames drew out subtle flesh tones from its grain. I had never seen it so filled with light. Apart from the glow unleashed from the burning logs, the great upturned corolla of the candelabra above the table (from which one could see the plates and cutlery had been cleared away) poured forth a veritable waterfall of light.

  “Come on in!”

  “Welcome!”

  “We were beginning to think you’d decided not to come.”

  It was Alberto who uttered this last sentence, but I could see that my arrival had filled him with sincere pleasure. Everyone was looking at me. Some, like Professor Ermanno, had turned right round in their seats, others were leaning over the table or pushing away from it with straightened arms, and others still, like Signora Olga, seated alone at the head of the table, with the fireplace behind her, was tilting her face forward and half-closing her eyes. They watched me, they examined me, they looked me up and down, and they all seemed fully satisfied with me, and with the impression I made standing beside Micòl. Only Federico Herrera, the railway engineer, looking surprised, or worried, was slow to school himself to the general delight. But it was only a question of a moment. Having sought some explanation from his brother Giulio—I saw them quickly conferring behind their old mother’s back, bringing their two bald heads together—he rapidly beamed his own share of warmth and approval toward me. Besides making a face which showed his outsized upper incisors, he even raised his arm in a gesture which, rather than greeting me, showed his solidarity, an almost sporting encouragement.

  Professor Ermanno insisted I sit at his right. It was my usual place—he explained to Micòl who in the meantime had sat down at his left, facing me—where I “normally” sat whenever I stayed for supper. Giampiero Malnate—he went on to say—Alberto’s friend, would sit “over there, on the other side,” on Mamma’s left. Micòl was listening to him with a strangely attentive air, part sardonic, part piqued—as though annoyed to discover how family life had proceeded in her absence, not exactly as she had foreseen, and yet pleased that things had, as it happened, gone in that
direction.

  I sat down, and only then, shocked to have been mistaken, did I notice that the table had not in fact been cleared. In the middle was a low, round, quite capacious silver tray, at the center of which, surrounded at two hands’ breadth away by a circle of small pieces of white card, each inscribed in red crayon with a letter of the alphabet, stood a solitary champagne flute.

  “And what’s that then?” I asked Alberto.

  “That’s the big surprise I was telling you about!” he exclaimed. “It’s absolutely wonderful. It just needs three or four people in a circle to put their fingers on the rim of the glass, and immediately it gives a reply, moving in every direction, one letter after another.”

  “Gives a reply?!”

  “It certainly does! At a fair pace it writes down all the replies. And it makes sense—you can’t imagine how much!”

  I hadn’t seen Alberto so excited and euphoric for a long time.

  “And this new wonder, where has it come from?” I asked.

  “It’s just a game,” Professor Ermanno broke in, placing a hand on my arm and shaking his head. “Something Micòl brought back from Venice.”

  “Ah, so you’re the one responsible!” I said, turning to her. “And can your glass also read the future?”

  “You bet!” she exclaimed, laughing. “I’d say that was its real speciality.”

  Dirce came in at that moment, holding aloft and balancing on one hand a round tray of dark wood, overflowing with Passover sweets—her cheeks also were rosy, shining with health and good will.

  As the guest, and the last arrived, I was served first. The sweets, called zucaròn, made of shortbread with raisins mixed in, looked almost the same as the ones I had just tasted at home, half an hour before. Nevertheless those zucaròn at the Finzi-Contini house immediately seemed far better, much tastier, and I said as much, turning to Signora Olga who, busy as she was choosing from the plate that Dirce was offering her, seemed not to have noticed the compliment.

  Next came Perotti, his big farm-laborer’s hands clamped round the edge of a second tray (this time, pewter) which bore a flask of white wine and a number of glasses. And then, while we sat around the table, drinking Albana in little sips and nibbling at the zucaròn, Alberto went on explaining to me, in particular, the “goblet’s divinatory qualities.” It was true that for the moment it was keeping its counsel, but just a bit earlier it had been giving them replies of the most wonderful, extraordinary acuteness.

  I wondered what they’d been asking it.

  “Oh, a bit about everything.”

  They had asked it, for instance—he went on—if he, sometime or other, would ever get his degree in engineering; and the glass had, straight away, come back with the driest of “No”s. Then Micòl had wanted to know if she would get married, and if so, when; and the glass had become less peremptory—it seemed even a bit confused, giving a classic, oracular response, leaving open the most contradictory interpretations. They’d even interrogated it on the question of the tennis court—“the poor old glass!”—trying to discover whether Papa would finally abandon his rigmarole of perpetually putting off, from year to year, starting the work of refurbishing it. And on this question, displaying considerable patience, the “Delphic one” had reverted again to explicit mode, reassuring them that the longed-for improvements would be effected “immediately,” at least within the year.

  But it was mainly in the matter of politics that the glass had worked miracles. Very soon, within a few months, it had predicted, war would break out: a long, bloody war, grievous for everyone, such as would turn the whole world upside down, but in the end, after many years of inconclusive battles, it would finish with complete victory for the forces of good. “Of good?” Micòl, who always pounced on any gaffe, had asked at this point. “And what, may I ask, would those forces of good be?” To which the glass, making everyone gawp with surprise, had replied with one word only: “Stalin.”

  “Can you imagine,” Alberto cried out among the general laughter, “can you imagine how that would have pleased Giampi, had he been here? I must write to him about it.”

  “Isn’t he in Ferrara?”

  “No. He left the other day. He’s gone to spend Easter at home.”

  Alberto kept on for quite some time about what the glass had said, until the game was begun once more. I too placed my index finger on the “goblet.” I too asked questions and waited for the replies. But now, for some reason, nothing comprehensible emerged from the oracle. Alberto became most insistent, tenacious and stubborn as never before. But nothing.

  For my part, at least, I wasn’t greatly bothered. Rather than attending to him and to the business of the glass, most of the time I was looking at Micòl: Micòl who, every now and then, feeling my gaze on her, would smooth her forehead of the same frown she used to have when playing tennis, to reassure me with a quick, considerate smile.

  I was staring at her lips, faintly colored with lipstick. Just before, I had managed to kiss them. But had it happened too late? Why hadn’t I done so six months earlier, when everything would still have been possible? Or at least during the previous winter? How much time we’d wasted, me here in Ferrara, and she in Venice! One Sunday I could easily have taken a train and gone to visit her. There was a fast train that left Ferrara at eight in the morning and arrived in Venice at half past ten. As soon as I’d got off the train, I could have phoned her, suggesting she took me to the Lido—so that, among other things, I could tell her, I’d finally get to see the famous Jewish cemetery of San Niccolò. Toward one o’clock, we might have eaten something together somewhere nearby and, after, have made a phone call to her uncles’ house to keep the Fräulein sweet (oh, I could just see Micòl’s face as she phoned her, the pursed lips, the clownish looks!). After that, we could have gone for a long slow walk along the deserted beach. There would have been time for that too. Then, as far as my return went, I would have had the choice of two trains—one at five, the other at seven, both of them excellent so that not even my parents would have the first idea anything had happened. If only I’d done it then, when I should have, everything would have been easy. What a joke.

  What time was it now? Half past one, maybe two. Soon I’d have to go, and most likely Micòl would accompany me down, as far as the garden gate.

  Perhaps it was this that she was also thinking of, this that was worrying her. Room after room, corridor after corridor, we would have to walk side by side without having even the courage either to look at each other or to say a word. I could sense we were both fearing the same thing: the leave-taking, the ever nearer and ever less imaginable point of saying goodbye, the goodbye kiss. Otherwise, if Micòl should choose not to accompany me, offloading the job onto Alberto or even Perotti, in what state of mind would I have to bear the rest of the night? And the day after?

  But perhaps—I obstinately and desperately went back to dreaming—we wouldn’t need to, we’d never have to get up from the table. The night would never have to end.

  * Ferrara Jewish dialect: “Jewish woman.”

  † “Suffering, don’t leave me yet.”

  ‡ “All/the females of all / the serene animals / closest to God” (Umberto Saba).

  § One of the names of God, here inscribed on a pendant.

  ¶ Yiddish: “ritually slaughter.”

  # “I died for Beauty – but was scarce” by Emily Dickinson.

  ** “Stradella’s bristly wine seller” (Carducci, “Roma”).

  †† “The little goat the father bought.’

  IV

  • 1 •

  SOON enough, the very next day, I began to realize how hard it would be for me to resume the rapport with Micòl that we had had before.

  After much hesitation, getting on toward ten, I tried to telephone her. I was told (by Dirce) that both the “Signorini” were still in bed, and would I be so kind as to call again “at noon.” To while away the time, I threw myself on my bed. I picked up a book at random, Le Rouge et le No
ir, but however hard I tried I wasn’t able to concentrate. And if I didn’t call her at midday? In a short while, though, I changed my mind. All of a sudden it seemed to me that now I only wanted one thing from Micòl: her friendship. Rather than disappearing—I told myself—it would be far better if I behaved as though yesterday evening nothing had happened. She would understand. Impressed by my discretion, utterly reassured, she would quickly reward me with all her full confidence, the delightful confidence she had of old.

  At midday on the dot I braced myself and dialled the number of the Finzi-Contini house.

  I had to wait a long time, longer than usual.

  “Ah, it’s you.”

  It was Micòl herself.

  She yawned.

  “What is it?”

  Disconcerted, my mind a blank, I could think of nothing better to say than that I’d already called up once, two hours ago. Dirce had replied—I continued, stammering—suggesting I call again around midday.

  Micòl heard me out. Then she began to complain about the day she had before her, all the many things she’d have to organize after being months and months away, suitcases to unpack, all kinds of papers to put in order, and so on, with the final prospect, not exactly enticing for her, of a second “banquet.” That was the trouble with every trip away—that getting back to the usual dull routine cost even more effort than it had in the first place “to take oneself off.”