All Our Yesterdays

by Natalia Ginzburg

  Anna asked whether it would not be a good thing to burn the gloves as well. But Emanuele burst into loud laughter; after all Danilo’s gloves were not marked with his name. Giustino liked these gloves very much ; they were fine gloves made of sham pigskin and he wanted to take them for himself. But Emanuele forbade him to touch them. They must be given back to Danilo’s mother, the bush of hair at the cash-desk. Emanuele went and waited for her one evening outside the cake-shop. He gave her the gloves and also some money to send to Danilo, because in prison one needs money, otherwise they give you nothing but tasteless soup, a little bread and nothing else. Danilo was in the New Prison at Turin, he was well and quite calm. His mother also was quite calm and Emanuele was astonished ; the day they arrested him Mammina would certainly have a fit, with screams reaching to heaven.

  They waited for the police. But no policeman was to be seen and they were somewhat dumbfounded. Emanuele said that obviously the police were letting himself and Ippolito go free in order to spy upon them. They would have to be very careful. They decided that Ippolito should go to Le Visciole for a month and that Emanuele should go and see Amalia, to see whether she had learned to be a nurse and whether she had forgotten Franz.

  5

  Ippolito came back from Le Visciole with the dog. He made a kennel for it in the garden, out of old boxes. He spent a day sawing and nailing the wood, and when the kennel was ready he painted it green. But the dog quite refused to go into it. Perhaps it was the smell of the paint that it did not like. It sniffed round about it for a little and went away. It still ate the armchairs and was always dirty, even though Ippolito gave it a bath every Friday.

  The dog at the house opposite, on the other hand, was no longer there ; they had given it away, because it barked at night and kept Mammina awake. No one now played ping-pong at the house opposite, and the table stood forgotten with the net torn, and the only person to be seen in the garden was the old gentleman in a deck-chair basking in the sun, his stomach well stuffed out with newspapers, so that when he got up he made a great rustling noise. One day Franz reappeared. He was dressed in white because the hot weather had now started, with a dark blue jersey of the kind then in fashion, and he was carrying a large suitcase and some tennis racquets. Surprised exclamations were heard from the old gentleman, and Franz’s voice shouting into his ear that he had come from a tennis tournament.

  So Emanuele, on his return, found himself face to face with Franz, in fact he was the first person he saw coming towards him, and afterwards he told Concettina that he had felt like getting back into the train and going away again, because he really could not bear the face of this man Franz and he had an idea he was a spy, paid by the Fascists to spy upon him and Ippolito, and in any case it was hard to understand where he got his money from, because he did nothing and was always so well dressed. Emanuele had been to Florence to see Amalia and had then gone to Rome and Naples with her, because he had found her very thin and wasted and had suggested that she should give up the nursing college and go on a journey with him. He scratched his head violently when he recalled this journey, it had not been at all a cheerful affair, he had dragged Amalia through the Vatican Museum, had shown her the Raphael frescoes and she had wept, then they had gone to have something to eat and she had ordered a boiled egg and had wept into it. She was weeping for this man Franz. Emanuele made great efforts to explain to her that she meant nothing at all to Franz. But Amalia said that, on the other hand, she did mean something to him, she had understood that she did mean something to him, but there was a thing she could not say, a horrible thing, and she covered her face with her hands and started to sob. Emanuele said he was not in the least curious to know what this thing was, this thing that Amalia had discovered one evening at Mentone, and Franz had left next day : Emanuele shrugged his shoulders and snorted and went red. And then it had come out that Amalia did not in the least want to be a nurse, she wanted to give that up, and she herself did not know what to do. She wanted to study the history of art. And yet she had been all over the Vatican Museum without looking at anything, Emanuele said, there were the Raphael frescoes and she had wept. He had left her in a boarding-house in Rome, she did not want to come home, and in any case, now that Franz was there again, it was better that she should not come. Emanuele was very depressed, what with Danilo in prison, his sister not knowing what she wanted and his father with a gastric ulcer, and so many exams to pass and no politics, no politics at all, no hope of ever being able to do anything serious again, with that man Franz paid to spy upon him. But Ippolito shook his head and said that probably Franz was not a spy, he was just a poor fool and nothing more, no use for anything except winning tennis tournaments.

  Emanuele went to his own home merely for eating and sleeping, and passed the days with Ippolito on the terrace, with the books that he ought to have been studying, but he had no inclination for work and Ippolito got on his nerves because he, on the other hand, worked hard, stopping only in order to prepare the dog’s food. He said Ippolito was like an old lady when he took the dog out for a walk and gave it its food, he said that all of a sudden his soul had turned into that of an old lady.

  From time to time Danilo’s sister came to give them news. She no longer had a tassel but a hat with a crown, with bunches of cloth flowers on it, standing straight up on her head. She no longer had a tassel and perhaps she missed having something to swing, for she swung her head and her shoulders, this way and that. Danilo was well and was quite calm, they had not found anything against him. He had been arrested only because of the people he had visited in Turin during those few days, a small group of three or four who were now all in prison, and would be tried by the Special Tribunal. Danilo, on the other hand, would almost certainly not be brought to trial; they would give him his release earlier. The only trouble was that he would find himself behindhand with his studies, after an interruption of so many months. Danilo was studying book-keeping and accountancy, but he always said he did not like these things and that he would like to do something else, goodness knows what he wanted to do. In prison he had taken to studying German, and he wrote to his mother that he hoped they would not release him before he had learned to write and speak German well ; he wrote dull letters and his mother was angry. When Danilo’s sister came Ippolito stayed working on the terrace, as though he were not in the least interested in hearing news of Danilo, and left Danilo’s sister to be received by Emanuele and Concettina. And then, when Emanuele and Concettina came back to the terrace and gave him the news, he scarcely seemed to listen. And then Emanuele would exclaim that he had gone as cold as a fish, a thing that makes you cold even to look at it. Ippolito would just give a little crooked smile and go on walking up and down with his book in his hand. Emanuele said that Ippolito got seriously on his nerves, but Concettina did not get on his nerves, Concettina was so charming, and he took her hand and kissed it on the palm. And he told her she had grown thinner and also more beautiful, with those eyes with dark circles round them because she too had been sitting up at night working for her exams. Concettina had discarded all her fiancés, and was thinking only of her studies, and perhaps she was thinking of something else too, Emanuele said, perhaps she had taken to thinking of Danilo who was in prison, and had fallen in love with him a little. Then Concettina was angry and snatched away her hand from Emanuele’s hands and ran away from the terrace. Emanuele laughed and said there was no doubt about it, Concettina was sorry now for her rude behaviour towards Danilo and for the long hours she had left him in the cold outside the gate. “We have to go to prison to make women love us,” Emanuele said, “otherwise we get nothing.”

  It was very hot and Mammina went with Franz to bathe in a lake near the town, for she had now recovered from her nervous exhaustion, she was very well and had a great number of flowered dresses and a very large straw hat. She and Franz would get up early in the morning, take the car and go swimming in the lake, and not come home until three in the afternoon. Emanuele was always much wo
rried until they came back, because Franz drove the car like a madman, he always said that unless he drove fast he had no enjoyment in driving. In the meantime the whole town was whispering about Mammina and Franz, but Emanuele did not know this, or did not show that he knew. On the other hand Signora Maria knew of it, and when Emanuele was not there she would start talking about those two who were always together and had no shame, and would look out of the window at the old gentleman sitting in the garden and be sorry for him for being made to wear horns like that, poor old gentleman. But the old gentleman sat in his deck-chair nursing his stomach which was all stuffed up with newspapers even in full summer, because he was always afraid of a possible draught, and he would wave good-bye to Mammina and Franz as they went off together ; it did not look as if his horns worried him very much, perhaps because he had gradually become accustomed to them and was resigned to wearing them, poor old gentleman. But his ulcer did worry him and people in the town said perhaps he was dying, and he did die, and Emanuele rushed off to call Mammina who was swimming in the lake with Franz.

  The old gentleman’s funeral was a big funeral with a very long procession, a snake that curled itself all through the town. There were a great many large wreaths, and the driver of the hearse wore a white wig and a tall hat, and the horses had Mack hoods. In the first row could be seen Mammina with a black veil, leaning on Emanuele’s arm, and Amalia and Giuma who had been summoned by telegram, and Franz with a grey overcoat and grey gloves and a sad, severe expression. Behind came all the people from the soap factory, and among them was to be seen Danilo’s mother with a big tortoiseshell comb planted in her bush of hair, for she had been dismissed from the cake-shop, perhaps because of the affair of Danilo, and Emanuele had had her taken on at the soap factory. At the cemetery a long speech was made about the old gentleman, about the soap factory which previously had been nothing at all and he, gradually, had succeeded in making it big and important, and Anna and Concettina were very much bored and the heat was terrible. Anna looked at Giuma who was there right in front of her. He had long trousers now and the face almost of a grown-up man, big and hard, but he brushed the hair away from his eyes with the same gesture as before. Anna only saw him that day at the funeral and they did not say anything to each other, and a little time after the funeral Giuma went back to school.

  Immediately after the opening of the will Amalia departed too, as though the ground were scorching her feet. She was going back to the nurses’ college to finish her course, so Emanuele said, but goodness knows whether he was telling the truth and goodness knows where she was really going. She and Mammina had scarcely spoken to one another and Amalia had stayed almost all the time in her own room, as indeed Mammina had too, and Franz roamed the house with an unhappy expression, and tried to talk to Emanuele who barely answered him. The reading of the will was a very long and tedious ceremony, everyone sitting round the table with the uncle who was a colonel and the lawyer ; the uncle who was a colonel was the old gentleman’s brother and the old gentleman in his will had appointed him to be the guardian of Giuma who was a minor. In the meantime Franz who had nothing to do with the reading of the will waited in the next room, and from time to time he put his head in at the door to make some foolish remark, to announce the arrival of the upholsterer or the dyer or to say that lunch was ready, and the uncle who was a colonel would give him a look of annoyance. According to the will Mammina had the usufruct of the inherited property, and the shares in the soap factory were to be divided equally between Amalia, Emanuele and Giuma. Mammina went very red and asked what a usufruct was, but the uncle who was a colonel told her to be quiet and that he would explain it to her afterwards.

  A few days after Amalia had gone Franz said that he must go away too on stockbroking business. So Emanuele and Mammina were left alone, at lunch and at dinner the two of them were alone at that long table, and when they had finished Mammina would lie down on the sofa and take off her shoes, and say how unkind Amalia had been to her, she had done her no harm at all, she could not understand what Amalia had against her. Then she asked what usufruct was and whether it was much or little, and whether she would still be able to have a dress or two made for herself now and then, and Emanuele kissed her and told her she could have all the dresses made that she wanted. And Mammina said that Emanuele had always been so good to her, and this consoled her for Amalia’s bad behaviour and for Giuma’s air of indifference, Giuma had become so cold and arrogant with her. Emanuele suggested that they should go out for a little, and they took the car and went out of the town, but as they were passing along the lake Mammina said she did not wish to see the lake, and never again would she swim in it, because the lake reminded her of the day Papa died, while she was enjoying herself swimming. Emanuele accelerated and Mammina kept her eyes shut, until he told her that the lake was no longer to be seen. Mammina said she really could not have imagined that Papa was going to die just that morning, she had gone to the lake because it had not seemed to her that Papa was so very ill, he was quiet and as rosy as a baby. And then she said they must have a fine bronze statue made of Papa by some good sculptor, to put in the courtyard of the soap factory.

  When he was able to leave Mammina Emanuele went back to his studies on the terrace with Ippolito, and Ippolito told him he was now the head of a business and despised his poor penniless friends, and the soap factory belonged to him, the soap factory was his very own, and from the terrace he pointed towards it with his outstretched arm, but Emanuele covered his eyes with his hands and would not look. He would go and work in the factory, he said, after he had got his degree, because he had promised his father he would do so, but he had no desire to work there, God knows what he would have given to work somewhere else. He was not in the least interested in soap and would like to bash in the face of anyone who dared to show him even the tiniest little bit of it.

  The exams went well for everyone except Giustino, who as usual was told he must take them again in October. And after the exams Ippolito began asking what they were waiting for, why didn’t they go to Le Visciole, and no one had any desire for Le Visciole and they suggested he should go there by himself, but he could not make up his mind to go all by himself. Signora Maria was hoping for an invitation from her sister at Genoa, and Anna and Giustino were hoping that the usual invitation would come from Cenzo Rena to that castle of his with the small towers, and perhaps it would be possible to accept, now that the old man was no longer there to forbid it : but Cenzo Rena was in Holland and wrote from there. No invitation arrived for anyone and they left for Le Visciole, otherwise Ippolito would have given them no peace ; but Concettina was obstinately determined to stay in the town, because she had to prepare her thesis and to consult books in the library. She was preparing a thesis on Racine, but so far she had written only three pages of it and Ippolito had read them and considered them to be idiotic. Emanuele had to accompany Mammina to Men-tone but promised that as soon as he had established Mammina there he would come himself to Le Visciole, and Signora Maria said wasn’t it too stupid, to have a villa at Mentone and come to Le Visciole, where there wasn’t even running water and to get a bucket of water you had to pump for an hour in the courtyard.

  6

  Emanuele arrived at Le Visciole at the beginning of July. So now Ippolito was no longer alone in his wanderings round the countryside, but Emanuele limped quickly along beside him up and down the paths, red from the sun and heated with discussion. Giustino spent his time in the village square, in company with the sons and. daughters of the Humbugs, and in the evenings went and danced on the open-air platform, with its paper lanterns swaying amongst the foliage. They did a great many things now which their father had not allowed them to do, and Anna swam in the river at a place where there was a quiet pool, and Signora Maria sat in the sun on the bank, where the wives of the Humbugs went with their babies, their work and their picnic lunches, and at last Signora Maria was able to speak to them.

  One evening, while they were having su
pper under the pergola, a motor-car stopped at their gate. They heard the door of the car bang and the creaking of the gate as it opened, and did not understand who it could be at that hour, and they saw at the bottom of the drive a man in a long white waterproof and a hat all out of Shape. Emanuele rose and started limping nervously round the table. But it was not a policeman. It was Cenzo Rena and he began embracing them all.

  And so at last they saw him, this Cenzo Rena who sent chocolates and post-cards from every part of the world. They had always imagined him as being very old, as old as their father, and yet he did not look so very old, he had just a few grey streaks in his hair and moustache. Signora Maria had always said he was very rich, and now again she was saying so and boasting of it while she prepared him a little supper, and at the same time she was cursing the idea that they all had of coming to Le Visciole, from Mentone, from Holland, they all came and planted themselves in this miserable hole where she already had so much to do.

  Cenzo Rena did not appear very rich, just to look at him. He had on this very long waterproof which looked like a nightshirt, and underneath it he had on a thick sweater, all discoloured and dirty, which hung in folds over his stomach. He had enormous suitcases tied up with cords ; he ran off and pulled them out of the car and started furiously untying the knots, and then pulling out socks and drawers, all higgledy-piggledy. Anna and Giustino stood watching, expecting a present of some kind, but, instead of that, Cenzo Rena dug out from under the socks merely a few photographs of Holland which he had taken ; he seemed very proud of these photographs, but in reality they were not very clear, all you saw was a sort of blur, and Cenzo Rena explained that he had taken them in the rain. Then all at once he tapped himself on the forehead and apologized for having forgotten to bring any presents, he had intended to bring all sorts of things for everybody and had forgotten. From underneath the socks he pulled out also a tin of tunny-fish in oil, and they all sampled it and stayed till late under the pergola, because Cenzo Rena was eating and drinking and smoking and did not seem ever to want to go to bed.