All Our Yesterdays

by Natalia Ginzburg

  Only once did Giustino remember to hang up the black handkerchief on the stick, so that Emanuele should know that Emilio Sbrancagna was there, but this handkerchief was Signora Maria’s scarf, and she went and took it in for fear that it might be spoilt. After that there were no more handkerchiefs, and Emilio and Emanuele began to meet on the stairs and to greet each other, but Emilio at first scowled because he imagined that everyone who came to the house was in love with Concettina, until Signora Maria explained to him that to Emanuele Concettina was like a sister. And gradually Emanuele stopped grinding his teeth as he said the word “Sbrancagna ”. And then one day there was the meeting between Emilio and Danilo, and Danilo started questioning him with the policeman-like air that he had acquired in prison, and Emilio fidgeted anxiously in his armchair, with a great longing to escape to Concettina who was sitting in the sun on the terrace. Danilo asked him a number of questions, whether he had read this and that and whether he was frightened about the war, Emilio shook his black feather-brush of hair and turned from side to side in his armchair, he had no desire at all to go to the war, in any case who in Italy now thought about the war? He told Danilo and Ippolito that he felt himself too stupid to talk to them, they talked to him as though he were very intelligent but really he was stupid, he had never read either Spinoza or Kant, he had tried but had quickly stopped because he did not understand. He wanted to marry Concettina and that was all, he did not look forward into the years to come, every day that came was beautiful. He knew that Danilo had been in prison, he felt a great respect for those who went to prison but he himself would never have the courage to go there, he put on a black shirt and marched in processions. In any case it seemed to him that the Fascists had done a few good things, for example they had taken Africa and Albania, perhaps it did not mean a great deal to have taken them but nevertheless taken them they had. The only thing he did not like was the Rome-Berlin Axis, he could not bear the Germans, his father had fought in the war against the Germans and he himself was small then but he had not forgotten it. He did not like the Rome-Berlin Axis but in point of fact Mussolini was not now waging war side by side with the Germans, perhaps he couldn’t bear them either and the Rome-Berlin Axis had been all a joke. On the whole it seemed to him that things in Italy were really not going so badly, perhaps they might be even better but he himself was satisfied, Danilo and Ippolito were too intelligent to be satisfied and they imagined other kinds of governments, but he himself was stupid, he was easy to please and was quite satisfied. At last they let him alone and he made his escape, and he really did seem like a young calf or a colt that had been let loose to graze at ease, and Danilo stayed in the sitting-room arguing on the subject of calves, there were so many of them in Italy and they were all like that.

  On the night before the wedding Concettina sat up weeping, but it was a weeping that had no sorrow in it now; she sat on the bed with her hands clasped behind her head and bright, quiet tears ran down her face, and Signora Maria dozed at the foot of the bed, and from time to time gave a start and got up with her hair all undone, with one cheek red and the other pale, and went down to heat up the camomile. These tears left no mark upon Concettina’s face, in the morning it was a pure, fresh face, with no swelling or redness, a beautiful face washed clean by tears, luminous and mild. Refreshments had been prepared in the sitting-room, and Signora Maria had wondered if they ought to invite Mammina, but Emanuele said it was no use, Mammina certainly would not come. On the contrary, Mammina was offended at not being invited, and said to Emanuele that she knew perfectly well that Concettina had copied her redingote and that that was why she had not wanted to invite her, it did not matter in the least to her that she had copied it but all the same she must not think it suited her, she was too big in the legs and hips to wear a close-fitting redingote, and she would have done better to copy her loose sack coat, for a woman with Concettina’s figure it would have been much more suitable. Emanuele ran across to say that they ought to invite Mammina, but by now it was too late, Mammina was offended and did not come, she sent some flowers instead. Emanuele and Giuma came ; Emanuele said that Giuma looked well at a wedding, he was very smart and made a good appearance. Danilo and his wife also came ; Signora Maria did not want them at any price, she was in despair, what on earth would the Sbrancagnas think when they found themselves in company with Danilo and his wife ? But Ippolito said it was he who was master of the house, and he had purposely fixed the wedding to be on a Sunday, so that Danilo’s wife would be able to come too. Signora Maria said he remembered to be master of the house only when it was convenient to him, usually he was indifferent to everything, and it had been necessary for her to humiliate herself by taking the jewels to the pawnshop in order to provide a trousseau for Concettina. Emanuele was laughing all the time at the thought of the face Signor Sbrancagna would make when he found himself in the company of Danilo, because everyone in the town knew he had been in prison. But Signor Sbrancagna and his wife lived a detached sort of life in their villa outside the town, and he knew nothing about Danilo, and asked Ippolito who the young man was who looked so very intelligent and distinguished. During the whole time of the ceremony in church and again later while they were taking refreshments at the house Signor Sbrancagna stayed beside Ippolito, because he had taken a great liking to Ippolito, and he started telling him all about himself, how he had come to marry his wife and how he had set up his chemical works, and he asked in a low voice whether Italy would come into the war on the side of the Germans, as for the Germans, he could not bear them, he had fought against them and once a man has fought against a country he never forgets it, how can he then make friends, the human heart is after all the human heart and remains deaf to political expediencies. And then the Russians were now allied with the Germans, what a mix-up it was. As for the cold war, it was impossible to believe in it, goodness knows how many dead there had been already, there was little movement because the winter was coming on, but in the spring there would be a disastrous explosion. And Ippolito said he thought so too.

  Anna stood in one corner of the room in a dress of yellow velvet which Signora Maria had cut out of a curtain for her, she was thinking that she was sick of being dressed in curtains, no one could fail to notice that what she was wearing was a curtain, it still even had its tassels at the bottom, because Signora Maria had said that they made a fine trimming and that it would be a shame to take them away. She looked at Giustino who was behaving in a rather silly fashion with Danilo’s wife, he was sitting on the arm of her chair and telling her that in the winter he would take her out ski-ing, he would teach her to come down like a snow-plough, it was easy. Danilo’s wife had a flame-red blouse which went badly with the colour of her hair, but at least it was a blouse and not a curtain, Anna wondered why she should be the only one who had to be dressed in a curtain. She would have liked Giustino to have taken her out ski-ing too, but he certainly wouldn’t, he would go alone with Danilo’s wife so as to behave in a silly fashion with her, as though Danilo’s wife really wanted to pay any attention to him. Danilo’s wife was listening to him absent-mindedly with her tired, worn expression, and from time to time she broke into a laugh which sounded like a cough. Giuma was there beside them, his lips curved in a contemptuous smile, evidently Giustino’s boastings about the snow-plough seemed to him very foolish, no doubt he was very good at ski-ing and the snow-plough must seem to him just a piece of nonsense.

  Giuma saw Anna looking at him and came over to her. “We two used to play together when we were small,” he said. He said it as though he were speaking of a very distant and far-off time ; since then he had been in Switzerland, had won goodness knows how many rugby matches, his cheeks had become hard and bristly, his shoulders square and strong. He had become very tall and elegant, he had a silk shirt with his initials on it, he had a watch in a kind of black shell hanging at his belt. He stood in front of her and fiddled with the chain of this watch, his hair still fell over his eyes and he threw it back, curving
his lips as he did so. “We used to read The Child’s Treasure-House,” she said. “The Child’s Treasure-House! yes, yes . . .” Giuma started laughing a great deal at the recollection of The Child’s Treasure-House, he threw back his head and laughed, and she saw again his small teeth like a wolf’s. She would have been amused to read The Child’s Treasure-House again, several times she had asked Emanuele what had become of all those volumes bound in blue, Emanuele knew nothing about them, perhaps Mammina had had them taken up to the attic. “You used to tie me to trees with a rope,” she said. “Really? I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t hurt you too much.” He had become, very charming, when his contemptuous smile vanished he seemed even a little shy, it seemed to her that he remained beside her out of shyness, because he did not know anyone else in the room. But she felt a great boredom, a great fatigue at being with him, the same boredom and the same fatigue that she had felt in the days when they had played together. To her those days did not seem so far off, it seemed to her that so few things had happened, they had burned the newspapers and they had expected the police and then no one had come at all. Giuma asked her in a low voice who was the monster in the red blouse, she told him it was Danilo’s wife but he did not know who Danilo was, certainly he did not know anything about the time when they burned the newspapers, Emanuele had told them all that his brother was an impossible person. Giuma said he did not know any of Emanuele’s friends, in any case he and Emanuele did not see each other often, just for a moment in the morning at the bathroom door, at table rather seldom because they ate at different times, and he himself often had to accompany Mammina out to lunch and to play bridge. He pressed the spring of the black shell and looked at the time, Mammina was expecting him even on that day, he said that Emanuele had been clever enough not to learn bridge, so did not have to accompany Mammina to various boring drawing-rooms. He asked Anna if she would be free next day to go to the cinema with him after school, he would wait for her in the avenue, they had played so much together as children and now there was no reason why they should not see each other. And so he would have an excuse for not making a fourth at bridge. Anna said yes, she was free, and thought with a feeling of fatigue and fear of the afternoon they would spend together, perhaps from now onwards Giuma would want to be often with her, she was proud of it and at the same time fatigued and frightened and she felt for him a kind of distress and did not know why.

  When the guests had gone Concettina’s suitcases, full of the trousseau all made of pure linen, had hurriedly to be closed, and Concettina and Emilio went off by car for their honeymoon.

  9

  When Anna came out of school next day she found Giuma waiting for her in the avenue, and they went to the cinema to see The Mark of zorro. Giuma paid for her. All that day she had been wondering whether the money she had would be enough for the ticket, if they went to a cinema in the centre of the town it certainly would not. She talked about it at school to her desk-neighbour, she was her dearest friend and they told each other everything. Her friend started laughing, she often went to the cinema with boys and knew that they always paid. She told her that Giuma would certainly kiss her, boys took girls to the cinema simply in order to kiss them. Giuma however did not seem to be thinking of kissing her, he sat beside her in the almost empty, dark theatre and stamped and champed, you just couldn’t go to the cinema nowadays, there was never any possibility of seeing a decent film. Only at the end did he stop fuming, there was a duel on the balustrade of a terrace and even he was left breathless. But when they came out he spoke scornfully even of the duel, he started telling her about a long film of duels that he had seen at Geneva, Anna couldn’t understand what he was talking about because it was a very tangled story. They walked towards home and on the road beside the river they met Emanuele and Ippolito, Emanuele raised his eyebrows and opened his eyes wide when he saw them together. At the gate Giuma told her he would wait for her in the avenue again next day, it would be nice to be together even if they didn’t go to the cinema.

  They got into the habit of meeting in the avenue every day. Anna would rather have gone to see her girl friend or come straight home to do her homework. As it was she had to stay up after supper to do her lessons. But she was too proud of Giuma wanting to be with her. Giuma was a boy. Concettina had told her again and again that at her age she had had plenty of boys to go out with. Concettina had scolded her because she came straight home from school to do her homework. Now she was impatient for Concettina to come back from her honeymoon, so that she might be seen with Giuma on the road by the river. Signora Maria, however, was not altogether pleased at her going about with Giuma, she did not know Giuma, she did not know what type of boy he was. Emanuele told her he was an impossible type, presumptuous and fatuous, but in the matter of upbringing there was nothing to be said against him, he was well brought up from head to foot and you could safely give him five hundred girls to take out. But Signora Maria asked why he had not made friends with Giustino who was in the same class, why with Anna ? Then Giustino said that Giuma had tried to make friends with him too, but he had not paid any attention to him and so he had immediately stopped.

  Of Giustino and of the other boys at school Giuma always spoke with great contempt. They did not read books, they did not wash properly, they did not go in for any kind of sport : they gave themselves grand sporting airs but when it came to the point they could do nothing seriously. Anna asked him if he was still friends with Cingalesi and Pucci Donadio : she had always remembered these names which at one time he had so constantly repeated to her. Giuma frowned. Pucci Donadio he remembered, he had never been really a friend of his, he was the son of a friend of Mammina’s, he was much smaller than himself and they used to take him to play on the beach at Mentone and he had to make sand-castles for him. As for Cingalesi, he didn’t know who he was. Then he thought hard and recalled Cingalesi, a boy who used to sell oranges on the beach. No, he had other friends now. He pulled a bundle of letters out of his pocket; he showed her the stamps on the envelopes, his friends wrote to him from every part of the world, from America, from Denmark, at the school in Switzerland he had got to know people from everywhere. Some of them were still at the school and were waiting for him to come back, they were putting aside bottles of brandy and gin to celebrate his return, he felt he really wanted some gin, perhaps Mammina would let him go back again soon.

  He often took her to the cinema, for he always had money to spend. Or they would wander about the town, they would go into bookshops and look at the magazines and the art books, Giuma went into ecstasies over reproductions of pictures in which there was nothing but triangles and small circles. Sometimes they bought roast chestnuts and sat and ate them on a seat in the public gardens. Giuma would pull out the poems of Montale and start reading them aloud. He had explained to her who Montale was, he had explained who the other poets were who were of any importance. Anna sat silent without listening to him, she was quite unable to fix her attention upon his words. She looked at his wide, light-coloured overcoat, at his scarf, at the locks of hair falling over his forehead, at his small teeth like a wolf’s. Gradually she had ceased to be bored in his company, she did not listen to what he said but she looked at him, and she was infinitely proud to sit with Giuma on a seat in the public gardens, and it seemed to her that Giuma’s light-coloured overcoat and his scarf and his watch in its black shell all belonged partly to her, and it seemed to her that none of her school-friends had anything like this, a boy to go about with like this, her school-friends went out with giggling, tiresome boys who did not read Montale and knew nothing about the painters who made small circles. She sat silent with her hands in her lap, the shells of the chestnuts entangled in the wool of her coat. She could not have said one single word about Montale and she had not understood much of his poetry. Yet she had taken a fancy to certain lines, from having heard them spoken by Giuma : “Un’ora e mi riporta Cumerlotti—Lakmé nell’aria delle campanelle—o vero c’era il falòtico—mutarsi della mia vi
ta—quando udii sugli scogli crepitare—la bomba ballerina.” She went home with the bomba ballerina and the falòtico, for some time the bomba ballerina went dancing in front of her. She did not ask Giuma who Cumerlotti was, she did not ask him about the falòtico, she was afraid he might get angry, and she was afraid the falòtico might turn into something dull and valueless if one discovered what it was.

  In the morning at school her friend always asked her whether Giuma had kissed her and she said no. Her friend was much surprised and not altogether pleased and said that never had such a thing happened to her, boys always kissed her. In the end she imagined that they had kissed each other and that Anna wouldn’t tell her. Gradually they became a little less friendly. Anna did not tell her anything about the falòtico, this friend of hers now seemed to her silly, and also it seemed to her that her neck was a little dirty, she like Giuma had now begun to look whether people washed themselves properly. So that when Giuma really did kiss her she said nothing to her friend. No one knew about it.

  Giuma kissed her one day when he was feeling sad. He had got only three marks in Greek, Mammina was angry with him, and then he had said he had got only three marks on purpose, because he wanted to go back to Switzerland, he did not like this nasty school and did not want to stay there any longer. All of a sudden Emanuele had begun shouting at him too. And then he had said it didn’t really matter to him so much about the school, but he didn’t like staying at home and he preferred to go to a boarding-school, he didn’t like taking Mammina about when she went to see those awful women who played bridge. Emanuele had shouted that he must not be lacking in respect towards Mammina, he had gone for him and they had hit each other, Mammina, trying to separate them, had sprained her wrist, and then the whole day had been spent in putting vegeto-mineral water compresses on it. They were not letting him go back to Switzerland, there was no hope of that. And he was fed up with everything. Only with Anna was he happy, she was the only person who was kind to him. They sat in silence, Giuma looked down on the ground, frowning, and made marks in the dust with his foot. Suddenly he put his arm round her waist and pressed himself slightly against her. There was a terrible silence between them, they looked at each other in a fright, the fright and the silence lasted a long time. And then Giuma kissed her and they sighed and smiled at each other peacefully.