All Our Yesterdays

by Natalia Ginzburg

  Franz was nevertheless very touching when he played with the little girl. He had great patience with her and spent hours with her, throwing the ball to her or digging in the ground with a spoon, and talking to her in a low voice. The little girl was now two years old, and had lost that tender, delicate hair, she now had untidy locks of hair as tawny and dry as straw, and she had two eyes as green as pools of water, and a big, impudent mouth. These locks of hair were always falling down in a shower over her face, and she would sweep them aside with an impudent, imperious gesture, and Cenzo Rena was always astonished at this gesture, he was always astonished to see such a sombre, impudent air in such a very small child. She was always very dirty because she played all day long on the ground, and she screamed and struggled whenever anyone attempted to wash her. If she could she ran off to play in the lanes with the children of the contadini, and Cenzo Rena was afraid she might catch dysentery, and Anna would run after her and bring her back and then she would scream and struggle and hit her mother in the face with her little dirty hands. She would stand and watch Franz digging in the ground with a spoon, she would watch him with quiet indifference, standing in front of him with her hands behind her back, he would talk to her but she never answered, but swept aside her straw-like locks from her impudent face. When she saw Franz coming, she would go quietly to meet him and put into his hand the spoon for him to dig with. Franz told Anna how beautiful and strange the child was, he would have so much liked to have a child like that himself. But he would never have any children, Amalia had a narrow pelvis and could not have any. He was very sad at the thought that he could never have children. Little by little he told Anna and Cenzo Rena the story of what had happened with Amalia at the village where they had been, there had been a woman chemist whom he had rather liked, they had gone for a few walks together on Sundays when the chemist’s shop was shut, he had perhaps given her a few half-kisses, a matter of no importance at all. But the whole village had known of it and they had written anonymous letters to Amalia and to the woman chemist’s husband, who was not a chemist himself but a registrar. There had been a small scandal, he had had to give money to the registrar to calm him down, and Amalia had had hysterics, she gave great roars of laughter and wept at the same time, and then she had fallen down in a faint and he had been terribly frightened. She lay there pale as death on the floor and he did not know what to do, he wanted to go and fetch something from the chemist’s shop but in the chemist’s shop there was the woman chemist, in the end he had given her a little eau-de-Cologne to inhale and Amalia had come to herself again. He had asked her forgiveness, he had sworn that he was perfectly indifferent to the woman chemist and in thought had always remained faithful to her. And so it really was, he had rather liked the woman chemist because she was beautiful. And besides, Amalia did not go to bed willingly, she always lay there stock still and every time it was as though one were committing an affront against her, he himself, if she had gone to bed a little more willingly, would perhaps not have looked at other women so much. Cenzo Rena told him to be quiet, because they were not interested in hearing of the manner in which his wife went to bed.

  The day after her fainting fit Amalia had gone away. She had not spoken one single further word to him, she had been very sombre and very pale, he had been in despair at the thought of her going that long journey by herself and perhaps even fainting again. She had never written to him, he had heard of her arrival through a letter from Emanuele. He himself had written to Emanuele begging him to go on sending him news. After all she was his wife and he loved her, how could he be left without any news, very often at night his heart ached when, he thought of her having left him and of his parents who were certainly dead in Poland, he had never heard anything more of them, very often at night he cried into his pillow like a little boy. He felt himself very unfortunate and very lonely. He smeared the tears all over his face with his fingers, and begged Cenzo Rena and Anna to write to Emanuele and ask him to persuade Amalia to come back to him. It was not his fault if he liked girls, he said, he had liked them always so very much, and in any case who didn’t like them, here now at San Costanzo he liked the police-sergeant’s sister-in-law. She had two nice pear-shaped breasts and nice curly hair, and a tiny beak-like nose, rather pert and charming. When he rang the bell at the police station he looked up to see whether the pear-shaped breasts were at the window, and certainly the Turk also liked to see them at the window, otherwise why should he have rung the bell so constantly. He did not feel that he was committing any offence against his wife when he looked at those breasts as they bobbed up and down under the blouse. He thought that Amalia would not be unhappy at San Costanzo, there were no ducal palaces but the people were honest and not gossipy, they would leave them in peace as far as anonymous letters were concerned. Cenzo Rena told him he might find himself in trouble, for San Costanzo was the very kingdom of the anonymous letter.

  The English were striking hard every day against Sicily, and it was there that the contadino Giuseppe was, they had had no further news of him, every day Giuseppe’s wife came to see Cenzo Rena and ask him what he thought. He himself thought that Giuseppe was dead, and he made great efforts to say nothing of this to her, but to smile and caress the children that she trailed behind her, he asked her if she was giving the children rice and if she was taking precautions against dysentery. But as soon as she had gone away he would puff and snort and wipe the sweat from his face, because he had always to make efforts to keep his thoughts to himself, when really he was longing to tell everybody that everything was useless, because the earth was on the point of going to ruin. At night he would wake up and start thinking about the contadino Giuseppe, he would waken Anna and tell her he was sure he was dead. Then Anna would ask whether Giustino was dead too. Concettina’s husband had sent a post-card from a hospital at Ljubljana, he had been wounded but it was only a slight thing, nothing had been heard of Giustino. Cenzo Rena would not say anything on the subject of Giustino, he sighed and twisted himself about in the bed, then Anna started crying and said he must think Giustino was dead already, that was why he would not say anything. No, he said, no, Giustino had perhaps written a number of letters which had never arrived, the post from Russia worked very irregularly. He asked her to forgive him for not knowing how to give her any real comfort, he did not want to have to go on comforting people ; what he wanted, on the contrary, was to find someone who would comfort him, for he had such a feeling of emptiness inside him. And there was Giuseppe’s wife coming to see him every day and expecting words of hope like water to drink, she was living with an ill-natured sister-in-law who kept repeating every moment that there was no hope for Giuseppe with all that was going on in Sicily, where the English were on the point of landing. She would say this with an air of sorrow, wiping the tears from her eyes, and she would go on to say that they must resign themselves to fate, and that Giuseppe was getting the punishment he deserved because he had always been against the Government, and used to read wicked books at night. Giuseppe’s wife was small and pale, with a delicate, wasted face and a mouth entirely empty of teeth, when she laughed it was surprising to see so youthful a mouth quite empty. Cenzo Rena was astonished that she should still have any desire to laugh, what with her husband in Sicily and her ill-natured sister-in-law, and a life that was nothing but overworking herself in the fields, and he was astonished that she should have no feeling of modesty about opening that empty mouth of hers. He told her that a cunning fellow like Giuseppe would certainly manage to survive, he would manage to get himself taken prisoner, and so he would stay quietly in America or in India until the war was over. Giuseppe’s wife was very pleased, she ran off with one child on her shoulder and leading another by the hand, she ran off to tell her sister-in-law that if a man was cunning he could manage not to be killed in the war.

  There was widespread dysentery in the village but Cenzo Rena had in some measure lost interest in dysentery, he did not now go round so much after the doctor into the ho
uses of the contadini, in any case it was useless to tell them to buy rice because rice was not to be had. Even the veal nights now seemed a remote and distant thing, it was some time now since any calves had been killed because the contadini preferred to sell them in town on the black market, in the village they did not dare to sell on the black market because they were afraid of anonymous letters. A bull was killed because it was old and it was sold at the slaughter-yard, and it seemed to everyone that they could see it again passing along the road as it returned from the pasture, big and black and very old and tired, the meat was very tough to eat but those who arrived in time to buy some of it did eat it, and La Maschiona, too, managed to buy a big piece of it and Cenzo Rena ate it two days running and said what in the world would happen to him now after eating bull’s meat, but he said that after the war he wanted to go and live in a town, because he did not like eating beasts that he had seen walking about alive.

  9

  Mussolini said in a speech that the English would never succeed in landing in Sicily, but would be stopped at the bagnasciuga or water-line. Franz could not stop laughing at this word bagnasciuga, what an extraordinary word it was, where in the world had Mussolini dug it up? Cenzo Rena told him not to laugh, it was quite possible that the contadino Giuseppe might be on the water-line. There were plenty of other people for that, said Franz offended, not only just his friend the contadino Giuseppe. But anyhow, surely one might laugh for a moment at the comic words of Mussolini. No, said Cenzo Rena, Mussolini was no longer comic and no longer made one laugh. He had made people laugh for a very long time, when he wore spats and a top hat, and when he had himself photographed with tiger-cubs in his arms, and when he walked with his hands on his hips amongst sheaves of corn and country housewives. But with every year he had become a more and more joyless thing. His big statuelike face passed through towns in motor-cars, stuck itself out, big and waxy, from balconies, becoming with every year more big and more bare. And gradually everything that was made in Italy came to be made as it were in the image of that statue-like face, sculptors carved their statues with the features of that face, even fountains and stations and post-offices imitated the architecture of that face, and ministers and officials tried to look like it and succeeded, no one knew how but they succeeded, gradually they too developed immense bare, waxy heads that at once made you think of a station or a post-office. And perhaps one might still laugh a little, at all those post-offices sitting round in the Fascist Council. But now the real post-offices had collapsed, entire cities had collapsed and that big waxy head had disappeared, no one knew what had happened to it, whether it had seemed too frightened or too despairing or too mad, or whether all of a sudden it had been ashamed of being so big and so bare. And then all of a sudden it had reappeared in order to explain about the bagnasciuga. And it was not a word to laugh at, it was a word which had a mournful and indecent sound, just as mournful and indecent as that big, bare head that had suddenly reappeared. No, Mussolini no longer made one laugh, the time was long past when one could laugh at him, the time of the top hat and the tiger-cubs was long past. Mussolini now, with his water-line, aroused a feeling of horror and also, slightly, of pity. Not pity, said Franz, not pity, and he was there digging in the ground for the little girl and suddenly he threw down the spoon, he was not giving his pity to Mussolini, he had heard nothing of his parents but he knew that he would never see them alive again, and so he kept his pity in reserve for himself and for others like him, who had lost their families without knowing how or where. He asked Anna’s pardon but said that he was going away, because he had no wish to stay there with Cenzo Rena and see him getting emotional over Mussolini. He started going down over the rocks, he went down slowly because he perhaps expected that they would call him back, Anna wanted to call him back but Cenzo Rena said let him go, he was utterly, utterly sick of the sight of Franz’s silly face. The little girl stood looking at Franz’s back for a moment as he went away, and then all of a sudden threw the spoon after him.

  Franz sulked for a few days, but then he came back. He avoided all mention of the water-line, in any case there was nothing more to be said about the water-line, the English had crossed it and in a few days they took the whole of Sicily. Giuseppe’s wife arrived with her empty mouth wide open with laughter, Giuseppe had written from Bari where he had been evacuated with his battalion, he was well and perhaps in a short time he might be sent home on leave. Cenzo Rena said that Giuseppe was a disappointment, he had been only a couple of steps from the English on the water-line and had not been clever enough to get himself taken prisoner, he had got himself evacuated to Bari, what disgusting, depressing words the war produced, he did not at all like to think of Giuseppe being evacuated. Anna told him that for some time now he could never be pleased about anything, he had been so afraid on account of the contadino Giuseppe and now he could not even rejoice that he had been evacuated. Yes indeed, said Cenzo Rena, he was aware that he had become very tiresome and ill-natured for some time now, he had taken a dislike to everyone and wanted to go round uttering gloomy predictions, and also he did not feel well and both sleeping and eating disgusted him. It was La Maschiona’s fault for having made him eat that bull’s meat, now he was aware of a taste of bull even in the bread, even the bread had taken on a taste of bull and onions. But it was at least a month since they had eaten the bull’s meat, said La Maschiona, and when they had eaten it he had not said a word about being disgusted by it, he had eaten it two days running with plenty of bread and plenty of onions, in any case she had to cook what she could get.

  There arrived in San Costanzo a family of refugees from Naples, women and mattresses and babies were unloaded one morning from a lorry in the village square, and the police-sergeant was struggling to find accommodation for them in the village. Cenzo Rena felt he ought to take at least four people into his house, he thought of all the rooms in his house, and on the other hand he could not bear the idea of taking anyone, he could not bear the idea of living with anyone, he went round with the police-sergeant looking for somewhere to accommodate them. That was what he was like, he said to Anna, all day long he groaned over the bombed houses and then some refugees came and he was unwilling to take them in, God how unwilling he was, that was the disgusting kind of person he was. He was not afraid of their spoiling the furniture, it was not that, he would willingly have given up the whole house to them if he could have gone off somewhere else, the thing that was repugnant to him was living together. He looked out of the window at the refugees from Naples who were now going hither and thither about the lanes of the village, carrying mattresses and babies, he looked and said how sad it was to see all these mattresses carried about here and there all over Italy, Italy was now pouring mattresses out of her ravaged houses. And perhaps they too might soon be forced to run away, with their mattresses and the little girl and La Maschiona and the dog and the deck chairs, to run away to goodness knows where through the burning dust of the roads, and a great weariness had come upon him and he did not feel like carrying his mattresses anywhere. This family of refugees had suddenly filled the whole village, you saw them everywhere, these black, half-naked children, and a youth with his arm in a black sling, and big women in sandals carrying mattresses and combing their hair in the lanes and washing at the fountain. Cenzo Rena had given money for the refugees to the police-sergeant but now he thought he had been an idiot to give the police-sergeant the money, the police-sergeant would certainly never dream of giving anything to the refugees and would keep it all himself. Cenzo Rena had been ashamed to take the money to those fat women combing their hair, and yet that was what he ought to have done, but shame was the thing that spoilt human beings, probably without shame human beings would have been a little less nasty. But now there was no time left to argue about shame, there was no time left to trouble about one’s soul, the houses built for human beings were falling to the ground and mattresses and babies were pouring out of them because the earth was going to ruin. And Giustino, sai
d Anna, Giustino, where in the world was he? Giustino, said Cenzo Rena, Giustino, where indeed?

  They had news of Giustino, however, in a letter from Concettina, she had talked to someone who had seen him, he had been wounded in the retreat from the Don and was now in hospital at Fiume, still too weak to write but in bed and alive. Concettina was still at Le Visciole and from there had seen the bombing of their own town, she had stayed out in the garden all night and had seen in the distance a mass of black smoke all dotted with sparks, and had thought that perhaps the soap factory was on fire. However the soap factory had not been hit, nor had their own house nor yet the house opposite, Emanuele had come next day and told her that everything was still standing in the part of the town along the river, but that a whole quarter of the old town had been wrecked and he had spent the night carrying out the dead. Emanuele came sometimes now to sleep at Le Visciole, in order to have a rest from air raid warnings, but he never felt sleepy and kept her up late talking, and he always told her the story of that night when he had bandaged the wounded and carried out the dead in company with the managing director, he was on very good terms now with the managing director and no longer wished to trample his hat into the ground.