All Our Yesterdays

by Natalia Ginzburg

  Franz had come away from the monastery and had started walking towards San Costanzo. And the town was full of Germans but he had hardly any fear. He had walked for a long way along the frost-hardened road, no snow at all had fallen that winter so far and the morning was cold and clear, with a wind that bit your face. After walking for an hour he had come across the man with the corkscrew leg pushing his little cart full of pots and pans and brooms. The man with the corkscrew leg had stopped his cart and helped him to get into it, and Franz all at once had been seized with fear again and had started begging the man with the corkscrew leg not to report him to the Germans, he had taken the diamond ring off his finger and given it to him. And then he had jumped out of the cart and run to Cenzo Rena’s house across the fields.

  Cenzo Rena sat listening to this whole story and very slowly shook his head, and finally he asked Franz whether he had not gone a little mad, because he had started doing some very strange things. And he said that Franz was like Pierino’s puppet, the puppet which it was no use throwing over precipices or out of trains or into the sea because it always reappeared. Franz told him that he had come back not in order to be safe but to stay with him and the little girl and Anna, in their house. Because they were the dearest friends he had ever had, and only with them was he happy. Cenzo Rena told him to stay as long as he liked, once upon a time he used to have silly ideas about people living in the house with him, but no one thought about such silly ideas now. The police-sergeant was now living in the house too, he had dropped down upon them from Masuri one day when he had taken fright. And the waiter from Freiburg came in every day. But Franz said he was no longer afraid either of the waiter from Freiburg or of the police-sergeant. Then Cenzo Rena called to La Maschiona to bring the tub for Franz to wash in. And La Maschiona brought the tub and looked very sulky indeed because she would now have to make Franz’s bed again as well as the others.

  The man with the corkscrew leg came next day, hobbling quickly up over the rocks, he asked to speak to Cenzo Rena alone and showed him a kind of little white bag which he had sewed into the inside of his shirt, in it was the diamond ring that Franz had given him. He asked whether he could really keep the ring for himself, whether this man Franz had really made him a present of it, this man Franz had seemed to him a bit funny in the head. Certainly his great fear of the Germans had made him a bit funny in the head. He had never dreamed of reporting him to the Germans, he also was frightened to death of the Germans and kept well away from them, and besides, why should he have reported him, a poor chap who did no one any harm ? And in any case who in the village did dream of reporting him, they all knew that he was at Cenzo Rena’s together with the police-sergeant and Giuseppe but they kept quiet, possibly there had been someone who had reported the Turk and the old women, possibly it had been that good-for-nothing son of the chemist’s, but now the chemist’s son was away in the North. He touched the little bag under his shirt and asked if it was a ring of much value, after the war he would like to sell it to the jeweller in the town and use the money to have weights put on his bad leg, he had been told that perhaps with weights it might become straighten The only thing he was afraid of was that these weights might hurt him. He asked Cenzo Rena whether he would do him the kindness of going with him to the jeweller after the war, if he went by himself the jeweller might think he had stolen the ring. Cenzo Rena promised to go with him to the jeweller after the war. The man with the corkscrew leg went away happy, and he went jumping down over the rocks bending right down to the ground on one side, with his trousers rumpling up at every step over his twisted leg.

  When the waiter from Freiburg came, the police-sergeant and Franz and Giuseppe ran down the little staircase and hid in the cellar, and Cenzo Rena heaved a long sigh and went to entertain the waiter. In the cellar the police-sergeant and Franz and Giuseppe played cards on the sacks of potatoes, the police-sergeant did not know that Giuseppe’s tommy-gun was hidden under the sacks. Franz ate apples, rubbing them hard on his coat to polish them, La Maschiona was very mean over these apples and it was only when he was hiding in the cellar that he was able to eat any. There was nothing much to eat now, it was only of potatoes that you could eat your fill, and Franz was always a little hungry, because potatoes fill you up but do not give enough nourishment. Franz was very fond of the little red apples that La Maschiona kept in the cellar, and ate them hurriedly while La Maschiona was not there to see. They would hear the footsteps of the waiter going away, and Cenzo Rena would open the cellar door and stand for a moment at the top of the little staircase with a lighted lamp. He would be fuming with rage because he did not enjoy talking to the waiter, it was always the same waiters’ stories. The contadino Giuseppe asked him when he was going to send him packing, this dirty blackguard of a German, Cenzo Rena asked how he could possibly send him packing, he was a German and for the moment he was the master and not a waiter. Giuseppe said that some day he would like to do a German in, any dirty blackguard of a German, yes, even this waiter here. He had heard that in the North people were fighting against the Germans, people were going up into the mountains and shooting, It was only in their own dismal country, where people had no spirit, that nobody had gone up into the mountains. His own tommy-gun was rusting under the potatoes. All day long Giuseppe was thinking of what he could do against the Germans, he wondered whether he could not go out at night and scatter nails on the road to puncture the tyres of their vehicles, or hide in a hedge and shoot with his tommy-gun at every car that passed. Every night he thought of going out but in the end he always stayed in the house, playing cards with the police-sergeant and Franz. He had misgivings at the idea of doing something all on his own like that, in the North there were so many of them, properly organized like an army, so that then you might not even be frightened. He had lost some of his esteem for Cenzo Rena, because Cenzo Rena did not think about organizing anything, but sat in the kitchen and received the waiter, and talked German and sometimes smoked the waiter’s cigarettes. Sometimes Giuseppe smoked the waiter’s cigarettes too, when the waiter had gone away and there was an almost complete packet left on the table. But he had such a longing to smoke and it did not seem to him that there was any harm in it, because the German was not there to see him smoking, whereas Cenzo Rena accepted cigarettes from the waiter’s own hand.

  And one day Giuseppe asked Cenzo Rena why they too shouldn’t start resistance against the Germans, like the people in the North. He asked why Cenzo Rena did not call together the farrier and the draper and all the contadini, and they would arrange, all of them together, to hide behind hedges and shoot at the Germans at night, or at least to scatter nails along the road. And Cenzo Rena said that indeed it would be quite right to do that. But he himself did not feel any inclination either to shoot or to scatter nails, he had thought about it sometimes but had realized that he would be very much afraid, afraid throughout the whole of his body, and he felt his hands all limp and unwilling to scatter nails or shoot. He asked Giuseppe’s pardon, perhaps he had disappointed him, perhaps now Giuseppe would no longer have any esteem for him. At present, when he happened to hear cries and lamentations from the contadini in the lanes, Cenzo Rena would go out and look, and it would be Germans searching the houses for young men to put on lorries and send off to work in Germany, and Cenzo Rena would start talking German and sometimes he had succeeded in getting the Germans away from the houses and telling them some kind of tall story to get them to leave people alone. It wasn’t much, Cenzo Rena said to Giuseppe, it wasn’t much but it was all he was able to do. If he had been given a pistol or a tommy-gun to fire he would not have shot straight, he would have shot all crooked into a tree, and in the meantime he would have started thinking things which it was not right to think. Giuseppe asked him what he would have started thinking. And Cenzo Rena said he would have started thinking that the Germans were all waiters, poor unfortunates with some sort of a job at the back of them, poor unfortunates whom it was not really worth while killing. And this wa
s a thought that in war-time had no sense, it was an idiotic thought but he himself might happen to have an idiotic thought of that kind. Perhaps the contadino Giuseppe was a man of war; if so, let the contadino Giuseppe go with his tommy-gun into the hills. The contadino Giuseppe bit his nails and looked at Cenzo Rena discontentedly, how could he go with his tommy-gun all by himself into the hills ? But at least scatter some nails, he said, at least scatter lots of nails along the road, so that a few tyres might burst from time to time. Yes, perhaps scatter nails, said Cenzo Rena, why not ? But where were all the nails to scatter, he asked, he himself had only one nail in his pocket and he pulled it out, it was a nail that was all rusty and crooked and he kept it in his pocket to bring him luck.

  But Anna, too, was a bit discontented and did not like the words that Cenzo Rena said to the contadino Giuseppe, and Cenzo Rena was conscious of the doubting and discontented faces round him and he grew sad and withdrawn, and it seemed as though he were growing older and older when he started reading with his spectacles rather low on his nose and his head buried between his shoulders. There were not men of war and men of peace, thought Anna, the war affected everybody and no one had the right to say that he did not want to take part in the war. It seemed to her that it was cowardly to talk like that. And one day she said so to Cenzo Rena and Cenzo Rena remained silent, and he rubbed his hands over his face, and when his face reappeared, it was redder than before and as it were sleepy-looking. And he said that perhaps she did not believe it but he was not so very cowardly for himself, the thing that frightened him most of all was the idea of his village of San Costanzo in flames and the people of San Costanzo being killed along the cemetery wall. It was a little village of no account, a mere flea in the whole of Italy, but he did not want to see it all in flames, as he had seen La Maschiona’s godfather’s mill in flames that night. But Anna was still discontented and she thought of Giustino, who was perhaps at this moment fighting in the mountains up there in the North, and she wondered if he was still alive or whether they had not shot him already, she saw Giustino’s face while they were shooting him, a face with a smile like Ippolito’s smile, a little crooked and sad. Anna would have liked to be with Giustino fighting there in the North, and to be shot with Giustino beside the wall of a cemetery, she knew very little of what was going on up there in the North, but it was known that a great many people were being shot by the Germans every day, and meanwhile she herself was sitting every day in the kitchen with the waiter and accepting sugar and chocolate from the waiter for the little girl. But when she looked at the waiter she felt she might be able to shoot at all the other Germans but not at the waiter, sitting there as he was in their kitchen with the little girl between his knees, with his long, quiet, solemn head between the child’s hands that were busy ruffling his glossy brown hair and pulling hard at his long red ears. La Maschiona was always saying what a fine person the waiter was, he was always bringing sugar and chocolate for the little girl, and he had nothing whatever to do with those other Germans who had killed her godfather, she had told him about her godfather and he had said he was really very sorry indeed about it. La Maschiona considered that it was unnecessary for Franz and the police-sergeant and Giuseppe to run off into the cellar whenever the waiter came, the waiter had nothing whatever to do with the ones who carried people away in lorries, and even if he had known that Franz was a Jew he would not have touched him, he was a German who did not concern himself with Jews. La Maschiona always gave the waiter a great welcome when she saw him arrive, and poured him out a glass of wine—she, who was so mean about the provisions—, and she said how well brought-up the waiter was, he would drink the wine she poured out for him but he never poured out any for himself. La Maschiona now thought again that Cenzo Rena was an immensely clever man, because he had been able to make friends with the waiter with the excuse of the dog, and because he went and talked to the Germans when they were searching the houses, he went and talked and told them some kind of tall story in that clever way of his, and the Germans paid attention to him and left off their searching. La Maschiona now no longer went to sleep at her mother’s each night, because she felt quite safe there in Cenzo Rena’s house, and she was again very proud of Cenzo Rena when he went down into the village and she saw him conversing with the Germans, how clever he was and what stories he told them.

  Franz said to Anna that one must have confidence in Cenzo Rena, because he was incapable of making mistakes or of doing things that were wrong, and the day that Cenzo Rena went to scatter nails along the road he himself would follow him, because he had no fear now and it hardly mattered to him whether he died or lived, but as long as Cenzo Rena did not go it meant that it was right not to go. And the police-sergeant was very frightened indeed as soon as he heard any talk of nails, for goodness’ sake let them give up all idea of nails, what was the use of nails anyhow, a few tyres punctured and nothing more. When the moment came for shooting they would shoot, at present the moment had not yet come, he himself, the police-sergeant, would be the first to shoot as soon as the moment came. He had buried his gun at Masuri and he would go and fetch it, he would collect all the guns that there were at Masuri, at Masuri there were guns for everybody. But in the meantime they must wait for the English to advance a little, and as long as there was snow on the ground they could not advance ; and then the snow began to melt and the first green patches appeared on the ridges of the hills. And the news arrived that the English had made a great bound forward, now the artillery could be heard thundering behind the hills, the English had taken San Felice, a village a few kilometres from the town. But the police-sergeant said it was not yet the right moment to start shooting, what was the point of hurrying ? The spring rains began. And the English stopped again and for many days everything was again quiet in the rushing rain, the artillery was silent and the Germans were still there with their big red drums, in long, glossy, black waterproofs and high boots in the rain ; and then suddenly in the rain the bright, warm sun appeared and changed the mud into the usual fine, sandy dust, and the apple-trees rose up in blossom in the gardens and were beaten and despoiled by the wind, and aeroplanes started humming again in the blue sky amongst rags of clouds, and the contadino Giuseppe was worried to death because he did not know how his wife would manage the work in the fields all alone, he himself did not move away from Cenzo Rena’s house because so many contadini had gone to work in the fields and then the Germans had come and loaded them into lorries and taken them away. He had sent the children to Borgoreale to some relations of his wife’s. All of a sudden Cenzo Rena decided that Anna ought to leave San Costanzo with the little girl, San Costanzo was on the road and the English as they advanced would be fighting on the road. So one day Cenzo Rena took Anna and the little girl to La Maschiona’s grandmother at Scoturno di Sopra.

  There were two German sentries on the path leading to Scoturno, but they knew Cenzo Rena and looked for a moment into the hamper and allowed them to pass. Cenzo Rena was carrying the hamper, the hamper was very heavy and he said what a lot of useless things Anna was bringing with her, and yet she had not thought of bringing a Thermos, she was against Thermos flasks like Signora Maria. Why on earth a Thermos, said Anna, what would she do with a Thermos when the weather was so hot? She could put the child’s camomile in it at night, said Cenzo Rena, she didn’t surely suppose that La Maschiona’s grandmother would get up at night and light the fire and make the camomile? The little girl turned round and said that she didn’t like camomile.

  It was the end of May and the sun was scorching as they went up the path, and the grass was shaggy and burnt; Cenzo Rena swung the hamper as he walked and plunged his feet into the burnt grass, and from high up he looked down at San Costanzo and the village square full of tanks and lorries, then San Costanzo disappeared behind the ridge of the hill. Anna stopped suddenly and asked if it was really necessary for her and the child to go to Scoturno di Sopra, Cenzo Rena told her not to ask silly questions, in a short time San Costanzo would
become a field of battle and everyone who had small children was taking them away. Anna thought of long, long days in the kitchen with La Maschiona’s grandmother, in the smoke that Franz had told her about.

  They found La Maschiona’s grandmother lighting the fire under the iron pot, but there was not the slightest wisp of smoke, said Cenzo Rena, it was very comfortable at Scoturno di Sopra and he himself would stay there with the greatest pleasure. Then why didn’t he stay, asked Anna, and he said that on the contrary he had to go straight back again, because he had to be at San Costanzo to see what went on all the time. Nothing went on, said Anna, they could manage very well at San Costanzo without him. They quarrelled in low voices while they unpacked the hamper on the bed, what a lot of things Anna had brought, he was saying, she had brought a whole heap of towels, Anna was like Signora Maria. Anna started crying a little at the remembrance of Signora Maria. She sat down on La Maschiona’s grandmother’s big hard bed and cried, she was thinking of Signora Maria and Ippolito who were dead, and she even thought of Ippolito’s dog with its tender, curly muzzle, and she thought of Concettina and Giustino, not knowing whether they were alive or dead, and she looked at Cenzo Rena and was frightened that she would never see him again, in a short time he would go back down the path to San Costanzo and then the English would come fighting all along the road and at San Costanzo goodness knows what would happen. And Cenzo Rena looked at her too and wondered if he would ever see her again, but they were unable to say anything serious to each other, they went on quarrelling about the things that Anna had brought and Cenzo Rena told her she was foolish to cry because she was bored at staying with La Maschiona’s grandmother and Anna did not know how to tell him that she was not crying because of that. And Cenzo Rena left her some money and as always when he had to fork out money he complained that in a short time they would be left without any and that it was a fine problem. Then he went away in the hot afternoon and when he came in sight of San Costanzo the sun was setting, reddening the ridges of the hills. He was thinking of Anna and of how he had seen her sitting on the bed crying, and of the little girl who had run off after the sheep with La Maschiona’s grandmother and had hardly said good-bye to him, toiling after the sheep with a long stick, her thin bare feet in the dust. Cenzo Rena thought of them and wondered whether this had been the last time he would see them, the war was going on and one always thought that each time was perhaps a last time.