Lost Words

by Nicola Gardini

  We sat down to the table. Her eyes had become as big as two lakes. She looked at me and in her gaze I saw a last heroic glimmer of determination. She waited for me to close and lock the front door. My father sat down in the armchair to watch television—but she turned it off. Paying no heed to his protests, she said with no ifs, ands, or buts, that it would cost six million to buy the house: six, not five.

  He had a bemused expression, then he jumped to his feet. With a sweep of the hand he knocked all the knickknacks off the fold-out bed and started kicking the chairs.

  “You thought you were going to fuck me over?” he gasped, as if he were about to cough, circling her like a maniac. “Me? For Christ’s sake . . .”

  “Shut up! Do you want the whole building to hear you? Do you want us to become a laughing stock?”

  He kept shaking his head and waving his arms around.

  “Where did you think you were going to find the money, huh? Did you even think about what you were doing? DID YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU WERE DOING? You wanted to ruin me! That’s what you wanted! And like an idiot I followed you! Where did you think you were going to get the money—growing on trees?”

  With her back against the wall, my mother finally uttered the word that she had been struggling to avoid: “We could always apply for a mortgage. What’s wrong with that? Not everyone buys with cash on the barrel. Not even Signora Dell’Uomo, I hear, who is hardly hurting for money. For that matter she doesn’t even have children to take care of . . .”

  At the sound of the word “mortgage” my father’s face turned to ash.

  “Mortgages are the ruin of the world,” he hollered at the top of his lungs. “What the fuck do I have to say to make you understand?”

  He panted, placing his hand over his chest. We thought he was having a heart attack. My mother helped him sit in the armchair, fanned his face with her hand, and asked him fearfully whether she should call the doctor.

  He stood up in a sweat and very slowly made his way to the bedroom.

  I spent the night trying to overhear any words that might’ve come from their room. But not a word was said. The only thing I could hear was the ticking of the alarm clock.

  *.

  More than anything, even more than defeat, she was oppressed by the thought that she had become an object of ridicule. She had brought universal disdain on herself: everyone knew of her failure and relished it. Now she saw the curled lips in their customary greetings as an affront or even a reprimand.

  “They’re all laughing in my face! And they’re right! I couldn’t even buy my own house! They’re right to laugh! Ha-ha-ha! Very funny!”

  And she wept like a fountain, her hands balled into fists, her mouth drooling uncontrollably.

  She stopped speaking to my father. What was left to say? Nothing. Instead of words, gasps and sobs came out of her mouth. She couldn’t breathe. Out of the blue she would drop whatever she was doing and run to the window for air. Every day she became more listless—she wasted away.

  Disappointment had aged her visibly and she suddenly looked ten years older. “What’s wrong, Elvira?” the signore would ask. “Are you tired?” So as not to give them any satisfaction, she would reply, “What do I have to be tired about? Elvira is never tired! She’s like a mule!”

  Even my father asked her what was wrong, but she refused to answer him.

  She would go out without telling me. She’d go to sit on a bench in the garden, under the willow tree, and stay there for fifteen minutes at a time. When people asked for her, I had to run and call her, and I’d find her motionless, in a daze. “Momma, they’re looking for you,” I would whisper, trying not to startle her. Not even the name “Aldrovanti” was enough to shake her out of it—the same name that had struck the fear of God into her a few days earlier now left her completely indifferent. “Tell her I’ll call back . . .” she would reply nonchalantly.

  One day I ran almost all the way to the streetcar stop to get her. She’d decided to go to the Rinascente department store downtown to spend five hundred thousand liras in a single shot. What did she need the money for anymore? In the meantime, with no one keeping watch at the door, a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses had snuck up the stairs. But Terzoli stopped them immediately, threatening to call the police. “What a bunch of creeps!” she told my mother. “They’d rather let a child die than give it a blood transfusion! We’d better not let management find out about these little visits . . .” My mother didn’t bat an eye. She didn’t give a damn about appearing infallible anymore. Nor was she worried about criticism, complaints, and threatening insinuations.

  She had lost all desire to work. She’d also lost the physical strength she needed to clean so many floors. What she used to finish in a morning now took her a whole week. The bucket and the scrub-brush would be left forgotten in the lobby for days on end.

  I was mad at my father—he had been unfair and selfish. But he needed some sympathy, too. He was waiting for a sign of reconciliation from her, a sign that never came. During supper he would stare at her, smile at her, studying her movements lovingly, convinced that the simple insistence of his gaze would induce her to give in. But nothing. She ignored him with a demented obstinacy, made even more monstrous in that it conveyed no anger.

  *.

  Now the building was in the hands of twenty owners.

  All of them adopted an insufferable haughtiness, morning, noon, and night. Even I could feel it. They would walk by the loge with a sneer, giving long, smug looks, as if to say, “Did you hear? I’m an owner. I’M AN OWNER!”

  Many of them stopped saying hello, and the signore started to expect the most absurd things from the doorwoman—like sweeping their doormats or polishing their doors. They all wanted an impeccable, refined building, and each of them, as an owner, felt they had the right to demand whatever they pleased, no matter how outrageous, and had no respect for either the doorwoman or their neighbors. Some didn’t even bother to throw their garbage bags down the chute, leaving their trash sitting on the landing.

  Misbehavior doubled, as did complaints and fights. Rovigo and Paolini, old buddies, came to blows over a parking spot, even though in front of the apartment complex there were miles of empty land. Tension between the soccer fans was exacerbated, and on the balconies—despite a strict prohibition by the management—the flags of Milan’s rival clubs started to appear.

  Dell’Uomo, who hadn’t been able to have children, told Vezzali that she had only been able to give birth after two miscarriages. Mortally offended, Vezzali spread the word that Dell’Uomo did indeed have a son, but she kept him hidden at the Asylum for the Disabled, with the armless and legless creatures.

  An endless circuit of gossip brought to light the true ages of the various signore. It became known that Terzoli, for example, was only four years younger than my father. But she looked the same age as Mantegazza.

  *.

  My mother didn’t want to hear another word about letting the kittens loose in the field. This year we had to kill them, and quickly, before they strayed into the courtyard—otherwise we’d never hear the end of it from the building manager.

  I went downstairs to look for them in the basement, but no luck.

  Rita had noticed that the cat, after it licked the plate of leftovers, would run behind the building. We went looking for her there, where no one dared to venture because of the loose wall tiles, and found her at the foot of the magnolia tree.

  “Here, kitty, kitty. Show me and Chino where you hid your little babies,” Rita sweet-talked her. “Take us to them . . . Come on!”

  The cat, as if enchanted by the sound of the girl’s voice, turned to gaze at the wall of ivy marking the end of the garden.

  I brushed aside the leaves and saw them.

  The cat picked them up one by one in her mouth—there were six—and put them in a row. Then she lay down on her sid
e to nurse them.

  With the same naturalness as the animal who had stretched out to nurse her newborns, Rita pulled up her T-shirt.

  “Do you want to touch them?” she asked me. “If you like, I’ll let you suckle them, like a kitty.”

  She grabbed my hand and placed it over her breast. Her nipples were hard.

  “Now we’re engaged,” she announced.

  At sunset, after using a bowl of milk to entice the cat to go down to the cellar, I led my mother to the secret lair. The kittens were awake and mewling softly, one after the other. My mother picked them up with one hand, two at a time, and stuffed them into a plastic bag from the supermarket.

  “What’re you looking at?” she scolded me. “If I start feeling sorry for cats, then I’m really pathetic. Does anyone ever feel sorry for me?”

  She tied the bag shut with a tight knot and slammed it hard against the corner of the building. One, two, three, four times, until the translucent white of the plastic bag had turned ruby red.

  To keep the cat from recognizing the smell, we buried the bodies under three feet of garbage.

  *.

  An unknown man appeared at the window. He was bald, his red cheeks riddled with purple veins, and wearing winter clothing.

  “I’m Baioni,” he introduced himself. “May I speak with the doorwoman?”

  Hearing his voice, my mother rose from the bed and came out to see.

  “And who might you be?”

  Her eyes were swollen with sleep and her hair was glued to the nape of her neck.

  Once she would have corrected him, to say that she was the custodian. But not anymore: now she was indifferent to everything, even to things that used to infuriate her.

  To identify himself, the unknown man lifted a leather suitcase up to the window. She opened it. This was also new: when had she ever, before the sale of the building, allowed a traveling salesman to come in? Exposing herself to the risk of being attacked? Neglecting her errands, not to mention her personal security and the general order of the building? But there was something about Signor Baioni that inspired trust. He had gentle manners and a kind face, like a friar. My mother unlocked the door and invited him to follow her into her room.

  Within a few seconds the large double-bed had turned into a jewelry display case. I had never seen so much gold before. I was bedazzled. My mother, instead, feigned perfect equanimity. Among the many precious items, she claimed not a single one was any good. The salesman raised his index finger to implore her to be patient. From an inside pocket of his heavy checked coat he fished out a sachet.

  “Don’t even bother opening it,” she barked. “I’ve always hated colored gemstones . . .”

  “Your wish is my command!” Baioni said, like an obsequious waiter. “And emeralds do get scratched so easily . . . You’re right. For a woman like you, only diamonds will do! I should have realized immediately . . . So here you are, Signora . . .”

  “Signora Elvira,” she quickly interjected, flattered.

  Baioni stuck his hand into another secret pocket and extracted a small doeskin sachet.

  “Inside you’ll find the ring that’s perfect for you.”

  With a jubilant expression he emptied the contents of the sachet into the center of the satin bedspread: a shower of jewels.

  My mother tried on the rings, one at a time. He proposed the earrings, too. No, not the earrings. That would be too much.

  “As you wish, Signora Elvira.”

  My mother studied the ring that she’d slid onto the middle finger of her left hand.

  “My hands are all wrong for diamonds”—she began to pity herself—“look at them: dry, chapped . . . you can’t imagine how much work they’ve done . . . and all for what?”

  “There is a perfect ring for every woman,” declared Baioni, a true salesman. “The hard part is to find it . . . but you clearly have, Signora Elvira. An excellent choice: fourteen little diamonds and a larger central diamond in the middle . . . it would be the envy of any woman . . . See how nice it looks on you! With a ring like this on your finger, who’d notice how dry your skin is?”

  “And how much would it cost?”

  Baioni took out his price sheet.

  “Six hundred thousand.”

  She laughed in his face. It was a tenth of the cost of the house she had wanted to buy!

  “Signora Elvira, let me explain,” Baioni continued passionately. “A diamond is no ordinary gemstone. It’s much much more. Its value will increase! A diamond is a gift that will last a lifetime . . .”

  She was unimpressed by his palaver.

  “How much lower can you go?”

  Baioni took a deep breath.

  “I’ll give it to you for five hundred, because it’s your first purchase, your first diamond. An excellent price—but don’t tell anyone! They’d never believe you . . . you can pay me fifty a month. It’s a bargain. And it also comes with a warranty . . .”

  She bit her lip. She held her hand out and brought it close. She tilted her head back, first to one side, then to the other.

  “Do you like it?” she asked me.

  I said I did, reminiscing about Miss Lynd’s diamonds, which were ever bigger and shinier.

  “The boy knows what he’s talking about,” Baioni smiled, while placing the other jewels back in the doeskin sachets and the little envelopes. “And you’ll find that even your husband will see you in an entirely new light . . .”

  My mother opened the armoire, fished out the steel box, and removed two one-hundred-lira bills. Baioni took them, and signed the receipt.

  “So we’ll see each other next month then . . . Ah, and do you think in the building there might be other women who . . .”

  “Heavens no!” my mother stopped him. “I have strict orders not to let anyone upstairs, no Jehovah’s Witnesses, no Avon ladies, and no jewelry salesmen! . . . Besides, you’re not going to find anyone who deserves diamonds here . . . In here they’re all petty and cheap. They think they’re grand but true nobility is not what you see on the outside—it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Don’t get me started! Do you know what I think? I don’t give a damn about the lowlifes who live here. They can all go to hell. For ten years now I’ve been kind to everybody. Enough already. From now on I’m ignoring them. They tell me: ‘Elvira, next time please remember to polish my door.’ And I say: ‘Of course.’ But next time I won’t even mop the landing. Why should I care? Do they care about me? Worthless bums . . .”

  Baioni was taken aback by her sudden outburst. Speechless, he made a slight bow and went on his way.

  My mother sat down and studied the ring on her finger. Her face was burning. Like a remorseful thief, incapable of determining whether she had stolen a precious object or pure junk, she wondered what she had gotten herself into. What if the diamonds were fake? She’d been such an idiot! Giving her money to a complete stranger! The thought that Baioni would be coming by next month for the second installment reassured her—but what if he didn’t come back? What a fool she’d been to be cheated like that! She, who knew that the world was filled with con artists!

  *.

  Fearing that my father would see it, she kept the ring hidden in the steel box. When he was away, she would take it, rub it with dishwashing liquid, and then study it carefully under a lamp. For her the ring could never be too shiny. “Look at it!” she would command me. When she would ask me, “What do you think?” there was no point in answering, “It’s beautiful,” because something had been gnawing at her ever since that damn Baioni had dropped by. If it weren’t for the two hundred liras it had cost her, she would have thrown it in the trash.

  Saturday arrived. My father was getting ready to go to the movies. She was rinsing the dishes, her brow more furrowed than usual. She suddenly turned off the faucet and yanked off her apron.

  “Get d
ressed,” she ordered me, “we’re going downtown . . .”

  “What’s going on?” protested my father, who had almost finished combing his hair. “I’m about to go out . . .”

  “Chino,” she replied while she was slipping on her shoes, “tell your father that it’s our turn to go out today. Every now and then he can give up something, too. The movies will still be there tomorrow . . . Lets go!”

  The streetcar left us in Piazza Cordusio, where my mother had gone on walks a few times as a young woman, back when she was working for the doctor.

  “Here we are,” she sighed in front of a jewelry shop.

  “Can I help you?” asked the owner without much conviction.

  “Well, to be honest,” my mother stammered, “I didn’t come here to buy anything. I only wanted, if possible, to get an estimate on this ring . . .”

  She removed it from her jacket pocket and let it fall into the woman’s outstretched hand.

  “Where did you buy it?” the jeweler asked while she was examining it under the lens.

  In the grip of panic, my mother told her she had found it on the street.

  “It’s a nice ring. The stones aren’t the greatest, but they’re pure. It’s probably worth about seven hundred liras. If you want, I’ll buy it from you. I can pay you right away . . .”

  My mother grabbed me by the arm.

  “No thank you,” she whispered. “Maybe someday, if I’m ever having difficulties . . .”

  She took the ring back and dragged me out of the store. A few steps later she burst into tears, in the midst of the crowd. Not only was the ring authentic, but it was worth a lot more than it had cost her! Poor Baioni! She had been so unfair to ever doubt him!

  On a wave of enthusiasm, she dragged me to the Rinascente department store—the moral sewer of the city, according to my father—where she bought me a pair of brand-name jeans and treated me to a Coke at the café on the top floor. For herself she ordered an espresso and asked the waiter for a cigarette.