The City and the House

by Natalia Ginzburg

  Dear Giuseppe, when the Women’s Centre opens in two weeks’ time, and Serena is Gemma Donati, you will already be no longer in Italy. The costume has been made out of an old sheet and to tell the truth it doesn’t suit her very well because it should fall in large folds, and instead it is pretty skimpy, she has cut it all wrong. But she will have some really beautiful gold sandals on and a fillet of gold in her hair.

  Dear Giuseppe, how far away you will be in two weeks’ time. America is a long way off. It’s true that it only takes a day to get there by plane, it’s true that everyone comes and goes from America, and it’s true that these days distances don’t exist any more, but still it’s not so easy to come and go around the world if you don’t have the money to travel. Egisto says that complaining about distances is part of the past, just as complaining and worrying if someone became ill with tuberculosis is part of the past. In our time distances have disappeared and the fear of tuberculosis has disappeared. Because of aeroplanes and antibiotics these two misfortunes have disappeared. It’s true. Even so, neither Egisto nor I have the money to come and see you in America.

  On the morning of 30th November, we shall be waiting below your flat with Egisto’s Dauphine, and Egisto and I will come to the airport with you.

  Albina

  GIUSEPPE TO LUCREZIA AND PIERO

  New York, 1st December

  Dear friends,

  I am writing to both of you because I’m thinking of both of you, and because as I left yesterday Egisto gave me that little cheese which he had got from you for me, with your two names written in red on the box. I thank you both.

  I am in New York. I arrived all right. I say I arrived all right but to be honest I had a terrible flight. I had a slight sore throat when we left Rome and during the flight this sore throat got worse and I developed a fever. A kind Indian sitting next to me realized that I was ill; he called the hostess and got her to give me something to bring the fever down.

  I arrived in New York last night. Now it is seven in the morning. I am in bed, in a hotel on Fifth Avenue. My meeting with America was not a happy one. The high fever I was running as I descended from the plane with the Indian, who carried my bag for me, meant that I wasn’t aware of anything. I walked with everyone else along a covered ramp that went on and on for ever. Then I remember everything got very confused, but the Indian was with me all the time. You see, Lucrezia, one always finds protectors. The Indian stayed with me until he saw me meet my brother. Then he gave me my bag and left. I shall never see him again. When I saw my brother’s grey loden overcoat in front of me, I felt immensely relieved. His strong presence, and his long, serious face gave me a profound sensation of peace. I embraced him and rested my chest against his coat which was soaking wet from the rain. Behind him there was a short, thin woman with very large, grey, clear, slightly squinting eyes, a cap pulled down over one ear, and a smile. When she turned round I saw that her hair was done in an old-fashioned way, with a bun on the nape of her neck, a big black bun stuffed full of hairpins. Anne Marie.

  We took a taxi. I sat between the two of them. There was a travelling rug in the taxi and Anne Marie put it over my knees. My brother said, ‘I don’t think it’s anything. Just an ordinary attack of tonsilitis.’

  There were lots of brightly lit underpasses, I saw nothing else. It was pouring down when we got out of the car. Anne Marie covered my head with one of her scarves. There’s always someone to protect you. The hotel had a revolving door, and we entered a large hall full of people and suitcases. My brother went up in the lift with me. Her took off his loden overcoat in the room, sat down, and told me to have a shower. But I felt so ill that I undressed and went to bed without even washing my hands. Anne Marie came with an Italian doctor she had found in the hotel. The doctor examined me. I had a fever of 40. But the doctor too said it was just tonsilitis. Anne Marie went out with the doctor and my brother and I were left alone. He arranged my bedclothes then sat stroking my hair and cheeks. He has a long face with two deep wrinkles down his cheeks, and his forehead is furrowed with horizontal wrinkles; he has thick eyebrows and smooth, tidy grey hair. We don’t look like each other. He seems older and looks like my father, whereas I look like my mother.

  He decided to get married in Philadelphia, in a Natural History Museum. There was a congress in Philadelphia. He, Anne Marie and the other participants in the congress were taking a walk through the town during a break in the proceedings. It was raining and they all went into the museum. He and Anne Marie soon became separated from the others, and so they were alone. They spent a long time looking at condors, eagles and kangaroos. Then they sat on a bench because it was still raining outside. They had known each other for some time, they worked together, but they had never talked to each other for very long and they knew little about each other. That day they talked for a long time. They discussed everything under the sun. When they came out he had decided to marry her and he told her the following day and she agreed.

  Anne Marie came to America as a child, with her mother. They had no money. Her mother supported her while she was studying by working as a cashier in a restaurant. When she was eighteen she married a sculptor from Alsace. Her mother had been against this marriage and broke off relations with her. The sculptor became an alcoholic and treated her badly. She had a baby girl and her mother died. She separated from her husband who killed himself a short time afterwards. Her daughter is thirty now; she is married and works in an advertising agency.

  Anne Marie is a calm person with simple habits. She speaks three languages fluently - French, German and English. She doesn’t know Italian. She intends to learn. She enjoys cooking and doing embroidery. She plays the piano. But her real love is scientific research. This is how my brother described her to me while he was walking up and down the room. I just wanted to hide my head under the bedclothes and go to sleep.

  Anne Marie came back with a little teapot. There is a small electric stove in the room. Anne Marie made me some mint tea which I drank. Mint tea. seems to be one of her obsessions. They went off and I was finally able to get to sleep. During the night I woke up every now and then, and the fever, the mint tea, the sculptor from Alsace and the Natural History Museum became confused in my head, as if they were a slimy mess in which I was exhaustedly splashing about.

  Now it’s morning. I still have a fever. I am writing to you in bed. I feel terrible. But, as my brother and the doctor say, it’s nothing. It’s just ordinary tonsilitis.

  Giuseppe

  PIERO TO GIUSEPPE

  Perugia, 13th December

  Dear Giuseppe,

  I’m writing to you from Perugia; I’m here in my office. My partner, Doctor Corsi, has already gone. It’s eight in the evening and now I shall go home too. The road is foggy and I shall have to go very slowly. Sometimes I wish I had a house in Perugia. Lucrezia wants that very much. She’d like to live in Rome even more. But, as you say, it would be a mistake. It’s lovely to wake up in the morning in the country, with the cocks crowing and the birdsong and the good smell of the air. I’m sure that these things are important to Lucrezia too, and that if we lived in Perugia or Rome she would be unhappy.

  I will send this to Princeton, because Roberta told us that she talked on the phone to your brother and that you are about to leave New York. She told us that you are over your tonsilitis now and that you are feeling better.

  Lucrezia and I read your letter by the fire, we were eating chestnuts. We phoned Roberta the following day. She reassured us about your health.

  Look, you mustn’t take your brother’s marriage the way you are doing. It’s not the end of the world for goodness sake. It’s nothing extraordinary, nothing special. Whilst we were reading your letter Lucrezia shrugged her shoulders and snorted with exasperation. She said that when you have a bit of a fever you get it into your head that you have God knows what terrible disease, and she said that you are a tremendous egotist because if your brother gets married and is happy then you ought to be hap
py for him and instead you carry on as if you had landed in the middle of some appalling disaster. Then Serena came and felt sorry for you in America with a fever and the mint tea and Anne Marie.

  It certainly is strange that your brother decided to get married now of all times, just when you had decided to go and live with him. It’s strange, but these things happen and I don’t see why you have to talk about it in such a miserable way.

  Anne Marie will keep house. It’s true that you’re very good at keeping house too, but perhaps Anne Marie will be even better at it than you. From what you say of her, she is a woman who has had a hard life and a hard life makes people want order; it makes them care about the little things that contribute to their own and others’ comfort. Lucrezia thinks this is not true and we talked it over, but I stick to my opinion.

  We all miss you very much and we remember when you read Plato’s Dialogues to us. At the moment we have to listen to Serena’s play which to tell you the truth seems to me to be a load of rubbish - I don’t know if you know that she is Gemma Donati, Dante’s wife. When she is Gemma Donati and walks backwards and for-wards in the dining room reading from her sheets of paper, the children hide behind the sofas and then suddenly leap out and squirt her with their water-pistols. But she continues as if nothing were happening. Poor Serena, the fact is she needs a man because she doesn’t have a very cheerful life in that room in Pianura, it’s always in such a terrible mess; she’s not someone who knows how to keep things in order, her room is always piled high with books, newspapers and jumpers. Poor Serena, poor Gemma Donati without a Dante, without even a real talent for the theatre and by now getting on for thirty-nine. Her father is always writing to her saying that she should leave Pianura and that he doesn’t understand why she has hidden herself away in Pianura just to be near us and that we won’t be there for her to lean on for ever. I thought that perhaps Ignazio Fegiz might become the man in her life but Lucrezia says no, because he just demolishes her and that once when she was reading her play he told her that she read badly and that her accent was too Piemontese for Dante’s wife (and in fact she was born in Limone, in Piedmont). Then the two of them started an interminable discussion about the theatre and dialects and everything - enough to make anyone die of boredom.

  I will say goodbye now because it is getting really late and when I’m late Lucrezia worries and goes out on to the terrace to watch the road.

  Piero

  EGISTO AND ALBINA TO GIUSEPPE

  Rome, 16th December

  Dear Giuseppe,

  We are writing you this letter together, we are in Albina’s room sitting on the sofa, she has the typewriter on her knees, one of us says one phrase and the other another. We’ve eaten boiled eggs and tinned beans. We think of you. Come back here. We heard from Piero and Lucrezia that you have had a fever and you feel miserable and your brother has got married; goodness only knows what you think you’re doing in America.

  It will be Christmas soon and you remember that last year we all spent Christmas and the New Year together at Le Margherite and we were pretty cheerful. This year we shall go to Le Margherite again for Christmas and the New Year but you won’t be there. Ignazio Fegiz will be there and in a way he has taken your place, in the sense that he comes often and that they make a great fuss of him. But we liked you better because we have known you for such a long time and also because you have a much sweeter disposition; he is one of those people who have to argue and get worked up and shout.

  Last Friday the Women’s Centre opened with Serena’s play, which is called Gemma and the Flames. Serena’s father made a special trip from Genoa. He is a large, old man with a big white moustache. He sat in the front row between Piero and Lucrezia. There were people from Pianura, among the ladies there was the chemist, the tobacconist and the two who keep the electrical goods shop in the square, a few men, about twenty people altogether. The tickets were free. It went on for a long time and our feet were cold, but it was a success because everyone stayed quiet and attentive - as if they felt a bit intimidated - and at the end they clapped a lot. Serena was happy and bright red in the face, in her sheet. They put her father up at Le Margherite, in the room which has the chest of drawers with the tortoises carved on it, and the mirror with the dark stains. It’s the best room. Lucrezia had made him a big dinner with roast chickens, salads and vegetable pies. She wanted to make a meat-loaf but Piero didn’t let her because her meat-loaves fall apart, as you know. Piero is under some obligation to Serena’s father because it was he who found him that job in Perugia in Doctor Corsi’s office all those years ago. Now Piero and Doctor Corsi have become partners. Doctor Corsi came to the dinner, and also to the performance. Ignazio Fegiz was at the dinner but he didn’t come to the play; he said he had a headache and stayed behind at the house. Under his breath he told us that he didn’t want to know anything about Dante’s wife. He preferred Dante. Usually he sleeps in the room with the tortoises, but this time they gave him the little room on the top floor, the one where there are quilts with dragons on them.

  Goodbye, we shall stop this letter because we realize we are just piling up pointless details.

  Egisto and Albina

  GIUSEPPE TO LUCREZIA

  Princeton, 24th December

  I have been in Princeton for a fortnight. I have had a letter from Piero and one from Egisto and Albina together. I haven’t had so much as a line from you. I wish you a Happy Christmas.

  Princeton is a very small town, very beautiful, full of parks. It is cut down the middle by a street called Nassau Street. From my window I can see parks, little houses, and trees with the famous squirrels that you were so curious about. My room is on the ground floor. The wallpaper has flying bear-cubs on it, every bear-cub has a red balloon. It was evidently the children’s room when the previous occupants were here. My brother said that he hadn’t had time to change the wallpaper. I said I didn’t mind, though to tell the truth I’d have preferred it if he had had it changed. It’s a two-storey house. My brother and Anne Marie sleep upstairs. She has left the flat she used to have and has had her furniture - which includes an armchair that has been put in my room - brought here. It’s the one I’m sitting in at the moment, as I write. I have a sofa-bed to sleep on. It was a little difficult for me to open and close it at first, but I have learnt how to do it now.

  I am in good health. I spend hours every day in my room. I have started to write a novel. I used to write novels when I was twenty. I never finished any of them. Perhaps I shall manage to finish this one. My brother and Anne Marie don’t know that I am writing a novel. I told them I was writing a paper on Flaubert.

  I write in longhand, sitting in an armchair with a large book on my knees and the paper resting on the book. I have never liked typing. True, I used to write articles on the typewriter, but when I write anything else, anything that is not meant for the newspapers, I prefer to use a ballpoint pen. But generally speaking I have kept very little of the things that I have written in ballpoint throughout my life. When I re-read them I felt uncomfortable and tore them up. Now I would like to see if I can manage to write something I shan’t tear up.

  I wake up early in the morning. Before I get up I stare for a long time at the bear-cubs and the balloons. Then I go into the kitchen and make myself a coffee. Anne Marie comes in a little later, in her dressing-gown, and she starts to make the breakfast for my brother and herself. She heats up the milk, toasts the bread, beats the eggs. In the morning she doesn’t have her hair in a bun, instead it is gathered in a long plait. She smiles all the time. She smiles with her mouth, but her eyes and the rest of her face don’t smile. She and I sometimes talk to one another in English and sometimes in French, but we have nothing to say to each other in any language. Then my brother appears from the bathroom in his striped dressing-gown. They have a long, careful breakfast, which I don’t take part in but at which I am present. When they have finished breakfast I help Anne Marie to wash the dishes. I take the rubbish bags to the dustbin w
hich is in front of the door. And here’s my brother in his loden overcoat and Anne Marie with her bun. Anne Marie puts her cap on in front of the hall mirror, and tilts it over one ear. They take their bicycles out of the garage and go off to the Institute. I wave to them from the window. I am alone.

  I don’t go out much. During the first days I was here I went out with my brother a few times. They were the only times in which he and I were together without Anne Marie, and I anxiously searched around inside myself for things to say to him, without finding a single phrase. He was a bit embarrassed, too. Perhaps he thinks that I don’t like Anne Marie. It’s true, I can’t stand her; I can’t stand either her long neck, or her clear squinting eyes, or her smile, or her plait, or her bun. But I can’t tell him that and I’m unable to tell him anything else. When I’m alone I don’t want to go out, I don’t feel any great curiosity to go and look around, I feel that I’m neither a visitor passing through nor an inhabitant of the place; I’m someone who doesn’t know what to be and who stares at everything indecisively.

  Anne Marie and my brother come back at seven in the evening. Anne Marie immediately starts cooking. She cooks very complicated dishes, slices of meat with minced carrots, beetroot and cabbage mixed up together, sauces with flour and cream. Since I have been here she has never made a meat-loaf but I’m sure that if she did make one it wouldn’t fall apart. She hurries about the kitchen darting that long neck of hers this way and that, smiling the whole time. I offer to help her. She politely refuses. My brother and I sit in the living-room and wait for supper to be ready. He reads scientific journals and I read detective stories. Every now and then he raises his head and asks me if what I am reading is interesting. I always say yes. I look at him. As I look at him, whilst he is reading seated at the table, with his chin cupped in his hand and his wrinkled forehead, I experience once again the feeling of great calm that he always used to give me when we were children, and when I thought of him in Italy. He has always been a secure point of reference for me, a tree-trunk I could lean against, someone from whom I could at every moment ask for explanations, judgements, reproaches and absolution. But in fact I never ask him for anything now. Our relationship has been interrupted. It seems to me that he doesn’t have space for me now. After the evening of my arrival he has said nothing more to me about his marriage. And whilst I look at him I feel that behind his authoritative appearance an extreme embarrassment, as far as I am concerned, is hiding itself-a dislike even, a disgust, which is not at all severe or condemnatory, but simply irritated. We go and sit down to supper. I don’t like Anne Marie’s soups at all but I eat them all the same and praise them to the skies in French and in English. At table my brother and Anne Marie hold hands. They drink milk and fruit juices. Towards evening I always go to the ‘Wines and Spirits’ and buy myself a can of beer. They could remember at least once that I drink beer and buy some for me. They don’t do so. They don’t remember. It will seem silly to you, but this upsets me.