The City and the House

by Natalia Ginzburg

  Our discussion was cold, calm, and at the same time inconclusive. I don’t understand that man. He seems to be open but in fact he’s as closed as an oyster. As far as I can see he’s already tired of Lucrezia. And now he doesn’t know how to free himself from her. I told him that he should be clearer with Lucrezia. That when a woman messes up her whole life for love she deserves at least a little honesty. He responded with great gestures of assent. I asked him if he intended to give his name to the baby that was going to be born. He said there was no doubt at all of that. Then he started to explain to me that all the same, he found himself in a delicate situation. He has an old attachment. A sick, a very sick woman. It is a deep and very close attachment. In a certain sense it is no different from a matrimonial attachment. And so he has to move very, very cautiously. I told him that it seemed to me that he was using this person to shield himself from other weightier responsibilities. He blushed, he blushed a great deal. He said that perhaps, in a certain sense, I could be said to be right. But how rash, how impulsive, Lucrezia is, he said. An unbroken horse. She never thinks of others, she thinks only of herself. She drags those children about as if they were so much luggage. He felt sorry for those children. He felt sorry for Piero too. He felt sorry for everyone, I said, except Lucrezia. No, he said, he felt sorry for Lucrezia too. He wanted her to be happy. How, I said, if she’s happy only when she’s with him and he’s both there and not there. Finally I asked him if he was in love with her. This was the essential thing I had to ask him but it was only at the end that I dragged it out of him. He said that he loved her very much. Then he looked at the time and I realized I had to go. He put his raincoat on and that peaked cap he wears, and came out with me. I must say I didn’t entirely dislike him when he was walking along the street. He strides along quickly and has a cheerful air about him. He walked to Largo Argentina with me and helped me push the car till it started. Then I saw that he went off to his olive-green Renault which was parked in corso Vittorio.

  Your son is well. He’s still going upstairs for his psychoanalysis. He goes, but he’s started to say that as far as he can see, this Lanzara fellow is a bit stupid. Pleasant, a fine person, but a bit stupid. I asked him if he told him he thought he was stupid. I know you have to tell psychoanalysts everything. He said that he tells him the whole time. Lanzara doesn’t take offence. Psychoanalysts never take offence.

  Alberico told me that soon, perhaps next spring, his film Deviance will be shown in Rome. Why don’t you come on a trip to Italy, with Anne Marie, next spring, to visit Alberico and all our friends, and our dear miss-matched Lucrezia, and to see the film?

  With love from

  Roberta

  EGISTO TO ALBINA

  Rome, 15th January

  Dear Albina,

  Yesterday Anais left. I must say I’m sorry. I’ll miss her. I was fond of her. In the end she was living with me. She said there was too much of a mess downstairs. Yesterday Alberico and I took her to the airport. She had been saying she had to leave for a while, but she stayed on nevertheless.

  Our relationship lasted for exactly five months. I didn’t mean anything to her and it wasn’t for me that she stayed on in Rome. She had other men besides me and she told me about them in a quite unemotional way. She had a builder in Parioli, then a Chilean painter. Sometimes she didn’t come back at night. I sleep easily but when I didn’t see her come back I worried and couldn’t sleep. She would come back in the morning whilst I was getting dressed to go to the newspaper. Once she had a row with the builder and came back crying. She had stolen some money from him and he had hit her. She stole things. She was a millionaire but she stole things. She stole because she enjoyed stealing. I couldn’t go into a supermarket with her because she always slipped something into her handbag - perfume, or a box of biscuits. She was as quick as a monkey. But she never stole anything from me. She took drugs. According to her, everyone in the flat downstairs takes drugs. I don’t know if that’s true or not. She talked about great quantities of the stuff. I never tried to preach to her, either about men, or about her pilfering, or about drugs. It seemed useless to me. She wasn’t especially beautiful, you saw her in the restaurant that day. But I’d got used to her. I was fond of her. Now I’m alone again.

  Whilst we were coming back from the airport yesterday Alberico noticed that I was a bit sad and invited me to have supper at their place. I don’t mind being in all that mess. I sit down and do everything as if it weren’t there. I put a record on, play with the baby a bit. The baby is in her play-pen and she walks a little, hanging on to the bars, then falls down and cries a little. Nadia either sleeps or eats or cries or reads magazines. Nadia cries a lot, either because something’s hurting her or because she’s afraid of something or because of an upsetting thought that has come to her or because of a dream she’s had. Salvatore either sleeps or bustles about in the kitchen. However, he’s a bit fed up with cooking and they often get food sent up from the restaurant underneath, II Fagiolaro. There are always people coming and going, friends of Alberico who come and see him about the film. They run errands for him or find things he needs. Antique soup-tureens, pieces of cloth. He sits at his typewriter and gives orders. He’s like a general. There are always two or three of these people there when they eat. After they’ve eaten they stay at the table in the kitchen for a long time. No one says much. They smoke joints. I smoke them with them so as not to seem old-fashioned.

  I miss you a lot. I didn’t feel it so much when Anais was here but now that Anais has gone I want to chat to you and eat with you occasionally. I go to Lucrezia’s every now and then but I don’t know if she likes to see me. I don’t know if that 'I' of hers is around or not. I phone her before I go. I took Anais once. They liked each other well enough. Afterwards Lucrezia told me that Anais has a certain stylishness, but that she’s cold and dry. Anais told me that she thought Lucrezia was like a pregnant elephant.

  I see Serena sometimes. She has reduced your bedsit to a wretched state. You walk over plates, newspapers and jumpers. Serena is very happy because she has met a director, called Umberto. This director and Serena have become friends and have decided to put on Alfieri’s Mina.

  Try to come and see me, if it’s possible for you. Or I’ll come to Luco. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have anywhere to put me up. I can sleep in a hotel.

  Egisto

  ALBINA TO EGISTO

  Luco dei Marsi, 22nd January

  I’m getting married, Egisto.

  I’m marrying Nino Mazzetta. He makes reproduction antique furniture. The factory, the shop, and also the house where he lives are in a courtyard behind my house. The furniture is well-made, though it doesn’t seem antique, it’s shiny and has a new look about it. Nino Mazzetta is a widower with a nine-year-old son. The son is doing badly at school and he brings his homework over to me. Nino Mazzetta works hard but he’s not rich and he’s paying off debts.

  I’m marrying him for the following reasons, which I have carefully thought over one by one. Because I want to have children. Because I’m already thirty-three. To please my father. Because I'll be able to continue to run my house until my sisters are grown up, as there’s only a courtyard between Mazzetta’s house and mine. Because no one’s ever thought of marrying me, but Nino Mazzetta has. Because he’s a good person. Whenever my father asked him to lend him money he has always done so. When my brother asked him to lend him money he gave it to him and he’s never got it back again, but he doesn’t mind and he’s continued to come to our house from time to time, in the evening after supper, and he plays cards with my father and chats to him even though chatting with my father is not an easy matter because you have to repeat the same thing to him ten times. Because I am poor. When I marry I shan’t be rich, but I shall be less poor. Because my life is very wearisome in Luco and I think that if I’m not mistaken, it’ll be easier when I’m married.

  Nino Mazzetta is marrying me for the following reasons, which he spelt out to me one by one. Because he
doesn’t find me ugly. Because I have simple habits. Because I don’t intimidate him even though I’m an arts graduate and he only reached the fifth class in elementary school. His dead wife intimidated him even though she had only reached the third class in elementary school. She was a quarrelsome person and they weren’t happy together. Because I play the flute. Because I cook badly and he likes to eat well but he thinks that with a cookery book I’ll learn quickly. Because he’s known me since I was little. Because he knows my family well.

  I’ve known him since I was little too, but this doesn’t make me all that happy. I feel that my future was already fated and mapped out for me.

  Last September I went to the Unitâ festival. He was there too and he asked me to have supper with him. We ate grilled sausages at a table under some trees. Then we went home. I think the idea of getting married to me came to him that evening.

  He likes talking and he talks a lot. He talks about his life and ideas. I stay quiet. He never asks me questions. And so he knows almost nothing about me. He doesn’t know that I went with boys, in Rome, when I had my bedsit. He doesn’t know that bed is a problem for me. I went with three boys in all: an English student who was a friend of Serena’s, someone I kept meeting on the bus, and someone who sold encyclopaedias. They aren’t happy memories. Those boys didn’t amount to much. The best was perhaps the bus one, but he was from Palermo and he went back to Palermo after a week. He sent me postcards a few times. I was happy in my bedsit, that’s certainly true. What a pity I’ve lost it. But then, how could I have kept it. I couldn’t have left my father. I liked living in Rome and going to Le Margherite on Saturdays, and talking to Serena about the Women’s Centre. And now Le Margherite no longer exists. I heard that some priests had bought it and that it’s going to be used by a religious community. The Women’s Centre no longer exists. I phone Lucrezia sometimes and she answers in a curt, hurried way. Serena has been to see me a couple of times. She saw Nino Mazzetta from the window. He seemed short and uncouth to her. You’ve never been to see me, otherwise I’d have introduced you to him and you could have advised me. But to tell the truth I wouldn’t have listened to you much.

  We are getting married in a month. We are getting married in church even though we are not religious - neither he nor I. My father isn’t religious either, but he wants it like that.

  I shall have quite a beautiful outfit, of pale blue gaberdine, it’s a skirt and top which the seamstress in the courtyard has made for me.

  We haven’t had any kind of sexual relationship. We are never alone because my father thinks it’s better to follow the old ways and when we go out in the evening there’s always my brother, Maura and Gina there too. So I haven’t been able to tell Nino Mazzetta anything about myself and anyway he talks continuously to my brother and me.

  My brother says I’m selfish and sly and that he’d never have thought it of me. He says that Nino Mazzetta will make pots of money with his rotten furniture even if he is up to his eyes in debt at the moment.

  Nino Mazzetta has very white hair and a very black moustache. He is short and chain-smokes. Sometimes he can’t sleep at night through thinking about his debts and then he gets up and makes himself a cup of hot milky coffee. That’s what he told my brother and me.

  Everything would be fine if bed were not such a problem for me.

  Albina

  EGISTO TO ALBINA

  Rome, 28th January

  You are about to do something really silly, Albina.

  Forget it. Forget the lot, the pale blue gaberdine outfit, the shop, the milky coffee, the courtyard. Or at least wait. Wait for a year. In a year something will happen. You can find a good job in Rome, pay someone to be with your father and come away from that wretched place for good. There are lots of solutions, and the one you have chosen is the worst.

  I’ll come and see you as soon as I can, and I’ll argue you out of this stupid marriage in which your future is fated and all mapped out for you.

  Egisto

  GIUSEPPE TO LUCREZIA

  Princeton, 2nd February

  Dear Lucrezia,

  I’ve finished my novel. A student on my course has typed it up for me. I asked her if she liked it and she said she found it interesting. She is the only person who has read it and unfortunately she’s a stupid girl. Anne Marie and Chantal don’t know Italian.

  I went to New York a few days ago. I went to see Danny but I thought that I could also look for either a translator or a literary agent. I had the address of a cousin of Mrs Mortimer’s who knows a great many people and might be able to advise me. So I put a copy of the novel in my briefcase. But my main reason for going was to see Danny and talk to him about the divorce. I don’t know if you remember that Danny is Chantal’s husband. I told you about him. Anne Marie wanted me to go and see him in Philadelphia but when I phoned him he said,that he would be going to New York on business and that I could meet him there.

  I arranged to meet him in that hotel where I stayed when I arrived in America. It’s called the Continental Hotel and it’s on Fifth Avenue. I booked a room. It was a very similar room to the one I had when I was ill and stayed in bed and my brother sat with me. And so while I was waiting for Danny I became very miserable. Danny was late. I tried to phone Mrs Mortimer’s cousin but there was an answering machine at the other end. I started to re-read my novel. It didn’t seem bad to me. It is called The Knot. I won’t tell you about it. I’ve sent you a copy.

  Danny finally arrived. I immediately opened the fridge and poured him a big glass of whisky. Danny drinks a lot. I thought I would have to convince him that a divorce was the only possible solution. But he was already convinced of that. When Chantal left the house with the baby he thought that she would never come back. He’d thought it with a sense of relief because recently their life together had been terrible. Danny is small, he has red hair and jug ears and little, sharp teeth like a mouse’s. We stayed in that room for a long time. He drank a great many glasses of whisky. He told me about his childhood. He had already told me in Princeton, and in New York he told me again. He doesn’t have any parents. He was born in a foundling hospital. He has changed family five times. He has stayed very close to one of these families, the last but one. Their name is Pippolo and they are of Italian origin. They live in Baltimore. They are poor and have lots of children. He helps them. He and Chantal also argued about that. According to Chantal the Pippolo family are bloodsuckers. She worked herself into a frenzy over the Pippolo family. She’s hard-hearted, Chantal is. I said that on the contrary she seemed to me to be a sweet girl. He said I was making a big mistake. All Chantal’s and the baby’s clothes are still in their apartment in Philadelphia. He will send them on to Princeton as soon as he can. He will come and see the baby now and then and in the holidays he will take her to Baltimore, to the Pippolos’ that is to his only real family. He had never hit Chantal. He had simply seized her arm a little too roughly that evening. She had immediately called a neighbour and begged her to come with her to a clinic, where they found a tiny bruise. Then she came home and thrust her night-cream and the baby’s pyjamas into a bag. She thought about her night-cream but she didn’t think about the baby’s vitamins, she’s left them there. Next morning she phoned from Princeton and told him to send all her things at once. He hadn’t done so yet because having to collect together and send off all those clothes was too tiring and upsetting for him. I suggested we go out and have dinner. I remembered a Chinese restaurant I’d been to with my brother and we went there. Over dinner he gradually calmed down. He asked me how I was. I told him I had finished my novel and that I had to find a translator and an agency. Later I’d also try to have it published in Italy, but as I was in America I’d be very happy if it came out in America. He told me that he had a friend in Philadelphia who knew Italian well and who had translated books, and he could either translate the novel or place it with an agency. He was sorry he couldn’t read it himself because he didn’t know Italian. Pippolo’s mother had tr
ied to teach him, but he’d only managed to remember a few words. However according to him the title was no good. There are already ten novels called The Knot. Then he started to talk about Chantal and their relationship again. She’s a cold woman Chantal is. He had never understood Anne Marie but he had never liked her and he thought she must be a cold, dry woman like Chantal. Then I said I was ready to sleep and that it was already very late, and that anyway it was pointless to wallow in hatred and bitterness and melancholy like he did. He said I was right and that he had a real liking for me. I was similar in some ways to the Pippolos’ eldest boy, who was his best friend. He thought he’d come to Princeton soon to see the baby and we’d have another opportunity to spend a few hours together. If I’d give him my novel in the meantime he would take it to Philadelphia, to the man who might translate it. We went back to my hotel, I gave him the novel and he stuffed it into his inside coat-pocket. We separated. An acquaintance of the Pippolos was putting him up for the night.

  The next day I was in Princeton again. I reported my conversation with Danny and Anne Marie got angry. She said I’d acted like a fool. I should have talked about the divorce and not about anything else. I should have been severe, concise and distant. It was stupid of me to give him my novel, to accept a favour from him. When Anne Marie gets angry she doesn’t stop smiling, but her mouth trembles and she gets red blotches on her face and neck. Chantal on the other hand did not get angry. She said that the main thing was that the clothes should arrive because neither she nor the baby had anything to wear. Then she suddenly burst out laughing. She said she found the idea of Danny and me sitting down and chatting away like old friends funny. Chantal almost never smiles, but every now and then she laughs, she bursts out into a shrill, high-pitched laugh that ends in a little sob. However, when I said that Danny intended to take the baby to the Pippolos’ during the holidays she stopped laughing and said that she would not allow it because the Pippolos were coarse, dirty people. Then her mother said that there wasn’t much to allow or not allow, and that Danny would do whatever he thought fit with the baby during the holidays.