We spent two or three afternoons emptying the flat. Then we returned the keys to the landlady.
The idea of having that flat empty underneath me really upsets me. I want to get out of this house. I have too many memories here. But as you know it’s not easy to find somewhere to rent in Rome. You can find a place to buy but I don’t have enough money.
Alberico had not bought the house in via Nazario Sauro, the one that is above Roberta and that used to belong to Giuseppe, he had only signed the agreement. The Lanzaras have given the advance back to Roberta, who is taking care of these practical things. Everything that Alberico possessed will go to Nadia’s daughter, Giorgina, the child he had registered as his. Giorgina lives in Sicily with her maternal grandparents who are millionaires, and she is a millionaire too. It’s a pity that all that money Alberico had should go to someone who doesn’t need it, when there are so many people living in want. It’s true that it’s no one’s fault, but it makes you feel bad.
I saw Giuseppe at the funeral and I spent a few hours with him afterwards. I thought he had aged a great deal. According to Adelmo, he has the eyes of someone who drinks spirits far too much. But that might just be a fantasy of Adelmo’s. Poor Giuseppe, he was in a wretched state, the news had reached him in America whilst he was looking after his wife who is dying. I don’t know if she is dead now or not. He went straight back.
I spent a lot of time with Alberico, I was very attached to him. I miss him. I try and be alone as little as possible. I go to the newspaper, I wander about, I go and see Serena act. Anything not to be alone. Sometimes I pass that damned alley. It is strange how places that make us sad attract us. They attract and repel us. Just as I want to get out of this house, but at the same time I want to stay here for ever.
With love from
Egisto
GIUSEPPE TO LUCREZIA
Princeton, 20th February
My Lucrezia,
That day you phoned me we hardly said anything to each other. I cried. And you cried too. It was a long-distance weep.
You asked me if I were coming back to Italy. I didn’t know how to answer you. I was not up to making plans. I’m not up to it now either. My head is in a whirl.
Anne Marie died on the 16th February, four days ago. She died in hospital. Chantal and I were there.
I ‘phoned Danny to tell him. He came. He was there at the funeral too. He and Chantal are icy cold with each other. He came for my sake. Chantal left immediately after the funeral. Danny stayed with me, until yesterday.
Danny is the only friend I have here. We get on well together, despite the difference in age. He could be my son. Alberico was about his age, twenty-six.
Chantal told me that I get on well with Danny because he is like me, someone outside of reality. I don’t know if I am outside of reality, and I don’t know if Danny is. Above all I don’t know what reality is for Chantal.
Danny is out of work again. He had found employment in a circulating library, he was completely happy, and after a month they fired him. He had forgotten to catalogue some books. I think he’s very disorganized and absent-minded in his work.
Chantal is disorganized and absent-minded too, but not in her work. In her work I think she is punctilious and precise.
When we see each other Danny usually asks me to lend him money. And then he might well pay it back, but the next time he asks again. If anyone else asked me it would annoy me. But it doesn’t cost me anything to give him money, and in a way I like to.
If Alberico had not been my son I might have been able to get on well with him, as I get on well with Danny. The fact that we were father and son spoilt everything. It made us embarrssed, stupid, cold, and often insincere. However, I never tried to improve our relationship. It always seemed to me that there was plenty of time. And now this makes me very unhappy.
I talked to Danny for a long time about Alberico. We stayed up till two in the morning.
We also talked about Chantal, about Anne Marie, about the child. We talked about the dead and the living. Finally I told him that I had been in love with Chantal. As I was saying this, I felt I was recounting a story that had happened a very long time ago, years and years ago.
During those days in Rome I didn’t see anyone except Egisto and Roberta. I stayed in a hotel in piazza della Minerva. I didn’t go to via Nazario Sauro.
If I return to Italy I shall have to look for a house. As you have perhaps heard, Alberico had not yet bought the house in via Nazario Sauro.
Perhaps the words ‘If I return’ sound strange to you. Perhaps the conditional sounds strange to you. But at the moment everything seems uncertain to me, and I don’t know how to find my way through the tangle of my thoughts. I want to return to Italy, and at the same time I don’t want to return at all. I long to see you, Lucrezia, and at the same time I don’t want to see you at all. I am afraid of seeing you, of finding myself face to face with you. We have been apart for too long, and too many things have happened, to you and to me.
Giuseppe
LUCREZIA TO GIUSEPPE
Rome, 5th March
I am sorry that your wife has died.
I am very, very sorry that we did not meet when you camp to Rome.
I don’t know how to forgive Piero for telling Serena to keep the newspapers hidden from me. And so I didn’t know anything. Those days were quite happy days for me. I wandered around Paris with Serena, we bought stockings, ate in restaurants, looked at pictures.
Serena knew and said nothing to me. Piero had ‘phoned her on the morning of 8th January. She seemed a little strange to me for a few moments, she said she had a headache.
When I got back to Rome, Piero told me.
I’m glad that I went to Monte Fermo that time, in the pale blue Prisma. I’m glad that we saw the Hotel Panorama.
Alberico wasn’t happy, but he often laughed. I laughed with him. It was marvellous to laugh together
When he laughed you could see his little white teeth.
I would have fallen in love with him, if he hadn’t been a homosexual. As he was, no — because I could never fall in love with a homosexual. We were friends, it was the kind of friendship that stays on one level and never changes, it remains secure and the same for ever.
You and I are friends too. But we haven’t always been friends, before we were friends we were lovers. And we have also had a son together, Graziano. You have always pretended that it wasn’t true.
And now you have been away for a long time and I no longer know what you are like, and you no longer know what I am like.
You say that you long to see me again, and at the same time you don’t want to see me at all. I understand you. It’s the same for me.
I said before that I was sorry your wife had died. It isn’t true, I’m not sorry at all. In the first place I didn’t know her, and in the second place I know very well that you were not happy with her, and that you married her for no apparent reason.
One day, about a week ago, 'I' phoned me. He asked if he could come and see me because he wanted to talk to me. He came with Ippo. It seemed so strange to me, to see them both in front of me. The Cat and the Fox. I served them tea.
Ippo is a little old woman. I saw her close up, she is a little old woman. I looked at her curiously, without hatred. It is difficult to hate little old women. You talk loudly to them, because they might be a bit deaf.
'I' sat in the armchair he always sat in when he used to come and see me every day, when we were lovers. I looked at his large, florid face, his grey crew-cut. I asked myself however could I have suffered so much for that face, for that body in its overcoat. He didn’t even take off his overcoat. It’s true that before, when we were lovers, he was always complaining about how cold my house was.
A face, a body, an overcoat - nothing mysterious about them, without any secrets, harmless.
We also had a son together. It wasn’t very long ago.
Guess what they wanted. They wanted to ask me if I knew anything ab
out the house in via Nazario Sauro. Ippo would like to buy it. Because her own is so very small and besides she has money to invest. The Lanzaras have left, and she didn’t know who to turn to. She thought of Roberta who lives there, on the floor below. She doesn’t know her personally. 'I' knows her well. But he hasn’t seen her for so long, and he dare not phone her. They wanted me to be a go-between. I called Roberta on the phone straight away and told her that 'I' wanted to talk to her. She was very surprised. 'I' talked to her and they arranged to meet. Roberta has the keys. The Lanzaras left them with her. I think Ippo and 'I' will buy that house and go and live there together.
You used to say about 'I' that he always kept one hand behind his back. It’s true. I saw that closed fist behind his back as he was walking towards the door. You used to say ‘Goodness only knows what’s in that hand’. There is nothing in that hand. Nothing.
It’s true that during these past few years too many things have happened, to you and to me. Because of this, if we were to see each other again, we wouldn’t be able to speak for a while.
I’ve used the conditional too, goodness knows why. Why ever shouldn’t we see each other again, in this life or the next?
It isn’t true that I no longer know what you are like. I know very well what you are like. I remember you as if I had you here in front of me.
Your long thinning hair. Your glasses. Your long nose. Your long, bony legs. Your big hands. They were always cold, even when the weather was hot. That’s how I remember you.
Lucrezia
The City and the House Page 19