by Anna Banti
He sighed as he smiled. “When a person gets old,” he said, “he doesn’t want to read anything that makes him think. Everything leads to the same reflection, and one,...” he hesitated, “one prefers to ignore it.”
Then I had the impulse to tell him how much my mind, my life had been taken up with him at one time, but the words I was trying to formulate already seemed like a distorting, showy parody, a grotesque perversion of a feeling that had once been alive and that for so many years I had obstinately tried to find in other faces I had loved.
He saw I was lost in thought and distracted, and fearing he had made me melancholy, he rose to pay for our drink, or rather he went to the counter – as was the custom of his generation – so as not to handle the transaction before a woman.
We said good-bye. Then I watched him, a little stooped, walk away in the sun, and with him the inherent gentility of a generation sunk in time and now completely lost.
Translated by Martha King
* * *
Tosca’s Cats
by
Gina Lagorio
Tosca had just about finished washing the hall. That was the third time the brush wiped the floor to rinse off all the detergent: because the landlady – the Nazi was what she called her while talking to the cats – had accused her of leaving the stairs slippery, “a real hazard for everyone.” She was in a sweat more because of that accusation than with the actual effort when she found herself face to face with the journalist, in a linen suit, a briefcase and bag in his hands. His face, made thinner by diet, looked younger with a suntan. They smiled and said good morning to each other in hushed voices, because the horizon was just going pink and the fresh air was still reminiscent of the night.
He was on his way to Rome, a fast drive to the airport, a quick job in the city, and: “I hope I’ll be back for the concert tonight. By the way, will you join us? I’ve got an extra ticket; tell Tonì about it, you can go at least, the two of you, I mean; and if I’m late, I’ll join you at Finale.”
Tosca blushed with pleasure and gratitude and stammered her thanks. What a kind man! Surely he must have remembered how they had chatted together the previous summer, when she had visited them and talked about the theatrical troupe in Milan, her lifelong passion for the theater and music and how much she missed Corso Garibaldi and Navigli.
She put the brooms and rags away and looked out into the garden: the plants were smiling in the early morning sun; Tosca had given them plenty of water and she was sure they smiled at her after that. Poppa raised her head, looked up at her and meowed. Thank God the little one was attached to its mother’s teats.
“I see; thank goodness you’ve begun to do your duty.”
She was pleased with that encounter and walked up the stairs without gasping for breath. On the threshold she found Pussi and Bisi, Poppa’s two older kittens, waiting for her. They had gotten into the habit of coming back home more and more often now. The female, Fifi, was more self-sufficient and freer and would stay away for days.
“You’ve realized there will be no more milk for you, haven’t you?” Tosca smiled at seeing them, but at once her voice changed, sounding worried. Pussi had a red line dividing the fur on his head, which was rounder and thicker than his brother’s, and he was licking the blood gushing from a deep wound on his forepaw.
Tosca picked him up in her arms and walked into the house followed by Bisi who glided along, his slightly rough fur in constant contact with her legs. From that rough contact which she barely felt, Tosca knew the cat was tense; who knows what had happened to the two of them! If Pussi had been in a bad fight and his brother was sticking to her like that, no doubt they had been in a bad situation together and Bisi was informing her of it in his own way, asking for attention for himself, too. If he had run away leaving his brother alone, Tosca knew that they wouldn’t have come back together. She spoke to him fondly and gave them both the food she had prepared. She would take advantage of their eating to treat the injured cat.
It could have been that bossy Mustafà who had dared to defy Miciamore in the past. Now that the whole village, cats included, had joined together to get rid of the only one who could stand up to him, Mustafà was playing the master again. Perhaps he wanted to take revenge on the children for the mortifications suffered from their father. She had seen him wandering in the lane sometimes, but she hadn’t bothered about it; now on second thought she realized that the hollow, throaty sound she had heard over and over again at night was Mustafà’s call. He was inviting them out, the bastard, challenging them to a fight. Pussi, who was the livelier of the two and the braver as well – she knew it now – must have taken up the challenge. “Poppa would be the answer!” she said loudly, but no animal dared come near Poppa. She was already big, so heavy with her swollen teats; but as soon as a presumed or possible enemy came close, she doubled in size. Lightning seemed about to strike from every single hair, her whiskers stood out on her face, upper lip raised over bared teeth, claws unsheathed. Only when the air ceased to carry the enemy’s smell would Poppa withdraw her claws and whiskers and return to a calm state – not without vigilance, however.
Pussi cried and complained when the alcohol got into the wounds, but he didn’t run away and Tosca felt proud of him. As a reward, she got a cushion ready for him under the living room window near a big pot of verbena, his favorite spot. The cushion had been made soft and pliable to his body by his father’s long use. His brother curled up close to him; shortly afterwards, as Tosca walked past them, she noticed the two had reached a fair agreement: both heads were lying on the pillow, their bodies were stretched out and almost perfectly parallel on the floor.
For the millionth time, Tosca thought how much better it would be to teach children authentic animal behavior rather than some far-fetched poems. Pascoli’s two wolves and the two boys came to mind.
She had to let Tonì know and yet she felt embarrassed. She was afraid Tonì would resent her husband’s kindness. Anyway, she should be getting ready. She had some shampoo and would wash her hair and look nice and smart: “to make an impression” as Mario used to say when their work day was over and they both went to the theater or to visit friends.
Her dress was nice, new, and never worn. It would have been a surprise for Bruno in the past, if he had ever even once asked her out to dinner in some nice place, as she had hoped. The dress had soft colors with a pattern of large coils looking like clouds blown across a blue sky. The V-shaped low neckline showed the beginning of her attractive breasts. Tosca’s legs were still fine and slender, the large, straight folds of her dress hid her ample curves. With some makeup, a black lace shawl on her arm and patent leather sandals, Tonì wouldn’t be ashamed of her.
Tonì wasn’t at all upset and was extremely nice when Tosca, after much hesitation, chose to communicate the news by telephone.
When the time came Tosca had been long ready. Tonì called for her to come down; Gigi hadn’t arrived yet, the two of them would go on without him.
Tosca felt as she hadn’t felt for ages, like a little girl on a holiday. She asked herself why, as she got into Tonì’s small car, and the constant rhythm of her heart paused in its beating for an instant. The surprise of that thought had made it stop, and immediately afterwards the rhythmical pace started up in the usual fast, wild gallop.
She laid one hand on her breast, in a gesture that had become habitual, but she didn’t worry: the doctor had told her tachycardia was to be expected in a person as sensitive as she was. She was happy because she felt free at last; whenever Bruno came to see her she had been waiting so long, peeping through the shutters, listening for the slightest noise on the stairs, that however happy she was to see him, her happiness was always the exhausted epilogue of a thousand worries, anxiety, guilt feelings, vague (and therefore even more distressing) fears. Now let anyone see her. She had nothing to fear. Nothing to answer for. She relaxed against the back of her seat while Tonì drove fast and confidently on the Via Aurelia not quite
yet wrapped in darkness. A slight pink shade still colored the coastline, but the fishermen’s boats were already lamp fishing out at sea. She thanked Tonì for the unexpected treat, but Tonì dodged her thanks by shifting the conversation to the performance they were going to attend. If it was something worthwhile, as she hoped, she would review it for her paper.
Tosca asked about her work. She had never read anything by her, or by Gigi either; her pension didn’t allow her too many unnecessary expenses. Only once a year she would get some women’s magazines when the summer season was over and Giulia, who worked for a hairdresser, passed them on to her. But the weekly paper Tonì wrote theater reviews for was not among them.
It was pleasant to talk to her; she knew everyone – artists, singers, directors – and was on friendly terms with a few of them; maybe during the coming week a party of these people would be their guests on their way to tour France. Tosca was pleased, she knew them too from television and was curious. She asked about this or that one. By the time they parked not far from the open air theater on the outskirts of the small town, they had become better friends. That is what Tosca thought, and again melancholy gave her heart a quick bite. She had forgotten that she too could make a play on words, could ignite some spirited fireworks about a person or event with a flash of imagination. Tonì had laughed more than once at her way of singling out the style of an actor or singer; once her company had been welcome at merry dinner parties in Milan. Even in her solitary house Bruno had often laughed with her, and with her had become interested in something besides his daily tiresome problems.
An unbelievable number of people were packed in the sports ground normally used by schools in wintertime. People even crowded the windows and balconies of the houses surrounding the field like a square.
It was night by then and the lights of Finale seemed so far from the theater. The large blooming hedges bordering the stage added to the illusion of a magic space created for the music. The raised stage was furnished with a grand piano and baskets of flowers.
Expectations for the great tenor ran very high. For years he hadn’t performed, but people still loved him. Tosca heard much talk about him from those around her, this one remembered listening to him in an opera in Genoa or Turin, another one had his records, a group behind them – Tosca had noticed they looked smart in a different way, somewhat more sophisticated and expensive – called him a nickname that implied a long-time familiarity. She told Tonì who glanced back after a while and named a few of them in a low voice. Tosca had heard of them; Mario often mentioned them in deep awe: a great actress, a well-known scene painter, a soprano who had sung with Luchino and Callas.
At the tenor’s appearance the theater boiled and foamed and rumbled until it thickened into one powerful prolonged applause.
Tosca made herself more comfortable on the chair, the shawl close to her neck as the air had become chilly, and she waited, with a pleasant feeling pervading her whole body, for the music to fill the space between the houses and the people’s souls.
“Torna caro ideal” the tenor was singing. He had aged a little, his jacket just a bit too tight over his stout chest. Yet he was still vigorous and self-confident. He could master the audience and lead it wherever he pleased, singing as well as he could and enjoying the applause no less than when he had sung as he should.
After three songs something special grew between him and the crowd.
A few voices were raised to make a specific request. The nickname the ladies had called him while clapping and shouting “You’re still the best!” was used by other people as well. The evening followed a definite “crescendo” movement. The music was an exciting family party for the one who dispensed it and for those who enjoyed it.
Tosca felt relaxed and thrilled at the same time; some sort of joyous fever made her familiar with each note as if it were a message addressed to her only: was life beautiful, could it be again, even for her, why not hope it could?
And she too shouted “Bravo!” when the passionate Neapolitan barcarole that she could remember her mother singing so many times was over.
Tonì was smiling next to her. Sometimes she turned around to see if Gigi had arrived. They found him at the refreshment bar during the break.
“The youngest ones are fifty,” Gigi remarked after saying hello to them and Tosca felt resentful. The music had relaxed her and she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind.
Tonì took her side and Gigi enjoyed teasing them, complaining about female irrationality. “If it weren’t for women, there could have been no romanticism,” Tonì burst out, naming glorious poets and artists that Gigi jokingly disposed of as “feminine temperaments.”
But after the concert had begun again, even Gigi agreed that Tonì could make a good colorful article “without forgetting,” he added, “an ironical touch. Dress up the enthusiasm with a few sharp remarks or you’ll shock your readers under twenty.”
“Just the opposite,” Tonì retorted, “they are the ones who are after love and romance, my dear. Their ideal, il caro ideal, with different music if you like, is always the same.”
It was a sweet evening and Gigi took them to a small restaurant where the two women were treated like queens. Tonì explained that restaurant ratings also depended on him. Tosca enjoyed her food more than she had in months.
When they drank a toast at the dessert and Gigi gently touched the arm Tonì had stretched out on the table toward him, Tosca was as moved by that gesture of endearment as if it were meant for her. She quickly lit a cigarette; she wouldn’t have let them misunderstand her emotion for anything in the world.
Of this, at least, she was sure: her solitude had not corrupted her to the point of envying people luckier than she. Love, even if it didn’t belong to her, was a sweetness in life that she thought of as a blessing to everyone. Something to be thankful for if it touched someone she loved or someone who was simply kind to her.
When she got home Pussi and Bisi were dashing around like elves through the room barely lighted by the glare from the street lights. They were chasing a rubber ball Tosca had had in the house since the days of Miciamore.
She cuddled them, gave them some fresh milk to drink, opened the door in case they wanted to stretch their legs on a night expedition as their father used to do. But those two must have decided that they had had enough of the universe and its risky charms for one day. For a moment they stood uncertainly by the door, their tails upright, then slowly, unhurriedly, they returned to the living room and resumed their play. “Next winter when that woman’s no longer here to keep an eye on me, if I know anything about cats, I won’t be left without company,” Tosca told herself while putting away her silk dress and heading for bed, quite determined to fall asleep without giving in to melancholy thoughts.
Translated by Margherita Piva
* * *
That One Dance
by
Rosetta Loy
He was enamored, Luis, of Rosetta del Fracin who was seen in church only at Christmas, at Easter, and on Palm Sunday to get one of the blessed branches. She was the daughter of the anarchist blacksmith, an only girl with five brothers; and with them, in a large room built of boards stolen from the military during the upheavals of ’21, she raised silkworms. Her hair was red but her white skin was unblemished by freckles, and when Luis approached the house down at the Pontisella she emerged from the putrid silkworm stench in all the splendor of her clear skin, her cheeks slightly tinged with pink, and fixed her gaze on him defiantly: what did one of those sanctimonious Sacarlotts want of her?
But at times she had to turn her head not to laugh seeing Luis stuck there stiff as a ramrod with his trousers tight at his ankles and jacket sleeves that came just a little below his elbows – Sacarlott’s old clothes, ill-adapted for his own size. They didn’t speak to each other because Luis didn’t know what to say and shortly after she would re-enter. Luis would hear her sing. Her contralto voice was the Provost’s torment, so marvelous would it have been i
n the Sanctus or the Hallelujah. Instead, Rosetta del Fracin sang in a completely different vein and Luis standing there at the Pontisella felt his love growing beyond measure. It was both the voice of an angel and an earthly enticement full of mystery because her words were made up then and there and were often senseless.
When summer came Luis did what no one in his family had yet dared: he went to a dance. In their time, the word “dance” had been meaningless to the Sacarlotts, belonging as it did to the vocabulary of either the rich or the demented – the only ones, old Sacarlott said, who could have any wish to go off and tangle their legs in some clownish exhibition after a tiring work day; and his look had frozen anyone who, even vaguely, with some unformed and fanciful desire like the curling of a wave, might have alluded to it. Luis, instead, dug among the old silk shirts given them by Signora Bocca and chose the less yellowed one. He pressed onto his head a little cap of indefinable color, and on the last Sunday of June, in the broiling midday heat, he set out for the Martini farmhouse leaving in distress his mother, his aunt, and his great-aunt.
The Martini place was half-way up the Lu hills and when Luis got there the dance had already begun and Rosetta del Fracin was taken for all of them. But as she saw him from a distance with his cap set back on his curls, she forgot all the promises given and stood stock still under the large, dark leaves of a quince tree, to await him. And barely did Luis approach her than she curved her arms around his neck as if it were already understood they would dance together and Luis became pale, his hands trembled as he clasped her waist and began to swing her around.
They whirled and whirled, and the more Luis tightened his hold the more she let him, and there was a moment when they risked falling to the ground, so tightly clasped were they. Who had taught Luis to dance was not known; perhaps he had learned by himself or maybe it was the great desire to draw the girl to him which gave him all that dash. Certainly his arms quivered and his breath caught; and when he wanted to tell her something and she turned her face close to his mouth, the words died on his lips. But hardly had the music stopped than one of her brothers came and took her off.