I catch the first train south and by the evening I am back in my apartment. My little bird’s water bowl is completely dry and it looks frightened and distressed. I try to talk to it and put my finger through the bars for it to peck but it huddles in a corner and stares at me with scared eyes so I put the cover over the cage and go to bed.
Sunday 11 November
I mark homework all morning.
Monday 12 November
Leonardo has not done his homework, or so he says, although I am certain that his mother would have checked and insisted that he should do it. There is an edge of pride to his statement and he stares at me defiantly when I ask for his book. I am not sure what to do. If I make an incident of it I will be playing into his hands, yet I can’t ignore it either.
– You’ll have to do it for tomorrow then, and bring a note from your mother.
– Ma maestra, ci’ho tanti compiti per domani. Non posso.
– I don’t care how much homework you have for tomorrow, you will have it here on my desk by nine o’clock. Do you understand? And your homework book will be signed by your mother. Otherwise you will have to go and speak to the headmaster about it.
I turn away from him and go on with the lesson. I have won this round. There is no way he can defy me and get away with it, but I know that his hatred and rage have now redoubled and that I should expect trouble.
During playground duty I notice Leonardo and Matteo and a few others in a huddle on the far side of the playground. They are talking animatedly and turning from time to time to look at me and then returning to their discussion. Clearly I am part of whatever is going on. Leonardo is inciting them in some way against me. I can feel his hostility reaching across to me, his anger.
Ugo is waiting for me after school again, but I pretend not to notice him and go straight home. It has been raining again. After a quick lunch I put on my walking shoes and wrap myself up in warm clothes and a waterproof jacket and set out for a long walk, or as long as the island will permit. The path up the hill is very muddy with a stream running down the middle of it so that I am forced to walk on the side that has a slightly higher ridge. My shoes and socks are waterlogged within minutes and water drips off the brim of my hood on to my jacket and down my neck. My boots are soon heavy with clay. I stop from time to time to scrape the clay off against a pole or the support of one of the bare vines, but within seconds it is clinging to me again and hampering my progress.
When I get out on to the hilltop it grows easier. Here I have only to contend with the teeming rain and wind and I am soon soaked and cold, but it feels welcome to have bodily sensations after all those hours in the stuffy classroom. It takes me much longer to complete my usual walk, and it is already growing dark by the time I reach the headland and pass by the turn-off to Villa Circe. I see lights through the trees and smoke coming from the chimney but of course no one is outside in this weather. Only me.
But no, it is not only me.
Ugo has followed me up the hill. I had noticed him right from the beginning. I tried to ignore him at first and walk faster and faster, but he kept following me.
At last I stop and shout at him to go home. But when I turn a short while later, there he is still straggling up behind me in the rain. In the end I sit down on a rock and wait for him to reach me. Reluctantly, hesitantly, he comes closer.
– Ugo, you are going to have to stop following me like this. Do you understand? Capisci?
He stares at the ground.
– I’m your teacher, not your mother. I can’t help you. You have to stay with your uncle and aunt.
He doesn’t move, his eyes fixed on the same spot.
– I’m not angry with you, and I would like to help you, but I can’t.
Still nothing.
– What do you want from me?
Silence.
– Go away! Vai via!
His eyes slip across my face then drop to the ground again.
– Now I’m going to go on walking and I don’t want to see you following me any more. Do you understand?
But even as I speak I know it is useless. I resume my walk and in a few minutes hear his soft footsteps repeat after mine like an echo.
It is late afternoon when I make my way home, and the shadows are long. The sky has cleared and the last few clouds caught by the setting sun glow furiously red and pink against the deep blue of evening. I put my rucksack over one shoulder and begin the long walk back to the village, anxious to get home before it is completely dark. The soft footsteps still follow me, often stumbling, tired now, on the rough path.
But night comes early at this time of the year. The moon rises above the sea lighting my path and casting a long shadow behind me. It is pitch dark by the time I stumble down the last slope into the village. Everyone is already indoors, the sound of the news broadcast from the television set in every home disturbing the starry stillness of the night. The smell of frying garlic and tomatoes fills the alley. I open the door to my apartment and close it carefully behind me again. Home. I wonder if Ugo has found his way home safely, whether someone has given him something warm to eat, some dry clothes and a soft bed. I put my bag on the table and go to the bathroom to run a hot bath. I lie in the darkened room and soak the heat into my body, easing the stiff muscles and warming me so that I feel soft and sleepy. I wrap myself in a towel and go straight to bed where I fall into a deep sleep, a stunned hypnotic sleep full of disturbing dreams.
Tuesday 13 November
Friday, when I will have to return to the Questura, is drawing nearer.
I bought some persimmons today, soft, overripe, swollen autumnal fruits. I was passing through the square on my way home when my eye caught their outrageous roundness, the orange startling in the misty grey light, and I couldn’t resist them. Ugo’s aunt carefully put two into a brown paper bag for me and I carried them back home, but even so, by the time I got here they had both burst open and the flesh was seeping out on to the wrapping. I put them on a plate but it was not the same now that their perfection had been marred.
There was a parents-teachers meeting this evening, and I stayed late at school working afterwards. I had no inclination to go out into the windy town and to the loneliness of my room, preferring to stay here and mark the children’s homework surrounded by the smell of chalk and ink.
When I finally stand up and stretch and prepare to leave I am surprised to notice that it is already nine o’clock. I let myself out of the side door, which the bidello has left on the latch for me, and walk along the road and into the square. It is abandoned at this time of night. The islanders retire early since they rise early to go out fishing or to work in the fields before sunrise. I have no fear alone here; there are no dangers on the island, it is too small and close-knit a community for that. A cat stands up from the shadows and approaches, meowing softly. I stoop and stroke its back, and it arches its body in pleasure to follow my hand, allowing itself to be caressed. It rolls over on to its back to offer me its belly to scratch. I don’t like cats very much, they feel unclean to me, but I am moved by this gesture of companionship. It isn’t just that she wants her back scratched – if that were all she could have rubbed her back up against a thorn bush.
As I stand up I become aware that there is another shape in the shadows. A human shape huddled against the wall, sleeping. I strain my eyes to make out the details in the dark, reluctant to go any closer. Could it be a vagrant, perhaps a drug addict come over from the mainland? A dog? It looks too small to be human. I take a step closer and suddenly realise it is a child’s shape.
I straighten up. My first reaction is to turn away, to hasten my footsteps to my room, to close my door and switch on my light. I do not want this encounter in the dark, this contact with the unexpected that might drag me in. I draw myself up and walk to the alley leading up the hill to where I live. Then I stop, feeling drawn to go back. I feel a huge turmoil inside me that I do not want to give in to. Eventually I take control of myself and set of
f up the alley. I lock and bolt the door behind me and sit down on my bed. I don’t switch on the light; I just lie on my bed fully dressed. I tell myself it is nothing important, that I don’t need this in my life. Eventually I fall asleep.
Wednesday 14 November
I oversleep and arrive late at school. I find it difficult to be mentally present, my eyes feel puffy and sore. The children also seem subdued and sleepy. I notice Ugo hiding behind the shoulders of the child in front of him, head bowed, from his place near the back of the classroom. It crosses my mind that it could have been him last night, but then my attention is caught by one of the other children and the thought slips away unexplored.
Slowly the morning unfolds, the register is called, the homework taken in, marked exercises returned. I wonder why I bother to take so much time writing comments and correcting errors – the children never look at them, only at the mark they have been assigned. Ugo as usual has got a four. Insufficiente – insuf as the children say. It means he has done the work but not mastered the task. Today though he has not handed in his book. I have put him next to Irene, a quiet kind girl who I hope will be able to help him a little. I keep remembering the bundle in the corner of the square last night. His clothes are dishevelled – and I notice he is wearing the same clothes as yesterday. But then he often does. The same pair of worn jeans, a faded T-shirt under his grembiule, a grubby bomber jacket over the top. It feels as if he has been wearing them forever.
Thursday 15 November
Tomorrow I need to go over to the mainland and deal with Ispettore Lupo, but today is a public holiday. It is Remembrance Day. A platform has been erected in the square in front of the church and decked with flowers and purple drapes. People gather and stand around in little groups waiting. A misty day. The priest, in silver and purple robes, arrives surrounded by choirboys and deacons. Leonardo and Matteo are amongst them, dressed in white surplices. With perfect theatrical timing the priest mounts the stairs to the platform and begins to intone the Requiem, the mass of the dead, while the villagers kneel on the stone pebbles of the square. Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine – Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
Absolve, Domine,
animas omnium fidelium defunctorum
ab omni vinculo delictorum
Dies iræ! dies illa
Solvet sæclum in favilla.
Forgive, O Lord,
the souls of all the faithful departed
from all the chains of their sins
The day of wrath, that day
Will dissolve the world in ashes.
After the Communion he descends and leads the procession of villagers down the road, the verger in front carrying the Madonna and cross, to the end of the village then up the hill in slow step, swathed in incense, a small brass band playing off-key, a tuba, a trumpet, a drum keeping time. Amongst the onlookers lining the road I notice Ugo, but he turns away as I pass and I do not see his eyes.
In front of the school we stop and gather about the priest. He climbs on to a pedestal so that he is raised above our heads. All the islanders gather closer, silent now, intent. Eyes are serious, even the young men usually so full of jokes and bravado, even the young girls proud in their beauty and freshness.
The bugler plays reveille. The priest turns and begins to read the names of the islanders who fell in the two world wars from the plaque on the wall. One by one they are named, as if for roll call, surname first, then name, and all the villagers, in a single voice, in unison, repeat ‘presente’, answering for the dead, giving them a voice, holding them present in their midst.
– Ariste Achille.
– Presente.
– Bernabei Luigi.
– Presente.
– Crisafulli Giovanni.
– Presente.
There is no rush, no sense of time passing, no sense that this is an empty formality, the villagers united in remembering their dead. All thirty-three names are read, all thirty-three are found present and accounted for. One by one. Each is there. At the end the last post is sounded. The gathering breaks apart and the people, still in procession but lighter now, fragments of conversation rising here and there, return along the sandy road to the square where tables have been prepared with wine and food… later there will be dancing and bobbing for apples, and life will resume.
I return to my room.
As one of the schoolteachers, it is expected of me to take part. Part of my civic duties to the community. I hang to one side, shuffle along with the others, automatically repeating the words of the prayers I learned as a child in boarding school, finding the Italian translation of the words natural, calming, rounded on my tongue. I have done this each year for twenty years, followed the dusty road to the cemetery, the scruffy long yellowed grass stained darker yellow in places with yellow dandelions, the smell of incense and resin from the cypress trees mixed, the sun pale on my shoulders, the movement of my hair light around my face, against my cheek, the cry of the swallows gathering swift and fast in the sky before departing.
It strikes me that few people here except the very old men and women would have known any of those who died sixty-five and more years ago, except as brothers or sisters. Yet all wept for their naming, for their own death. The young mother imagining her own death, her orphaned child, her widowed husband. I try to imagine a world where I do not exist, a square, this square, without my presence, and find that the only way I can do it is by imagining myself hovering above it, the square seen from the vantage point of my eyes. It cannot just exist on its own. Or perhaps it could but I can’t imagine it. Can’t imagine a day, the blue sky speckled with tiny white clouds, the first intimation of rain, without feeling the cool breeze on my face, in my hair. On my body.
Friday 16 November
In the afternoon I go back to see Ispettore Lupo. Island to sea to bus to city to Questura. Each stage a transition.
The door is open and he is sitting at his desk. He sees me and beckons to me to come inside. The room smells faintly of brandy.
– Entri. La stavo aspettando. Come in. I was waiting for you.
I sit down on the bench against the wall.
He leans his chin on his hand and scrutinises me for a moment. He seems dangerously jovial today.
– Allora, Signorina, è tornata, vedo. Brava. You’ve come back. Good girl. So you have decided to collaborate with us?
He smiles.
– I still don’t know what you want from me. I’ve done nothing wrong.
– Are you sure? Absolutely one hundred per cent sure that you’ve done nothing wrong? Cento percento? No guilt at all?
He sits back and smiles again.
– Why don’t you just tell us everything. It would be much easier. Just tell us everything you know. We can’t help you unless you tell us.
I don’t say a word. He opens the drawer to pull out the pile of folders. I notice that the bottle is no longer there. He leans forward in his seat and opens the cover of the top folder. He picks up a photograph, examines it thoughtfully, then puts it down. Then, as if he has changed his mind, he picks it up again and holds it out to me. I reach forward to take it but he pulls back.
– Non! Non si tocca. You may not touch it.
I flinch and withdraw.
– What is it?
He holds it out again for me to see. A grainy black-and-white image. This time I make out two figures, two women photographed from behind. They are walking into a building, one following a few paces behind the other. They look familiar, something about the clothes, the hair. Suddenly I recognise them. It’s Sabrina and me.
I sit back and close my eyes.
– Vedo che si riconosce. Brava.
I take a deep breath.
He laughs and raises his eyebrows, willing me to say something.
– E allora…?
– It could be me. But what is the problem with that? I have committed no crime.
– È proprio sicura?
&n
bsp; He takes the last cigarette from the packet on his desk, crushes the packet in his fist and tosses it into a metal rubbish bin. My eyes follow it and I notice the empty brandy bottle beside it.
– What are you trying to insinuate?
– Cosa mi dice di Angela Cremonesi?
– I don’t know anyone called Angela Cremonesi.
– The other woman in the photograph. Si chiama Angela Cremonesi. La Cremonesi is known to the police as a prostitute. She works near the main station. Her street name is Sabrina.
I shrug.
– So what is that to me?
– She often takes her clients to the Pensione Arcadia.
– I still don’t know where you are trying to go with this.
– This picture shows you going into the pensione with her. What is there between you? Are you paying her for sex? It could be a criminal offence, you know.
His eyes drop to my breasts and linger there.
I stand up.
– All you have here is a picture of me from behind going into a nondescript building and you have come to all sorts of conclusions. I don’t know what you are thinking, but I’m going. You’re wasting my time.
He smiles.
– Si sieda. Non abbiamo ancora finito. Not so fast, Signorina. We haven’t finished yet. Sit down.
I sit.
– We are watching you, Signorina. Something is going on and we want to know what it is. You will please come back next Friday. We have more talking to do.
I wander down to the Roman ruins. There is a bench and I sit down. There are dozens of cats sunning themselves in the golden afternoon sunlight. I open my handbag and catch sight of a small parcel wrapped in white-and-silver paper. For some reason the sight of it bothers me. Without removing it from my bag I unwrap it. Inside it is a knife. I touch it, running my hand along the handle, touching the hard, cold blade. I wonder where it comes from.
A man sits down on the bench beside me, a small round man with a bald head.
– Permesso? he says companionably. He stretches his arm along the back of the bench. I nod although I would rather be alone. He laughs.
The Story of Anna P, as Told by Herself Page 6