Arturo's Island

by Elsa Morante

  It may be that everyone at that time of life has felt something not very different.

  I was again spending entire days out of the house, encountering N. as little as possible. And in those hours of separation, my mind itself, without any intervention of my will, broke away from the image of her. I never thought about her face or, still less, her body; one would have said that thought shunned the sight of my stepmother. But, even without looking at her, thought, like a blindfolded pilgrim, returned to her.

  Here’s how. I should say (since I haven’t yet) that in the meantime the fatal kiss, in my capricious memory, had become more innocent than it really was (like music of which one remembers only the melody). Some of the bizarre, fierce violence I had felt in that kiss had been almost eliminated from recollection (and so the less likely it became that I might acknowledge my guilt in giving a kiss!). Another thing, however, I couldn’t forget: and that is that on that one occasion I had, for the first time, called N. by name (instead of saying as I usually did: Hey, you, or something similar). Owing to I don’t know what imaginary decree, it had the flavor of an infraction: that single thing! And now that flavor returned often to tempt me.

  I don’t know how many times a day, even without thinking of her, I surprised myself repeating in a low voice, Nunziata, Nunziatella, savoring a delightful but audacious lightness, as if I were confiding a secret to a fellow traitor. Or I traced that name with my finger on a window, or on the sand, and right afterward erased it, as a criminal does the clues that might point to him. But suddenly the roar of the waves, the whistle of the steamers, all the sounds of the island and the sky seemed to cry together: Nunziata! Nunziatella! It was like an immense, intoxicating revolt against the notorious prohibition (which in truth I had invented myself) that had always denied me that name. And, at the same time, a profound condemnation of my transgression, which nearly overwhelmed me.

  The name Nunziata, Nunziatella was transformed for me into a kind of abstract catchphrase: like a watchword among conspirators, which, adopted for devious plots, is stripped of its original meaning. Thus not even the sound of the name—now the symbol of an obscure, broken law!—led my mind to her face, to her physical person. Outside her presence, her person seemed to be hidden from me in a cloud; then, as soon as I returned to her presence, the cloud ripped apart to show me the harsh face of denial.

  N. was absent even from my dreams. Or at least I don’t remember that she ever visited them, at the time.

  I recall that, in that period, I had dreams from the Arabian Nights. I dreamed of flying! I dreamed of being a magnificent lord, who threw innumerable coins to the crowd. Or a great Arab king, who crossed a burning desert on horseback, and, as he passed, the coolest springs gushed up to the sky!

  In reality, however, I seemed to have suddenly become the armed enemy of all things in existence.

  The Palace of Midas

  I said that it was a strange time. The conflict between my stepmother and me was only one of the aspects of the great war that, rapidly, with the flowering of spring, seemed to have been unleashed between Arturo Gerace and all the rest of creation. The fact was that the return of summer that year was for me accompanied by what is called in good families the ungrateful age. I had never before felt myself so ugly: in my body, and in all that I did, I noticed a strange clumsiness, which began with my voice. My voice had become odious, neither soprano (as it had been before) nor, yet, tenor (as it was later): it seemed an out-of-tune instrument. And the rest was like my voice. My face was still quite round and smooth, but my body wasn’t. My clothes no longer fit, so that N., although hostile, had to adjust to my size some sailor pants that a shopkeeper friend of hers gave her on credit. And meanwhile I had the impression that I was growing without grace, in an ungainly way. My legs, for example, in a few weeks had become so long that they got in my way, and my hands were too big in comparison with my body, which was still lean and slender. When I closed them, I seemed to have the fists of an adult bandit, which I was not. And I didn’t know what to do with those murderer’s fists: I always felt like punching with them, anywhere, so that if pride hadn’t hindered me I would have quarreled with the first person I met, maybe with a goatherd, or a laborer, with anyone. Instead, I started neither conversation nor quarrel with anyone; and in fact, even more than before, if possible, I stayed away from people. Really, I felt like a character so out of place and cursed that I almost would have liked to shut myself up in some den, where I could be left to grow in peace until the day when, as I had been quite a good-looking boy, I would become quite a good-looking youth. But: to go and shut myself up! Yes! Easy to say! But how could I have endured being shut up, when I seemed to have in me a hellish spirit, which transformed me into a kind of wild animal, all day hunting some unknown prey? The gentleness of the season made my mood bitter: I would have been happier in winter storms. The springtime beauties of the island, which in other years I had so loved, inspired almost an angry mockery, while I climbed up and down those cliffs and fields with my long legs, like a chamois or a wolf, in a constant turmoil that found no outlet. Sometimes the triumphant joy of nature overpowered me, leading me to extraordinary exaltations. The fantastic flowers of the volcanoes, which invaded every piece of uncultivated land, seemed to spread out before me for the first time gorgeous patterns of form and color, inviting me to a joyous, changing celebration . . . But the usual desolate anger immediately possessed me again, intensified by shame at my futile rapture. I wasn’t a goat, or a sheep, to be satisfied with grass and flowers! And in revenge I destroyed the meadow, tearing up flowers, trampling them fiercely under my feet.

  My desperation resembled hunger and thirst, although it was a different thing. And, after having so longed to reach an older age, I almost regretted my earlier age: What did I lack then? Nothing. I had a wish to eat: and I ate. I had a desire to drink: and I drank. I wanted to enjoy myself: I went out in the Torpedo Boat of the Antilles. And the island, for me, what had it been up to now? A land of adventure, a blessed garden! No, now it was a bewitched and sensual dwelling, in which, like wretched King Midas, I found nothing to satisfy me.

  A desire for destruction took hold of me. I would have liked to be able to practice a brutal profession, for example stone breaker, to occupy my body from morning till night in a vain and violent action that would distract me in some way. All the pleasures of summer, which had once been enough for me, appeared insufficient, laughable; and there was no thing I did without a desire for aggression and ferocity. I dove into the sea belligerently, like a savage rushing at an adversary with a knife in his teeth; and, swimming, I would have liked to break, to devastate the sea! Then I jumped into my boat, rowing wildly toward the open water; and there, in the high sea, I began singing desperately in my tuneless voice, as if I were cursing.

  Upon returning, I stretched out on the sunny sand, whose carnal warmth was like a beautiful silken body. I relaxed, as if rocked, into the light weariness of midday; and I would have liked to embrace the entire beach. At times, I spoke endearments to things, as if they were people. I began to say, for instance: “Oh, my lovely sand! My beach! My light!” and other more complicated endearments, really demented. But it was impossible to embrace the great body of the beach, whose countless glassy grains of sand slid between my fingers. Nearby, a pile of seaweed, soaked in the spring salt, gave out a sweet, fermenting odor, as of mold on grapes; and, like a cat, I took pleasure in biting the seaweed, furiously scattering it. Too great was my wish to play: with anyone, even the air! And I eyed the sky, blinking my eyelids hard. The pure blue spread over me seemed to approach, embroidered with stars like a firmament, igniting into a single great fire and then becoming as black as Hell . . . I turned over on the sand, laughing. The futility of these games embittered me.

  I was seized by an almost fraternal pity for myself. I traced on the sand the name ARTURO GERACE, adding, IS ALONE, and then, afterward, ALWAYS ALONE.

  And later, as I went back up toward the house with
the certainty of finding there only an enemy, infernal desires often assailed me. I would grab my stepmother by the hair, throw her to the ground, and beat her with my big fists, shouting: “That’s enough of that goddamn behavior of yours! You’d better stop it!” But in her presence my sinister purposes vanished. I felt embarrassment and shame, as if there were no longer a place for me in that kitchen. The well-known bench, where once I loved to stretch out, had become too short for my height. My long legs, my unnatural voice, my hands got in the way more than ever. And a terrible, depressing sensation invaded me: that my present ugliness, and nothing else, was the reason that N. avoided me.

  Later, when we’re old, I know, such tragedies are, more than anything, comic; and, if I like, now, at a distance, I, too, can laugh. But we should recognize that it’s not easy to cross the last frontiers of that terrible ungrateful age without having anyone to confide in: neither a friend nor a relative! Then, for the first time in my life, I truly felt the bitterness of being alone. I began to long desperately for my father. (He had now been gone for around two and a half months: an unexpectedly long interval after that period when, as I said, he was often on the island.) In my yearning I created a romantic portrait of him, which was not too lifelike, I should say. I absolutely forgot that between us there had never been any intimacy. And that certain things, to him especially, I couldn’t and wouldn’t ever have confided and wouldn’t have known how. I even forgot his behavior of recent times, which was certainly not encouraging to conversation.

  I imagined W.G. as a sort of great affectionate angel, my only friend on earth: to him I could confess, perhaps, all my anguish, all that was unconfessable, and he would understand me, explain what I didn’t understand! Gradually, as that traitorous spring wore on in confusion and torment (and it was to be the last spring I spent on Procida!), I clung to the angelic vision of my father as the only refuge to be hoped for. Everything that made such a dream unlikely, utopian, I now hid from myself. Hope, at times, weakens awareness, like a defect.

  And I began again to wait for Wilhelm Gerace every day, as when I was a boy, although for different reasons. I was faithfully, stubbornly on the dock, at the arrival of every steamer from Naples: until, as was inevitable, one fine day he returned. He arrived on the second afternoon boat, which entered the port around six. It was the middle of May, the days were now long, and, at six, there was still full sun.

  On the Dock

  When I saw him appear on the upper deck, lanky and solitary, standing slightly behind the small group of arriving passengers, I began to call him from below, with uncontrollable joy. But I immediately realized, from his expression, that he was almost annoyed at finding me there. And when he got close he neglected to greet me but right away asked me to go home without him, he had to stay here and would come later, on his own. “I’ll see you soon, at home,” he said. Then, eyeing me, although distracted, he added: “Eh, what have you done, Arturo? How you’ve grown in these months!” In fact, as I stood facing him, I didn’t have to raise my eyes to look at him, as I used to; and in his surprise there was a note of coldness, as if I were so changed he didn’t recognize me.

  That cold, hurried phrase was, in any case, the only sign of attention he gave me. At that moment his pupils seemed barely to see me. “So,” he repeated, “see you later.” And his disoriented, slightly feverish manner betrayed only impatience to be free of me.

  Such a thing had never happened in similar circumstances in the past. Usually he was happy to have me go with him to the departing steamer, and even more content if he had the surprise of finding me on his arrival. That new, inexplicable wish of his struck me harder than a blow. In my wonder and chagrin, I was almost on the point of asking him, as a favor, to give me his suitcase to carry to the house; but immediately I was ashamed to the depths of my soul of such a servile temptation. I hadn’t come here to be his errand boy! And, without asking for an explanation of his behavior, without saying a word, I separated from him with an expression of indifference, a kind of sneer on my lips.

  But I didn’t obey his order to go home: as if in defiance, I wanted, rather, to stay on the dock. And, having taken a few idle steps, I stopped a short distance away, near a pile of goods, which I leaned against sideways, in the attitude that delinquents have in certain comics about criminal life. At no cost did I want to show him my bitter humiliation. But, satisfied that he had been left alone, he didn’t bother to check if I had obeyed or not. He stayed near the gangplank, his suitcase at his feet, as if waiting for someone who was to disembark from the same steamer; and meanwhile he kept his eyelids disdainfully lowered, paying no attention to me or to anything around. Who, then, could be the delaying passenger he was waiting for? Maybe, this time, he hadn’t arrived on the island alone? Among these speculations, in a sign of arrogance, I kept my eyes on him; and I noticed how thin he had gotten. His jacket, still the same as in winter, was twice as large as he. Underneath, the unbuttoned shirt exposed his white skin: evidently, despite the beautiful warm season, he hadn’t been out in the sun yet this year.

  He lighted a cigarette and immediately tossed it away. I realized then that his hands were trembling; and that the impassiveness of his bearing betrayed, in spite of himself, a strenuous resolution to drive out an extreme, disastrous, and childish anxiety. It was clear that the mysterious person who at this moment he was waiting for exercised a rare sovereignty over his thoughts. But, with a last claim of pride, he wanted to pretend to himself that his vigilant attention wasn’t too involved in this faithful and absorbing wait; and so he lowered his eyes to the ground, turning them fiercely away from that deck, from that gangplank, toward which his anxious nerves most yearned.

  But who was he waiting for? By now, according to all evidence, the few passengers whose destination was Procida had disembarked, while those who were departing had already boarded; only the signal to cast off the moorings and set out was needed. “Maybe,” I thought sarcastically, “he’s waiting for some prisoner?” In fact, the last shift to disembark was reserved for the new guests of the penitentiary: after the movement of arrivals and departures ceased, and the small crowd on the dock had dispersed.

  Sinister Individual

  I had thought, “He must be waiting for a prisoner,” only out of a sarcastic deduction, never expecting that I was guessing the truth. I saw, at that point, that the truck from the prison, which I hadn’t noticed before, stood at the entrance to the square, and that a guard in a gray-green uniform, bayonet over his shoulder, was walking back and forth near the steamer. Sure signs, these, that on board there was some guest of the castle of Procida, still shut up in the security cabin near the hold, waiting for the two guards assigned to his escort to lead him out. Another brief wait followed, maybe a minute, during which my father, making an extreme demand on his will, seemed to achieve a cold and motionless apathy, as if he no longer cared about what was to happen, or any other human event. He was still looking down, when suddenly I saw him start, and his eyes, full of light, childish, blue, rose instinctively toward the upper deck of the boat. At that very instant the expected trio, now familiar to the inhabitants of the island, appeared on the deck, heading toward the gangplank. Then an unfamiliar, hellish, and terrible feeling surprised me.

  Usually when such a trio made its appearance at the port, my heart went out immediately to the condemned man. He could even have an abject, atrocious appearance; it didn’t count. He was a prisoner: and therefore angelic. When I first saw him, I dreamed of brotherhood, of escapes; and while I averted my eyes as a sign of respect, I would have liked to shout my complicity. This time, instead, after barely a glimpse of the new prisoner, I felt a savage antipathy, which did not allow me to see his features clearly, and I immediately judged them to be horrendously ugly (a judgment contrary to the truth!). I can say, in other words, that from that first instant I vowed absolute hatred. Maliciously, I almost wished that prison regulations would order the guards—who escorted him, in fact, with an air of protective
ness—to drag him rudely along the dock instead, abusing him with the cruelest tortures.

  What I was able to notice, with my hostile eyes, during his rapid passage, was, above all, that he was an extremely young condemned man: he seemed even younger than the minimum age that was surely required for a prisoner. On his face, and on his manacled hands, the almost gray pallor that dark skin acquires in prison stood out in the light; but not even that grim color could age him. Rather, it hardened the character of youthful plebeian brutality—common, but in him ostentatious—that was chiseled in his face, especially in the curve of his lips and the part of his black hair. That dark vitality, which was worse than impudence, and which to me appeared truly sinister, suddenly became, in my eyes, the very shape of him. The image was oblique and, because of his darkness, mysterious: inspiring in me, from the start, angry, contradictory feelings.

  His face was bent toward his chest, in severe remorse, which in him, however, seemed merely an expression for the occasion, or maybe ironic. In fact the look on his face was contradicted by his body, which in movement and gait betrayed a fresh, aggressive, and playful adolescence. He was of medium height; but, much more vigorous than my father, he could seem, at first sight, as tall as him. And for the journey he had put on his best civilian clothes (well cut, brand-new, flashy): as sometimes in such circumstances, out of a kind of affectation, certain condemned men do, especially young, inexperienced ones; but in that awkward outfit his body moved as if it were in a puppet’s costume, with an untamable, vain, and happy freedom.