Arturo's Island

by Elsa Morante

  In his heart he seemed to be setting out on his sentence as if it were a boast, uniting the two most envied types of audacity: affirmation of oneself, and adventure. (Later I was able to come up with profane reasons to explain that bearing of his: since his flaunted conviction was to turn out to be somewhat laughable. And so his crime must be, too, I imagine . . . But at the time I considered that immature youth a murderer, a true condemned man! And I happened to attribute Promethean causes to his arrogance, as I will describe.)

  In addition to certain transfigurations of romantic origin, in the very brief time that that scene lasted I was endowed with a sensitivity close to clairvoyance, which is found at times in women, or in animals. For example, I perceived immediately, with certainty, that my father knew that prisoner, not from today but from before; and the look he gave him will never be erased from my heart. His eyes (always the most beautiful in the world, to me), like two mirrors at the passing of a celestial body, had turned a clear and fabulous deep blue, with no trace of their usual murky shadow. And their expression might mean a faithful greeting, an imaginary understanding, a poor and desperate welcome; but above all it meant an entreaty. It seemed that Wilhelm Gerace was asking for an act of charity. But what in the world could he ask from that wretched man, to whom he wasn’t allowed even to say a word, to make a sign? A look, in response to his look of adoring friendship, was all that he could ask. And that unique pleaded-for thing, which the prisoner could have given to my father, he denied him. In fact, perhaps in spite of himself, having glanced at him deliberately as he passed close by, he composed his boyish face in an expression of boredom, impatience, the most insulting contempt for Wilhelm Gerace. And his extremely black eyes were turned elsewhere. All this lasted barely a few seconds: the time necessary for that unlucky trio to reach the prison truck. I saw my father leave his place and try, almost unconsciously, to follow the three, to be immediately repulsed by the policeman on guard. Only when he heard the door of the truck slam was he allowed to pass; and the truck was already in gear when he reached it. I saw him stop for an instant, as if uncertain, then run a few steps in the direction of the truck, with confused gestures, almost comic in their uselessness. Such as grief-stricken mothers have, when, finally, tearing themselves from the arms of those who are holding them back, with a cry of denial they run down the stairs and into the street. Where already the coffin bearers, with their small burden on their shoulders, have left the doorway and are hurrying away.

  Then he stopped, standing there for a moment in an idle attitude, without remembering his suitcase, abandoned near the boat landing. A boy from the port came and tugged on his jacket, reminding him of what he had forgotten; and then with mechanical movements he went back to get the suitcase. He didn’t notice me, standing opposite, up against those crates of goods; and probably he hadn’t noticed me the whole time. I saw him walking with his suitcase through the square, alone, his shoulders slack and slightly bent. A few minutes later, with a feeling of laziness and inertia, I left the dock.

  Assunta

  As far back as I could remember, this was my father’s longest sojourn on the island: he arrived, as I said, around the middle of May, and didn’t leave again until winter. During that interval, a steady, stupendous summer reigned, while in the Casa dei Guaglioni time wore on, obscure and inconstant, toward the final tempest . . . I will begin with the first important event that made that season memorable for me: it happened a few days after my father’s arrival, maybe in the third week of May.

  Among N.’s acquaintances, there was one named Assunta, a widow of twenty-one. Although I saw her often, I had never noticed that she was prettier than the other neighbors who frequented our house: the only characteristic that had made me notice her among the others, and on account of which I was perhaps less rude to her, was that as a result of an illness she’d had as a girl she walked with a slight limp. To my skeptical, surly eyes that defect seemed, rather, an attraction: all the more since, with the vanity of a simple creature, she often liked to sit in the poses of a melancholy invalid, although now her body was flourishing with health and the vitality of youth. Her relatives, friends, and so on, to console her for the illness she’d suffered and then her widowhood, had always spoiled her with special kindnesses and caresses: and she had grown up with soft, defenseless ways, like the Oriental languors of a favorite cat.

  Although she was short and small-boned, her body was well made, quite shapely; but of this, I repeat, I wasn’t aware. To me she looked like a bundle, just the same as the other women.

  She had dark, rather olive skin, and long smooth black hair.

  If you looked out the window of our kitchen toward the sloping countryside, a long, downhill lane could be seen that meandered like a river: and at the bottom the cottage where she lived with her relatives was visible. They were landowning farmers, and went to work every day on one of their properties on the other side of the island; but, because of her past illness, she was dismissed from the work in the fields, and so, not having children, she spent a great part of her time alone in the cottage, especially during the spring and summer. If I happened to pass by there, I would often see her sitting outside the door, picking over the greens for the family soup or combing her hair in front of a small mirror, wetting the comb in a basin. On seeing me she ducked behind her hair, smiling almost hesitantly, and tilted her head slightly toward her shoulder, as she waved farewell with her hand. Sometimes I responded with a hurried hello and other times I didn’t respond at all.

  She had always been among N.’s friends; but, that spring, she went much more often to the Casa dei Guaglioni, where she was warmly welcomed, both by N. and by Carmine, who often played in her arms while N. took care of the kitchen. Almost every day, at around three or four in the afternoon, when I went home to get something to eat, I found her there; and when I entered she greeted me with her usual shy smile, which was faintly drawn on her closed, full lips, and put a velvety shadow in her almond-shaped black eyes. But I paid no attention to her smiles or to her; I had other things on my mind. As spring advanced, when I again began to desert the house for the entire day, my occasions for meeting this woman were very rare.

  One afternoon a few days after my father’s arrival, I was wandering through the countryside in the grip of that wretched mood that had been tormenting me like a curse. Never had any summer declared itself so desolate and miserable; and my father’s presence on the island, instead of consoling me as I had dreamed, intensified even more the strange sensation that I had become a sort of graceless animal, hated by the universe. Wilhelm Gerace, on his return to Procida, persistently avoided my company, as he had never done in summers past. And, from the evening of his arrival, and my disappointment when he got off the boat, I suspected that his rejection might also be due to the changed aspect (for the worse) of my body. Every time his gaze rested on me I thought I read a critical, amazed, and negative judgment, as if he no longer recognized his son Arturo in such an ugly youth. And it seemed to me that his eyes, like two freezing ponds, reflected my ungainly features, describing them one by one: so that, unlike Narcissus, I fell out of love with myself in a furious manner. In the end I longed to return to the time when W.G. was pleased to say, at least: “Well, he’s not bad. Yes, not for nothing is he my son!” And after yearning for so many years to be as tall as he was, now, instead, near him, I felt my height as a hindrance, a shame. I had the impression that he considered it a kind of strange abuse, to be regarded with antipathy or distrust. And I would have liked to be a child again.

  Of course, I didn’t relinquish my pride. I returned his coldness with coldness. And, preferring to avoid the insult of his looks voluntarily—or at least without leaving him the initiative—I behaved as if I avoided his company no less than he mine.

  Here, then, is what my life was reduced to: that my father rejected me, my stepmother kept me distant as if I were more dangerous than a snake. Anything is better than pity: and I didn’t want to be pitied by anyo
ne. At night, I returned home with an air of mystery and delinquency, as if I’d spent the day commanding gangs of thieves, pirate ships. Sometimes I would have liked to be a true monster of ugliness: for example, I imagined myself disguised as an albino, with fangs instead of teeth, and one eye concealed under a black patch. In this way, merely by appearing, I would horrify and strike fear into everyone.

  It was an afternoon on one of these days when I was passing Assuntina’s house. I saw her as she greeted me from behind a window, and I think that I didn’t even respond; but as I was going off, I heard her small limping steps hurrying toward me, and her voice calling:

  “Gerace! Gerace! Arturo!”

  The Corals

  I turned. “Hello,” she began, “what ever are you doing around here? I haven’t seen you for a long time . . .”

  “Hello,” I answered. And, not knowing what else to say, I gave her a look from head to toe, with the dark, disdainful expression of a tiger who encounters a family of young lions in the jungle.

  Her bare feet, on the dry dust of the earth, were muddy, as if they’d been walking in muck. And she immediately explained that she was intending to wash her feet, when she had seen me pass; and to reach me she had run out without drying them. As she explained, she lowered her gaze to her tiny feet, in an eloquent manner that was intended to signify: “Be indulgent toward that mud, in fact please accept it as a sign of my haste to reach you.”

  Then her eyes, still half lowered, looked at me with a shy expression, between reproach and servitude. “I was getting ready to go up to your house . . .” she resumed, “but since I knew you’re never there, at this hour . . . In the past, at this hour I might happen to see you there sometimes, and now, instead, never! Not this hour or any other!”

  Her singsong voice, in saying those words, seemed almost to be lamenting. And, with its notes of sweet frailty, it recalled sounds that bitches make, or small female donkeys, when they complain of wrongs you don’t understand.

  “In my opinion,” she added after a silence, “you must have some girl, down in the town, who keeps you out of the house all day!”

  “I don’t have any girl!” I declared, with surly pride.

  “Really! You really don’t have a girl! . . . But I—I might not believe that . . .”

  She dared to contradict me! Yet from a woman such an insult didn’t bring dishonor as it would from a man; and I confined myself to picking up a rock and throwing it, threateningly, without deigning to give her any other response.

  “And if you really don’t have a girl, why do you stay away all day? A hundred times a person comes to your house, and a hundred times you’re not there. Not in the morning, or in the afternoon!”

  “So what does it matter to you?”

  “To me . . . well, now, you mustn’t be offended. If you’re offended, I’m ashamed, and I don’t know what else to say. But I don’t want to tell you a lie: it matters, yes, it matters a little to me. And the reason is my secret, Assuntina’s . . . that Assuntina could tell only to you, she couldn’t confide it to anyone else . . . Maybe, if you want to know, I’ll tell you this secret now; but if you don’t want to know, I won’t tell you.”

  In response I curled my lip, meaning clearly: “Whether you tell me or not, I don’t really care. Do as you like.”

  “And so? Should I speak or not? All right, I’ll speak, because I can’t stand this thorn in my throat anymore.” And she began to speak, lulling herself in her slow soprano voice.

  “So here’s how it is: when I come to your house, with such pleasure (and I return every day, and I go up there morning and evening—and even with this lame leg!), I don’t come for just one reason . . . but for more than one reason. Of course, I come out of friendship for Nunziata; and then out of affection for your little brother, Carminiello. Of course. These are truths that everyone knows, but they’re not the principal truth. The principal truth is another (and this is my secret, which I was telling you . . .): that Assuntina comes up to your house principally in the hope of seeing you!”

  At that my face turned bright red. I would never have believed that a woman could make such a bold declaration so naturally! But she wasn’t even blushing! In fact, looking at my cheeks, she broke into a sweet, sensual laugh. And I glimpsed her pink gums, bathed in a wetness that made her teeth shine.

  “And so now my secret is yours: and no one else has to know it. Yes, it’s already been a while, since before Easter, I swear, that I’ve had that thought! You’ve seen that in the afternoon I’m always here alone: and so every day I start thinking to myself . . . and thinking again. You’re a man, of course, and you don’t think. The only idea of men is to always be going around: they go to the wine shops, to the taverns . . . They don’t think. Whereas women, they think!

  “And when I saw you hurry by, like today, I always had this idea: ‘He could sit down once in a while in my house, and bring a little comfort to Assuntina, who’s here all alone!’ ”

  There was a pause. With lowered eyes, she looked at me just fleetingly. “But later,” she added finally, “I thought maybe I’d better forget that idea. In fact, I seemed to hear a voice inside, like an old lady, who said to me: ‘Well, Assuntí . . . ! Maybe he’s running because he’s got an appointment with the girl. Who knows how many pretty girls that boy has? You aren’t so pretty (even without considering your injured leg). And then compared to him you’re practically an old woman.’ ”

  After that, she was silent again, with an air of flaunting her sadness. She kept her eyes lowered, as if virtuously; and meanwhile her small dark hand was playing with a string of coral she wore around her neck.

  Not knowing what to say, I exclaimed, with an aggressive, insolent vehemence:

  “Those are pretty corals you have!”

  “Oh, it’s true, yes, they’re quite nice,” she answered, rather pleased, but, still, a little sad, “and I don’t have just these corals, I also have some others. Matching this necklace I have earrings, a bracelet, and a pretty pin, the complete parure.” (She said just that French word, I remember it exactly.) “Of course, I can’t wear them all together, especially after mourning,” she observed, with some regret.

  Then her voice took on a suspended, softened tone. “I keep them in the house,” she informed me, “up in my room . . . Well, if you like pretty corals, come in, some time or other, sit down, I’ll show them to you . . . When you want, some time or other . . .”

  And she peeked at my face. I gave no sign of accepting or refusing that flattering invitation. Almost furtively she asked me:

  “And from here, now, at this hour, where are you going?” and her face, dark in color, was suffused with a pink that did not resemble modesty or shame: rather, I would say, the opposite.

  I didn’t know how to answer her question: I really didn’t know where I was going, or, to be precise, I wasn’t going anywhere. “Well, it’s hot at this hour,” she spoke again, “and everyone’s sleeping . . .” So saying, from under her oblong, thick-lashed eyelids, which seemed to weigh on her eyes, she gave me a look that spoke clearly: as if she were an odalisque and I the sultan!

  The Little Bite

  And, taking me by the hand, with an important, mysterious smile, she drew me with her into the cottage. Here, before my eyes, she carefully finished washing her feet; then she took off the coral necklace, which she placed on the table near the bed; and then she loosened her smooth, neatly parted hair from the hairpins. (It was as if she were unlacing the ribbons of a jet-black cap.)

  So that day I had my first lover. Every so often in the course of that famous hour, my eyes chanced to turn to the coral necklace lying there near the bed; and later the sight of coral always brought to mind my first impression of love, with a taste of blind and joyful violence, of early summer. It doesn’t matter if I had that first taste with someone I didn’t love. I liked it just the same, and I like it; and every so often at night I dream again about coral.

  Toward the end of the afternoon A
ssunta advised me to leave, because her family would be home soon. Before saying goodbye, she offered me a mirror and a comb so that I could neaten my hair, and, seeing myself in the mirror, I noticed that on my lower lip I had a tiny wound, from which a drop of blood oozed. Then my mind recalled, with a shock, the cause of that new wound; that is, I remembered that a moment before, as I was making love with Assunta, I had had to bite my lip until it bled in order not to cry out another name: Nunziata!

  It was as if there, at that moment, before the small mirror, I had received an extraordinary revelation. That is, I believed that I understood only now what, in reality, I wanted from my stepmother: not friendship, not motherhood, but love, precisely what men and women do together when they are in love. As a result, I arrived at this great discovery: that, without a doubt, I was in love with N. Thus she really was the first love in my life, which is described in novels and poems! I loved Nunz, and surely, without knowing it, I had loved her from the afternoon of her arrival, maybe from the very moment she had appeared at the landing on the dock, with her shawl over her head and her elegant little high-heeled shoes. Now, with that certainty, I went back in memory over all the capricious troubles, conflicts, and sorrows that really had kept me at their mercy from that first distant afternoon until today: and everything that I hadn’t been able to explain before now appeared to be explained. I saw again, then, all those months passed as a mad, directionless crossing, through storms, chaos, and disorientation, until the Polar Star had appeared, to orient me. There, she was that, my Polar Star: she, Nunz, my first love! That discovery filled me with a radiant and unconscious exultation; but immediately I became aware of my desperate fate. Among all the women who existed in the world, if there was one more impossible for me than all others, forbidden to my love by a supreme prohibition, that one was N.: my stepmother, the wife of Wilhelm Gerace! Until a little earlier, when I still didn’t know I loved her, I could have dared to hope that I would become close to her again, again deserve her gentle friendship; but now, instead, no hope was permitted. In fact, I should have been grateful to the state of war that N. maintained between herself and me, since at least it avoided any occasion for my criminal temptations to manifest themselves. Not only: but, thanks to the war that divided us, I could, without too many dangers or regrets, stay on Procida, in the same house with my love, avoiding the unbearable punishment of not seeing her face anymore!