Arturo's Island

by Elsa Morante

  So, without having decided to bring that terrible letter to its destination, I threw myself back on the bed, and gradually fell asleep, with the light on. I woke with a start before daylight; and, seeing my letter folded on the table, I took it and hid it under my sweater, which I had left on. Then I went back to bed and, turning out the light, wrapped myself in the blanket, because I felt very cold.

  Farewell

  But I didn’t fall asleep again. The roosters crowed, and, shortly afterward, the first glow of dawn appeared. Then, through the closed window, a sound of wheels and hooves reached me from the street below. “There’s the carriage coming to get them and take them down to the port,” I said to myself. I thought also of the letter I had hidden under my sweater, for my father; but now somehow the wish for him to have it disappeared, and I stayed unmoving under the blanket. I strained my ears fitfully to the slightest sounds of the house. Usually, at other departures of my father, the whole family was in movement; but this time instead my stepmother evidently hadn’t awakened. The bedrooms and the upstairs hall lay in silence and in stillness. From the street every so often the muttering of the driver could be heard as, alone, he spoke to his horse.

  Suddenly along the corridor I heard a sound of long, hurried steps, trying to be quiet. The door was pushed, delicately, without making any noise. And my father entered my room, closing the door behind him.

  I quickly locked my eyelids, pretending to be asleep. He shook me a little, making with his lips the usual small whistle he had always used when he wanted to wake me in the morning. Then he called in a low voice: “Arturo . . .

  “Arturo . . .” he repeated. I opened my eyes, hard and fixed, without looking at him. “In a few minutes,” he said, “in a few minutes I’m leaving . . .”

  I didn’t blink, or move. Even without looking at him, I glimpsed in the still frozen light of dawn the color of his blue eyes. I felt in him a vague anxiety, which, in the uneasy, nervous joy of departure, kept him suspended over me, dividing his heart. His breath was close to me, with a fresh smell. And it seemed to me that into my small closed room he carried around himself, like a second body made of air, all the icy festive freshness of winter mornings on the dock, amid the animation of departures!

  “Hey, are you listening to me, Arturo?” he insisted, still speaking in a low voice. “I’m leaving soon. I’ve let the others sleep, since I said goodbye to them last night . . . I’ve come to say goodbye to you.”

  “All right,” I said, “goodbye.”

  “That friend of mine,” he resumed, “went ahead down to the port, on his own. He’s waiting for me on the steamer. I’m going alone, in the carriage.”

  The horse could be heard at the gate, pawing the ground. “The carriage,” he continued, “is below, ready . . .” I turned slightly under the blanket, and in that movement I felt, under the sweater, my skin lightly scratched by the letter I’d hidden there. Now was the moment, or never, to give him my letter. But I didn’t know how to give it to him.

  “Well, so, what will you do, Arturo?” he asked. “You won’t get up? You won’t come with me as usual down to the port in the carriage?”

  “No,” I answered.

  “You don’t want to?” he asked again, in an inviting and irritated tone, of reproach, cheer, and regret. But at the same time you could feel his nerves vibrate with impatience to go, down to the port, to the steamer where Stella was waiting for him!

  “No!” I repeated. And I turned over on the pillow, in the tentative gesture of turning my back to him, like a person who is annoyed and wants to be left to sleep. My eyes fleetingly saw him still lingering, disappointment on his forehead, and as he leaned over, some disheveled locks fell over it. And, resting my gaze at that moment on those nearby locks, I saw that mixed with the blond there were some white hairs.

  “Then . . . goodbye, see you,” he said, appearing indifferent.

  “Goodbye, see you,” I answered. And as he disappeared from the room I thought: “Goodbye, see you, and yet we won’t see each other ever again!”

  December Fifth

  When the door closed again behind him, I huddled in the blanket, pulled up to my face, covering my ears with my fists in order not to hear his steps as they grew distant, or his movements for departure in the rooms, or the last rolling of the carriage wheels as it went down the hill. I held out in that deathlike rigidity for an unnatural length of time. When I roused myself and threw off the blanket, the sun had already entered my room, and the house was plunged back into silence.

  I opened the window and, leaning out as far as I could, gazed through the grille to the street. The small space beyond the gate and the street were deserted: not even a distant echo of wheels could be heard, or of horses’ hooves. Only some voices of strangers, distant and scattered, resounded in the clear cold of the morning. But those real voices were vanquished by an unreal, very high sound, a single sharp note, which it seemed to me I heard from inside my brain: a kind of deafening and incredible exclamation that might perhaps be translated into the words “Goodbye, Wilhelm Gerace!”

  I felt a mad temptation to run headlong down into the street, in the hope of reaching the carriage and finding myself next to him, at least for a short distance. But, even with that temptation, which lacerated my heart, I remained immobile, letting the minutes pass, until every hope became impossible.

  I began to hear sounds, familiar voices in the rooms: my stepmother and brother had gotten up. Angrily I ran to the door and locked it. I would have liked only, at that moment, to have in my room the company of a dog, who was my friend and would gently lick my hands with its rough tongue, without asking any questions. But every human nearness, and even the sight of the landscape and all the known places, seemed intolerable to me just to think of. I would have liked to transform myself into a statue, in order not to feel anything.

  So I stayed shut in my room, as if I were dead. For several hours no one paid attention to me. Then, in the afternoon, there was a knock, and my stepmother, in an uncertain and very faint voice, asked if I didn’t want to eat, and if I felt ill, and why didn’t I get up. I chased her away, shouting, with cruel words. But a few hours later I heard knocking again, and the same voice, which had become even more uncertain and fainter, told me that, if I wanted it, outside the door, on a chair, was a snack. Almost shouting, I answered that I didn’t want anything, either to eat or to drink, only to be left alone.

  For the first time in my life, I wasn’t hungry, although I wasn’t sick. Every so often I fell asleep, but immediately I roused myself with a start, with the sensation of a terrible jolt or a frightening din. And immediately I realized that in reality there had been nothing, neither din nor earthquake; it was suffering, which used those evil artifices to keep me awake and never leave me. It never left me, in fact, for the whole day! This was the first time since I was born that I had truly experienced suffering. Or at least I thought I did!

  Now I knew, with utter determination, that these were the last hours I would spend on the island, and that the first step I took beyond the threshold of my room would be to go away. For that reason, perhaps, I persisted in remaining shut in my room: to put off, at least for a few hours, that irremediable and threatening step!

  Meanwhile, I wouldn’t have wanted to weep, and I wept. I would have liked to forget W.G. as an insignificant person encountered scarcely once at a café or on a street corner; and instead, as I wept, I surprised myself by calling, “Pa,” like a child of two. At some point I took the letter, which I still had under my sweater, and tore it up.

  Of course, fasting also weakened me. By thinking of my father, I ended up deluding myself that he, too, in the same way, at that moment, was thinking of me. And that while I was calling, “Pa,” he, too, from where he was, was calling inside, “Arturo! My dear moro,” or something like that. Finally—impossible though it seems—as the hours passed, a last hope surfaced that toward evening managed to convince me almost completely with its seductiveness. It
was this: I haven’t yet said that the next day was December fifth, and, that is, my birthday. (I would be sixteen exactly.) Out of pride, I hadn’t reminded my father of the date the night before. And he, on his own, wasn’t used to remembering birthdays and things like that. But this time I began to hope that his memory, prompted by a miracle, would suddenly during his trip alert him to what he had forgotten. And that at that reminder he would immediately decide to return to wish me happy birthday and maybe even spend the day on the island with me. I said to myself that maybe he wasn’t very far away yet: maybe he was still in Naples, and from there it would be simple to come back for a day. I thought again of the regretful expression on his face when, a few hours earlier, he had leaned over me, here, in my room; and I would almost have sworn now that that regret (joined to despair that I had not gone with him to the dock) was to bring him back to the island tomorrow. At nightfall, hope, in my imagination, had become certainty. So with that consolation I felt both exalted and tired. I looked outside the door, for the snack left on the chair by my stepmother: there was bread, oranges, and even a square of chocolate (an unusual delicacy in our house). I ate and went to bed and fell asleep.

  I woke up, as I had the day before, around dawn. And so began this second morning, which was to be much worse than the first.

  As soon as I was awake, remembering that it was my birthday, I felt a joyful sensation, in the more than ever certain conviction that Wilhelm Gerace would arrive. As I waited, I remained, as I had the previous day, a voluntary prisoner in my room, with the door double-locked. But today this prison was more a good-luck charm than anything else, and I foresaw that my glorious exit was imminent. I had, in fact, a kind of magical confidence that my father would arrive on the first steamer, which landed at Procida at exactly eight.

  But when, from my window, where I was on the lookout, I heard nine sound without any news, I passed from certainty that he would arrive to doubt that he would—not on the second boat, at ten, or any boat at all. Yet hope had by now nested in me like a parasite, unwilling to leave its nest. And for two more hours I continued to count all the quarter-hours of the bell tower, constantly moving around, from the bed to the window, now covering my ears purposely, now straining to listen; and thinking and thinking again whether he might not come on some secondary line or private boat; and pacing back and forth in the room; and starting at every sound, whistle, rustling, and so on. In other words, the usual nonsense of someone who is waiting and hoping. Finally, after eleven, I understood conclusively that I had been crazy, and had taken my sentimental fantasies for heavenly omens—that W.G. hadn’t even dreamed of returning, and would not arrive.

  Then, for the first time in my life, it seemed to me that I truly wished for death.

  Midday sounded, with the usual great pealing of bells. All morning, luckily, no one had dared to bother me; but a little after the concert of bells, here again, like the day before, came a knock at the door, with an even lighter beat than yesterday, almost imperceptible. I understood, from what I could hear easily, that behind the door was my stepmother with Carmine. Not daring to do it herself, she had guided the hand of the child to knock. And now she was teaching him, softly, to say to me the phrase happy birthday, which he, obedient, repeated to me, shouting in his primitive manner.

  Such a family attention, at that moment, revolted me more than an atrocious insult. And with no other answer, I kicked the door, to signify clearly that I didn’t want birthday wishes and sent them all to hell.

  For another hour and a half or so, no one appeared. It must have been almost two when again I heard that persistent knocking at the door. This time it was she who knocked: and harder, almost brutally. I gave no sign of having heard; and then, in an unsteady voice, almost icy with distress and hesitation, she called: “Artú . . .”

  The Earring

  I didn’t answer: “Artú . . .” she resumed then, more hurried and breathless, like someone talking while running, “what are you doing? Why don’t you get up? I’ve made pizza dolce, like the other year, for your birthday . . .”

  Although I had always thought that, basically, she had a stupid brain, never had her stupidity appeared to me as it did this time: immeasurable, worse than infinite! How could she come and talk to me about frivolous things like pizza dolce at such a tragic moment? And her very kindnesses, which I had long since become unaccustomed to, and which until a few days earlier would have gladdened my heart, today embittered me. I would have preferred her to be hostile, severe, as usual; and it seemed to me that she should have understood all this: “Get out, stupid, idiot!” I shouted at her. And with desperate ferocity I opened the door with a racket.

  She was there, holding the child in her arms, her lips trembling, as white as a dead person. I immediately noted, my sight sharpened by fury, that she had put on the velvet skirt, and had also dressed Carmine for a party: of course, to celebrate the day in a worthy manner. All that, instead of softening me, increased my rancor. Meanwhile, some indefinable impulse of extreme bitterness made me rush first of all to my father’s room.

  The room was still, more or less, in the disarray of departure. My stepmother, by nature, was never quick to straighten the rooms, and had contented herself with piling in a corner old clothes, shoes, newspapers, books, empty cigarette packs, and so on, which evidently my father, in his haste, had left scattered on the floor. On the bed there was nothing but the mattress, without blankets or pillows. And a rapid glance at the open wardrobe was enough to know irremediably what I had already foreseen: and that is that the place where W.G. usually kept his-our historic treasures (the speargun, the naval binoculars, etc.) was empty.

  On the wall near the bed was the portrait of Romeo the Amalfitano, smiling as always, unaware, with its gentle blind eyes.

  Feverishly, I moved a little around that deserted room, under the sad, distraught eyes of my stepmother, who had followed me to the doorway. “You know who he left with?” I cried then. “He didn’t leave alone, as he made you think! He left with Stella!”

  She looked at me, trying, at the same time, with her head, to avoid Carmine, who, agitated by my bizarre behavior, was playing with her curls to comfort himself. I continued, in my vengeful stubbornness, like a real boy:

  “He prefers Stella to you!”

  Anxiously, she advanced into the room and put Carmine down on the big bed. “Who is Stella? Is she from here?” she asked, her features suddenly upset by a threatening, barbaric ferocity; and it was clear, from her question, that, at the name, which she heard now for the first time, she thought Stella was a woman. But as soon as she had understood from me that it was a man named Tonino Stella her face relaxed, and was tinged with relief.

  At the evidence of these changing emotions, I also felt returning another, past jealousy (even if never confessed). “Ah,” I shouted, full of grief, overwhelmed by a double jealousy, “but he loves Stella! He LOVES him!”

  “He loves him,” she repeated; and her voice was inexpressive, like a cold, innocent echo, as she repeated the word. As soon as she had uttered it, however, she broke off, her mouth hesitating, with a jolt of shame. Her eyes rushed to observe me, questioning and suspicious. Then rapidly they turned away.

  “Yes, he loves him! HE LOVES HIM! And he cares much more about him than about you . . . and Carmine . . . and me! And everyone!” I resumed, like a lunatic.

  She moved her lips to protest; but she was silent, with a weak, painful scowl, which gave her a look of precociously mature childhood. For a moment, escaping me, she seemed to close up in herself, like a sick sparrow that in self-defense huddles in its feathers; then she roused herself and addressed me, almost brutally. “You,” she exclaimed with trembling breath, “are not speaking true words . . .” Meanwhile, she peered at Carmine, perhaps fearful that he, with his one-year-old brain, might have understood my terrible words against my father!

  “. . . That Stella, who left with him,” she continued obstinately, frowning, “can’t ever be the same
as a relative . . . That is a friendship . . .” Suddenly she raised one shoulder slightly: “That is another thing!” she concluded with a curious air of folk skepticism, indulgent and scornful.

  At that point, a luminous, almost bombastic maturity seemed to clothe her. And she was silent, proud, and calm, her eyebrows furrowed, as if to let me understand that the subject was closed.

  Then, in a mad impulse, I cried: “But you, do you love him?”

  I saw her start at that unexpected question, and in a moment grow confused, as if her heart had suddenly failed her. “What . . . I . . . who?” she stammered.

  “Him! My father!” I said. “Do you love him?”

  Her cheeks devoured by a dark red, like a real burn that was wounding her skin, she stood before me, across the big bed that separated the two of us; and she was so lost that she didn’t even pay attention to Carmine. “What do you mean?” she repeated two or three times. “He . . . he’s my husband . . .” Maybe she thought I was accusing her of not loving my father; and instead it was the opposite that I, wretched me, accused her of!

  “I know!” I burst out finally, letting go all my bitterness. “I know! You love him!”

  But she didn’t take heart at those words; rather, her face quivered abruptly, as if from a shock, and she looked at me with big open defenseless eyes, in a kind of disorderly prayer.

  “I know! You love him!” I repeated. “Why do you love him?”

  “Oh . . . I can’t . . . listen to . . . those words . . . I . . . am . . . his wife . . .”

  “He’s insulted you! He’s insulted you!”

  “Oh! Artú . . . why do you speak . . . of him that way? He’s your father . . .” she broke in. A violent emotion made her face pale, transforming its earlier redness into a feverish, timid pink. “And then,” she added, “he is more unfortunate . . . than you.”