‘In cherry-picking time, in cherry-picking tune,’ Caterina began,
‘We go and gather cherries.
I take my little basket,
I take my little basket,
To pick sweet red cherries,
Cherries from our garden.’
Her voice rose now, to the accompaniment of the others, as she began the chorus. She lifted her skirts on each side a little higher, holding her elbows out to frame her shape like the handles on an amphora, and resumed,
‘We spread our petticoats wide,
And we point our little shoes…’
She pointed one foot forward, then the other, changing back and forth like Columbine at the ends of a puppet master’s fingers.
‘And we pull our waists in tight…’
She brought her hands to her waist and, keeping her elbows out, pushed one forward then the other, as she twisted from side to side; her face alight, she directed her radiance at the audience, finishing with the invitation, that issued from her lips as a command:
‘Will you dance with me?
Will you come and dance with me?’
The men applauded; asked her to do it again; there was nothing she could do wrong.
Her father began to play softly, to himself.
It gave Caterina an integument of steel, that praise and love of men which Rosalba could never command; the blandishments and consolations of her mother would never clothe her in such silvery bright armour as the admiration of men gave Caterina. So when Tommaso showed interest in her during those Easter holidays, she noticed him; while Caterina remained unaware, for she had always the effect of spreading pleasure, and did not remark his response to her, his alert shoulders, his greedy pale eyes tensing for a moment, then flicking guiltily away to contemplate her sister. If Cati had become aware of him on that occasion, as she soon would, when she became their go-between, she would have taken his attachment as her due: she counted the giving of delight as nothing for she accomplished it without intending it. So Tommaso’s glances did not confuse her. But his gaze touched Rosalba to her undefended depths.
Davide, called by his father to the piano, took up a sheet and set it on the mahogany lyre stand. His father struck the first chord and Davide began,
‘One day, one happy day
You appeared to me,
And ever since that day
I’ve lived in trembling –
Trembling with an unknown love,
With a love like me heartbeat of the world,
Mysterious and haughty,
Both torment and bliss in my heart…’
He went red to the temples as he forced a ff on the last phrases, and shyly stuck a hand on his heart in emphasis; while all fell silent and lowered their eyes, wondering at that excruciating delight which Alfredo experienced – Rosalba especially, Cati indifferently.
As the heat of the afternoon penetrated even the cool heavy shutters and stone floors of the farmhouse, the feasting guests gradually reduced their assault on the table, and drowsiness floated in with the warm air, caught them in a soft hug and lulled them to sleep. Nunzia peeled herself an orange, paring the skin close to the flesh so the padded white endodermis was stripped from the juicy red-flecked flesh, and yet not so close that the fruit spurted juice. Her father-in-law watched her, sleepily, admiringly, then asked for one too; she handed him the fruit whole. He smiled, but did not take it. She raised her eyebrows to heaven, took the fruit back, and handed him crescent after crescent, the babying he desired at her hands.
Davide took a third orange, and the sharp vegetable knife his mother had been using, and cut into the rind, sliding his eyes sideways to get the attention of the children, of his little brother Franco, of Caterina, and his cousins before the heat pushed them as well over the edge into sleep. He sliced round one side, then the other, removed two saucer-shaped pieces of rind from either end, made a transverse cut across the middle and gradually lifted the fruit from the peel, put it down and held up a pair of spectacles to Caterina’s face, two owl eyes of orange peel on a single stem. She held it away from her, against Franco’s face; then turned it upside down:
‘Look!’ she cried, ‘You’re an elephant! You’ve grown a trunk!’ She giggled, ate the pieces of orange Davide was giving her, licked her fingers, and dangled the spectacles in front of Tommaso. He put them on, and peered round the room, hunching his shoulders, shamming the old scholar.
He said, to Caterina, ‘No one as pretty as you will ever wear glasses.’ Rosalba felt a pang run through her, but did not flinch openly. It was true after all, Tommaso was only saying what was obvious to everyone.
‘As a family,’ she put in, ‘We’ve all got very good sight…’ Heads were lolling, one uncle was snuffling in sleep already, from an easy chair in the corner. She could tell from her mother’s slow, encouraging smile, it was time to rest in her room, before resuming the clearing up when the fresh evening fell.
6
From The Duel
RUPE, 1911
‘OH GOD,’ CATERINA groaned, ‘you’re not getting out of bed again. How will I ever get to sleep tonight if you keep on mussing up the bed like this and wandering about? What’s the matter now?’
Rosalba’s voice whispered meekly from the door. ‘I’ve got to go again. My tummy’s in a twist. I’ve got terrible rumbles. Can’t you hear them? I keep on having to go, I can’t help it.’
‘Oh, you’re such a baby,’ Caterina tossed fiercely in the bed, ‘Tummy rumbles! Bah! You’re making the room even hotter by moving about so much and you’re waking everybody up, not just me. Why can’t you control yourself?’
‘How can I? Can you, when you want to go? I’m sorry.’
Tiptoeing, she eased the door open and passed out of their bedroom into the kitchen. From the other side, their mother’s voice rose in the darkness.
‘I knew it,’ said Caterina, flying out in fury at her sister’s disappearing back. ‘Now you’ve woken up Mamma, and I don’t believe you need to go again. Why would you be the only one who’s ill? We had dinner hours ago, and anyway how could you get ill when all we had is stuff we’ve always had? God in heaven, you’d think we’d been eating leftovers. And in this heat! You know that’s for idiots. Not in this household, we know what we’re doing, we’re not fools.’ She was hissing now, into the night, her sister’s white nightdress out of vision from me bed where she was sitting up. ‘Oh, Mother of God! What now?’
Her mother’s voice called out, ‘Give us some peace!’
‘Mother of God in heaven,’ Caterina muttered, ‘I give up,’ and she swung herself crossly onto the floor. The air outside was hot, like milk straight from the udder, soft, sweet. ‘I knew it,’ she said, finding Rosalba sitting on the stone bench under the wisteria in the courtyard. ‘Stargazing. Why? What in all the world…?’ But seeing her sister’s eyes turn from contemplating the deep indigo square of sky above the courtyard, and come to rest on her face in grief-stricken entreaty, she faltered, shrugged, and with impatient gestures, moved her over to make room on the bench where she dumped herself down. She was, in spite of her exasperated commotion, deeply attached to her elder sister.
‘My tummy is hurting,’ Rosalba pleaded, ‘it really is. I keep on having to go, I promise. But you go back to bed, I’m all right.’
Caterina tutted, ‘Don’t be such a worm, you don’t have to lie to me. I don’t care whether you’re faking.’
‘I’m not though, I swear. I’m all in a knot, I’ve got the runs, I can’t keep anything in. But it’s not because I’m ill,’ she added, with a note of self-importance and pleasure that Caterina could not help noticing. ‘Listen.’ Her tummy duly rumbled, trilled and exhaled acridly.
‘Oh – yuk.’ Caterina held her nose. ‘You’re disgusting.’
‘I didn’t ask you to come out with me, did I?’ But they were both laughing.
In the starlight, her sister’s colourless face seemed itself a pale round wafer of a moon, her expression, the an
xious brows rising to meet each other, mimicked the moon’s own self-dramatising look of melancholy; Caterina felt like snapping her fingers in front of her sister’s nose, or pinching her fat ribs hard, to wake her from her indulged state, but she restrained herself, and instead, in the most solicitous accents she could muster, coaxed Rosa into telling her the matter. The eyes of the round and woeful moon closed sighingly for a moment, and Rosalba took a deep breath, as if setting herself afloat on the night in her white nightdress, irresistibly reminding Caterina again of the great orb sailing in the sky like a big soft round pillow. Then, opening them again, she resumed her earlier apologetic furtiveness and, like a nocturnal animal twitching before a predator, begged her sister not to laugh, not to make fun of her, not to comment straight away or say she was an idiot or slap her down, but please, please, to let her have her dream about him just for a night. She would discuss it in the morning, and see sense then. ‘But just for now,’ she pleaded, ‘For tonight, let me be with him in my thoughts, Cati dear.’
Caterina knew of course, but pressed her unkindly. ‘And who’s “him”?’
Rosalba produced ‘Tommaso,’ with some difficulty, as if the name were itself ablaze. She was whispering. She went on, ‘Did you see the way he looked at me that time? Did you notice? He was looking at his food, or at Mamma, or Papà, when he was listening – and he does listen now, doesn’t he, like a proper grown-up man, making conversation.’ Rosalba’s voice grew worried and high as she remembered the Easter meal. ‘But every now and then, his eyes slid over to look at me, almost as if he didn’t want them to, but couldn’t help it. And he has pretty eyes, you shouldn’t say that of a man, perhaps. They’re a bit like a cat’s, they look as if they’re lit up, from inside, pale green like a cat’s. Oh Cati, they made me feel so funny, melting, so warm inside.’
Rosalba pressed her sister’s hand, and Caterina felt it dry and hot, clasped in hers. Fear spread cold over her body, like a dead poultice. She looked at Tommaso Talvi in her mind’s eye, she adjusted her image of him to fit with her sister’s, she inventoried his features, beginning with the eyes, and redrafted them in order to see them as ‘pretty’, she scanned his caffelatte pallor and his big hands, grasping the bread she had cut for him, she looked at his mouth, the purplish fullness of his lips and the strong teeth that showed when he grinned, as he had done, often, but without laughter, when the men were disagreeing about the possibilities of change, the chances of the election returning the Socialists, of bringing about improvements for the labourers now that the franchise had at last been widened to include some people who weren’t bosses, like her father, a music teacher with a sense of honour, of justice. Everyone was clamouring, as they ate and drank and the girls went round the table, serving and taking the finished platters to the sink where Sabina was busy wiping and stacking.
Caterina had not really understood the argument; but she now reconstituted her father’s impassioned argument for contracts. He had been furious that the men and women picked for fieldwork in the morning had to bribe the bailiffs to make sure of a place in the cart. Tommaso had called for action, for striking a blow. Her father had gone on smoking and gesturing with a nod or a headshake; he had protested that votes were the only way, not force. She remembered too that her mother made a terrible clatter with the plates on purpose, Cati knew, because she said afterwards she was scared of such talk, she never liked it when the men got angry, as she put it, what was the use? Besides, you could never know for certain whose side everyone was on, and the wrong word might get about. Then the conversation had turned to the Libyan campaign. Tommaso was sure he would be sent there as soon as his training was over. ‘Training! They call cleaning the floors training! I’ve had more shooting practice out here in the fields with Davide than I’ll ever have in Caserta! And with live ammunition!’ He’d grinned, he’d chuckled at her brother, who was sitting very quiet throughout, rather flushed and excited-looking though. And Davide had smiled back at his friend, with a confused look. Tommaso had turned away, and spoken then of his glowing belief in the new war’s future. He had brought his fist down on the table, leant forward and, speaking quietly, as if swearing an oath, had promised, ‘There’ll be lots of men in this war, and there’ll be money too. Both will give us power! Forward!’ He repeated the word, ‘Forward!’
Cati imagined Rosalba leaving her home with him, marching away with her back to her and her destination ahead unknown; and she cringed.
‘Money for us, here?’ Davide’s father had shaken his head. ‘War never brings any liberty, any equality. You’re mistaken, you’re young, you haven’t seen things, Tommaso.’
‘No, no, by the filth and misery of the Madonna, no.’ And he was painting a vigorous picture of the Noonday of the future, sketching it with powerful sweeps of his arm and bunching of his fists, until Davide’s father cut in, ‘And do they recommend that you use such language? That you tip back on your chair like that? That you sprawl, in the presence of ladies?’ Talvi had grinned, his wolfish, loose, laughterless grin, and brought his chair up straight again, clamped his knees together, thrown back his shoulders with an emphasis that was, Caterina now felt as she pieced it together, insolent. That was in the early part of the meal, before the cakes, before the singing, when tranquillity returned.
‘Oh, Rosa,’ she breathed, with a little groan, ‘Not him.’ She squeezed her sister’s hand.
‘Why not?’ Rosalba asked her, beseechingly. ‘Davide brought him, Davide likes him. He’s his friend, has been for years.’
Caterina pondered this. ‘I’ll ask Davide why he likes him. Perhaps he’ll explain.’
Rosa cut in with a squeal, ‘No, don’t mention it to anyone. No one. No one. Davide is against him, he came and told me afterwards to be careful. Please don’t say I’ve been telling you this. I’m so frightened the feeling will go away, it’s too fragile, and I do so want it not to break. Please. I feel that I’m in a rainbow, that the rain will stop, the light will change, and it’ll vanish and I’ll never be certain it was ever there. I never ever thought, my darling, that it would ever happen to me, that a man, a real man, a man with …’she gave a little, happy gurgle, ‘shoulders, and legs and eyes and things to say… would look at me …’
The sensation of cold which had spread over Caterina earlier now rolled greasily about her. She shivered, though the air under the stars was still soft and warm. Presentiments of parting locked her tongue. She, in whom a natural clear spring of charm flowed vigorously, who expostulated, articulated and knew her own mind with commanding grace – in private, not in public of course (before others who were not family, such confidence in a girl would seem an outrage) – could not speak up now and tell Rosa what she felt. She was assailed by contrary, half-formed forebodings: Rosa was making an error of judgement, she was imagining things, or, even if she weren’t, Tommaso was like a dustdevil, twisting this way and that.
But setting her misgivings about Tommaso himself aside, Caterina decided that she had been quite wrong to think that it was she who had caught his attention. Her assumption was shameful, and it had misled her too. Taking her sister’s hand, she found there was nothing else for it, but she must press to the point. ‘Could you marry him?’ she asked.
The cry that escaped from Rosalba made Caterina’s throat tighten; she dropped Rosa’s hand from her grasp, and thought she might weep in sympathy with the funny sound, half-sob, half-gasp, that issued from her sister. ‘Oh darling,’ she said, ‘Rosa, please, please, don’t be unhappy. I’ll help you, I will.’
The night, which had appeared inky, its dusting of stars within reach, like fireflies signalling under trees, had now, with the passing hour, grown lighter, and the blazing pinpoints receded, as if powered by their own fires, into the dim pools of the most distant sky. Caterina could see Rosalba clearly, all colour drained from her countenance. She shivered again, shut off her morbid drift, touched her sister’s colourless starlit flesh, and felt, to her relief, its hectic human temperature.
“What happens, Rosa, when you get married?’ she asked, nestling against her bulk.
Rosalba stroked her sister’s hand. ‘You live with a man, you look after him, take care of his things, his property, if he has any, like Mamma takes care of Papà, of his clothes, his stomach. You have his children … you become his woman, you belong to him. It’s wonderful to belong… to belong to a man.’
‘No, I mean, what happens, you know, when…?’
Rosa chuckled, then declared solemnly, ‘I suppose you’re old enough by now. I knew when I was ten, or even earlier. I think I’ve always known. You know Franco has a little tap hanging down under his tummy? You remember Davide’s – you don’t see it any more now, he’s too old. That’s the thing a man has, only a man’s is bigger: he kisses you, you’ve seen people kissing, of course you have, but when they kiss when nobody else is looking, the man puts it inside you.’
‘Where? Show me.’
Caterina looked down her front, under her nightdress, examining her body for entrance points. ‘In there, in the navel?’ She jabbed a finger at it. ‘Why doesn’t the food come out if you can get in? That’s why the baby’s attached to the navel when it’s born; he puts it in and the baby comes out.’ She nodded, sagely, at the symmetry of this.
‘It’s the other way round, stupid. The baby’s navel’s attached to the mother, not the mother’s navel to the baby.’
‘Show me where he puts it then.’
Rosalba, recovering from her amusement, became conspiratorial: ‘Are you sure you want to know? You might not like it.’ She bent to mouth into her sister’s ear.
Caterina pulled her head away, looked at her sister in disbelief, and whispered back, ‘That’s where your pipi comes out.’
‘The same place I go spinning,’ reminded Rosalba, rather wearily. It was tiring to have a sister like Cati.
The Lost Father Page 7