The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories

by Jhumpa Lahiri

  Silence

  Translated by Erica Segre and Simon Carnell

  Benedetto Vai, who for more than twenty years had been living with his housekeeper, Leonia, was reputed to be a man of many faults and of unsound mind: selfish, lazy, stingy, arrogant; prone to mischief and eccentric to the nth degree: unique. In reality he had only one defect: he was misanthropic and in full possession of his mental faculties. Instead of trying to mitigate, or at least to conceal his supposed shortcoming, as is usual in such cases, he had chosen to bravely embrace it – and to do so, perhaps, with a pleasure as acute as his blameworthiness was deep, pushing him to the most extreme of consequences as if it were the achievement of an ideal, or the fulfilment of a dream. Following a long and arduous process, an immeasurably harsh one requiring constant, lifelong effort, he had managed to establish complete silence in his home, and while outside it to utter never a word to anyone.

  It is worth emphasizing the fact that Benedetto Vai, who was well-to-do by birth, lived with Leonia: it would have been impossible for him to cope with the practicalities of everyday life by himself.

  The situation had reached such a point that if a word, or even a syllable, had escaped unwittingly or by mistake in Benedetto Vai’s home, it would have been tantamount to an apocalyptic event: the end of an epoch, the collapse of an entire world.

  Outside of his domestic shell, Benedetto Vai adopted such extreme reserve that no one would have dared to approach him with a greeting, or any other word for that matter; and if on occasion some inconsiderate or ignorant soul did so, he would squeeze his lips together and widen his large blue eyes to fix the culprit with such a look as to induce them to lower their gaze and seal their lips. And if by chance anyone should happen to ask him for directions in the street, they would surely conclude that they had spoken to a deaf person.

  Leonia, too, would play her part. If someone stopped and looked as if he was about to say something, she would raise an index finger in a solemn gesture and place it over her lips, like a bar across her mouth and face.

  Nor should we assume that she had ended up going to such lengths easily, though we choose not to pursue here the intimate reasons behind her willing acceptance of what, for a woman, was a most inhuman sacrifice. She had met her master when he was young and handsome. And Benedetto Vai had been an exceptionally handsome young man, with his blond hair and big eyes that seemed to mirror the sky. Now he was a distinguished elderly gent: tall, slim, with an athletic, straight-backed body and eyes that were still like those of a child. She was unacquainted with any echo of the voice he had kept locked within himself, and his irascibility had fascinated her from the start. To have followed him to the very limit of his desperate plan was an act of extraordinary devotion to duty – as well as, subconsciously, an act of passionate love.

  On one occasion, to force him to speak, she had added four times the usual amount of salt to his soup. As soon as he raised the spoon to his lips, he returned the bowl to her with such a heartfelt look that she bitterly regretted what she’d done. Another time, to force him to utter something – even a scream – she had stuck a needle in the seat of his chair. Once again the look that the master gave – so pure and doleful, though not on account of being pricked by a needle – caused her to lower her head, full of shame and remorse, to plead for his forgiveness. He seemed to understand the harshness of the trial this woman was being subjected to; he showed that he understood her and pitied her, and was on hand to support her through moments of weakness or doubt. Many were the times when, subjected to temptations like those which saints must endure, she was on the verge of breaking the spell; of giving, after so much constraint, free rein to a torrent of shouting, laughing and singing. She remembered an old rhyming proverb that fitted her case exactly, and would have justified such behaviour to the entire neighbourhood. Yet she was pleased, afterwards, to have conquered the urge. If it had been a woman demanding such a sacrifice from her, however, it was clear that Leonia’s tongue would have worked like a windmill, like the propeller of a plane.

  For her master, on the other hand, that absolute dedication represented indispensable control over the only person in the world that he needed.

  Leonia too had been a beauty in her day: age had given her a matronly air, and silence had had no effect other than to fill her out, to make her look solemn and somewhat mysterious. And so it was that the two silent ones enjoyed excellent health, and appeared to be thriving and satisfied with their lot.

  The concierge of their building would limit himself to remarking that each of the occupants of apartment number seven was no less cracked than the other. The one who couldn’t seem to get over their behaviour was his wife, poor thing: never in a thousand years could she have been persuaded that a phenomenon such as this was acceptable. ‘The Lord gave us the gift of speech,’ she would always repeat: ‘Why refuse it?’ She was speaking as one who honoured this divine gift to the full. And the other residents, on encountering the silent ones, would turn their heads and scrutinize them from head to foot, in an eloquent mutism of their own.

  There had been certain panic-inducing occurrences in the apartment building: a small fire that had been brought quickly under control, a theft, or rather two; gas leaks, and a flood caused by a burst water pipe – together with instances of more serious, collective panic. It had been impossible by any means to gain access to that apartment, or in any way to persuade its residents to come out of it. In addition to the standard lock, Benedetto Vai’s door was reinforced by another with twelve pins, a chain and three enormous bolts – and further defended by two buttresses that made it as solid as the wall in which it was set.

  There was something heroic as well as ascetic in this bizarre hermeticism.

  If we were to trace back to his birth all that a man’s character has become, we would have in Benedetto Vai’s case to say immediately that he was an excessively tranquil and smiling child. And we have a more telling clue: he was inclined, from infancy, to substitute words with a smile: a smile that with age had become extinguished from his lips, but which had seemed so sweet and gentle as to signify to others an eloquent contentment, and to provide its wearer with an infallible means of isolating himself.

  In the vastness and depths of life one is sometimes compelled to follow a strange turning, as when a masterpiece is revealed and shaped.

  He tended not to speak with his father, but rather more with his mother, whose only son was the source of all of her joy and happiness. ‘My darling Betto,’ she would say, with infinite tenderness: ‘my golden-haired Bettino, my golden boy’.

  At school his taciturn character had become more pronounced. He would often resort to a companion to distance himself from and ward off the others en masse, at the same time maintaining extremely cold relations with him, and a sense of mystery to his own smiling appearance, so as not to prompt or encourage any of that spontaneous intimacy or friendship which in the ardour of youth often wells up and escapes unchecked. In the end he managed to alienate every single one of them.

  He loathed the poetic, the literary, the picturesque, the fantastic. He could recite dates in history with impressive promptness and accuracy, and reduce the essence of facts to a few words. His manner when uttering them suggested that they were still too many. And he would pen certain compositions that seemed designed to be sent by telegram. Adjectives were completely excluded from his vocabulary, and verbs in the infinitive used as much as possible. The professor of rhetoric felt at a loss before him. To throw away so much God-given grace, and to reduce to capsules what for him represented the light, the splendour, the greatness and the richness of the universe … The topic would be developed, albeit with a disdainful aridity, and just so that it would pass, his work would be awarded a chronic mark of ‘Six’.

  In the exact sciences Benedetto Vai was a prodigy. The maths teacher would remain perplexed by the ability and rapidity with which his young pupil could solve the most difficult problems. And his classmates would crane
their necks for a glimpse of his open exercise book, rest their chin on his shoulder from behind when passing, or, hoping for some shaft of illumination when in trouble, would wink at him from across the classroom. At such times he would let his smile spread to hide the disappointment that such antics provoked in him, becoming as mute as a fish to discourage them from trying to use him in this way. They were all intimidated by him, and yet at the same time attracted.

  His father determined to make an electrical engineer of him, but as soon as he had obtained his degree, with top marks, there was no more talk of engineering in the Vai household.

  As a young man Benedetto Vai was in possession of a rather crude, forceful and domineering virility: but he looked for the kind of love that completely excludes an entrancing prelude of any kind, or any trembling and corroborating comment at the point of action, woven from sweet nothings but nevertheless so expressive. It is hardly surprising that liaisons such as these survived in his memory as little more than statistics.

  As the years passed he began to withdraw from his family, and when relatives, acquaintances or friends showed up he was increasingly less visible. ‘Bettino is out with a friend …’ his mother would mutter, uncertainly. But which one? He didn’t have any. Or she would say, with little conviction: ‘He’s in his room: his poor head was hurting a little.’ This was an affliction unknown to Bettino. ‘My Bettino is a bit of a hermit, and a bit of a mole,’ she added, laughing, ‘and he’s getting worse, he runs away the moment he catches sight of anyone.’ And gradually she managed to avoid the subject, allowing Bettino, now a fully grown man, to exercise his right not to be seen at all by anyone.

  The death of the mother ushered in a fatal cooling of the atmosphere in the Vai family home, due to which our hero’s nature underwent a very marked development. For five years, father and son sat facing each other without moving. The father had become taciturn due to the void, impossible to fill, that had been created within himself by the death of his companion, and taking advantage of this sorry state of affairs, Bettino had been able to indulge his temperament without encountering the slightest obstacle. Eventually all conversation between father and son was reduced to ‘Goodnight’ and ‘Good morning’. And the ever-faithful Leonia would only intervene for those daily practicalities of everyday living which required the eternal recourse to a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’, within a household where everything functioned with the regularity and monotony of clockwork.

  When his father died, Benedetto Vai, already fifty years old, was momentarily overcome with emotion that touched him to the very depths of his soul: with emotion and grandeur the moment the old man, with a strength unexpected in a dying person, grabbed his son’s wrist before breathing his last. And he felt, after that brief, fleeting moment, as if his whole being were slipping free from a bond: after that last squeeze of the hand he alone was responsible for his own actions and for himself, as if it was only then that he had actually become a grown man.

  For over twenty years the house of Benedetto Vai dwelt in the silence he had imposed on it as if fulfilling a most exacting duty.

  He had ended up living in one spacious room, where he had his childhood bed, a chest of drawers, a cupboard and, in the middle of it, a large round table. Three times a day Leonia would serve his meals on it, and on that table every Monday the master would leave her the money for the weekly shopping, almost as if a little angel had conveniently deposited it there during the night. Leonia had to manage this money with all the cunning and resourcefulness of her station, since it was impossible for her to ask for any additional amount. Sometimes the master would attempt to leave a little less on the table, but fearing that this might give the woman occasion to open her mouth, the next time he would end up leaving a little more.

  If in that house, where an old gentleman lived with his equally elderly housekeeper, there had occurred between yawns the usual discussions relating to everyday life; the endless chatter and the most conventional, inevitable squabbling over every domestic chore, the unseasonable weather and the shopping bills, the increases in the price of milk, vegetables and pasta; the gossip of the concierge about petty news of the neighbourhood that was as old as the hills, subjects of a stagnant life that was absurdly vacuous, entirely vegetative and insulated against the slightest vibration or shock – then the house would have seemed cold and empty. Instead it was full, brimming, swollen, at boiling point with that silence, like a boiler threatening daily to explode. There was not a moment in the day when silence did not fill the place entirely; there was not a single nook or cranny that the silence had not filled with the imposing solemnity of its presence.

  The Vai family linen was dwindling by the day; Leonia had to repair the repairs, to patch and to sew, to make do and mend in order to prolong its life. Even the undergarments of the master, along with the rest of his wardrobe, were only kept going by this woman’s incessant ministrations, allowing him to cut a still respectable figure in public.

  The family tableware had also gradually diminished: plates, trays, glasses, jugs … In the course of many years, as a result of moments of distraction or carelessness, the inevitable breakages had occurred, no matter how vigilant Leonia had tried to be. Now she was left with just a single bowl for herself: one which she had to use for everything, from soup to fruit. As for the master, he had two plates and a bowl at his disposal. Leonia was frequently obliged to wash one of these items during the course of a meal. There was a single glass: the very last, so she drank straight from the bottle. She feared for that glass more than anything: it was the source of an anxiety that disturbed her sleep. One night she dreamt that she had broken it, that it had slipped from her grasp, that the last glass of the Vai household had shattered into pieces – and woke with a start, thanking the Lord that it was only a dream. And a few days later, as luck would have it, the glass really had fallen on to the floor, without breaking or receiving a single scratch. Divine providence had intervened, surely it was on her side: there could be no doubt about it. Leonia silently recited a prayer, and considered the fall of the glass to be both a miraculous event and a warning from on high.

  Then something extraordinary and unexpected happened.

  Arriving home one lunchtime after a morning walk, Benedetto Vai appeared with an enormous bundle under his arm and deposited it with great care on the table in his room.

  At this unprecedented, astonishing sight, Leonia gave a start.

  For over twenty years the master had not once returned home with something in his hands. What on earth could the package contain? What was the meaning of an event such as this?

  Having removed his hat and coat, Benedetto Vai devoted himself, beneath her gaze, to unfurling the bundle with the most extreme care. It contained twelve exquisitely beautiful antique glasses of remarkable thinness. They were engraved with hunting motifs, encircled and interwoven with infinitely graceful, delicate garlands of flowers and fronds, and were the product of sophisticated eighteenth-century Venetian craftsmanship.

  What could such an acquisition mean? With whom had he negotiated their purchase? Where had he got them from? Who was going to use these twelve glasses? The silent one had evidently decided to open his mouth, and the spell was broken. And was he now on the verge of deciding to open up the house to someone else? To shatter the tragic solitude and the silence? Would the superhuman effort that the sacrifice had cost end up in nothing but a clinking of glasses? Perhaps even an extremely vulgar affair. Twenty years of silence would have been concluded with a bit of rowdiness: with a bit of merry-making. A real drinking session, perhaps, with some of those present ending up under the table. The woman felt like she was falling into a void. She felt tricked, deeply violated. And for the first time she felt like the victim of a madman. It had not been a deep-seated necessity arising from his nature and spirit that had led him to such extremes after all, but an intriguing experience, the caprice of a lazy man, a game conjured up by an empty mind, a joke in very bad taste. Who would turn up for
a drink at the house of a misanthropist? And who, anyway, would someone like him have invited?

  Having looked for a good while at the incomparably beautiful glasses, with an admiration and gratification that appeared to be inexhaustible and which provoked in the mind of the woman an unbearable anguish, Benedetto Vai began to dedicate himself to emptying his cupboard of the thousands of useless things that had accumulated there. He threw everything away with disdain, and after having dusted the shelves he arranged the glasses in a row on the topmost one, deriving great joy from the sight of them, looking and looking again at them once they were inside, as if he were reluctant to lose sight of them by closing the cupboard door. And he would carry one with him to the window so as to examine it against the light, to savour the fragility of its material, its ingenious design, the exquisite workmanship. They really were exceptionally beautiful: execution, form and material coming together in a harmonious and perfect whole.