‘I swore on my honour. Don’t insist! And besides, I already feel better. I’ll come down if you really want me to. I’ll come to dinner; that way we’ll get it over with!’
Who could ask Jacopo for his word of honour and make him give it? ‘A man who is a man doesn’t go around giving his word left and right.’ Only one person had the power to do so, someone who tiptoed through our lives, someone who appeared meek, who stayed a moment and then disappeared soundlessly. The apparition of that smiling face in scenes of the past, that docile presence who for the good of her child promised to endure the cross that God had given her, took me back to a hatred long forgotten. Loathsome Inès! A woman noxious to women and to man, a vile woman incapable of giving birth … After Jacopo was born, she aborted four times, ever more prone; through those Calvary-like ordeals, she thought she had atoned for her sin … I see her now smiling there in the wings, sufficiently purified to reclaim the sacred fruit of her womb.
‘Why did you allow me to be born? Why?’
‘How could I not let you be born? Inès was healthy, beautiful … How could I force her to have an abortion?’
Jacopo’s pallor becomes splotched with purple, his lanky body jerks; he gets up and seems about to bolt. I can’t go after him. He’s alone in his suffering and he must find a way out of it on his own … He circles the room like a madman, then falls back on the bed, his head in his slender hands, the knuckles reddened from despair.
‘So it’s true?’
‘Would you rather I told you Inès lied?’
‘No, no, I know she didn’t lie.’
I can’t add to Inès’s crime by denouncing the woman’s vileness and killing Jacopo’s image of her. Naturally Jacopo would believe me, but I can’t allow the side of Inès that lives in him to be murdered by my own hands: the sweet, smiling side that I’ve seen flower, year after year, grafted onto the tough, arid stock of Gaia and Uncle Jacopo.
‘She’s your mother, and she must have needed you to know it.’
‘This is driving me mad! Why didn’t she keep me with her then? Why wait fifteen years to … Look, I was fond of her before, I called her Zia, but you see, now that she’d like me to call her Mother when we’re alone, I can’t stand her anymore. I hate her. It’s horrible to hate. I’ve never hated anyone.’
Jacopo gets up, venting a hatred that makes him pace up and down the room, rigid as never before.
‘What am I, a puppet that you can pass from one to the other? Don’t I have eyes to see and ears to hear, as Pietro says? Don’t you think I know? In fact, now I’m connecting a lot of things that Pietro couldn’t rightfully say. She got an annuity, and not an insignificant one, to give me up to you. And you know what she had the gall to tell me? That she will leave it to me … to me, do you understand? As if I needed her money or yours. I’ll work and I don’t want anything from anyone. And then … this too fills me with hatred toward life! I won’t even need very much money now because…’
‘Because what, Jacopo?’
‘Because now I know that I shouldn’t have children, ever! That illness is hereditary. I know that’s why you didn’t tell me about Inès. I was born when he was already sick with syphilis, not like Prando, who was born earlier. Oh, Mama, why, why?… And why are you crying? Don’t cry! I won’t ever have children, but I’ll never call that woman Mother, never! You’re my mother, aren’t you? You used to say — and I didn’t understand — that Bambolina was more your child than Prando, that ’Ntoni was your nephew even though Stella isn’t your sister … You’re my mother, aren’t you? Hug me, Mama … and you always will be, won’t you? Say it!’
He cries in my arms at last, and to calm the tremor of dismay that’s come over him, I can say the meaningless word that — when used in appropriate doses, like certain poisons — has the power to relieve pain.
‘Always your mother, Jacopo, always near you.’
I found myself sobbing on his chest, and his arms supported me. How could Jacopo seem so fragile a moment ago and now be so strong? Once before I had cried like this, but I could no longer remember … It had been on a beach, at night, and the glow of the fishing lights had illuminated two moist eyes, like those of a grateful dog. Or had it been when they had brought home Carlo’s empty shell? That mannequin whom they had jokingly dressed in Carlo’s jacket, pants and shoes. I’d never cried like that again.
‘That vile woman! And I’m supposed to call a woman who makes you cry like this Mother?’
‘I’m afraid, Jacopo! Why does everyone always have to try to make us unhappy?’
‘Don’t be afraid, Mama, I’m here with you.’
‘All this time you’ve suffered alone, and I’m afraid. Please, if you feel despondent again, don’t hide it anymore. Talk to me, like we did about your teeth, remember? You were hurting but at least we were together.’
‘You held my hand.’
‘There, you see? It’s solitude that makes suffering so awful. Others take advantage of solitude to hurt you even more. Promise me, promise me. We have to fight together.’
‘I promise, and to fulfil my promise without delay I have another ache to confess to you.’
‘What is it now?’
‘My stomach hurts; it must be hunger. It’s embarrassing, but I’m hungry.’
‘Me too.’
‘How can that be, Mama? Can you feel hungry even when you’re suffering?’
* * *
Eating Stella’s roast, the pain seems to disappear.
‘How delicious it is, Mama! I’ll never be able to make it this good.’
‘Me neither.’
But once his hunger is satisfied, the despair returns to haunt him and his eyes seek escape, like moths banging against the kitchen walls. In the silence, his anguish has the subdued vibration of brass instruments, or is it the muffled beating of his heart, pressing to burst through his chest? He must give birth to himself or die from the foreign body that has crept into him. He clears the table as he struggles, seeking help from familiar objects, from customary gestures.
‘For me, just being able to cook something gives me joy. The day before yesterday, you weren’t here, Stella was busy, Bambù and Mela were studying, and I was glad I knew how to make scrambled eggs in milk for Crispina, who was hungry.’
He stares, hypnotized, at the big empty table. Jacopo can only pound his fists on the wood before sitting down again, head in hands, and looking at me resentfully. For a second Inès’s mask is superimposed on my face, and he can’t find a way to reach me. Maybe that mask will have the power to settle over the face of every woman in the future, locking him in a cell of mistrust for his entire life. He mentioned Crispina … Perhaps that little face can slink through the bars Inès has planted all around him.
‘Crispina cried today.’
‘I know, I know. That’s what upsets me, but I couldn’t stand seeing her!’
‘Others make us suffer unjustly, and instead of putting a stop to the injustice, do we continue it against those who are younger and more defenceless?’
‘You’re right, I know! For her sake too I had tried to be strong, but that, that … oh, Mama, that woman is evil! And now that I know she’s my mother it’s as if … as if I’ve discovered that everyone is evil, everyone!’
‘Why is she evil, Jacopo?’
‘Because she is! Not only did she reveal what by this time she no longer had the right to tell me, but all she did was criticize you, Bambù, us. She said you’re a madwoman. That in order to live as you please, you’ve squandered all the money and…’
‘She’s not the only one who criticizes us, Jacopo.’
‘I know … Why does it hurt so much, Mama?’
‘Because knowing that you’re her son, you’re afraid that you, too, are evil. She’s not evil, she’s ignorant. Kindliness, not being cruel, is a luxury. The poor have no time to be kind. I was poor so I know it.’