‘And what does this have to do with atheism?’
‘They’re related of course! Excuse me, Jacopo, but isn’t an absolute denial exactly the same as an absolute affirmation? I don’t understand mathematics but, by God, you’re wearing me out!’
‘You’re right! That’s why I was so afraid of death. Why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘Well, Jacopo, I too still have to grow a lot more to merit my death.’
‘Mama, I’m sleepy. Will you let me sleep here a little while? I don’t feel up to going back down Mont Blanc. May I?’
In sleep, his suffering subsides. The pulsing of his veins slows down, recomposing the faint outline from his forehead to his cheek, where sparse tufts of hair are sprouting. He has Inès’s hair and Uncle Jacopo’s blond beard.
When his hunger for sleep is satisfied, the serpent of reality returns unaltered, strangling his chest. He jerks and his eyes open wide, fixed on a distant point in space. Until yesterday, the pensive eyelids would linger as if to savour the light’s soft lips. ‘It’s a joy to wake Jacopo up, Modesta! He lies there with his eyes closed, and then he smiles.’
‘That woman is evil, Mama.’
‘What are you trying to tell me, Jacopo?’
‘She’s horrible!’
‘Is there something else?’
‘She called you a whore.’
‘Well! So much for Inès. I’m afraid that as simpatica as I find her, you’re right in saying that she’s a little evil.’
‘And you’re not offended?’
‘About what? Did I ever pretend to be a little saint with you children?’
‘No!’
‘Well then? Clearly for her, a normal woman is a whore. What can I say? Or does it pain you because you heard it from others as well?’
‘Of course not! Others criticize you, sure; some say you’re eccentric. Prando’s friends say you’re a femme fatale.’
‘Right, Greta Garbo…’
‘But how come it doesn’t offend you, Mama?’
‘Taking offence is narrow-minded! Everyone going around being offended! I’m trying to understand why she said that to you.’
‘Because that’s what she thinks.’
‘I don’t give a damn whether she or others think that. Everybody thinks, and they have a right to think whatever they please. But how stupid of me! We’re a couple of idiots, Jacopo!’
‘Why?’
‘Well of course! She said it because she wants you all to herself, and she thinks she can achieve that by telling you that I’m a whore. That way, you won’t be able to help losing respect for me. It seems obvious, doesn’t it? And maybe I really am…’
‘God, Mama, you’re so funny!’
‘Naturally I’ve had relationships, and even a fling or two…’
‘Couldn’t you have asked for an annulment and remarried, Mama? You didn’t do it for us, did you? Not remarrying?’
‘Whose sublime idea is that? Stella’s? ’Ntoni’s? Wait, don’t tell me! No, on second thought, poor ’Ntoni, how can it be otherwise, with Stella always saying that she didn’t remarry so as not to give her son a stepfather … Ah, my darling Jacopo, it will never end!’
‘What will never end?’
‘This Fascism inside us. Even in Russia, “free love” has done an about-face and they’ve gone back to marriage. But that’s not what we were talking about … Oh, yes. I didn’t do it for you, I did it for me, you see. Imagine bringing a master into the house!’
‘But you must have met men who were different.’
‘No one. Up till now, not a one. Maybe you, the new generation … Marriage is an absurd contract, Jacopo, that debases both the man and the woman. As far as I’m concerned, if you meet a man you like, you love him until, well as long as it lasts … And then you leave each other as good friends, if possible. Oh, Jacopo, talking with you is a font of insights for this whore-mother of yours! You know, an idea just occurred to me about love!’
‘What idea, Mama? Tell me.’
‘If you were forced to be alone always, with only your own company, how would you feel?’
‘Well, I can just imagine! I’d go crazy. I’d be bored stiff.’
‘Exactly! I think that aside from sensual attraction, which is even more obscure than many of the things that have been said about it … Schopenhauer, for instance…’
‘Oh, really? What does he say?’
‘You’ll see for yourself; I don’t feel like going into it now … Aside from … no! not aside from, because the senses follow the intellect and vice versa, it seems to me that we fall in love because over time we get bored with ourselves and we want to enter into someone else. Not because of the charming but fatalistic idea of Plato’s apple96 — you know it, don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘We want to enter into an unknown “other” to come to know him, make him our own, like a book, a landscape. In fact, later, once you’ve absorbed him, after you’ve fed on him until he’s become part of you, you start to feel bored again. Would you always read the same book?’
‘Oh, please!’
‘There, you see? You get bored! And before you realize it, you start getting hungry for something else, other worlds, other fantasies. Of course, a sailor who comes ashore with his head filled with landscapes can last a year or two wandering the streets, but then the longing for a ship takes hold of him again, and you find him at port staring wistfully out to sea. What do you think? Is it a ludicrous idea?’
‘I’ve never been in love, but you, Mama, how many times?’
‘Whenever it was necessary.’
‘Besides, I … I know you’ll get mad, but I really like the idea of eternal love between a man and a woman.’
‘Why should I get mad?’
‘Bambù got mad when I told her that. It’s a shame it isn’t like that, though!’
‘Oh sure, for you old timers brought up on absolutes.’
‘We old timers, Mama? You make me laugh … me? I’m only fifteen!’
‘But you’re old, Jacopo. You’re older than me. And you know why?’
‘No.’
‘Because you’re more intelligent, so much so that I feel like asking you to adopt me as your daughter.’
‘That’s a good one, Mama. Me, adopt you?’
‘Would you adopt a little girl like me? Make believe you found her wrapped in a shawl outside your door, like in your dreams?’
‘Oh, yes, in a heartbeat!’
Pride crushes the serpent of sorrow. With it off his back, Jacopo comes to me in the sun from the window, and with the stern, gentle hands of a father, turns my face up toward his.
‘Why are you bowing your head, Mama? Are you sad? You’re right: it’s all narrow-minded bigotry. I’ve made up my mind!’
‘About what, Jacopo?’
‘I was undecided between philosophy and medicine, as you know. I’ll become a doctor. You’re right: there are still too many tangible ills to lose myself in abstractions. While you were speaking I remembered, you know … or did I dream it? I remembered Bambù in bed, writhing and clutching her throat … when was it?’
‘In ’32 I think. You know I have no memory for dates. There was a diphtheria epidemic. I remember that when Bambù went back to school, all she did was cry because in her class of thirty-seven, only five or six were left. Remember all the houses with the black silk mourning ribbons down in the Civita?’