‘Yes.’
‘All children.’
‘Oh, Mama, how tiny you are without your heels.’
‘It’s you who are sprouting up like a beanpole! Besides, Uncle Jacopo was nearly six feet tall — absurd for this island of midgets! Maybe that’s one of the reasons why he was always so sad.’
‘You seem like a child … He was an atheist too, wasn’t he?’
‘A heretic. At that time the word “heretic” was used as an affront.’
‘And Carlo, Bambù’s father, was also a heretic, right?’
‘Yes, you know that. Why do you ask?’
‘I’m keeping count … So with me, there are actually three generations. We could start a new nobility if the word weren’t so distasteful. Chekhov says: “To forbid a man to follow the materialistic line of thought is equivalent to forbidding him to seek truth. Outside matter there is neither knowledge nor experience, and consequently there is no truth…”’97
‘Yes, but what does that have to do with it?’
‘He was a doctor too, a new nobility! I’m teasing, Mama. How little you are!’
‘That’s why I asked you to adopt me.’
‘And I’ll kiss you on the forehead like a true papa. Oh, Mama, I see you’re no longer cutting your hair. Prando is right; you look nice with long hair, like when we were children. I hadn’t remembered that.’
‘And to think that all you did was yank it when you were little.’
‘Naturally! Even now I have the urge to pull it. It’s so soft! Oh, Mama, don’t cut your hair anymore. Come, look in the mirror, see how nice you look.’
In his eyes I saw myself reborn along with him.
77
Jacopo’s gestation lasted several months, and now he was reborn from his intellect as new flesh. Meanwhile, I stopped thinking about myself. I overlooked Prando’s coming and going with gifts for Stella, for Bambù and Mela, then quickly leaving again, locked in his silence. I hadn’t been wrong: each time, there was no regret, no hurt, in his hasty departure as he turned away irritated by Stella’s tears, only a desire to be free. And Joyce?
Ever more beautiful in her apparent death, she roams around the house, jealously peering at faces and throwing fits. But we on the island know how to live with the dead, how to quiet them if need be, and never to believe it when they say, ‘We were so happy, Modesta, what happened?’
What happened was that you were never satisfied with anything, chasing your dream of perfection, and now you lie buried six feet under in my garden and you’d like to go back to yesterday. But for the living, yesterday served only as fertilizer for this new today, tangible and filled with sunshine. I have all that sunlight inside me, and Jacopo’s arms around my neck, his caresses in my hair.
‘Why are you always with Jacopo now?’
A jealous rage seizes her. The jealousy of a possessive master reddens her cheeks, and as before, I look away from the purple splotching that turns her ugly. But one must be patient. After all, she’s right: until yesterday, I was a faithful little wife, and she, confident of her power, boasted to herself that unlike other mortals, she was not jealous. Well, Joyce, what good was all that intelligence of yours, all that knowledge, if you weren’t able to scratch the surface of even a tiny fraction of your guilt? How arrogantly you stated: ‘My mother? A masochist who sought her persecutor in that country squire from Todi.’ I see you with Renan, and then with Joland, parading through the streets of the living as you take turns scourging one another. And I myself almost slipped into that secular via crucis of purification. Now I see that your anger isn’t jealousy, it’s simply anger and envy toward someone who looks at you joyfully and refuses to suffer with you. I turn and walk out of the room. It’s dark in that room and outside the sun is shining …
‘Where are you going now? What are you doing with Jacopo? Did you sleep with him? The boy has assumed a masterful air. You’re capable of anything! You never loved me, I was only a diversion for you at a time when you were bored. It’s men you’re drawn to…’
How can I make her see that I loved her as long as she seemed like a woman to me, as long as my hands found that skin delicate, those breasts full, that abdomen soft. But now that I see her locked in the impervious armour of an impotent male, my illusions are over and I run to Mattia, who after so many months has finally returned from America with the money.
* * *
‘How did it go, Mattia?’
‘What happened?… Did you suddenly fall asleep while we were talking? What do I know! Who knows what goes on in that little head of yours! I only phoned you about the paintings and you ran over here; you didn’t ask how or why, with everything I went through to do you this favour, and then you fell asleep.’
‘Who put me in this bed?’
‘I did. You slept a night and a day! I called Stella, I got scared, but she told me it was nothing to worry about … You certainly gave me a scare! You were tossing and turning in your sleep. Once you said they wanted to separate us. Who can understand you women! You’re not a sleepwalker, are you? Do you remember the telephone call at least?’
‘I felt like seeing you. You were away a long time, Mattia.’
‘Well, these aren’t matters that you can take care of in two days, Mody.’
‘How come you called me Mody?’
‘Whenever my father said “Mody” I’d become jealous and I felt a hatred for you that now seems strange to me. How things change when La Certa passes through and clarifies the past!’
‘Why did you put me in this room? Why is it so quiet here at Carmelo?’
‘They’re all dead, so I closed everything up. What did I need all those bedrooms and parlours for? I only keep this wing open: three rooms and an electric kitchenette, like they have in America.’
‘And who looks after you?’
‘A woman comes in and cleans, careful not to let me notice her. I’ve had enough of dinners and lavishly set tables. Why, don’t you like this room?’
‘I grew up in this room, Mattia, but it was different then. I recognized it by the big window.’
‘Well, I had them remove all that junk: mirrors, vases, velvets! Why are you crying?’
He smiles, pulling his pipe out of the pocket of his blue velvet jacket, and I know he won’t say another word until the small flame is well lit. Slowly, the scent of tobacco rises up, reducing the room to that bare, distant one with its roughhewn planks, redolent of resin, and Carmine’s white curls. Another year or two, and Mattia’s salt-and-pepper hair will also be a bright snow white.
‘What is it, Mody? Why are you staring at me like that?’
‘Will you let me take a puff?’
‘Oh, right, this little she-devil even smokes a pipe! I’d forgotten! Take this one — I’ll fill another one — but treat it carefully because it’s my favourite pipe you’re holding. Just look at her smoke! How did you learn how?’
‘Now that La Certa has passed by and clarified things, as you said, I can tell you: your father taught me.’
‘I knew the answer when I asked you, Mody. But you were wrong to say “your father”; you should have said “Carmine the padrone, the lord and master”.’
‘You still haven’t made your peace with him?’
‘No! When it comes to padroni, not even La Certa has the power to reconcile us. And these days I hate him more than before. I’ve thought about it, you know — alone, in this house of the dead, I’ve thought about it — and I hate him even more, because by following his example of greed I lost my wife and children. And I buried him a long time ago, no longer part of me, in a field far removed from my heart. I’ve suppressed his voice and I don’t want any part of what he left behind. That’s another reason I came back to you. You, sphinx-like, had seen my error and you warned me. You rejected me back then because you didn’t want masters, and I came back to you to learn. Oh, I don’t want answers in words; these aren’t things you learn from words. I’ve watched you, I’ve watched your children and I’m looking at you now…’