‘Come on, don’t worry! I’m going to bed now — if you can call it that! — and I’ll turn and face the wall. You pull this filthy sheet that Sister Giuliana calls a curtain closed and take a crap. Okay? No? Get over it now — what’s your name, anyway? Goddamn it! — this princess stuff isn’t for me … Modesta? Hell, what a name! Who named you that? It’s worse than Princess. Imagine calling such a beautiful lady Modesta, especially one who’s crying because she doesn’t want to poop … I can call you Mody, you say? Oh yes, that’s better … Look, Mody, will you make up your mind? What are you worried about if I swear I won’t look at you? The sound you might make? Or the stink? Listen, for the stink do this: take this piece of newspaper and while you go, burn the newspaper with this match — don’t waste it now! we only have a few of them — burn it in the bucket, I mean, and the smell will disappear, you’ll see. All right? Come on, get up and don’t think about me. Make believe I’m not here, pretend I’m blind and deaf: look how well I can act blind and deaf. I could even play a cripple when I performed. I wanted to be an actress when I was little … But what’s wrong, why are you gripping me? What is it? Are you in pain?’
‘No, no, it’s just that maybe from laughing or because of the massage you gave me … Oh, Nina, I’m so ashamed, I can’t hold it! I can’t move, I can’t hold it in!’
‘And you’re upset? It’s a stroke of luck! Lean on my arm. Good thing you’re not heavy! Here, take off your panties … no, I won’t leave you, there’s no need to cling like that … Let go of my hips! I won’t leave you, but let it all out. For God’s sake, don’t hold back. You can die from intestinal blockage. Don’t hold it in!’
Whether because of that ‘don’t hold it in’ or the warmth her hips conveyed to my arms, I let myself go, sinking my face between her thighs … I let it all out and she stood there stroking my hair and whispering: ‘There’s a good girl, brava, let it all out, all of it, it will do you good!..’ And, something I would never have imagined: as I let myself go, a pleasure sweeter than rosolio or Tuzzu’s tongue now makes me sigh and weep, not from shame, but from joy, as I say over and over again: ‘Nina, Nina, don’t leave me…’
81
‘“Don’t leave me,” she says. In jail! I swear, if I get out I’ll have to tell about it. Oh, how funny, a real joke!’
Throwing her head back, Nina laughs out loud, recalling endless fields of rye and poppies.
‘I’m hungry.’
‘I can believe it, given what you evacuated! I mean, good for your health, but for your stomach it’s a different story! We have no choice, either die of toxicity, or … You were less hungry before, huh?’
‘Not hungry, just nauseous.’
‘Of course, then after the nausea you would have become feverish.’
‘I’m starving!’
‘I heard you — don’t wear me out! Talking about it makes it worse. I have a blade where my stomach should be! But it’s time for soup … “è ll’ora che…”’
‘“… che volge il disio al…”, it’s the hour that turns longings to…’102
‘Never mind Dante! Belli, our own poet! “Che or’è? ccheor’è? È una cosa che tt’accora. Nu le sentite, sposa, le campane? Lo sapete che or’è, ssora siggnora? È ll’ora che le donne sò pputtane…” What time is it?… It’s the hour when every woman is a whore…’
‘I’m not familiar with him.’
‘Where have you been living? I’ll tell you about the great blasphemous poet. They, the Jesuits, that is, say he repented before he died, but it’s not true; they say that about everybody. I was there when my grandmother died and she wasn’t at all repentant. She was just angry at having to die too soon, that’s what she said. And she was eighty years old! Well, after not even a month, all the relatives said — they should be beaten for it, that’s what! — they all said that she had repented … It’s just that with these schools … the crucifix … if only they’d kill him!’
‘Who? Christ?’
‘No, I meant that traitor Mussolini, and to think he even wrote a book against the papacy … It was he who made peace with the Jesuits and delivered our Rome back to the priests. Damn him! But what was I saying? Oh, yes … What can you expect from Ottavia and Grazia, my younger sisters, educated in these schools, with the crucifix in front of them, religion lessons, and then at home too … before, when I was little, if you grew up in a house of atheists, all you had to do was stay away from church and you wouldn’t have to listen to the priest’s voice: walls protected you then! Now they come into your house and talk to you even if you don’t want them to.’
‘What do you mean, they come in?’
‘Come on, Mody, through the radio! A diabolical invention, the radio. Suppose my fijetta and I are there cooking, straightening up the house, and we don’t mind listening to, let’s say, “Illusione dolce chimera sei tu. Che fa sognare, sperare e amare tutta la vita…”.103 A nice song, huh? Well, you’re humming along unsuspectingly with the radio, you relax, when suddenly you hear a mournful chanting so associated with the song that offhand you pay no attention. And by the time you realize it’s the Holy Mass, even if you run and turn off that infernal contraption, you’ve already swallowed some of it. Well, at a certain point didn’t Ottavia and Grazia, who grew up with this poison, start saying — yes, them too! — that my grandmother had repented? Repented! Did I already tell you this? Sorry, I’m repeating myself. It’s hunger. I talk and talk, partly because I haven’t spoken to anyone in three years and partly to fill this emptiness in my stomach. Sorry.’
‘No, Nina, keep talking. I like it. My mother never spoke!’
‘Why not?’
‘Maybe because she had to sit there sewing those filthy rags. She sealed up her lips.’
‘What, are you joking? Your mother sewing rags? Maybe you meant that she was obsessed with embroidery?… Ah, here comes our Sister Giuliana! Soup, huh, Sister? How wrong you are … Slop! It may be because I’ve had a nice chat with a friend, but you don’t look as bad to me as you did yesterday, Sister. And the smell of this soup isn’t so repulsive. What happened, did you get a new cook in this house? Oh, Mody, did you hear what she calls this prison? House, she calls it.’
‘Shut up, you ill-bred creature, and take your hands off her! Oh, Princess, it’s a disgrace! — I’ve reported it to the Mother Superior — a disgrace to keep you here with this woman, but we’re all full. All the rooms are filled!’
‘While you’re at it, why don’t you say “the hotel has no vacancy”, eh, Sister? You know I dreamed about you, Sister? I dreamed we met in Hell, in a naked embrace!’
‘If only you had come just three days earlier, Princess! But the world seems to have gone crazy! It must be because of this war, which one day is coming, and the next day isn’t! We were told that yesterday a rumour had spread that war had broken out and everyone fled Palermo; they all went to the countryside, but then they came back … It seems they’re also distributing gas masks … But if this creature bothers you, all you have to do is say the word and, regardless of that lady’s protection, I’ll see to it that she’s removed! You’re too good. Tell me the truth: does she bother you?’