‘It’s no use running away, little girl, because this business of trying to escape me makes me love you more. At the front I was the laughing-stock of everyone! Oh, not that I spoke about you a lot, but they all noticed it and laughed at me. Oh, with respect, mind you … and you know how I responded? “Go on, laugh, laugh, you guys with mothers who are real dogs!” Then they’d start talking nonsense because they were all in love with their mothers as well. See what my mamma bambina does? I hardly say a word to her ca già gira l’occhi scappannu pi banni e banni. Already she’s looking all around, not knowing which way to turn. Ma unni vai? Ccà vicinu a mia hai a stari: madre mi sei e miniera mia! Where are you running to? Stay here with me, you’re my mother and my treasure. Come on, Pippo, play a courtly serenade! Maybe it will melt that precious stone she has in place of a heart.’
How did Prando come up with that forgotten language? Did he ever hear Carmine’s voice?
‘Oh, Pippo! She’s trembling against my chest like a frightened dove.’
‘You’re hurting me, Prando! Let me go! I can’t breathe!’
‘Do you know that if I really squeezed you, I could break you in two? But then if I needed it, where would I find a suitable glue to reattach this porcelain neck? If only I could find such a glue! I would enjoy breaking you into pieces to then have the pleasure of reassembling you piece by piece afterwards. Where to find it? I’ll have to look for it at the Civita, in that no man’s land. They say you can find everything there. You can buy anything: from the finest silks to candles for the dead, from one-hundred-carat gold to the sharpest knives, from a faceless picciotto — a thug who for a few liras will kill whoever decided to snub you by crossing the street — to silken ladies, vellute with perfumed hair … even fresh new corpses, if you really want to study anatomy on your own … You’re laughing! Laugh, bella, because when you laugh — no offence to decent, married women — you become the most beautiful of all!’
It must have been the guitar and mandolin that caused that spring — silent, earlier — to flow. Even his voice changed. The guitar, at first delicate, became deep, as though scoured by underground winds.
Pippo and Cosimo stand up as they play, and behind Prando’s back stare at my face or at some apparition behind me that enchants and transports them. Prando is silent. He knows that, after delivering his offer of love to everyone, it’s time to listen to other voices, other requests for love. And indeed, a jasmine-sweet voice breasts the wave to declare its anguish over an unrequited love:
‘Bedda p’amari a tia ’stu cori chianci. Sinceramenti senza ca si fingi … Cugghiennu alivi pi ’sti munti santi … bedda p’amari a tia ’stu cori chianci … My sweet, for love of you my heart cries, sincerely, it’s no lie…’111
To whom is Crispina singing? Where did that mature voice come from? Or had the pall of war, marked only by anthems, silenced that living sap? After the sorrow over her unrequited love, Crispina, now pushed by unseen hands into the centre of the room, starts singing spitefully:
‘Quantu è laria la mi zita, malanova di la sua vita … Ah, laria è, cchiù laria d’idda nun ci nn’è … Havi i spaddi vasci vasci ca mi parunu du casci … Ah, laria è, cchiù laria d’idda nun ci nn’è … How ugly my fiancée is! No one is uglier: her shoulders are so stooped she looks like a hunchback…’
At that expression of liberation from the shackles of a tormented love, Carluzzu widens his eyes, easily frees himself from the old man’s arms and toddles toward us. Held by that old man, he seemed small. Now, as he slowly approaches, the big-boned structure of his hips and shoulders makes him seem like a little man.
‘Oh, Mama, look at my son! He’s tugging at me! He must not be used to seeing me hugging a woman. What’s the matter, Carluzzu, are you jealous?’
‘Papa, I sing too!’
Stella’s voice seizes me by the throat; her trusting dark eyes stare at me. I have to bend down and touch him to feel her in my arms … The small sturdy body doesn’t struggle as he keeps saying, ‘I sing … I sing too with Crispina. Why are you crying, Nonna?’
‘Because I’m moved, Carluzzu. Crispina sings so beautifully.’
‘Me too, Nonna, I sing good.’
‘I’m sure you do.’
‘Nonna, Nonna…’
Already I was a grandmother … As I reflected on the idea — inevitably more upsetting than any war — I looked away from Carluzzu and saw Inès enter through the parlour’s French door.
I hadn’t seen her in years, and if it weren’t for the perception of danger that her name, whispered beside me, carried with it, I wouldn’t have recognized her. The smiling charm that had made her seem beautiful had vanished, along with the dark curls, now wound tightly around her head in a harsh braided crown. The small swollen lips, pinched in a disdainful expression, had thinned to a rigid blade of command, and her body, bolstered by the ‘position’ she had won, had lost its agility and grace.
‘Eh, Mody, a new broom sweeps clean! You should see her now, a harpy with her maid! And something Pietro cannot tolerate: despotic and harsh with the signor prince. That woman has decided to kill him so she can marry: I can see it in the way she rolls her eyes right and left! All she does is hoard money. Plus, she no longer satisfies the signor prince and he’s itching for her, the poor creature! I’ve talked to her, but she doesn’t want vellute. Why not? I thought. If you accepted that arrangement, back then, why won’t she, instead of making the poor soul suffer? By this time, he trembles and runs away when he sees her. Action is needed here, Mody. Listen to me!’
‘And what is that, Pietro?’
‘It’s simple: get rid of her by natural means, using her own venomous ways.’
Inès comes forward with regal bearing and stops in front of Jacopo, who is still arm in arm with Nina. Jacopo hasn’t seen her, so taken is he by Nina’s smile. I can believe it! What else can matter to him when Nina is talking and laughing? But Inès raises her hand — at one time delicate and tremulous, now loaded with rings — and places it firmly on her son’s shoulder, separating the two. Jacopo turns pale as a corpse and abruptly pushes Nina away. Staring at him in surprise, she exclaims,‘What’s come over you, my dark-haired boy? Is this your girlfriend perhaps? Is that why you’re flustered? Look how red he is! Oh, Mody, come and see!’
Nina laughs louder, staring at Inès defiantly. Inès, chin raised, hisses: ‘You see filth everywhere, signora. Or is it signorina?
‘Signorina, signorina!’
‘Oh, now I see, signorina. But things here aren’t like they are on the continent! I’ve known Jacopo since he was a baby, and I’ve come to embrace him as a mother.’
‘Sorry, I was just joking. Besides you’re so young and beautiful I thought I was paying you a compliment!’
‘Such compliments aren’t appreciated here, isn’t that so, Jacopo? Have you nothing to say to me?’
‘But Inès, I came to see you as soon as I returned…’
‘Yes, but only for a minute.’
‘Well, to reassure you and then … then I had to reassure the others as well.’
‘Of course. But afterwards I waited all day for you.’
‘Well, I would have come back later on, after … You see? They’re playing music. Crispina was singing. Come on, Crispina, go on with your singing! Besides you’re here, aren’t you, Inès? You’re here with us now. Cheer up, Inès. Don’t be like that!’