Watch out, Bambolina, Crispina, Olimpia … Be careful, you who have had the privilege of culture and freedom, not to follow the example of these perfectly allied slaves. Instead of hands worn away by bleach, years of dismal mannish training await you — training in how to chain the poorest women to the assembly line — along with atrocious sleepless nights: efficiency at all costs. And after twenty years of this training, you will find yourselves trapped by distorted acts and thinking, restrained by emptiness and regret for your lost identity — like this shadow of herself who smiles out of official duty, an embodiment neither male nor female.
‘I told comrade Giorgio that it was hopeless to try to persuade you, but he insisted. He has a strange respect for you, and in the name of our old friendship, I decided to talk to you. But I see it’s no use, that you will not accept the cuts that have justly — I repeat, justly — been made to your article. It’s too violent, Modesta. We cannot today, in 1950, entitle an article: “We are all murderers”.’
‘Why not, Joyce? According to you and to what we Marxists have thought for decades at least, weren’t we all — I who speak to the crowds, you who sit behind that desk, the doorman who, content with his paltry power, ushers me in with reactionary bows — weren’t we all to blame for leading that woman from Salerno, for driving her to drown herself with her three children because of the wretched living conditions that—’
‘Mentally unbalanced, Modesta! I’m a doctor; don’t forget that.’
‘No, that wasn’t it! I spoke with everyone. I saw the photographs. She looks like Stella. Think about that, Joyce: Stella.’
‘And who is she?’
‘Stella. Jacopo’s wet nurse.’
‘Ah yes, that pretty little peasant girl, somewhat faded … how is she?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Just as this article doesn’t matter.’
‘So then we won’t publish it?’
‘Under those conditions, no!’
‘Modesta, you don’t intend to create a furore, do you?’
‘If it were possible for me to create one, I would, but I know that it isn’t possible because you are a gang of traitors, Joyce. And as such, powerful as usual.’
‘You mean we’re not insane. We can’t alarm citizens that way. We have to win the Catholic voters! We’re in a Catholic country, Modesta. You’re forgetting your history!’
‘An article in a magazine doesn’t have the circulation of a newspaper, and as I see it, the specialized press is exactly the place where we should begin discussing the most weighty issues in order to keep the tradition — our tradition — alive, and prepare to disseminate it tomorrow. The way you’re acting, you’re not merely showing respect for the Catholic electorate, you’re meeting it fully and distorting the very roots of our struggle.’
‘Fine! We’ve finally seen each other, but now I have work to do and I’d like an answer.’
‘Yes, Joyce, we’ve seen each other … and now I know why I tried to avoid seeing you these past years.’
‘Why is that?’
‘I knew that if I saw you I would understand things clearly, and I didn’t want to. I wanted to delude myself, and that’s because … damn! how hard it is to see clearly when you’re doing something that in itself satisfies you, gives you joy, drugs you.’
‘I’m trying to be patient with you, Modesta. What is it that you like so much?’
‘Well, speaking, feeling the vibration of the crowd, the applause!’
‘You never change. For me it’s not a pleasure.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘No, for me it’s a duty.’
‘Are you sure of that?’
‘That’s enough, Modesta, enough!’
‘You taught me the little bit of psychology that we should all know, Joyce.’
‘Oh, enough about the past. I have a lot to do.’
‘And I, on the other hand, no longer have anything, and I feel like a deflated balloon.’
89
So it was that Modesta had to decide to leave the most exciting pursuit that she had ever experienced. There was no sweeter liqueur, no freshly baked bread, no lover’s saliva that could compare with that breath of life, that intensity, which for years had sent her flying through the country, sweeping away every memory, every sorrow. Determined not to collaborate with the enemy, which, though disguised in a hundred modern ways — what was the face of that new power, which unfolded in the many silent tentacles of an octopus camouflaged in the various colours of science, the arts, the professions? — was still the same power in every respect, wearing the elegant uniform of an arrogant warrior.
Determined, Modesta managed to get up from her chair and stand up straight, but she still had to cross the hall and go down the grand marble staircase. And though in Joyce’s presence irony had helped conceal the emptiness that slowly rose from her chest to her head, once she was outside in that broad, marmoreal avenue, in a Rome that stood intact among the wasteland of rubble throughout the peninsula, a Rome protected by the vast, roseate wings of the papacy, she could not help giving in to despondency. So as not to fall, she groped around for a seat in a bar crammed with people from many different regions who continually flowed through those streets seeking refuge, hope, among the untouched walls … The unsettling crowd milled around her as in a dream: starving Italians side by side with the plump, rosy faces of Americans looking for business. Men from East-Central Europe shoulder to shoulder with former inmates of concentration camps: emaciated Jews followed by the barely more secure steps of ex-prisoners … Starting a year or two ago, women have been walking in the streets without hats or stockings. Back there, a small blond woman, timid perhaps, still wears a kerchief on her head and hugs the wall, trying to pass unnoticed: a new treasure is clutched to her chest, the glossy American magazine Grand Hotel, which is all the rage. On the tables are gelati, espressos, and a jungle of slim bottles of Coca-Cola.
‘What would you like, signora?’
‘An espresso, please.’
The round, smiling eyes, still rimmed by hunger’s dark circles, cast rapid glances in search of opportunities, the darting eyes of a former shoeshine boy skilled in picking out the big, blond prey: an American. For those of us who were deprived of it for so many years, coffee is still a miracle, of course, and fills the emptiness of confusion. I have to hurry to the hotel before the stench of our soldiers’ wretched bodies, mixed with the scent of hundreds of American bath soaps and musty French fragrances, suffocate me. But I don’t have the strength to walk. Drained, Modesta stares at her image in a shop window. For years she hasn’t had time to look at herself in the mirror. Does she look older, maybe? Is her weariness merely the first sign of old age, perhaps? All in all, it was time: she’s fifty years old. Look at her there, Modesta: her breasts are heavier, her cheeks full … but she was always a little too thin. And the rounded hips, slim legs and trim torso don’t give the impression of a mature matron, but rather a carusa, a young girl who aged overnight, but gracefully, as her Nina the shopkeeper says. What does she say in her letter? ‘I saw you in the newspaper. You were really funny, Mody! Lots of kisses from your shopkeeper, who’s loaded with money. I can’t wait to tell you how good I’ve become at robbing those citrulli, those American fools. All you have to do is tell them that something is traditional, antique, and they’re ready to shell out…’
A young girl grown old! But there in the shop window she can’t see her wrinkles, her hair. Therefore, Modesta, if you want to know more about that weariness, you must have the courage to look at yourself in a mirror at least once. ‘Oh, shit, you’re far-sighted, Mody! You see everything cloudy and indistinct … Will you, or won’t you wear these glasses?’ So Modesta had better wear the glasses that Bambolina gave her. ‘You’ll get a crick in your neck, Zia, every time you have to read!’