They’re not even thirty and already, as always, they’re railing against fourteen- and twenty-year-olds. No, Modesta! To accept this is vile, more vile than siding with the jailers there on the island. If you held out on that windswept scrap of rock … if you held out then, you cannot nullify that action now by totally surrendering to Prando (or the fear of death?) or to the fear of old age that has been instilled in you to preserve order in society, just to safeguard that first line of defence which — Fascism or not — is still the family, the training ground for future soldiers, soldier-mothers, grandmother-queens. Besides, why that eternal glorification of youth? The young work, produce, bear children, go to war, all before gaining self-awareness. But at forty, at fifty years of age, a human being — if he hasn’t perished in the incessant social war — becomes dangerous: he poses questions, he demands freedom, rest, joy. Even the term ‘old age’ is a lie, Modesta. It’s been crammed with scary ghosts, like the word ‘death’, to make you be quiet, deferential to the established rules. Who knows what old age is? When it starts? In Stendhal’s day, a woman was old at thirty. At thirty I had just begun to understand things and to live. How many have dared cross the threshold of that word without listening to the preconceptions and clichés? Maybe more than you imagine, since among those cast aside you can find serene faces and calm, wise gazes. But no one has ever dared speak out because of fear — always that eternal fear — of toppling the bogus equilibrium that has been established. Standing before the closed door of that frightening word, the temptation to go in and look around takes hold of you, doesn’t it, Modesta? Of course, after entering that door, you could meet your death just around the corner. But why wait for it out there, shoulders hunched, hands limp in your lap? Why not go and meet it? Challenge it day by day, hour by hour, stealing all the life you can from it?
The cigarette between your fingers has gone out and the water inspires you to fight. Glowing pink, green and blue on the shelf in the shadows are scented soaps straight out of The Arabian Nights — who would have imagined it back then, eh, Beatrice? Bambù put them there to bring me joy. Perhaps she understood my fearfulness? ‘You seem distant, Zia. Why? Distant and distracted. Please, go back to being your old self!’ Soaping myself is pleasurable; my firm body only needs some exercise. It’s time to move, to fight with every muscle and every bit of brain power in the chess game with La Certa that awaits me. Every year that’s stolen, won, every hour wrested from the chessboard of time, becomes eternal in that final match. Think, Modesta: maybe growing old is nothing more than an ultimate act of revolution …
Revolution? Modesta smiles, trying to float in that small pool of artificial water.
‘You float in the tub as if you were out at sea, Mody!’
‘It’s raining outside, Beatrice. It’s winter, but all I have to do is close my eyes and remember … It’s just that I’m afraid I’ll forget how to swim. What do you think? When summer comes, will I still know how to swim?’
‘Once you’ve learned to swim, Mody, you never forget how.’
‘Once you’ve learned the joy of revolution, you mean.’
Beatrice must really be afraid of that word, since her face becomes small and pinched and turns pale, so pale that it vanishes in the steam rising to the ceiling from the hot water. Has she gone? Don’t be afraid, Beatrice. Even the word ‘revolution’ lies or grows old. We need to find another one. If Carlo were alive, he’d find one. He was so good at it, a fount of new words …
92
A few strokes, and already my hand is touching the Prophet’s beard: long ringlets combed by the waves, where swarms of fish drift in the green silence of the algae. You can stretch out between the beard and the forehead, and the giant’s large hollow eye won’t blink, riveted as he is by millions of years looking out at sea. Before Modesta was able to swim, the distance of that gaze made her tremble with hope and misgivings. Now, only a profound peace invades her mature body at each sensation of her skin, veins, joints. A body that is its own master, made wise by an understanding of the flesh. A profound awareness … of touch, sight, taste. Lying on her back on the rocky ledge, Modesta observes how her developed senses can take in the entire blue expanse, the wind, the distance, without the fragile fears of childhood. Astonished, she discovers the meaning of the skill her body has acquired during the long, brief course of her fifty years. It’s like a second childhood, but with a precise awareness of being young, an appreciation of how to, touch, see, enjoy. Fifty years: the golden age of discovery. Fifty years: a happy age unjustly maligned by poets and birth records.
How to describe that summer afternoon lying on the rock, touched by the last caress of the setting sun? How to describe the joy of that discovery? How to tell others about it? How to communicate the happiness of each simple act, each step, each new encounter … with faces, books, sunsets and dawns, Sunday afternoons on sun-drenched beaches? ‘Good for you, Nonna, I envy you! I’ve discovered that envy is the right attitude for wanting things. By envying you, I’m trying to imitate you, and maybe someday I’ll be like you.’ How to describe the joy of listening to that boy? The emotion his voice communicates when he tells me: ‘With you, Modesta — will you let me call you that? — with you, I feel like I have a buddy. So, buddy, the boss — my father — paid me. Shall we go to the movies and pass some time? I just have to see The Asphalt Jungle; everyone is talking about it! The movies have now become a must. Come with me. It only lasts a couple of hours; then we’ll walk around and talk. I have so much to say about that Julien you introduced me to…’ It may be that after the movie we won’t talk about either the film or about Julien Sorel,117 but we’ll go to Nina’s instead and laugh and eat, and Carluzzu and Olimpia will play the guitar endlessly, passing it back and forth along with a glass of wine …
* * *
Stop here, in this joy bursting with the senses and the mind, and thus freeze for ever in me, in you, the best ten years of my life, those between fifty and sixty? The temptation is strong, but life doesn’t stop, and Carluzzu has entered the bookshop. His face has changed. His eyes blaze with hatred and he wipes his perspiring brow. He stares at me, and for a moment his gaze grows calmer. He needs me.