‘Carlo talked like you forty years ago.’
‘Carlo who?’
‘Bambolina’s father.’
‘Right, and he was killed. But they won’t kill me, Mody! They won’t kill us, thanks to you, and to Jacopo. I met his students up in Trento, young people with their eyes open, guys like me determined not to be seduced by any false idealism. It’s just that…’
‘What, Carluzzu?’
‘There are so few of us, Nonna, so few!’
‘It’s always been that way.’
‘And the few I’ve met, in Milan, in London, in Paris, are sad.’
‘It’s always been that way, Carlo.’
‘I don’t want to be sad like them.’
‘But there is still joy in knowing that you are different, Carluzzu, if you know how to find it.’
‘It’s true. That’s what they don’t want to understand! As if they were ashamed of being happy, as if happiness necessarily meant being like all the others: superficial and vain. Look at Uncle ’Ntoni, up there in Rome: a success with the public and with the critics, streams of intellectuals, of cultured people waiting to congratulate him in his dressing room. As soon as we’re alone, a tragic mask falls over his face!’
‘But ’Ntoni is a comic actor, Carlo. Don’t forget that.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘There’s also temperament. Don’t become fanatical about joy, for heaven’s sake! The temperament of a comic is terribly sad. There’s something mysterious, unfathomable in people, in the professions they choose. Nature itself is unfathomable, Carluzzu, for crying out loud! Let’s let others be the way they are, or how they want to be!’
‘You’re right, Nonna. I’m a fanatic like your Prando and before you get mad — I can see you’re getting angry — give me your hand. Peace! I’ll take you to see what a great bar they’ve opened near the Pescheria: all mirrors and glitter.’
Hand in hand we walked down to the port to take our minds off things, following the white wings of seagulls chasing lingering clouds.
‘Is it true, Mody, that if you occasionally let the mind wander, it opens its wings and glides over colours, sucking up their nectar as if it were a butterfly?’
The same thought at the same moment there along the quay in the shadow of the port. Can a sixty-year-old woman have the same thoughts as a young man of twenty? I look at him: in the last of the sun’s light, his dark eyes are veined with green and violet.
‘In the daytime your eyes are light, Carluzzu.’
‘Mama, I mean Stella, had dark eyes, didn’t she?’
‘Yes. Black as a starless night.’
‘Too bad I can’t remember her.’
‘I remember her for you, Carlo.’
Yes, a sixty-year-old woman can have the same thoughts as a boy of twenty. Still amazed, happy as a child, Modesta throws her arms around that boy’s neck and he takes her by the waist and lifts her, swinging her around among the fishermen, the stalls, the cries of the vendors. Carlo later told Nina and his friends that a few people turned around, surprised, but not indignant or scornfuclass="underline"
‘Imagine a serious, elegant lady who suddenly flies off the ground as if she had wings, hugging and kissing me! In a flash, the considerable conformist in me tells me: “Stop, or they’ll lynch you here, Carlo!” But the other Carlo quickly replies: “Coward, face up to them like she does. Better yet, reinforce her gesture by swinging her around, and let it be a lesson to you and to this stern, arrogant race from which you come.” My heart explodes as I make her go flying, and for interminable seconds I await a raspberry, some snide comment. Instead, not a word … And when I set her down and dare glance around, I see a few people almost fearfully avert their eyes, and one individual staring at me, transfixed by a sharp doubt that maybe, yes, maybe that odd couple is happy and has the courage to show it. It’s that old man from the port, the one as big as an armoire, with two shaggy little brushes for eyebrows. Well, after a moment that mountain of wrinkles smiles at me. It’s a victory!’
Nina laughs and is beautiful, perhaps more beautiful than before. She must be in love again. With whom? Maybe the tall, thin man who stares at her with the eyes of a music connoisseur who can listen effortlessly to the most complicated rhythms? Or is her new love Cesare, with his languid body and a face flashing with imagination? No, it must be the musician whom Nina is attracted to …
And I’d like to stay there for ever, but Bambù is calling me. I’d like to stay and go on listening to Carlo, who has the gift of telling stories, of captivating you and transporting you far away. But life moves swiftly in this conscious youth, it calls and I must go. Life cannot be stopped. Pietro is dying and he needs me.
93
But none of us would have known it if the doctor hadn’t whispered to us as he hurriedly went out: ‘Indeed, he has little time left now!’ Seated in a roomy armchair, his head barely supported, Pietro is staring at something beyond the open window.
‘Pietro has never stayed in bed when the sun is high, and this little worm tickling my chest certainly won’t put me there.’
‘Are you in pain, Pietro?’
‘No, Mody, staiu aspittannu me figghia, I’m waiting for my daughter. Afterwards, when I’ve seen her, I can go … How long have I been waiting for her, Bambolina?’
‘Two days, Pietro. But she should be here soon. She’s stuck at the airport.’
‘America is a long way off, Bambù!’
‘But Crispina is in Palermo now, and if it weren’t for the strikes…’
‘Strikes, Mody?’
‘Yes, Pietro.’
‘It took some doing, didn’t it, Mody, to be able to say that word out loud and in broad daylight! You’re young, Bambuccia, but at one time you could only talk in the dark, and you couldn’t even feel secure within the walls of your own house. You remember Pasquale, don’t you, Mody? He was slender and bionnu, fair as an archangel, then thanks to betrayals and kowtowing to the Fascists, he became bloated and sweaty like a pig, and like a pig this hand of mine got rid of him … Bambù, will you hold my hand like you did yesterday? Bambolina’s hand sees, heals and restores. That’s why she can then recount whatever she touches in poems, like the balladeers. My father used to say that a person born with the talent to tell stories is also someone who heals … What is my little sparrow doing, Bambù? My Argentovivo isn’t off crying somewhere, is she?’
‘No, she’s making a cassata … Crispina will be famished.’
‘That’s my little sparrow, she listened to me. You’ll take care of her for me afterwards, won’t you, Bambù? You’ll guide her along? That’s how she is. Many people are like that. It’s not that they’re less capable than others, it’s that they’re meek by nature and they need to be steered along.’
‘Of course, Pietro.’
‘I knew you would. I’m just talking to pass the time while we wait.’
‘Speaking of talking, Zia, if you knew what fantastic stories Pietro has told me these past few days! I’ll write them all down, Pietro. You’ll let me, won’t you?’
‘If they stir your imagination, they’re yours.’
‘Never mind imagination! You should hear all the things he knows about Nonna Gaia, and about Uncle Jacopo and the time he came to liberate you from the island. Tell Zia too about the island, Pietro.’