History (60 page)

He was curly-haired, tall, well-built, sunburned, bold, elegant, all dressed in American style. He had an American leather jacket, short at the waist, with civilian shirt and trousers, but of American army cloth. The pants were neatly pressed, held up by a magnifi leather belt, the legs tight, ending in some little rawhide boots, the arrogant kind seen in West erns. And at the open neck of his shirt you could see a gold chain dancing on his chest, a little gold heart hanging from it.

The epic of his fea now legendary in the family, passed back and forth before her eyes, in little moving, shameless illustrations. And even his hands suggested destruction and turmoil so that at his casual approach, the
piccinina
promptly threw herself ba slightly, laughing, and trem bling, as if to say: Help! help! He's going to beat me!

And yet, she went towards him, in an impertinent, even defi way, to have him show her more closely a big fake-silver ring he wore on his fi On the bezel there were engraved the letters A.M. ( Antonino Man cuso ) : "Those," he explained to her, "are my initials." She sank into contemplation of the ring, with the importance of a connoisseur examining the treasure of the Great Khan. But suddenly she ran off to the other side of the table, laughing wildly at her own nameless audacity, which actually broke her heart.

He had no time to talk about his great war exploits and his adventures of the past few months. But it was clear, in any case, that for him those were already ancient events, which he recalled only fl and absently; he was too involved with today and too impatient to rush to the immedi ate tomorrow. Whatever the important occupations that presently engaged him might be, they remained a riddle; indeed, he enjoyed playing the mystery man on the subject.

He was sorry to hear Carlo-Davide had come looking for him in vain;

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but he immediately resigned himself, with a shake of his curls, saying : "I'll see him in Naples." And he amused himself by telling jokes, whistling the tunes of songs, and at every moment he burst out laughing like a chaffi

All were thrilled by his festive presence.

Truly, now that he was eating and drinking his fi and was free to do as he pleased, Ninnuzzu was blooming; and in this present season of his fl his greatest joy was in making everyone love him. Whether it was the street-cleaner, the begging nun, the women selling watermelons, the policeman, the mailman, the cat: even them. A fl even, if it came to light on him, perhaps meant to say to him: "I love you." And since he so loved being loved, he was always glowing, devilish and wild as if he were playing with a rainbow ball. He would throw it, and the others would catch it and toss it back to him; and he would make a leap and catch it. Now, excess, in this exhibitionistic game of his, was inevitable; however, a kind of ingenuous question, timid and propitiatory, appeared every now and then, the following ( more or less ) : "Well, do you love me? Yes or no? Ah, say yes : I enjoy so much being loved . . ." And here in his eyes, in his aggressive and capricious mouth, there appeared the hint of a threat: "If you say no, you'll torment me. I want to be loved. It would be a shitty thing, to torment a boy like that . . .
"

This note made his every vanity forgiven, and nobody could resist him. Even the news-vendor (who always turned up at the Marroccos about this time, to drink a glass of wine in company) abruptly banged his fi on the table and said to Ida, in an almost thunderous voice : "This son of yours, Signora, he's really something!!" And a little old woman of seventy, a customer who had come to try on a new jacket, sat down deliberately to enjoy him, and she murmured into his mother's ear: "Signora, I could just eat him up with kisses!"

Ida herself, who always had some grudge against him for varying reasons, every now and then broke into bright laughter, meant to make others take notice: "I made him, this boy! I'm the one who made him!"

Saying he had spent the summer dancing, he promptly wanted to teach some new dances to the women present; and the piccinina, in her great fear he would embrace her, almost dived under the table. But luckily, forgetting about dancing, he lighted a cigarette with an American (or English) lighter which he called
the
cannon. And for the occasion he off all a smoke, holding out, to one after the other, including the old lady, his pack of American cigarettes, Lucky Strike. But the only one of the company who smoked was the news-vendor, so Nino gave him the whole pack, except for one cigarette which he kept in reserv brashly sticking it over his ear. And then, to play the clown, he started imitating the poses of a Mafi

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Meanwhile, every two minutes he fell to grumbling at Useppe's ab sence, until, frowning, he declared he couldn't wait for him any longer. It was clear that the most important reason for his visit had been to surprise his little brother and deliver the American chocolate; and he was really angry and impatient, at this plan of his gone awry "Want me to take another look in the square?" the
piccinina
volunteered quickly, in the hope of keeping him there. "No, it's late now. I can't stay any longer," he answered, his eye on his watch.

And after saying goodbye to all, he started to leave; then an idea came into his head. He sighed, half-cross, and ran a couple of steps towards his mother, grandly placing before her, as a present, a handful of am-lire. She was so stunned by this unprecedented act that she didn't even thank him. Instead, she called him, when he was already at the door, having forgotten before to make him repeat ( to avoid future misunderstandings ) the new fi and last names of Carlo Vivaldi, which she had not properly learned the other day.

"DAVIDE SEGRE! They're Jew names," he explained. And he added, in a proud, smug tone:

"I knew all along he was a Jew."

Here, in a fl something comical and odd came back to his mind, stopping him at the door and prodding him, with the urgency of a com munication that couldn't be postponed : so even in his haste to be gone, he ran back, almost leaping : "Hey, rna, I got to tell you something," he stated, glancing at Ida in amusement, "but it's private. I got to tell you by yourself."

Whatever could it be?! Ida didn't know what in the world to expect from him. She took him into the little room, closing the door. He drew her aside in the corner, bubbling with sensational impatience:

"You know what they told me, ma?!" ''? . . .

"That YOU'RE A JEW."

". . . Who told you that!"

"Eh, I've known a long time, rn Somebody here in Rome told me.

But I won't say who it was."

"But it's not true! It's not true!!"

". . . Aw, rn !! You think we're still in the days of Pontius Pilate or something? If you're Jewish, what diff does it make?"

He refl for a moment, and then added : "Carlo Marx was a Jew, too."

". . ." Ida, breathless, was shaking like a string in the wind.

. . . "And papa? What was he?" "No. Not him."

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Ninnarieddu thought this over for a moment, though without too much earnestness : "Women," he observed, "you can't tell when they're Jews. But men you can tell, because when they're kids they peel off the end of their prick."

Then he concluded, as if making an indifferent statement:

"Me, I'm not a Jew. And Useppe isn't either."

And without further ado, he ran off A little later, the old woman also took her leave, while the news-vendor was happily smoking his own Lucky Strikes. The sewing machine, operated by the
piccinina,
resumed hammer ing with worse racket than usual; and Filomena went back to making chalk marks on a piece of brown wool spread out on the table.

A quarter of an hour later, Annita and Useppe came home. They had been to look at the merry-go-round in Piazza dell'Emporio, and on the way back Annita had bought Useppe an ice-cream cone, which he was still licking when they came in. Ida, after the dialogue with Ninnarieddu, had remained in her room; and the
piccinina,
who didn't feel like singing
joy and tormend
any more today, raised her long, saddened eyes from the machine at their entrance and promptly announced to Useppe:

"Your brother was here."

Puzzled, Useppe continued mechanically licking his cone, though no longer tasting its fl "Your brother! Nino! He was here!" the
piccinina
repeated. Useppe stopped licking the cone.

". . . Now where's he gone?! . . .
"

"He was in a hurry. He left . . ."

Useppe ran to the window over the street. A little truck could be seen going by, overloaded with people, then the ice-cream man's cart, a little group of Allied soldiers with their
segnorine,
an old hunchback, three or four kids with a balloon, and nobody else. Useppe turned quickly towards the room :

"I'm going down . . . to call him . . . now . . . I'm going . . ." he declared with desperate insistence.

"Where']] you call him, kid? By now he's already in Naples!" the news vendor, smoking, advised him.

Useppe cast an irreparable look around, of loss. Suddenly his little face seemed all crushed, and his chin began to tremble.

"Look what he brought you! American chocolate!" the news-vendor said, to console him. And Filomena, taking the bars down from the shelf, put them all in his arms. He clutched them to himself with an expression of almost menacing jealousy, but he didn't even look at them. His eyes, in their sadness, had become huge. He had a stain of vanilla on his chin, and in his dirty fi he was still clutching the ice-cream cone, melted mean while in his hand.

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"He said he'd be back soon, didn't he, rna? 1l1at's what he said? He's coming back soon?" Annita said to Filomena, secretly winking one eye. "Oh, yes, yes indeed. He said that this Saturday, Sunday at the latest,

he'd be back here."

And instead, the thoughtless Ninnarieddu showed up again only in the month of March, no less, the following year. In all this interval, they didn't receive so much as a postcard from him. Comrade Remo, again consulted by Ida, said that after their famous meeting in June he hadn't seen Nino again. In his opinion, they could presume he had gone back to fi with the partisans in the North, maybe with the Garibaldi assault brigade . . . Later, however, through Davide, who every now and then came back to visit her, Santina learned that Ninnuzzu, on the contrary had become involved with some Neapolitans, driving all around liberated Italy with them in a truck, dealing in contraband goods. On various occasions, he had also been in Rome, always in a rush however and, so to speak, incognito. More than this, Santina couldn't report from Davide, who, to tell the truth, had now become less taciturn with her; indeed, at times, he let himself go and talked, in their ground-fl room, especially if he had been drinking. And among his vari subjects, one of the most ferv was Nino. But Santina understood almost nothing of Davide's talk, though with her usual meek patience she was able to listen to him in silence even for a full hour. For her, Davide remained an obscure fi irregular and inexplic able: virtually an exotic species like the Moroccans or the Indians. And as for Nino, she had never seen this famous hero in person, not having been at the Marrocco home on the day of his visit. All the reports she had heard from the others might leave her awed, but without curiosity. And in her poor, backward imagination, she managed to retain, at most, the few bits of substantial, practical information.

As soon as Davide started talking about Nino, his face would bri

like the face of a little boy, forced into long confi by heaven knows what abstruse tasks, when suddenly the door is opened and he is allowed to run outside again. And as if he were telling of a Vesuvius or a fl which are not judged for what they do, he never criticized Nino's actions, indeed he boasted of them with the greatest respect, displaying, at times, an obvious partiality towards his friend. But from this partiality of his, free and spontaneous (as if owed to Ace's superior merits ), he seemed to derive an innocent pleasure, and a kind of consolation.