History (90 page)

448 H I S T O R Y . . . . . . 1 9 4 7

bother to hasten his waking, because he knows that, anyway, it will be nothing but a long long continuation of this dream.

The next day, at the same time after lunch, as if the
appointment
with Davide were tacitly understood for every day in the week, the familiar couple Useppe-Bella impatiently retraced the same route to the ground fl room; but today Davide wasn't at home. When there was no answer to Bella's scratching or to his
O\m
knocking, Useppe, suspecting Davide might be inside sick, climbed up some outcroppings of the wall to the low barred window. And vainly calling from there, "Vavide . . . Vavide! . . .", as the window was open, he pushed the curtain from outside and glanced into the room. Everything was the same as the day before : the bare mattress, the tangled sheet, the butts strewn on the fl etc.; but the master of the house was absent. At that same point, from the little door of the courtyard, the room's landlady came out, the lame woman, who perhaps at fi took Useppe for a thief!? However, seeing how little he was, she surely changed her mind :

"What are you doing here, kid?" she asked him.

". . . Vv . . . Davide!" Useppe explained, all red in the face, as he climbed down.

"Davide? I saw him go out a couple of hours ago. He mustn't of come back yet."

"When's he coming back? . . ."

"How should I know? l-Ie comes and goes. He doesn't say anything to me, about when he'll be back."

Bella and Useppe walked around the house, and stayed there for a while, in case Davide, sooner or later, happened to show up. From various parts, the usual dogs of varying breed appeared, all eager to greet Bella; but luckily, Wolf was not among them today. In the end, the two, resigned, went home.

The next day, at the same hour, Bella with prescient wisdom tugged the leash towards Viale Ostiense; but Useppe pulled in the opposite direc tion, suggesting: "Vavide!" and, meekly, she again turned with him to wards the room. This time Davide was at home, but evidently he wasn't by himself, since some low talk could be heard through the door. Useppe, all the same, mustered his courage and knocked .

". . . Who is it?" Davide's voice, almost frightened, said from inside, after a silence.

"It's me . . . Useppe!" Another silence.

"I t's us . . . Useppe! . . . and Bella!"

449

"Ciao . . ." Davide's voice then said, "but I can't let you in today

. I'm busy. Come back some other time." "When? Tomorrow?"

"No . . . not tomorrow . . . Another time
"When then?"

'Til
tell you when . . . I'll come and call you when . . . I'll come to

your house and call you . . . Understand? Don't come back here again, until I come to your house and call you."

"You'll come and call us?"

"Yes . . . yes! . . . yes! . . ."

Davide's voice sounded hoarse, broken, and labored, but fri and tender.

"You remember the
address?"
Useppe inquired, to make sure.

"Yes, I remember it . . . I remember."

Every time she heard Davide's voice again, Bella gave some leaps and then whimpered, her forepaws against the wood of the door, protesting against the forbidden entry. And Useppe, also, erect there, swaying on his feet, couldn't bring himself to conclude that dialogue. Something, still, was lacking . . . One fi moment, a new and seductive idea brightened him, and after a fi tap, he brought himself to say:

". . . Vavide, why don't you come and eat, when you come to our house to call us?! We've got tomatoes . . . and a stove . . . and pasta

. and tomatoes . . . and . . . and . . . wine!" ". . . yes, thanks. I'll come. All right. Thanks." "When will you come? . . . Tomorrow? . . .
"

"Yes, tomorrow . . . or later . . . another day . . . Thanks!" "You won't forget? . . . eh?!"

"No, no . . . But run along now . . . go on home."

"Yes. Let's go, Bella." And Useppe was already running towards Via Bodoni, eager to inform his mother there would be this guest for lunch tomorr And they should in all haste buy some wine (an exceptional purchase in their house, where the only drinker had been Ninnuzzu). But neither the next day nor the days that followed, though a whole fl of wine was kept ready in the center of the table for the special guest, and Useppe himself busily arranged a place for him with plate, cutlery, etc., did that guest show up. Even after the meal was over, Bella and Useppe delayed their daily outing, in case he came late. And they lingered a long time at the door of the building, before going off peering down Via Bodoni in both directions, and also in its vicinity . . . But Davide hadn't made up his mind to come that way.

More than once, in those circumstances, Useppe was tempted to ven ture towards the prohibited ground-fl room . . . But Bella, with a look

450 H I S T O R Y . . . . . . 1 9 47

and a tug of the leash, chided him, "He didn't make an appointment with us!" until both decided on renunciation. And they took instead the long road already learned, which led to the beautiful tent of trees. This had become, for them, a habitual route. And in those very days, they had there the second extraordinary encounter of the season, after the one with Davide Segre.

5

Their recent excursions in the Portuense area had kept them away from here for three days. And as soon as they returned, after this absence, they found a mysterious innovation. At this time ( the end of May ) the place was still visited only by the two of them.

On the fi nearer the city, some young Roman bathers were to be seen along the shore, especially on holidays. But that wooded area beyond the hillocks and the canebrakes remained distant and unexplored, like a virgin forest. Once, coming from the sea, a gull fl over, which Useppe believed a huge white swallow. And after that sparrow or starling of the fi day, even under the tent, other similar starlings or sparrows often appeared, but actually let nothing more than their commonplace tw tweet be heard, and normally they were scared off by Bella's festive welcomes. Their igno rance of the song All
a
ioke was certain, but apparently already foreseen by Useppe. There existed, in any case, a sure proof that in their circles the beautiful song was known by now; and so, in his opinion, it could be confi assumed that one of them, sooner or later, would sing it again. As for his ephemeral and joyous hallucination of the fi day there, Useppe had accepted it naturally, as we have seen; so once it was past, he forgot it almost entirely. From it, there remained in him, suspended in a minuscule territory, only an enchanted recollection, a rainbow where colors and voices ,,·ere a unity, presumably enormous, beyond the branches through which it shed a luminous dust or murmuri Even inside the city sometimes, for the space of an instant, all sounds and forms around

Useppe might become composed, rising in a fl an incredible fl towards the fi scream of silence. When you saw him cover his face with both hands, in the smile of a little blind child intent on a beautiful sound, it meant his whole tiny organism was listening to that ri choir which in the language of music ( wholly unknown to him) would be called a fugu

It was again that same reminiscence returning to him in a diff form. Perhaps, in some other imperceptible form, it accompanied him every where, bringing him always back to the tree tent as to a happy home.

Still, that home remained too solitary for him. His native, irrepressible

4 5 1

instinct was to share his own pleasure with others, and so far only Bella shared the tree tent with him. He had tried to lure his mother there, at least for one single excursion, waving his arms to describe the site with enthusiasm, as well as with geographical precision; but Ida suffered too much in moving on her half-broken little legs, where instead of bones she now seemed to have slack ropes . . . To compensate for this refusal, Useppe had lately conceived a supreme ambition : to receive there, under the tent, Davide Segre! But so far, unfortunately, he hadn't found the nerv or the opportunity to invite him . . . And as for others-all the other people of the earth-he had for some time felt himself outlawed. Indeed, the deserted abandonment of that little hollow by the river al lowed him to inhabit it with Bella.

Behind the circle of trees, sunk deeper in the slope, there was a second hollow, where the wood dwindled to a few bushes, so the ground there was drier and sunnier and even a few poppies bloomed. Useppe and Bella know it by heart (like all the other hollows and slopes around ), and it was precisely there that Bella was used to drying herself in the sun after her daily bath.

In fact, Bella now bathed in the ri every day, observ with regret by Useppe, who didn't know how to swim. Once, actually, seized by the desire, thinking of nothing else, he had hastily taken off his sandals and pants, and had started to fl himself in the water after her, to play. But alerted by her shepherdess's prophetic instinct, she had immediately turn back, arriving at the shore just in time to restrain Useppe, catching his jersey in her teeth. And then she had turned around to bark furiously at the river, as if it were a wolf. "If you do that," she had promptly said to Useppe, with a heart-rending moan, "you'll force me to give up my swim forever, and it's hygienic for me, among other things, to counteract my latest name, Crummy." And after that, Useppe had overcome his own temptation to swim, waiting in the sun, on the bank, for Bella to return from her bath, which for that matter lasted barely the time to cool off

Now on this afternoon we mentioned, peering inside, at their arri

in the sunny hollow, the two found a hut of branches, very well built, which hadn't been there before. At present, like every other place in the vicinity, it was deserted; however, it must surely have been inhabited, from what they could immediately observe in their prompt and curious explora tion. They found there, in fact: a little mattress (or rather a mattress-cover, ripped open along one side and stuffed, it seemed, with rags ) with an army blanket over it; nearby, glued to a stone with its own wax, a partly con sumed candle; and on the ground, several picture magazines, with comic strip adventure stories. Moreover, in a hole that had been dug, they also found two cans of sardines and one of corned beef, along with a medal