The City and the House (23 page)

I'm extremely pleased that you see Lucrezia so often. I thank you for that too, that you are such good friends with Lucrezia, and that you so often spend time with her. I could certainly have introduced you to each other when I was in Italy. I've no idea why I didn't. That you have become friends now is like receiving an unexpected gift. I often think of you both in a room I don't know but can imagine, because it probably has the furniture I used to see at
Le Margherite
, and which I remember so well. I know that you and Lucrezia went to
Le Margherite
. She wrote and told me. I know that you have a pale blue Prisma.

With love from

your father

Perugia, 13th January

My dearest Giuseppe,

I am here, close to you, with my old loyal affection for you.

I didn't come to Rome that day because I had an engagement in Perugia I couldn't possibly put off. And even Lucrezia wasn't in Rome, she was in Paris where she still is. I telephoned Serena who is there with her, and asked her not to let her see the Italian newspapers, and to say nothing. You know that recently Alberico and Lucrezia had become great friends. They were always together. And so I want to be the one who tells her, tomorrow, when she gets back. Serena has told her that Alberico doesn't answer the telephone because he has gone to Vienna for a holiday and that we don't know his address.

I know that you only stayed in Rome for three days because your wife is very ill and you had to go back to her immediately.

I haven't written to you for a long time but I've had news of you from Lucrezia. It was good news too, but now your wife is seriously ill, and suddenly this new terrible disaster has happened to you.

With love from

Piero

Rome, 15th January

Dear Ignazio,

I got your address in Vienna from Ippo's concierge. I don't know if you have read the Italian newspapers. I suppose you probably haven't read them. Alberico is dead. He was killed in an alley off Trastevere, behind his house, on the 7th January.

He was typing, alone in his house. It was eleven at night. Salvatore, Adelmo and Gianni had gone down to have a cappuccino. Gianni came up and told him that Salvatore had picked a fight in an alley near piazza San Callisto. Alberico and Gianni went down. They met Adelmo in the street, and he tried to hold them back. They didn't take any notice of him and Adelmo followed them. What we know, we know from Adelmo and Gianni. There was a group of people fighting in the alley. They caught sight of Salvatore's red jumper. Alberico ran over to him and tried to drag him away. There were some people standing watching but none of them made a move. Adelmo thinks that among them he recognized the two on the scooter whom he had seen in piazza Tuscolo, and also another one with a blond pony-tail who had been in piazza Tuscolo. Then Adelmo saw that Salvatore had a knife. Someone snatched it from him. Alberico fell and got up again. They stabbed him as he was getting up. Salvatore screamed and they threw themselves on top of him. Salvatore died immediately. Alberico died after half an hour. Someone called the emergency services, then an ambulance came, and then the police jeeps.

I had just got back from the newspaper when Gianni called me. Gianni and Adelmo were at the Santo Spirito hospital. Alberico died without regaining consciousness.

The same thing happened to Nadia. The same fate.

Adelmo and I went to his flat to collect his clothes. We phoned Roberta but we didn't know how to tell the poor woman what had happened. She was very fond of Alberico, they were cousins. Adelmo went to her house to tell her.

We phoned Giuseppe in America. He came. He was here for the funeral. But he left immediately because his wife is gravely ill, and there wasn't anyone with her.

Lucrezia was in Paris. They didn't tell her anything. They kept the newspapers hidden. Piero told her when she came back. The funeral was already over, Giuseppe had already left. And so Giuseppe and Lucrezia didn't see each other again.

I think it's very bad that they didn't tell Lucrezia. She and Alberico were friends, over the last few months they were always together. But Piero wanted it like this.

In the district where Alberico lived they are in mourning for him. They remember him as courteous and gentle when he went into the shops and stopped to chat with this person or that person. He was generous, he lent money to whoever needed it, and in a way he gave it to them because he never asked for it back again. They also mourn for Salvatore, and they remember him too. Gentle he wasn't, he had quarrelled with everyone in the district, he was quick with his fists. But they had known him for a while and it shocks them to think of him as dead now. Some say that Salvatore was a police informer. Others say he pushed drugs. Others say he lent money at a high rate of interest. Others say he sent anonymous letters. Everyone thinks that the same people were involved in piazza Tuscolo and in vicolo Sant' Apollinare, and Adelmo insists that in both places there was a man with a blond pony-tail. But people say that after what happened in piazza Tuscolo whoever it was would have cut it off so as not to be recognized. The police think that Adelmo has imagined the blond pony-tail, both this time and the previous time.

Giuseppe and Salvatore's mother will have to initiate civil proceedings against persons unknown.

Remember me to Ippo,

Egisto

Rome, 2nd February

Dear Albina,

I saw you on the day of the funeral, but then I immediately lost you and I looked for you without finding you again. Adelmo told me that you had gone straight back to Luco dei Marsi.

With Adelmo and Gianni I put Alberico's papers in order, in the flat below me. We put all the papers, the ideas for films and the screen plays into a trunk, which we loaded on to my car and took to Roberta's house in via Nazario Sauro. Alberico didn't have many books. His clothes were just a few odds and ends and the cleaning woman, Zezé, took these away. She gave them to some old people who live near her. The furniture consisted of a table and two or three wardrobes that were falling to pieces, bought in Porta Portese. Zezé took them away too.

We spent two or three afternoons emptying the flat. Then we returned the keys to the landlady.

The idea of having that flat empty underneath me really upsets me. I want to get out of this house. I have too many memories here. But as you know it's not easy to find somewhere to rent in Rome. You can find a place to buy but I don't have enough money.

Alberico had not bought the house in via Nazario Sauro, the one that is above Roberta and that used to belong to Giuseppe, he had only signed the agreement. The Lanzaras have given the advance back to Roberta, who is taking care
of
these practical things. Everything that Alberico possessed will go to Nadia's daughter, Giorgina, the child he had registered as his. Giorgina lives in Sicily with her maternal grandparents who are millionaires, and she is a millionaire too. It's a pity that all that money Alberico had should go to someone who doesn't need it, when there are so many people living in want. It's true that it's no one's fault, but it makes you feel bad.

I saw Giuseppe at the funeral and I spent a few hours with him afterwards. I thought he had aged a great deal. According to Adelmo, he has the eyes of someone who drinks spirits far too much. But that might just be a fantasy of Adelmo's. Poor Giuseppe, he was in a wretched state, the news had reached him in America whilst he was looking after his wife who is dying. I don't know if she is dead now or not. He went straight back.

I spent a lot of time with Alberico, I was very attached to him. I miss him. I try and be alone as little as possible. I go to the newspaper, I wander about, I go and see Serena act. Anything not to be alone. Sometimes I pass that damned alley. It is strange how places that make us sad attract us. They attract and repel us. Just as I want to get out of this house, but at the same time I want to stay here for ever.

With love from

Egisto

Princeton, 20th February

My Lucrezia,

That day you phoned me we hardly said anything to each other. I cried. And you cried too. It was a long-distance weep.

You asked me if I were coming back to Italy. I didn't know how to answer you. I was not up to making plans. I'm not up to it now either. My head is in a whirl.

Anne Marie died on the 16th February, four days ago. She died in hospital. Chantal and I were there.

I ‘phoned Danny to tell him. He came. He was there at the funeral too. He and Chantal are icy cold with each other. He came for my sake. Chantal left immediately after the funeral. Danny stayed with me, until yesterday.

Danny is the only friend I have here. We get on well together, despite the difference in age. He could be my son. Alberico was about his age, twenty-six.

Chantal told me that I get on well with Danny because he is like me, someone outside of reality. I don't know if I am outside of reality, and I don't know if Danny is. Above all I don't know what reality is for Chantal.

Danny is out of work again. He had found employment in a circulating library, he was completely happy, and after a month they fired him. He had forgotten to catalogue some books. I think he's very disorganized and absent-minded in his work.

Chantal is disorganized and absent-minded too, but not in her work. In her work I think she is punctilious and precise.

When we see each other Danny usually asks me to lend him money. And then he might well pay it back, but the next time he asks again. If anyone else asked me it would annoy me. But it doesn't cost me anything to give him money, and in a way I like to.

If Alberico had not been my son I might have been able to get on well with him, as I get on well with Danny. The fact that we were father and son spoilt everything. It made us embarrssed, stupid, cold, and often insincere. However, I never tried to improve our relationship. It always seemed to me that there was plenty of time. And now this makes me very unhappy.

I talked to Danny for a long time about Alberico. We stayed up till two in the morning.

We also talked about Chantal, about Anne Marie, about the child. We talked about the dead and the living. Finally I told him that I had been in love with Chantal. As I was saying this, I felt I was recounting a story that had happened a very long time ago, years and years ago.

During those days in Rome I didn't see anyone except Egisto and Roberta. I stayed in a hotel in piazza della Minerva. I didn't go to via Nazario Sauro.

If I return to Italy I shall have to look for a house. As you have perhaps heard, Alberico had not yet bought the house in via Nazario Sauro.

Perhaps the words ‘If I return' sound strange to you. Perhaps the conditional sounds strange to you. But at the moment everything seems uncertain to me, and I don't know how to find my way through the tangle of my thoughts. I want to return to Italy, and at the same time I don't want to return at all. I long to see you, Lucrezia, and at the same time I don't want to see you at all. I am afraid of seeing you, of finding myself face to face with you. We have been apart for too long, and too many things have happened, to you and to me.

Giuseppe

Rome, 5th March

I am sorry that your wife has died.

I am very, very sorry that we did not meet when you camp to Rome.

I don't know how to forgive Piero for telling Serena to keep the newspapers hidden from me. And so I didn't know anything. Those days were quite happy days for me. I wandered around Paris with Serena, we bought stockings, ate in restaurants, looked at pictures.

Serena knew and said nothing to me. Piero had ‘phoned her on the morning of 8th January. She seemed a little strange to me for a few moments, she said she had a headache.

When I got back to Rome, Piero told me.

I'm glad that I went to Monte Fermo that time, in the pale blue Prisma. I'm glad that we saw the Hotel Panorama.

Alberico wasn't happy, but he often laughed. I laughed with him. It was marvellous to laugh together

When he laughed you could see his little white teeth.

I would have fallen in love with him, if he hadn't been a homosexual. As he was, no — because I could never fall in love with a homosexual. We were friends, it was the kind of friendship that stays on one level and never changes, it remains secure and the same for ever.

You and I are friends too. But we haven't always been friends, before we were friends we were lovers. And we have also had a son together, Graziano. You have always pretended that it wasn't true.

And now you have been away for a long time and I no longer know what you are like, and you no longer know what I am like.

You say that you long to see me again, and at the same time you don't want to see me at all. I understand you. It's the same for me.

I said before that I was sorry your wife had died. It isn't true, I'm not sorry at all. In the first place I didn't know her, and in the second place I know very well that you were not happy with her, and that you married her for no apparent reason.

One day, about a week ago, 'I' phoned me. He asked if he could come and see me because he wanted to talk to me. He came with Ippo. It seemed so strange to me, to see them both in front of me. The Cat and the Fox. I served them tea.

Ippo is a little old woman. I saw her close up, she is a little old woman. I looked at her curiously, without hatred. It is difficult to hate little old women. You talk loudly to them, because they might be a bit deaf.

'I' sat in the armchair he always sat in when he used to come and see me every day, when we were lovers. I looked at his large, florid face, his grey crew-cut. I asked myself however could I have suffered so much for that face, for that body in its overcoat. He didn't even take off his overcoat. It's true that before, when we were lovers, he was always complaining about how cold my house was.