A Silence Shared, page 12
When leaving Tetto Murato to head towards the road, I often found the Major busying himself in front of the house or in the entrance: he would be adjusting the springs and the screws of a little iron bed for the children, or trying to straighten the end of a bent nail by hitting it with a hammer.
He would jump to his feet to greet me, and apologize: “Times like these, you have to do a bit of everything.” But he never appeared embarrassed or upset to me. Ada, however, told me that one day she had gone down to the kitchen and caught him off guard in front of the cupboard, or rather standing on top of a footstool, wearing an apron and rolling out the pasta dough with a rolling pin. She stood there tongue-tied for a second (and she must have laughed, with her eyes). He then begged her tactfully, though, Ada noted, somewhat firmly, too: “You have to promise me, Signora Ada, that when we see each other again—afterwards—you’ll forget that you saw me like this.”
Naturally, Ada had promised, but in that same instant she had felt sure, “dead sure”, in fact, that she would never be able to see him, anywhere, in any circumstances, without picturing him as she saw him now, with pushed-up sleeves and an apron, standing on a stool and rolling out pasta.
Then there was another story about the Fantonis. It was, in a sense, the pinnacle of their famous perfectionism: an excess of prudence, which reached the realm of fantasy.
What had happened was this: the Major had dug a trench behind the house and had stocked it with wicker-wrapped bottles full of water, which he refilled every so often, “in case of an attack”.
Instead, what did come to pass was the very thing Signora Sibilla had foretold. Bruna was arrested, in the village.
The Fantonis, according to Ada, took it well: they proved to be less afraid when confronted with real danger than with the imaginary kind.
Bruna wasn’t taken into town, but held in the village, in the school that had been converted to a prison. The Fantonis sent her food and clothes, and waited, calmly enough, to see what happened. It didn’t occur to them that it could come to light through their interrogations that someone like Paolo was hiding at Tetto Murato.
Ada, for this reason, harboured a silent, almost subterranean fear. She managed to hide it from Paolo, since in those days she was giving him—or was pretending to give him—the cold shoulder.
She sulked, in her light way, when she was around him, slightly stiffening or hesitating, or acting in sudden haste; because she suspected—and it wasn’t that she was suspicious of Paolo, really, but of his insidious, tortuous malady—suspected that something in him wanted, truly “wanted” to appear, to disappear, reappear. Ada had even obtained a considerable victory over it (the demon was genderless in Ada’s mind) through her own cleverness. She had—with naïve yet logical cleverness—injected water instead of the usual medicine, and his agony had subsided all the same.
I thought it wasn’t surprising that the trick had worked and that it had obtained an identical result, but I was surprised by Ada. I looked at her with the special kind of admiration she inspired in me at certain times. That she would not only do, dare, but dare this: a gag, a joke concerning the most serious, the most tragic thing in her life.
If the demon was stupid, Paolo wasn’t. The second time—impossible to say what had made him suspicious—Paolo wanted to see the vial.
XLVI
I was nearing Tetto Murato after taking the long road; I had run the risk of going on my bicycle because they weren’t keeping as close an eye on the roads now, rarely asking if you had authorization. The way was hard, because the snow had melted, flooding the road, and a crust of ice, though fragile, had formed once again on its surface, so that you moved forward as in a pool full of glass shards.
Half on my bicycle—when I could get the wheels to turn—half carrying it in my arms just above the ground, I was resolutely pushing my way through this obstacle course when I suddenly found the road blocked by a tall military truck, completely stuck in the sludge.
On it, looking strangely absent-minded, German soldiers sat close together in rows. Below, two or three were busying themselves around the wheels.
There was no way for me to pass. In my moment of hesitation, as I wondered if I could make an about-turn, one of those giants picked up my bicycle, which looked like a twig, and carried it to the other side, behind the bulky mass of the truck.
My own fear of the Germans ended in that moment. It wasn’t that they appeared any less frightening because they were courteous—rather, it was because they seemed to me not only already lost, but even, already saved.
There was cause for celebration at Tetto Murato because Bruna had returned. No one had seen those Germans of mine, and my adventure didn’t leave much of an impression on anyone.
XLVII
The seasons suddenly changed, and the midday sun regained a calm autumnal indolence.
Upon arriving, I would see Paolo sitting in the sun on the disjointed planks of a wooden balcony, and I’d scurry up a steep stepladder to join him.
From up there we could take in the snow melting all around us.
The February sun burned brighter than it had in the autumn, and yet—maybe because Paolo was there, just as he had been then—it truly felt to me like a return, a happy loop in time.
In the sleepiness of that hour, and in the security that Paolo’s presence gave me, I paid no attention to my premonitions about the future.
When Paolo wasn’t in his spot, and therefore had likely stayed in bed, I wouldn’t become afraid, but would weigh our present happiness, telling myself that we had accepted his getting better (I didn’t dare think: his recovery) without feeling sufficiently grateful.
Ada would reassure me. “He’s only being lazy.”
I was sitting where I always did, only a bit closer to the foot of the bed, because Ada was there too, seated next to Paolo and focused on mending a piece of clothing. Paolo was propped up, leaning against the headboard. The room was full of light, the clear afternoon sun.
I was in a bit of a daze, incredibly sleepy. Coming there under the already hot sun had worn me out; I had walked carrying my coat, which was heavy and had made me sweat. Like wine, the sun had dulled my senses, and my head was throbbing.
I said, “I’m just going to rest here for a second.” I laid my bent arm on the bed and fell asleep.
But it wasn’t a deep sleep, because soon I heard Paolo and Ada having a conversation. Since they were talking about me, right away I was completely—no, painfully awake. I didn’t move, I almost didn’t dare breathe.
“She’s tired,” they said. I heard their voices as extremely close, subdued but clear; I knew that they were there, that I could touch them, and yet it was as if they were very far away. Even more, it was as if I myself were far away while I listened; as if all of it were taking place elsewhere, in a dream, and, just like in a dream, everything I was hearing was in some way dictated by me.
Paolo’s voice had never sounded so gentle, and Ada seemed to be playing a game, exactly as she always did when speaking very seriously, and as one would’ve had to imagine her when dreaming of her.
“She said that she doesn’t want to stay over tonight. You tell her too.”
“We shouldn’t insist. Don’t forget that she has her cousins. She has to live with them.”
“Yes, yes. We shouldn’t make things hard for her.”
“Remember that Signora Sibilla is right around here, and she’s a friend of theirs.”
“Oh, I trust Sibilla.”
“Okay—but they could say something.”
“The Fantonis? No, no way.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. Actually, it’s a fact that they talk about it. She often stays the night, too. And don’t think they don’t also know about the bed.”
“Yes, maybe,” Ada sighed. (I “saw” her face, when she said no, when she said yes.)
There was a silence. Then Paolo said:
“You know, she might be a little in love with me. You see how far she comes every day…”
“Oh, yes. I think so too.”
Paolo didn’t speak.
“It’s so natural, really. It couldn’t not happen. She’s just like you.”
“And I think I’m a little in love with her.”
“I thought so. Do you remember when you’d go with her for part of her walk back in the evening? I’d see you from afar. I’d think that you two were good together.”
Another silence. Then Ada started speaking again.
“But you tire her out. You make her think too much with your discussions. You keep her awake all night.”
“We talk. Sometimes she falls asleep talking.”
Ada didn’t speak. Then said:
“Poor Giulia. We’ll never love her enough.”
They didn’t say more. Still, I didn’t dare move; I feared that in revealing that I was not asleep, I would seem too awake. Finally, I began to lift my head. Ada asked me, “Did you manage to rest a little?”—the same words and the same tone with which she often questioned Paolo after his brief spurts of sleep.
“Yes. But I have to go.”
“Do what you like,” Ada said. It was a normal thing for her to say, but I gave a start, because it was confirmation of what I had heard, proof that I hadn’t been dreaming.
After, I tried to overcome the kind of violence I had experienced. I told myself that it was not a beginning, but an end, even if it was in some sense an infinite end. I told myself too that if Paolo had spoken in that way with her, it meant that “in the beginning” was Ada, that she came first. (And, for that matter, if it had been up to me, would I have wanted it any other way?)
I clung ever more tightly to Ada; I drew strength from the thought of her: almost as if, in some way, I could share in her mysterious assuredness.
XLVIII
Stefano came for Easter, making one of his adventurous journeys, in a German truck between barrels of gasoline. He was the one to suggest we go to Tetto Murato. We walked there with the road soft from the thawed snow, the sun in our eyes. I darted glances at Stefano as he spoke; I was happy that he was seeing my road in this way, too, during the waning of winter.
Stefano placed a handful of red berries in my palm, which he had grabbed from the bushes. So, he still could—in times such as these in which he was rapidly maturing—find our old games again.
While I sucked on the sweet-bitter berries, cooked by the freezing cold of the long winter, I started to skip, hanging on to Stefano’s arm: I felt irresponsible and happy. Stefano’s being at Tetto Murato was for me like the world had regained—temporarily—its unity.
At Tetto Murato, we immediately, spontaneously divided up tasks. Stefano stayed in the kitchen with Ada, while she made tea. I went upstairs to Paolo.
He was, as she said, oppressed, and he greeted me with only a feeble smile. I moved the chair next to the bed and curled up in my usual position.
Ada and Stefano came in, she holding the basket tray, he opening the door to let her through and bending towards her while she told him a story.
Paolo shook himself back to life, refused the dreadful green tea, but was affectionate, forcing himself to talk; it seemed to me that he was looking at Stefano with a kind of admiration and almost astonishment (a little like he was seeing him for the first time).
There was another moment, not long before we had to leave, in which we had split into groups. I was in my spot next to the bed: Paolo was silent, while Ada and Stefano were talking to each other.
They were standing, one in front of the other, by the western window, which let in the warm light of the sunset.
I had followed Paolo’s gaze and turned to look at them.
Stefano, who had his back to me, spoke slightly bent towards Ada, and I could glimpse her uplifted face, her big eyes which were focused yet vague, mysterious.
I turned back to Paolo: he was still looking at them, now with that knowing smile of his.
“You see how they get along. Maybe they don’t even know how much they were made to understand each other.”
(Maybe Paolo said, “they, too”—I couldn’t say for sure, and in the end it was the same thing.)
My way of seeing the truth within myself was not rapid and resolute as Ada’s. But I too knew how to freeze before that to which I could not give a name.
No doubt, Paolo meant to say once again, as he had expressly said other times before: They are better than us.
I, who already instinctively considered Stefano and Ada superior, unreachable, not only relative to myself but to Paolo, too, I had for a second the somewhat dizzying impression that our way of being was if not suggested, then almost guided, allowed by them.
XLIX
What followed were the most peaceful days. Ada and I were nearly jubilant; Paolo, on the other hand, impatient about doing nothing. He was translating a classic too, when he felt up to it; but that wasn’t what he was after at this point. He was impatient, but not uneasy, because he was no longer ill.
They were just a few days, really, but they constituted a whole period of time, full to the brim.
They were peaceful days, and yet the delicate April sky seemed as though it couldn’t contain the compact, constant rumbling of airplanes.
There was, in us and in that time of year, a stillness, a kind of ripening, in the sense that something had become stable, tranquil.
It was a day like the others, full of sunlight, of the clucking of chickens, of the sounds of children playing.
Paolo left it up to Ada to say it. Ada announced, calmly, “Paolo has decided to go to Turin.” “When?” (I knew that the answer could even be: tomorrow.) “The day after tomorrow.” I was given a few tasks: find someone in town who could host Paolo the night before he left for Turin, and similar things. I would be the one to go with Paolo to town; Domenica would bring the suitcase on the bicycle.
We went at a brisk pace, because Paolo didn’t like to walk slowly; I snuck glances at him to see if he was showing signs of exhaustion. He was panting a bit, and halfway there he suggested we sit on the ground by the side of the road.
Only then did I look around me. The countryside and the sky seemed restrained, suspended in a placid and solemn sadness.
Lowering my eyes, I saw, right there at our feet, close to our hands which were resting on the short grass scattered with dried blades, violets: little shaggy tufts of them.
We spoke little and only about practical matters for the moment at hand. To avoid the checkpoint at the entrance to the main bridge, we turned off the road onto a path that went meandering towards a footbridge over the river, one that wasn’t surveilled. Sure enough, no one stopped us.
When we were close enough to see the house which belonged to a friend, we stopped in the empty street and said goodbye to each other. We shook hands: “Bye, Giulia.” “Bye, Paolo.” (More or less like children parting ways at the end of a holiday.) But then he added, “Don’t worry.”
L
When the town was liberated, again the cousins had on the same face from the 25th of July, like “nothing had happened”. I was always out of the house: the old town of penetrating silences, now full of young life, surprised me to no end.
I expected that at any given moment I might see Paolo. One day, returning to the cousins’ house, I found out that he had come to see me, but that he had left right away. I got over that first mishap—in those days it was impossible to feel any disappointment. Ada, who had left Tetto Murato, ran to the house to see me and was so happy she hugged the cousins, too; they were taken aback, stiffening up a little out of surprise, but they smiled at her, and they seemed blissfully happy about it to me.
I saw Paolo again among many other people: he had a slightly tired and abstracted air about him, which I had already noticed on the 25th of July (and which had disappointed me then, because I had expected more joy). He smiled at me with his eyes, and I was content with that feeling of complicity which isolated us, and which was still Tetto Murato.
Then one day I left suddenly because I’d been offered a means to reach Stefano. I said goodbye to Ada and Paolo lightheartedly, almost festively, sure that I would see them again soon (without asking myself when). Everything was possible, the future open; I had no fear whatsoever.
When the time came to say goodbye to the cousins, however, I was struck with uncertainty. I wasn’t going to see them again, I thought. I discovered—like someone who has always seen, for example, a house, considering it average, devoid of any mystery, and then one day glimpses in it the possibility of a secret, of a story—discovered that there was something in them that I hadn’t known, that I hadn’t had time to come to know. I felt a kind of remorse, and asked them—generically—for their forgiveness.
They replied, somewhat moved, that there was no need for that, and the harshest thing they said was that all faults are reciprocal and, between people who love each other, involuntary.
LI
In Milan I went up many flights of stairs in a building that reminded me of the one where I had gone to look for Paolo in Turin.
I knocked; Stefano appeared hesitant too, caught in a day-dream, as though only my image had appeared before him and not actually me. He turned pale when I approached him.
Stefano, as well, prepared something to eat with his hands. He cut up an onion and cooked it with rice, in the only pot. We ate using the only two pieces of silverware, one with broken prongs, the other with a broken handle. (I had learned to be grateful for even the little that was still good in things.)
The bedframe was made of iron like the one at the cousins’ house, and it wasn’t very big either. The weather was of spring-summer, and the two of us lay on that bed like on a tropical island besieged by crocodiles: around us, black roaches scurried quickly on the floor.
