History (10 page)

She was not poor, as perhaps everyone believed. Through those years (precisely to guarantee her own future independence, in the case of illness or other unforeseen eventualities ) she had habitually put aside, little by little, some savings which now amounted to three thousand lire. This sum, in three one-thousand bills, was sewn into a handkerchief which at night she kept under her pillow and the rest of the time always on her p�rson, pinned inside a stocking.

In her inexperienced mind, which was already clouding over, she as sumed that, with such a sum, she could pay for any foreign journey, even an exotic one! At certain moments, like a young girl, she would daydream about metropolises that, as a spinster, in her Bovaresque dreams, she had longed for as sublime destinations : London, Parisi But suddenly she would remember that she was alone now; and how could a lone old woman fi her way amid those cosmopolitan and tumultuous throngs?! If only Giuseppe were wi her, then traveling would indeed still be beautiful! But Giuseppe no longer existed, he was not to be found here or anywhere. Perhaps even his body, so big and heavy, had now dissolved into the earth. There was no longer anyone on earth to reassure her in her terrors, as he used to do, saying to her: "How silly you are! You crazy little thing!"

Though she continued proposing various plans to herself, examining all the continents and countri for her, in the enti globe, there was no place. And yet, as the days went by, the necessity, the urgency of esca were impressed on her feverish brain.

In the course of the last months, she had heard, perhaps over the radio, talk of Jewish emigrati from all Europe to Palestine. She knew absolutely nothing about Zionism, if she even knew the word. And of Palestine she knew only that it was the Biblical homeland of the Hebrews and that its capital was Jerusalem. But still, she came to the conclusion

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that the only place where she could be received, as a fugitive Jew among a people of Jews, was Palestine.

And as the summer heat was already advancing, one evening she suddenly decided to fl then and there, even without a passport. She could cross the border illegally, or else she would stow away in the hold of a ship, as she had heard about in tales of illegal emigrants.

She took no baggage with her, not even a change of linen. She had on her, as always, her three thousand lire hidden inside the stocking. And at the last minute, noticing one of those old Calabrian cloaks Giuseppe used to wear in winter still hanging from a hook in the hall, she took it along, folded over her arm, with the thought of protecting herself if perhaps she went to a cold climate.

It is certain she was already delirious. But still she must have reasoned that to go from Cosenza to Jerusalem overland was not a good idea, be cause she headed for the sea, choosing the alternative of a ship as the only solution. Some people vaguely recall having seen her, in her little summer dress of black artifi silk with a blue pattern on the last evening train heading for the be at Paola. And in fact it is there, in that area, that she was found. Perhaps she wandered for a while along that beach without ports, searching for some freighter fl an Asiatic flag, more lost and confused than a fi boy who runs away to sign on as a cabin boy and see the world.

In any event, though such endurance seems incredible in her condi tion, we have to believe that, from the station where she arrived, she covered a long distance on foot. In fact, the specifi spot where they found her on the sand is several miles away from the Paola beach, towards Fus ca Along that stretch of the coastline, beyond the railroad track, there are hilly fi of corn whose swaying expanse in the darkness, to her crazed eyes, may have created the effect of the sea opening out ahead.

It was a beautiful moonless night, calm and starry Perhaps she was reminded of that one little song from her parts that she could sing :

what a fine night this is for stealing girls.

But even in that serene and tepid air, at a certain point in her walk, she felt cold. And she covered herself with that man's cloak she had brought along, taking care to fasten the buckle at the throat. It was an old mantle of dark brown country wool, which had been the right length for Giuseppe, but was too long for her, falling to her feet. A local man seeing her go by in the distance, cloaked in that way, could have taken her for the
monacheddu,
the little domestic bri disguised as a monk, who roams

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about at night, they say, entering houses by dropping down the chimney. Apparently, however, nobody encountered her, naturally enough, on that isolated shore, seldom visited, especially at night.

The fi to fi her were some boatmen coming in at dawn from their fi and immediately they thought she was a suicide, brought ashore by the sea's currents. But the position of the drowned woman and the condi tion of her body did not agree with that hasty conclusion.

She was lying below the waterline, on sand still wet from the recent tide, in a relaxed and natural attitude, like someone surprised by death in a state of unconsciousness or in sleep. Her head was on the sand, which the light fl had made even and clean, without seaweed or fl and the rest of her body was on the great man's cloak, held at the collar by the buckle and spread out at her sides, open, all soaked with water. The little artifi silk dress, damp and smoothed by the water, clung decorously to her thin body, which seemed unharmed, not swollen or abused as bodies washed in by the tide usually look. And the tiny blue carnations printed on the silk appeared new, brightened by the water, against the dark back ground of the cloak.

The sea's only violence had been to tear off her little shoes and undo her hair which, despite her age, had remained long and abundant, and only partly graying, so that now, wet, it seemed black again, and had fallen all down one side, almost gracefully. The curren t had not even slipped from her emaciated hand the little gold wedding ring, whose slight, precious gleam was distinct in the day's advancing light.

This was all the gold she possessed. In spite of her patriotic comform ity (unlike her timid daughter Ida), she had not wanted to part with it even when the government had invited the people to "give gold to the Fatherl to aid the Abyssinian conquest.

On her wrist, not yet spotted with rust, there remained her cheap little metal watch, stopped at four o'clock.

The examination of the body confi beyond a doubt her death by drown but she had left no sign or farewell message that indicated any suicidal intention. They found on her, hidden in the usual place beneath her stocking, her secret treasure in banknotes, still recogniza though reduced by the water to a valueless pulp. Knowing Nora's character, we can be sure that if she had meant to do away with herself, she would fi have taken care, wherever she was, to save from destruction that capital, so huge for her, accumulated with such perseverance.

Moreover, if she had really abandoned herself to the great mass of the sea, deliberately seeking death, we can suppose that the cloak's weight, increased by the water, would have dragged her to the bottom.

The case was closed, with the verdict:
accidental death by drowning.

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And this, in my opinion, is the most logica explanation. I believe that death caught her unawares, perhaps when she had fallen into one of those spells she had been prone to for some time.

At that part of the coast, and in that season, the tides are light, especially at the new moon. In her futile, haunted, and almost blind journey in the darkness of the night, she must have lost all sense of direc tion and even all sensory signals. And inadvertently she must have ad vanced too far on the strip washed by the tide, perhaps confused between the ocean of com and the windless sea, or perhaps in some deranged move towards the ghost outline of a ship. There she fell, and the tide, already turning, covered her, just enough to drown her, but without assaulting her or stri her, and with no other sound save its own sucking imperceptible in the calm air. Meanwhile, the water-logged mantle, its edges buried under layers of sand, held her body on the damp slope, restraining it, lifeless, on the beach until the fi hours of daylight.

I know Nora only from a photograph taken in the days of her engage ment. She is standing against the background of a paper landscape, unfold ing a fan, which covers the front of her blouse, and her pensive but formal pose betrays her grave yet sentimental nature. She is tiny and slim, with a woolen skirt, almost straight, pleated, tight-fitting at the waist, and a white muslin blouse with starched cuff buttoned up to the throat. With her free arm she is leaning, wi almost histrionic abandon, on a little console, typical of middle-class photographers at the end of the century. Her hair is combed tight over her forehead and loose on top of her head in a gentle circle, like a geisha's. Her eyes are deeply ferv behind a veil of melan choly. And the rest of the face is delicately made but ordinary.

On the photograph's lower margin, a yellowed white, printed on thick cardboard as they were then, in addition to the ornate printed legend customary at the time
(Format,
etc.) the dedication is still legible, in her gentle, diligent, and fi hand :

For You, beloved Giuseppe! from your

Eleonora

In the lower left-hand corner there is the date :
20 May 1 902;
and a bit farther down, on the right, in the same little hand, there follows the sentiment:

With You forever

as
long as I live and beyond.

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A R T I C L E 1 : T H E M A R R I A G E O F A N I T A L I A N C I T I Z E N O F A R Y A N R A C E T O A P E R S O N O F A N O T H E R R A C E I S F O R B I D D E N .

A R T I C L E 8 . B Y L A W :

A
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T H E J E W I S H R A C E I N C L U D E S A N Y O N E B O R N O F P A R E N T S B O T H B E L O N G I N G T O T H E J E W I S H R A C E , E V E N I F T H E Y A R E O F A R E L I G I O N O T H E R T H A N T H E J E W I S H R E L I G I O N ;