History (40 page)

she was left with a feeling of sadness, as if this goodbye today were the Madman's last farewell, and they would never see each other again. And during the rest of the day, the sight of the rolled mattress among Giuseppe Secondo's other piled-up possessions clutched at her heart, despite her personal interest as his heiress : so she avoided looking towards that aban doned corner.

Rossella, on the other hand, when she came home around dinnertime, seemed not even to notice her owner's absence, though he was usually there at that hour, busy over his stove and his cans of squid in tomato sauce or his boiled beans. Skittishly avoiding all other human contact, she ran at once, head low and tail high, towards Carlo Vivaldi's curtain, and there she settled herself as usual against him on the pallet, stretched full length for the comfort of her pregnant little belly. Nor did she give any sign, even in the days that followed, of remembering that other man, who, for better or worse, had taken her in from the street as a kitten, giving her a home and a name.

That week, the partisan Moscow, as he had already announced and contrary to Ida's sad foreboding, turned up a couple of times. He came to collect some objects that might be useful
up there-a
blanket for example, or provisions-and he seized the occasion to lock himself in the latrine and have a wash, since
up there,
he said, there was no water for washing, though, to make up for it, there was a great quantity of good Castelli wine. And he explained that he happened to be here, passing by on his rounds, because his special job with the comrades was that of messenger: "from the outpost to down and back again."

Happiness was bursting from his every wrinkle and pore, and he was beari secret, exciting news : Ninnuzzu and Quattro and other comrades were performing amazing feats and were aglow with epoch-making valor and health. And certain girls of the Castelli were already sewing elegant partisan uniforms for them to wear in the Liberation parade : an ultra mari blue, with a red star on their beret. And the English pilots, flyi

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over the countryside, greeted them from their planes, and two English prisoners, who had been guests of Ninnuzzu and Co. for a night and a day, had predicted the liberation of Rome by the end of the month at the latest ( there was a rumor they were waiting for the fateful date of 28 October, the Fascist anniversary). Having given this news, the little herald waved a general goodbye to all, and was off again like an elf.

Now that even Giuseppe Secondo (previously rather skeptical on the subject) had announced the liberation was near, The Thousand actually began to collect their luggage, to be ready to set off for Naples as soon as the Allies entered Rome. It was agreed that Carlo Vivaldi would take the same route; but after the interlude of the banquet, Carlo had withdrawn again into his isolation, if anything more sullen and suspicious than before, seeming ashamed of his brief lapse. After hearing his tales, the women among The Thousand, in their chatter, had, among other things, ventured the supposition that he might be a Jew. But this conjecture circulated in the big room with great caution, and in low voice�, in every instinctive solidarity wi the hunted young man. It seemed as if such a thing, even whispered, might single him out, assisting the hated German police.

One Sunday, Caruli's brother Tore, return from some of his deal ings in the city, pointed out to Ida in the newspaper,
Il
Messaggero, the news that schools would reopen on November 8th. Among all The Thou sand, Tore was the least illiterate, and he liked to display his culture by commenting on items in the papers, especially the sports page. That Sun day, among his other comments, he remarked that in the Messaggero there was no trace of a piece of news that was, however, circulating inside Rome, and that had even been broadcast, they said, by Radio Bari yester day, Saturday ( October 16th ) the Germans had rounded up all the Jews of Rome at dawn house by house, and loaded them into trucks for an un known destinati The Ghetto had been totally stripped of all its Jewish fl and only its skeleton was left; but also in the other sections and neighborhoods, all of Rome's Jews-individuals and families-had been rooted out by some SS who had come on purpose, a special company, supplied with an exact list. They had taken them all : not only the young and the healthy, but also the old, the seriously ill, even pregnant women, even babes in arms. It was said they were all being taken off to be burn alive in big ovens; but this, according to Tore, was maybe an exaggeration.

At that moment, the gramophone was playing a dance tune, and the kids were all jumping around : so the comments on this news were lost in the uproar. And in the course of that same Sunday, the Jews' story was actually forgotten among The Thousand, in the fl of news that arr every day by direct or oblique routes, collected in the city or brought by

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acquaintances of listeners to Radio Bari or Radio London. After their journ y, however brief, these items usually reached the big room distorted, or expanded, or confused. And Ida had learned to protect herself by ignor ing them all, treating them like folk tales; but not this last piece of news, no, because she had been expecting it for some time, even without admit ting it to herself. From the momen t she heard it, fear never stopped thrashing her, like a spiked scourge, until every hair on her head ached at the root. She didn't dare ask Tore for further clarifi impossible at any rate; nor did she know to whom to tum, to fi out if halfbreeds were also written down in the list of the guilty (this was the very term she used in her thoughts). And in bed, with the darkness, her terror increased.

\V curfew struck, she heard Carlo Vivaldi return-in that period he wandered around the city more than ever-and she was almost tempted to get up and ask him. But she heard him cough; and she thought she could sense, in that cough, something terrible and rejecting. It's true that some (also Nino? ) murmured that he might be a Jew; but others (given, to tell the truth, scant credence ) also insinuated that he was perhaps a Nazi Fascist spy. She suspected that, merely hearing her utter the word
Jews,
he, like the others, would immediately see her secret written all over her face, and tomorrow might report her to the Gestapo.

She had gone to bed with her clothes on, and she had left Useppe dressed, too; and she hadn't even taken her sleeping pill, so that the Germans, if they came for her in the night, wouldn't catch her unprepared. She held tight to Useppe, having decided that, the moment she heard the soldiers' unmistakable tread outside and their knocking on the door, she would try to escape through the fi dropping from the roof with her baby in her arms; and if pursued, she would run and run all the way to the marsh, to drown herself there, along with him. The terrors brooded over for years, erupting in the immediate fear of this night, grew in her to a raving fantasy, without release. She thought of going out into the streets at random, with the sleeping Useppe in her arms, heedless of the curf since night-wanderers, when terrestrial horror reaches a certain degree, become invisible . . . Or else of running towards the mountains of the Castelli, hunting for the Madman, to plead with him to hide Useppe and herself in the partisans' lair . . . But most of all she was soothed by the thought of going off with Useppe into the Ghetto, to sleep in one of the empty apartments. Again, as in the past, her contradictory fears fi followed a mysterious comet, that invi ted her in the direction of the Jews : promising her, there in the distance, a matern stable, warm with animals' breath, and with their big eyes, not judging, but only pitying. Even thes. poor Jews from all of Rome, loaded into trucks by the Germans, tonight

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hailed her like Blessed Spirits who, unknown to themselves and even to the Germans, were going off through a splendid deceit, towards an Oriental realm where all are children, without consciousness or memory

"Do not look at my black skin, for the sun darkened me,

my beloved is white and ruddy, his curls are golden.

There, my beloved's voice knocks : open to me, my dear, my dove.

I rose to open but I could not fi him, I sought him and could not fi him.

The watchmen searching the city found me: have you seen my soul's beloved?

I have not tended my own vineyard and he took me into the house

and his banners of love were over mel

I sought him in the streets and squares and did not fi him I called him and had no answer.

Before the day ends and the night, return my stag, my beloved kid.

Oh if you were my brother

who sucked my mother's breasts!

then on meeting you, I could kiss you and no one would scorn me.

In his body I rested

and he savored me with his lips and his teeth,

come, my brother, let us see if the vine has blossomed.

I beseech you, should you fi my beloved tell him I am sick with love . . .
"

Where had she learned these verses? In school perhaps, as a little girl? She had never recalled knowing them, and now, in her confused wakefulness, it seemed to her that her own voice, as a child, was reciting them in a languid tone, aff and tragic.

Around four she dozed off The usual dream return to her, the one that had visited her often, with some variants, since the previous summer: about her father, sheltering her under his cloak. This time, in the cloak's shelter, she wasn't alone. Useppe was there too, all naked ( even smaller than in real life), and Alfi her husband, also naked and stout. And she herself was naked, but it didn't embarrass her, for all her being old as she was now, and decrepit. The streets of Cosenza beca confused with those

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of Naples, and of Rome, and of who knows what other metropolises, as usual in dreams. It was pouri rain, but her father had a large, broad bri hat on his head, and Useppe amused himself by kicking his feet in the puddles.

In the dream it was pouring, but instead, when she woke, the morn was sunny. Ida got up hastily, knowing that on this Monday morn she had planned to buy Useppe a pair of new shoes ( with the points of her clothing-ration card), since the homemade bound sandals had become unserv especially as winter was approaching. She and Useppe were quickly ready, having slept in their clothes. At fi there had fl into Ida's brain the bizarre notion of going, for her purchase, to a certain little cobbler in the Ghetto . . . But she had second thoughts in time, remem bering the Ghetto had been emptied; only its skeleton remained, as Salva tore had said. An then she decided on a shoeshop in the Tiburtino quarter ( which she had already patronized when she lived in that area ) where she counted on still fi remainders of the very smallest sizes and, among them, some pre-war shoes of real leather, which she had had her eye on since last spring. And she decided to take this opportunity also to drop by Remo's tavern (in her eyes he had become a Gray Eminence, thanks to the Madman's hints ) with the thought of receiving, perhaps, some information from him about the guilt, or innocence, of half breeds . . .

After a fairly long stretch on foot, they had to wait more than half an hour for the bus to the Tiburtino. To make up for this bad luck, they were fortunate in the purchase of the shoes, being able to discover, after much searching ( the shoes noted by Ida had unfortunately been sold just a few days before), a real pair of little boots, covering the ankles, the like of which Useppe had never owned. They actually seemed of real leather, the soles were of crepe; and to his mother's satisfaction (since in making such exceptional expenses for his wardrobe, she was worried about his
gr ),
they were almost two sizes too large for Useppe. But he was especially attracted by the laces, which were a handsome carmine color, in contrast with the pale brown of the footgear. In fact, the shopkeeper explained, these were
two-tone boots.

Useppe wanted to wea them immediately: and this was an advantage, because, as soon as they were outside the shoeshop, near the station, the disastrous traces of the air raids appeared around them; but he was too intent on his new feet, and paid no attention.

Meaning to go to the tavern, Ida chose some little side-streets, avoid ing, as a doubly frightening sight, the Via Tiburtina, with the long wall of the Verano cemetery. She was beginning to feel tired after her almost sleepless night; and as she turned towards the familiar places of San Lor-

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enzo, she stupidly began walking faster, at the blind stimulus that drives mares and donkeys towards the manger. But a resistance from Useppe's little hand, imprisoned in hers, restrained her. And in a sudden reawaken ing she lost the courage to continue on that route which for her had once been the way home. Then, giving up the visit to Remo, she turned back.