History (83 page)

JANUARY-J UNE

In Sicily, the landowners react to the peasants' and farm-la borers' struggle for the right to survive by organizing a series of assassinations of trade-union leaders.

In Rome, the Constituent Assembly (with the Communists voting in favor) confi the Concordat between t/1e State and the Church, a pact stipulated by the Fascist regime with the Vatican.

As the civil war in Greece continues, Britain asks tl1e United States to intervene, supporting t/1e monarchist reaction against t/1e partisan resistance. For the occasion, President Truman, in a speech to Congress, reads a mes sage in which he commits the United States not only to intervention in Greece, but in any country threatened by Communism, and he urges all nations to defend themselves against the Red menace (Truman Doctrine). This new line of United States diplomacy upsets the World War Two alliances and begins the cold war between the two blocs, on either side of the
Iron
Curtain.

To meet the immediate and future demands of the cold war, which requires, fi of all, control of the smaller nations, the two Great Powers ( United States and USSR ) promptly recur to the means of power most typical of eacl1: fi for the Americans, and directly coercive for Stalin's Russia. Through the Marshall Plan, the United States, with massive eco nomic aid, intervenes in the internal crises of the countries of its own bloc, ruined by the war (Italy and West Germany included ); w/1i/e on the part of the USSR, Sovietization imposed from above begins in the satellite countries, with the exploitation of their material resources-a/ready virtually exhausted-which are transferred to the Soviet Union.

Urgent revival of the armaments race, and especially, the competition for the atomic secret, till now a monopoly of the United States.

In the countries of the Western bloc, intern confl is exacerbated between the right-wing and center parties and the parties of the Left.

In Greece, the civil war persists.

In China, victorious counteroff of the Red Army. In Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh rejects the armistice terms off by the French.

In Sicily, a peaceful demonstration of peasants ends in a massacre treacherously carried out by a local bandit in the pay of the landowners.

A new government is formed in Italy, headed by De Gasperi ( center party), with the exclusion of the Communists.

JULY-SEPTEMBER

Af thirty years of struggle, led by Mahatma Gandhi, using the non violent methods of passive resistance, against the British Empire, India obtains independence. The territory is divided into two Nations: India

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(with a religious majority of Hindus) and Pakistan ( with a majority of Moslems) . Tlwusands of refugees of the opposing religious minorities seek safety, crossing the respective borders. A bloody confl ensues between Hindus and Moslems, with a million dead.

TJ1e process of self-liberation of the colonized peoples (already in progress since the fi decades of tl1e century and accelerated by tl1e political changes in tl1e present world ) now reaches a decisive pl1ase. Tlle breakdown of the colonial Empires has already been sensed by tl1e Powers concerned, some (not all) of wl1icll are persuaded to give way. Colonialism is then replaced by neo-colonialism, namely tlle economic subjugation of tl1e former colonies, supported by the Powers tluough tlle purchase of their raw materials, the ownersllip of tlleir industries, and the transformation of tl1eir territories (necessarily underdeveloped ) into immense markets for their own industrial products (arms included) .

OCTOBER-DECEMBER

In the Eastern bloc, tl1e Cominform is founded (Information Center of European Communist Parties ).

Peace negotiations concern the unsolved problem of Germany are broken off by the Powers of the two blocs.

Feverish race to capture the American atomic secret, with intense espionage between the two blocs, spy hunts, death sentences, etc.

In the United States, the fi missiles are produced, along the line of those made in Germany during the Second World War . . . . .

4 1 4 H I S T O R Y . . . . . . 1 9 47

weightless in a world of weights

measureless in a world of measures

M A R I N A C V E T A E V A

1

"Hello! Who's that? This is Useppe. Who is it?"

"Yes, it's me! This is mamma, yes. What did you want to tell me, Useppe?"

''I'm sorry
Segnora"
( the voice of Lena-Lena has intervened) "he made me call the number and now he can't think of anything to say!!"

Lena-Lena's laughter, unsuccessfully repressed, is heard, accompanied by Bella's joyous barking. Then, after a very brief grumble of argument at the end of the line, the receiver is hastily hung up.

Towards the end of winter, a telephone had been installed in Ida's house, and this was the fi call she had received from it ( she had confi

her school's number to the concierge and to Lena-Lena, warning them, however, to call only for urgent communications . . . ) . Useppe, especially at the beginning, couldn't resist the temptation of that speaking object attached to the wall, even if, in handling it, he was then as clumsy as a savage. At its daily ring (Ida telephoned every day at ten-thirty, during recess ) he rushed to it, followed by Bella at a run; but when Ida greeted him, he could only answer, as a rule : "Hello! Who's that? This is Useppe. Who is it? . . ." etc., etc. The only person who called that number was Ida, and Useppe, for his part, had nobody else to ca in Rome. Once he dialed a number at random, only two digits, and Correct Time answered. It was a lady's voice, and he continued insisting: "Hello! Who is it?" while she, irritated, went on doggedly repeating : "It is exactly eleven forty one!" Another time, there was an unscheduled call, early in the morning, but it was somebody who had dialed the wrong number; and from the other end of the line, after having made a mistake, for some reason or other he took it out on Useppe! Then as the days went by Useppe lost interest in tha t awkward, irresolute object. At her usual daily call, Ida heard a shy, impatient and almost listless voice answer, saying "yy . . .
"
( "Have you eaten?"
"ess
. . . yyyes!" "Are you all right?" "Yyes . . .
"
) which then rapidly concluded : "goodbye, goodbye!"

During the winter, Useppe had been completely spared his attacks.

The day after that fi fall in November, his mother had rushed to confi

in the doctor, alone this time; and on this occa Ida had revealed also the secret of her own childhood spells, which she had never ever revealed to anyone before, not even to her husband : seeing and hearing again in every detail, as she spoke of it, the excursion she had made as a child on the little donkey to Montalto with her father, and the visit to the doctor friend, who had tickled her and made her laugh . . . But the lady doctor, with her usual brusqueness, cut short these complica confessions, de claring with authority: "No, Signora. No, no. It has been proved certain diseases are not hereditary! At most you can inherit a tendency, PER-

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HAPS, but that hasn't been proved. And it seems quite clear to me, as far as I can tell, that your personal case was different. There it was a matter of ordinary hysteria; whereas here we're dealing with a diff set of phe nomena" ( "I immediately saw something strange," she murmured, half to herself, at this point, "in that boy's eyes" ). In conclusion, the doctor tore a page from her prescription pad and wrote out for Ida the address of a specialist, a Professor, who could give the little patient an
electroencepha logram.
And the abstruse word promptly frightened Iduzza.
As
we already know, everything pertaining to the invisible realms of electricity fi her with a barbarian distrust. As a child, when there were bursts of lightning and thunder, she would hide in fear (if possible, she would run beneath her father's cloak); and even now, as an old woman, she was afraid to touch wires or even to screw a light bulb into a socket. At the long threatening word, which she had never heard before, her eyes grew large, raised shyly to the doctor, as if the lady had mentioned the electric chair. But intimidated by the Signorina's peremptory manners, Ida didn't dare reveal her own ignorance.

A little later, the events surrounding Ninnuzzu estranged her from every other concern; and in consequence, the projected visit to the special ist abandoned her conscious mind. In reality, she feared this unknown Professor's diagnosis as a capital sentence admitting no appeal.

The deceptive course of Useppe's illness encouraged her defensive inertia. In fact, the unnamed tyranny which had usurp the strength of the little tyke since autumn seemed to move away, as if exhausted, after having felled him once: faintly and steathily accompanying him, and at times allowing itself to be forgotten, as if it had decided this was enough. In the evening, when bedtime came, Ida would give him the usual sedative to drink, and he would greedily stick out his lips, like an infant towards the breast; and he would soon fall into a heavy and untroubled sleep, to which he abandoned himself, supine, his fi clenched, his arms out on the pillow, moti for ten hours or more. When the little wound of his bitten tongue had healed, he retained no visible trace of the
access
of November 16th. Only, anyone who had known him before could perhaps notice in his eyes (already
too beautiful,
according to the Doctor) a new, fabulous difference, such as perhaps remained in the eyes of the fi sea men after the crossing of immeasurable oceans still nameless on the maps. Unlike them, Useppe knew nothing, before or afterwards, of his voyage. But perhaps, unknown to himself, there remained in his retina an upside down image, as they say of certain migratory birds who, in their ignorance, during the day along with the sunlight can still see also the hidden stars.

For Ida, this testimony of Useppe's eyes was noticeable only in the color. Their mixture of dark blue and pale aquamarine had become, if

4 1 8 H I S T O R Y
. . .
.
. .
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that were possible, even more innocent and almost unexplorable in its double depth . One day, coming suddenly into the kitchen, she found him silent on the step of the stove, and their gazes met. Then at the encounter, she saw in Useppe's eyes a kind of impossible, childish awareness, unspeak ably tormented, which said to her, "You know!" and nothing else, beyond any exchange of logical questions and answers.

In the month of February, Lena-Lena was sent to work for a stocking mender, so she had to give up her little visits in Via Bodoni. But to look after Useppe now there was Bella, who was enough.

The times of daily steaks, for Bella, were over, and of baths at the beauty parlor, and of all the other distinguished comforts she had enjoyed in the days of Ninnarieddu, who used to brush her and comb her and even massage her with his own hands, and swab her eyes and ears delicately with wet absorbent cotton, et cetera. Now, for food, she had to be satisfi in general, with pasta and vegetables, with the sole addition of some extra morsel that Useppe would take for her from his plate (not letting Ida see). And as for her toilet, it consisted exclusively of a kind of dry bath she would give herself during their walks, using her personal method : namely, rolling in the dust and then shaking herself fearsomely, imitating a cyclone cloud. However, she really preferred this private system to those other de luxe baths, with soaps from Marseilles and hot water, which she had always disliked.

She was upset, and not a little, on the other hand, at having to adapt herself to the minimum space of one or two little rooms : she, who had been used to journeys, excursions, and the life of the street, and even earlier (in her ancestral experience) to the immense grazing-lands of Asia! During that prison winter in Via Bodoni, on certain days she even had to perform her corporal functions on wastepaper and newspapers. Still, she was resigned to any sacrifi if it meant being with Useppe night and day.

Even on her new diet of mush, good-naturedly making the best of it, she had regained her sturdy shape and her healthy muscles. Her snowy coat now seemed a bit blackish, disheveled, and full of snarls. And though she still wore her silver-plated collar with Bella written on it, some neighbor hood kids had named her Crummy. She was often to be seen busily scratching her fl and she stank heavily of dog. Indoors, this stink of hers had been communicated also to Useppe; so at times various dogs circled around him, sniffi him, perhaps wondering if he too wasn't some kind of puppy.