“You’re crazy,” said another. “Didn’t you realize he was pitching into the industrialists? He’s a Communist, it’s obvious. They say he’s a member of the Communist Party.”
“I don’t think he cares one hell for politics,” said a third. “He’s just a magnificent hoaxer, that’s all, and that’s the way he gets his Festival company to work. He did the same last year, when he dressed up the Papal Guard. I was ready to volunteer until I saw that fight. No Arts Director is going to hack me to pieces.”
Nobody raised his voice. They argued, but in fierce whispers. We all tramped down the stairs in the wake of the girls.
“One thing’s certain,” observed somebody. “If this leaks out to the C and E crowd there’ll be murder.”
“Whose murder?”
“After the show we’ve just seen? Why, theirs. The C and E.”
“Then I shall volunteer. Anything to have a go at that lot!”
“Same here. Up with the barricades!”
Loss of face had been recovered. They stood in the piazza, still arguing, discussing, and it was plain that bitterness ran dangerously high between the C and E students and the other Faculties. Then they drifted uphill towards the university and the students’ hostel. I waited until the figure I had noticed standing on the Duomo steps came to join me.
“Well?” said Carla Raspa.
“Well?” I answered.
“I never wanted to be a man until tonight,” she said. “Like the American song, I thought ‘Anything they can do I can do better.’ Except, so it seems—fight.”
“Perhaps there will be parts for women, too,” I said. “He’ll recruit you later. There are always women in a crowd, to scream and throw stones.”
“I don’t want to scream,” she said, “I want to fight.” Then looking at me with no less contempt than the student girls, she said, “Why didn’t you volunteer?”
“Because,” I answered, “I’m a bird of passage.”
“That’s no reason,” she answered. “So am I, if it comes to that. I can leave at any time, take my lectures elsewhere. Get a transfer. Not now, though. Not after what I’ve heard tonight. It could be…” she paused, while I lighted her cigarette, “it could be that this is what I’m looking for. A purpose. A cause.”
We started walking down the via Rossini.
“Would acting in a Festival play give you a purpose?” I asked.
“He wasn’t talking about acting,” she said.
It was still early, and because it was Saturday evening the people were strolling up and down the street, in couples or family parties. Not many students, or so I judged. They had gone home until Sunday evening. The young who strolled the streets came from the shops, the banks, the offices. These were the native Ruffanesi.
“How long has he been here?” I asked.
“Professor Donati? Oh, some years. He was born here, fought in the war as a fighter-pilot, was given up for dead, then returned and took a postgraduate course. He stayed on as lecturer and finally became adopted by the Ruffano Arts Council as their bright boy, until a few years ago they voted him Director. He’s the darling of some of the powers that be, and bitterly resented by others. Not by the Rector. Professor Butali believes in him.”
“And the Rector’s lady?”
“Livia Butali? I wouldn’t know. She’s a snob. Keeps herself to herself and thinks of nothing but music. She comes of an old Florentine family and won’t let you forget it. I hardly think Professor Donati would have much time for her.”
We had come to the piazza della Vita. I had forgotten, until that moment, my promise to take my companion out to dinner. I wondered if she had forgotten it too. We crossed over in the direction of the via San Michele, and stopped outside the door of Number 5.
Then abruptly she held out her hand. “Don’t think I’m unfriendly,” she said. “The truth is, I want to be alone. I want to think about what we saw tonight. I shall heat myself some soup and go to bed. Have I let you down?”
“No,” I said, “I feel exactly as you do.”
“Another time, then,” she nodded. “Perhaps tomorrow, it all depends… Anyway, you’re a neighbor, you’re just down the street. We can always find each other.”
“Naturally,” I said. “Good night. And thank you.”
She let herself in at the door of Number 5, and I continued down the street to 24. I entered cautiously. No one was about. I could hear the sound of television coming from the Silvanis’ living room.
I took up the telephone directory lying on a table in the hall beside the telephone, and searched the pages. Donati. Professor Aldo Donati. The address, 2, via dei Sogni.
I went out again into the street.
9
My walk took me past our old home and nearly to the top of the via dei Sogni, before it curved to the right into the via dell’8 Settembre above the university. Number 2 was a tall, narrow house standing on its own, looking down towards the church of San Donato and the long via delle Mura that encircled the city. In former days this had been our doctor’s house, good Dr. Mauri, who came and visited me whenever I coughed and wheezed—I was said to suffer from a weak chest—and I remember that he never used a stethoscope for the purpose of listening to my breathing but always laid his ear flat against my naked chest, gripping my small shoulders as he did so, a sudden proximity which I found distasteful. He was middle-aged even then, and must now be dead, or long past practicing his medicine.
I came close to the house and saw the nameplate—Donati—on the right-hand door beneath the double entrance. This double entrance gave access both to the via dei Sogni and, through a half-passage, to the grassy slope beyond and the stone steps descending to the church of San Donato. To the left was the porter’s domain, used in the old days by Dr. Mauri’s cook.
I stared at the nameplate. We had had a similar plate at Number 8. It had been Marta’s pride to keep it polished, and it could, with a little imagination, be the same. There was a bell beside it. I put my finger on the button and pressed. I could hear the summons within. No one answered. Aldo must live alone, or, if not alone, whoever lived with him was now in the Room of the Cherubs at the ducal palace in his company.
I rang once again to make sure, but there was nothing. I turned and looked opposite at the porter’s door. I hesitated a moment, and then rang that instead. After a moment the door opened, and a man asked my business. The bushy eyebrows, the hair en brosse, though grizzled, were familiar. Then I remembered. He had been a comrade-in-arms of my brother’s, one of the ground crew at the aircraft base. He had attached himself to Aldo, and once my brother had brought him home on leave. Save for turning gray, he had not changed. I had. Nobody, looking upon a man of thirty-two, would remember the boy of ten.
“Professor Donati,” he told me, “is not at home. You will find him at the ducal palace.”
“I know that,” I answered. “I’ve already seen him there, but not in private. My business is personal.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I cannot tell you when the professor will be back. He hasn’t ordered dinner. If you care to leave your name you could always telephone him for an appointment.”
“The name is Fabbio,” I said, “but he would not know it.” I was not sure whether I cursed the anonymity of my stepfather’s heritage or blessed it.
“Signor Fabbio,” answered the man. “I will remember. If I do not see Professor Donati tonight I will tell him in the morning.”
“Thank you,” I said, “thank you. Good night.”
“Good night, signore.”
He closed the door. I stood by the double entrance looking onto the via dei Sogni. I had remembered his name. Jacopo. He had been ill at ease when my brother brought him home on leave, believing himself out of place. Marta had seized the situation at a glance and taken him into the kitchen with herself and Maria Gighi.
I wondered whether it would be any use going back to the ducal palace and looking for my brother there. No sooner thought than insta
ntly dismissed. He would be attended by his bodyguard, perhaps by the whole crowd of adulating students.
I was about to step out of the porched entrance when I heard footsteps approaching. I looked and saw that it was a woman, and the woman Carla Raspa. I withdrew through the double entrance and stood behind the open doorway on the eastern side. She could not see me, but I could see her. When she came to Aldo’s door she did as I had done and rang the bell. She waited a moment, glancing over her shoulder at Jacopo’s entrance, but made no attempt to ring his bell. Then she felt in her bag, and bringing out an envelope pushed it through the letter box to the floor within. I could sense the disappointment in her drooping shoulders. She went out once more into the via dei Sogni and I heard the patter of her high heels die away. Getting rid of me had been an excuse. No bowl of soup and bed for Carla Raspa. She must have had this in mind as soon as we left the ducal palace. Now, frustrated, she would find the soup more welcome, but she would have to drink it alone.
I waited until I judged her well ahead and out of sight and then I, in turn, returned to the via San Michele. This time I penetrated to the Silvani sanctum and explained to the signora that I had not eaten. Anything would do. Switching off the television she got up, protesting hospitality, and pushed me into the dining room, her husband following to keep me company. I told them I had been to the ducal palace by invitation. They seemed impressed.
“Are you going to take part in the Festival?” inquired the signora.
“No,” I answered, “no, I think not.”
“You should do so,” she insisted. “It’s a great thing for Ruffano, this Festival. People come for miles to see it. Last year many had to be turned away. We were lucky. My husband managed to get seats in the piazza Maggiore and we watched the procession of the Papal Guard. It was so realistic that I said afterwards we might have been living in those times. When the Rector blessed me, in his guise as Pope Clement, I felt I had been blessed by the Holy Father himself.”
She bustled around, helping me to food and drink.
“Yes,” agreed her husband, “it was magnificent. They say this year it will be even better, despite the Rector’s illness. Professor Donati is a great artist. Some feel he has missed his vocation. He ought to be a film director, instead of giving up his time to the Arts Council here. After all, Ruffano is only a small city.”
I ate, more from emptiness than hunger. Excitement and emotion were still at fever-point.
“What sort of a fellow is he, this Professor Donati?” I asked.
The signora smiled and rolled her eyes. “You saw him tonight, didn’t you?” she said. “Well, you can judge for yourself what a woman thinks of him. If I were half my age, I wouldn’t let him alone.”
Her husband laughed. “It’s his dark eyes,” he said. “He has a way with him, not only with the women, but with the municipality too. Whatever he asks for, he gets. Seriously, though, he and the Rector between them have done great things for Ruffano. Of course, he’s a native. His father, Signor Donati, was Superintendent at the palace for many years, so he knew what was wanted. Do you know that he came back here, after the liberation, to find that his father had died in a prison camp, and his mother had run off with a German general, taking the younger brother with her—his whole family, you may say wiped out? It takes guts to accept that. He stayed. Gave himself to Ruffano, has never looked elsewhere. Now, you can’t help admiring the man for that.”
Signora Silvani pushed fruit upon me. I shook my head.
“No more,” I said. “Coffee only.” I took one of the signore’s cigarettes. “Then he never married?”
“No. You know what it is,” said the signora. “When a young man comes home in a state of shock—he was a pilot, and he was shot down and joined the Resistance—and hopes to rejoin his family, it doesn’t make him love the opposite sex better to learn that his mother has decamped with a German. My opinion is that it sickened him with women for good.”
“Ah, no,” said her husband, “he’s recovered. After all, he was only a boy at the time. Professor Donati must be forty now. Give him time. He’ll find himself a wife when he’s ready for marriage.”
I drank my coffee and stood up.
“You look tired,” said Signora Silvani with sympathy. “They are working you too hard at the library. Never mind, it’s Sunday tomorrow. You can stay in bed all day if you feel like it.”
I thanked them and went upstairs. I flung my things off, my head still bursting, and lay down on the bed. But not to sleep. Only to see Aldo’s face in the flickering firelight of the Room of the Cherubs, that pale, unforgettable face, and to hear again the loved, the feared, the well-remembered voice.
After tossing for two hours I got out of bed, opened the window and stood there, smoking a cigarette. The last loiterer had gone home, and all was still. I looked up the street and saw that the shutters on the first floor of Number 5 were open, as mine were. A woman was leaning out, also wakeful, also smoking a cigarette. If I could not sleep, neither could Carla Raspa. We were wakeful for the same cause.
The church bells roused me next morning from the fitful sleep into which I had eventually fallen. First at seven, then at eight. The Duomo, San Cipriano, then the others. Not the chimes for the hours, but the summons to Mass. I lay in bed and thought how we used to go, the four of us, my father, my mother, Aldo and myself, to High Mass in San Cipriano. Those were the early days before the war. We would set forth, dressed for Sundays, Aldo resplendent in his uniform of the Fascist Youth organization. The girls had an eye for him even then. We would walk down the hill to San Cipriano, and my martyrdom near the altarpiece of Lazarus would begin.
I got up and threw wide the shutters I had closed last night. It was raining. Rivulets of water ran in the gutters. A few people hurried by bent under umbrellas. Down the street the shutters on the first floor of Number 5 were tightly closed. I had not been to Mass since my schooldays in Turin. At least, not by intention. Sometimes I would escort a flock of tourists bent on sightseeing, and, pausing near the high altar in whichever church we were visiting, be obliged to stand and stare. Now I would go of my own volition.
I was half-dressed when a knock on the door announced Signora Silvani’s arrival with rolls and coffee. “Don’t move,” she said. “Look at the weather. There’s nothing to get up for.”
I had said the same thing to myself over the years when chance brought me a free Sunday, wet or fine. Nothing to get up for in Turin or in Genoa. Now the world had changed.
“I’m going to Mass in San Cipriano,” I said.
She nearly dropped the tray. Then she put it carefully on the bed. “Amazing,” she said. “I thought nobody went to Mass anymore, except old people and the very young. I’m glad to hear it. Do you always go?”
“No,” I said, “but this is a special occasion.”
“It’s Lent,” she said. “I suppose all of us should go in Lent.”
“My Lent is over,” I said. “I’m going to celebrate the Resurrection.”
“You’d do better to stay in bed and wait for Easter,” she told me.
I drank the coffee and finished dressing. My head no longer reeled. Even my hands were still. The rain did not matter, poor Marta’s death did not matter despite the manner of it. Later in the day I would see Aldo. For the first time in my life I held the cards; I was prepared for it and he was not.
I went out of the house into the rain, the collar of my light overcoat that had to do duty for a raincoat turned high up to my ears. The shutters were still closed at Number 5. Crossing the piazza were a few stragglers, bent on the same mission as myself. Others stood huddled under the colonnades waiting for the bus that brought the Sunday papers, or waiting for another bus to take them out of Ruffano. A few young people, braving the weather, were setting forth on vespas.
“It won’t last,” somebody shouted above the roar of his machine. “They say the sun is shining on the coast.”
The summons from San Cipriano rang forth. Not so
deep as the Duomo, but for me more solemn, more compelling, with a sudden urgency before the hour struck as though to hurry laggards to their knees.
Once inside, moved by the familiar somber smell, I was struck by the paucity of people. In childhood days we had arrived early because my father wished to take his accustomed place. The church had been full, with the people standing in the side aisles. Not so today. The numbers were halved. Mostly family parties, women and young children. I went and stood near the side-chapel, feeling that I was fulfilling some agelong rite. The gates of the chapel were open, but no light above the altarpiece shone upon the face of Lazarus. The picture was veiled by the dimness. So were the other pictures in the church, and the statues, and the crucifixes. Then I remembered that it must be Passion Sunday.
I heard the sung Mass through, letting the thin voices of the boy choristers seep through me without pain. My mind was empty. Or perhaps I dreamed. A middle-aged priest I did not recognize gave a twenty-minute sermon warning us of perils past, of perils still to come, that the Lord, the Christ, still suffered for our sins. A child close to me yawned, his small face white with fatigue, and a woman who might have been my mother nudged him to attention. Later, the few communicants shuffled to the rails. They were mostly women. One woman, well-dressed, her head covered with a black lace veil, had knelt throughout the Mass. She did not go to the rails. Her head was bowed in her hands. When it was all over, when the priests and the choristers had gone, the people dispersing with their faces solemn still yet somehow eased, their duty done, she rose to her feet and turned, and I saw that it was Signora Butali. I walked ahead, and waited for her outside the church. The boy on the vespa had been right. The rain had stopped. The sun that had been shining on the coast had broken through to Ruffano.
“Signora?” I said.
She looked at me with the blank eyes of someone far away brought back unwillingly to a less pleasant world. “Yes?” she answered.
I saw that I meant nothing. I had left no trace. “Armino Fabbio,” I said. “I called at your house yesterday with some books.”