Lost Words (21 page)

“Ippolito,” said my mother gravely, interrupting his improvised lesson on Latin literature and forcing herself to step down from her ecstasy. “I have to tell you something. It's important . . . the other tenants have taken a dislike to you. Excuse me for speaking so frankly, but this is no time for joking around. I told you they were horrible people.”

Ippolito shrugged his shoulders. “What do you mean they've taken a
dislike
to me?”

“They think you're strange.”

“Maybe I am.”

My mother started to get worked up. “Come now, please try to understand. Don't be so hard-headed! For once you need to take me seriously. Nasty rumors are circulating about you.” She hesitated for a moment. “They think you're
conceited
,
arrogant
.”

“Maybe I've become that way lately . . .”

“They hate you!”

“Not everyone is capable of love.”

“Ippolito, I'm not joking! These people can't stand you!”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Because that's the way they are. There's no rhyme or reason. You live alone, and no one knows what you do for a living or how you pay the bills. You're an oddball to them. There are only families here: the husbands work, the wives take care of the house, and the children go to school.”

“But there are a few spinsters here, too.”

“No one is worried about the spinsters, my dear Professor! At most, people feel sorry for them, because no one wants them. But a man, that's another question . . . For the other tenants you're a
mystery
. Can you get that into your head? They don't know you, and since you're always in your own world, inside your own house, they all come up with the wildest ideas. That's the way people are. We all have people who dislike us. We have to be on our guard. Otherwise people will destroy us!”

“I would never have imagined my life could be the subject of so much interest. Besides, every person is a mystery, to himself and to others.”

“These monsters don't care about your reasons! A word to the wise: if you don't get them to stop immediately, they won't give you a moment's peace. Do something, please. That way they'll stop talking about you.”

“Elvira, you underestimate me,” Ippolito observed with a hint of resentment. “Do you really think they can take away my
peace and quiet
so easily? I can't believe the opinion you have of me! Do you really think I'm so weak?”

His words did little to reassure her. “Listen to me, Professor. With everything I've seen, I know what I'm talking about.”

To put an end to the discussion, he finally gave in. “Alright, I'll try to do something. But what do you suggest I do, you, who are so wise?”

She was too jealous to advise him to talk with the signore of the building. “Why don't you invite Signora Dell'Uomo's husband to the stadium?” she suggested, half-heartedly.

“You've got to be kidding. And please don't tell me to invite him to lunch. I don't know how to cook.”

“Well, promise me that you'll do something. Something nice, that will show everyone how good you are, how kind . . . how
normal
!”

*.

“Children! Children!” he started calling from the balcony.

Since no one paid him any mind, he called on the intercom to ask me how to get them to come upstairs. He went down to the courtyard and managed to recruit only Rita, Rosi, and the Cavallo's son, Mirko. Everyone else said no. Signora Vezzali's son, Andrea, said the Professor was a pervert.

“A what?” asked Rita, wrinkling her nose.

In the end, Andrea came along, too.

The Professor cleared his table, and in the spot where I was used to seeing his Olivetti, he had placed a layer cake. What was the cake doing there? What were the others doing there, in
my house
? What did they know about the Maestra, about the Professor, about the dictionary? And why was Mirko sitting in the Maestra's armchair? Why was that little idiot Rosi leaving dirty fingerprints where I—and I alone—had the privilege and the right to lay my hands?

“You can sit there on the ground,” the Professor said to Rita, who was giggling like a ninny. “Unfortunately I don't have any more chairs. You can take turns. I've never had so many guests at once . . . Well now, here we are, all settled in. I'm happy that you came. Thank you. I'm sorry if I interrupted your games, but I wanted to meet you. My name is Ippolito.”

He shook everyone's hand and repeated his name. Then he cut five slices of the cake and served it. No one dared to speak. The only thing you could hear was the sound of mouths chewing.

“There's plenty more, if you like,” he encouraged them. “Andrea, hand me your plate and I'll give you another helping. You, too, Mirko. Don't be shy. Tell me about your vacations.”

Andrea said that he had been in Puglia, at summer camp. He said that he'd kissed three girls in one night. Mirko boasted that he'd touched his cousin's breasts.

“Enough of that!” Ippolito interrupted them. “This is getting too personal. Certain secrets shouldn't be told. Let's hear from the girls.”

Rita had visited the mother of Father Aldo in the mountains. Rosi had gone to Venice. Her aunt took her to Jesolo, on the seaside, and they ate
on the beach
.

“Why aren't you married?” Andrea asked Ippolito.

“Not everyone gets married. Do you want to get married?”

Andrea made a face that meant nothing. The two girls said that they really wanted to get married.

Mirko picked the Olivetti up from the ground and started playing with it. “Leave it alone!” I shouted, as if a thief were trying to rob me. I had never had the courage to touch the Olivetti. To me it was something prohibited, inviolable. Something
divine
.

Ignoring my jealousy, Ippolito slipped a clean sheet of paper under the roller and indicated to Mirko the letters of his name. Mirko hit the keys slowly and clumsily, and then he showed everyone the word, his name, like a trophy.

Frustrated, I stuttered: “I have to go.”

He didn't try to stop me.

I remained outside with my ear against the door, listening to the snickering of the two boys and the striking of keys at irregular intervals by clumsy fingers.

*.

“This is too much!” thundered Signora Vezzali, bursting into the loge.

We looked at her in dismay.

“Didn't anyone ever teach you to knock before entering,” my mother shouted at her.

“Yesterday the Professor invited my son up to his house!”

“I know. My son went, too. What of it?”

“What of it? I'm telling you it's disgraceful! As a mother I can't tolerate this. We have to step in and do something. Elvira, don't you see what happens on television?”

“I don't understand what you're so upset about. All the Professor did is offer a piece of cake to the children! First you complain that he's too aloof and now you don't like that he's being kind and hospitable. Tell me, what do you want from the poor man? He can't do anything without you criticizing him! Control yourself, please!”

“If anyone is going to give my son snacks it's me! Who does he think he is, this
Professor
?” Emphasizing the word with sarcasm, as if she were choking on saliva, she added, “The things my Andrea came back and told me! And all that talk about sex! He even told Andrea not to get married when he grows up! Don't you realize, Elvira, we have to be careful! The world is full of perverts and disgusting maniacs. They entice you with candy or cake, and then . . . I don't even want to think about it! That worm! We have to stop him! Well what can you expect from someone who killed his own mother?”

Signora Vezzali stood there in the loge spouting slander, like a rabid beast. Once she got it off her chest, she went back into the elevator.

We sat there waiting. We were expecting a call on the intercom or a visit from the seamstress, who never failed to appear when she heard screaming and yelling. But we didn't hear a word from anyone. A bad sign. A very bad sign. She had gotten him in trouble, and my mother was accusing herself. And now? Should she warn him or not? Maybe it would be better to leave it alone. He wouldn't believe her. Maybe Signora Vezzali was all bark and no bite. All she wanted to do was tell Elvira what a rotten mother she was. In the end, when everything was said and done, they were insults directed at her. Yes, better to forget the whole matter—in case she stirred up even more trouble . . . But why oh why hadn't she bitten her tongue? Why in the world had she given him such bad advice?

“We're such idiots!” she fretted. “The other tenants don't care for the Professor? So what! . . . Who cares! But no, I had to go sticking my big nose into it. Why, oh why? With all the good things I've done, with everything I keep doing for the people in this building—they haven't changed their opinion of me one bit! Now I look like a woman who can't protect her own son, who feeds him to the orca! I'm such an idiot! Why? . . .”

She kept on saying that she was an idiot and asking “Why?” deep into the night.

Before we closed, Vezzali came downstairs again and delivered a sheet of paper, written in bold, uppercase letters, to be distributed to all the owners in the building. Everyone, that is, except Professor Foschi, for obvious reasons. The flier called for a co-op meeting on Friday, the day after tomorrow, at the parish hall. There was only one item on the agenda:
OUR CHILDREN'S SAFETY. QUESTIONS AND STEPS TO BE TAKEN.
The doorwoman was urged to participate.

Fine, she would go to the assembly, since they had asked her, and she would give them a piece of her mind.

My father, sitting in his armchair with the newspaper, was overjoyed. Let the Professor play the professor, and the parents play the parents! . . . Ignoring or perhaps oblivious to my mother's drama, he tried to explain to us the historic compromise being forged between Communists and Christian Democrats, the country's two biggest political parties.

*.

Fewer than half of the owners showed up, but not a single one of the most vicious critics failed to appear.

“My dear fellow owners, thank you for turning out in such large numbers,” began Signora Vezzali, the chair of the meeting, pretending not to notice the many empty seats, “and thank you, Signora Lojacono, for coming forward and testifying about your awful experience. On everyone's behalf I also wish to thank the doorwoman, who can illuminate certain questions . . . So then, let us begin.” And she started reading from a sheet of paper that Signora Dell'Uomo handed to her.

“Very troublesome things are happening in our building. Let me begin with the latest. Last Wednesday, October 10, Professor Foschi invited, into his home, some of our children, including my own, and for reasons that can hardly be considered commendable. By means of a tasty snack (a layer cake), this ‘gentleman,' if he can be called that, tried to ingratiate himself with our young ones. It doesn't take a policeman to realize that this was a clear attempt at corrupting minors. Who in the world has ever seen an individual of that ilk, who barely nods when he runs into you, go to the trouble of offering a snack to strange children? This reeks to high heaven, that much is clear. I wouldn't be so concerned had I not observed in Professor Foschi such clear signs of imbalance and perversion. I'll leave aside his manners, which are so hypocritical and effeminate. I only wish to point out, as you all know, that he didn't shed a single tear at the death of his mother, that he suppressed the truth about her tragic demise, that he has never been married, that he has no job, or at least not a job he can mention. Nor does he ever receive visitors. Now isn't it odd that such a man—I can't even call him that—should invite our children into his home? And why is it that we know nothing about his private life? So much discretion can only hide a depraved and immoral existence. I would very much like to hear the opinions of those of you in attendance. The moment has come to step up.
WE OWE IT TO OUR CHILDREN
!”

“You said it was a layer cake?” Paolini specified.

“Yes,” Vezzali confirmed, pleased with herself. “He also offered them something to drink. My son told me it was orange soda, and God only knows whether there wasn't some powder mixed in.”

“You never know who you're dealing with,” whispered Signora Caselli to Signora Rovigo.

“And what if Professor Foschi was only trying to do something nice?” suggested Signora Zarchi, getting up from her chair. “Why do we always have to think that bad intentions are lurking behind every kind gesture? I think you're dramatizing the whole thing. My daughter was there and she told me that the Professor is a very nice man, a good person . . .”

“Your daughter's opinion doesn't count!” Terzoli jumped up. “Little children are gullible. Especially girls! That's why we're here. They wouldn't need our help if they knew how to recognize bad intentions.” And she looked lovingly at the crucifix that was hanging over the door.

“Signorina Terzoli is right,” Vezzali stepped in. “My son Andrea, who's a boy, understood perfectly that the Professor was setting a trap! ‘Mamma,' he told me, ‘if he'd tried to lay a finger on me, I would have kicked him between the legs.'”

“My Mirko stayed as close to the door as he could,” Signora Cavallo reported.

“You yourselves are saying that the Professor never raised a hand to your children,” Zarchi continued.

“If he'd even dared” the seamstress blurted out, “I would have carved his eyes out with my scissors!”

“And I'm telling you the Professor is an angel,” Signora Zarchi concluded. “What proof do you have he was a pervert? A layer cake?”

The two men burst out laughing.

“There's nothing to laugh about! Do we want our children to come home covered with cuts and scrapes?” hollered Dell'Uomo, furious, using a possessive adjective that was completely inappropriate. “Bloodied and bruised? Having lost their innocence? Is this what we want? The same thing that happened to Riccardo last year—forgive me, Signora Lojacano—happening to our children?”