Lost Words (3 page)

My mother allowed herself to say that she wanted the door and the window reinforced—it was the least they could do, just like the other doormen on Via Icaro already had. The manager said we were free to reinforce whatever we wanted, but under no circumstances would the building reimburse us. The glass would be covered by the insurance, but everything else would have to be paid for by the doorwoman. One final and very important matter: since it was being vacated, Petillo's apartment needed cleaning from top to bottom. Miss Lynd deserved to be welcomed with the utmost regard.

The glass was replaced that very afternoon; the carpenter came the next day. He took the measurements and promised to deliver—within ten days—two dark wooden accordion boards, one for the glass in the door, the other for the glass in the window. He also convinced my mother that the door had to be protected with two iron bars. The metalsmith also came immediately to install the four wall-braces that would support the iron bars (but the bars wouldn't be ready for at least two weeks)—the loge took on the appearance of a jail cell.

Now it was my father's turn to sleep on the fold-out bed. Call it sleep! He spent most of the night on his feet, in front of the glass door. He would pull back the curtains to look out at the deserted lobby. Then he would get back in bed. The main door would slam. He would stand up and start spying again. From the bedroom, my mother could see the light. “Paride, go back to bed!” she would say in a muffled voice. But he ignored her. Someone was standing still in front of the elevator. Who was it? Then he would call for her help. “Christ, Elvira, come and see! How am I supposed to know everyone? Who signed the contract, Mary Mother of God, me or you?”

*.

My mother's gestures started to become maniacal, betraying a nervous haste that tore objects from her hands or led her to use excessive force. She had gotten clumsy and careless—she, of all people, who usually handled everything so easily and skillfully. Now whenever she served dinner she'd spill food on the table. If a meatball fell on the floor, she'd pick it up. But at the sight of the stained marble she'd go nuts. “Look! Look at this mess!” she'd yell, as if it were my fault. And before getting out a rag and scrub brush, she would slap me across the face without realizing it. She slammed doors, caught her dress on the chairs, tripped on invisible obstacles. Every day she broke something: a glass, a cup, an ashtray . . . In the kitchen, while she was using the knife, she cut her fingers and, more often than not, while she was eating, she would bump against the iron braces, which stuck out of the walls like giant teeth (I called them “fangs”). Her arms were always covered with bruises.

The trash chute got blocked up. Someone, to spare themselves the effort of going downstairs to the trash room, shoved a box or a fruit crate into it. Lately this was happening a little too often.

“May whoever it is drop dead,” Mom swore. “Stay here.”

She got the broom and went upstairs to take a look. After a few minutes I recognized the sound of her heels, which came at me faster and faster from one landing to the next,
ta ta ta ta ta tatatatatatatatatatatata
, like a summer rain, the first timid drops suddenly turning into a cloudburst. Tapping from below with the broomstick, she managed to remove the blockage stuck halfway up the trash chute.

When she came back from the trash room, I almost fainted—a wounded phantom appeared before me. The smell of blood forced me to turn away and close my eyes. Along with the blockage, a glass bottle had come down. I was sure my mother would bleed to death. She washed herself, removed a glass shard with her eyebrow tweezers, and I helped her bandage up her wrists. Then she asked me to wipe up the red spots that had dripped on the floor—which ran from the door to the windows to the bathroom sink.

My father returned from work, and since the blood kept seeping through the gauze, he accompanied her to the emergency room. I stayed behind to stand guard.

Signorina Terzoli came by to ask for a pint of milk. She always needed something. My mother was right to say that some people mistook the loge for a deli.

“My mother's not here,” I said boldly. “She had to go to the hospital. Someone threw a bottle down the chute.”

“Oh my goodness! . . . Who's going to clean the landings now?”

I didn't give her a drop of milk. I told her we were all out. The old crone looked me up and down with irritation, and for a second I was afraid she was going to search our fridge.

“Listen, Chino,” she went on to say with a sweeter tone, “is it true that Miss Lynd is a relative of Liz Taylor? That's what they say . . . What do you know about the lady? Have you met her?”

I was unable to satisfy her curiosity. And even if I could've, I wouldn't have said a thing to her.

*.

The sight of Elvira bandaged up to her elbows unleashed a thousand exclamations from the signore. For once they expressed some pity, but only because they shuddered at the thought of a shard of glass getting stuck in their own flesh. My mother, who thought any one of them might be the culprit, sighed: “I don't know who did this to me, but I wouldn't want to be in her shoes right now!” They ignored her all the same. They had already lost interest, distracted by the rumor that Petillo would be moving out soon and certain Miss Lynd would be taking his place. No one knew where she was from. Some suggested that she was arriving straight from Paris. Others ventured that she was Australian. Vezzali claimed that she had been the wife of an ambassador, but the others believed she had been married five or six times, like Liz Taylor—who she supposedly resembled—and had lived off her husband, until he lost all his money gambling or on younger mistresses. Terzoli kept insisting that she was related to Liz Taylor.

My mother cursed them, each and every one, because in her condition she could no longer work, like ironing for the signore in the buildings next door, or crocheting a blanket for Dell'Uomo's relative. The accident was going to cost her dearly. “You, my dear lady, owe me X amount for all the hours I was forced to sit around idly . . .” She would take her frustrations out on me, as if she were speaking directly with one of the signore: “And you, what do you think? You have to reimburse me, my dears! Do you take me for a fool? Well you're dead wrong. If I can't buy a house for myself on your account, then I'll kill you with my bare hands—I swear I will!”

One night, on his way back from the auto repair shop, Riccardo, the Lojacono's son, stopped by our loge.

“I heard about the accident, Signora Elvira. I'm so sorry.”

Mother never imagined that the boy, who had been such a rascal when he was little, could ever have spoken to her that way, and with gratitude, she told him that he had become a fine young man, that holding down a job was good for him. Riccardo blushed, because the compliment had come from a woman who was still quite pretty, but also because, in all probability (the suspicion came to me immediately), he considered them undeserved. He, too, by coincidence, had a bandage on his wrist. To break free from my mother's insistent stare, he explained that a few days earlier a steel pipe had fallen on his arm . . . Only a sap like my mother would've believed it. After he left she exclaimed, “What beautiful blue eyes.”

*.

Signora Aldrovanti refused to pay for damages: my mother had gotten hurt, but it was her own fault—she knew there were certain risks in the trash room, she should've been more careful, the way a good doorwoman is expected to be. You have to pay for your mistakes. Next time she should wear safety gloves. “And if next time the glass ends up in my eyes?” mother protested to me. “What am I supposed to do? Put on a ski mask before I enter the trash room?”

To prevent more accidents, I made five signs, one for each floor of the building, which I taped to the balcony doors.

IT IS PROHIBITED TO THROW GLASS
BOTTLES DOWN THE TRASH CHUTE

Now my father had to do the chores before leaving for the factory. He got up at five, raked the leaves in the courtyard, mopped the landings, dusted the main entrance, and polished the elevator panels and the mailboxes. During the day the trash bags were replaced by the neighboring doorwoman, from Via Icaro 18, whom mother had promised to compensate with a wool sweater as soon as her wounds were healed. She kept watch—the only thing she could still do—with her forearms resting on the table.

Idleness was making her even more irritable. She was constantly yelling at me: “Stand still!” “Don't touch!” “Shup up!” Or, if another little boy was within range, she would start picking on him for getting mud on the hall carpet or yelling at him for not saying hello when he passed by on his way home from school. She would follow him up the stairs like a woman possessed, raising her bandaged wrists. “Hey, you!” she would shout. “What did I tell you?” The child would stutter, “Excuse me,” not knowing what he was being accused of. Ignoring his apologies, she would make a scene that always culminated in an attack on the upbringing he'd received from his parents: “Go ahead and tell them. I've got a piece of my mind for them, too!”

*.

Hoping to lift her spirits, Dad thought it would be a good idea to invite a colleague to lunch the next Sunday. He explained that the guest was Tavazzi, a union organizer, who, like all union organizers, had sold out to the bosses. Not to mention that he was an opera lover, a
loggionista
. But for now, given what had just happened to him, they had to turn a blind eye. Two of his three children had been hit by a car on their way to school, dying instantly. The only one left was the youngest, who was more or less the same age as me.

My mother was happy to invite the poor things over, especially since we had no friends apart from the two neighboring doorwomen, who every now and then dropped by for a cup of coffee.

On Sundays the loge was closed. Even if we were having a grieving family over, we could still pretend it was a holiday. Despite the curtains pulled over the door and window, the iron braces in the wall, the fuse box and the intercom, we could still act like we were living in a normal house, like everyone else. My mother, cursing the bandages on her wrists, cooked enough for an army.

If we hadn't been aware of the tragedy, we wouldn't have noticed anything amiss about our guests. When mother said, “Condolences,” according to the ritual she had been taught since childhood, they reacted as if it were the dumbest thing they had ever heard. We looked like the ones who were in mourning.

They ate heartily. Signora Tavazzi was not particularly friendly—she seemed more shy than suffering, even a little surly, in the unique manner of certain southern Italian women (she was, in fact, from Puglia—she reminded me of one of the tenants, originally from Molfetta, Signora Perotta, who had lived on Via Icaro for only a short time but stood out for her haughty peasant airs). She didn't even ask mother why her wrists were bandaged, a fact that couldn't have escaped her. So Mom volunteered the information, though obviously minimizing the gravity of her injuries—the accident was nothing compared to losing two children simultaneously. Signora Tavazzi, having heard the explanation, remained emotionless.

Signor Tavazzi, on the other hand, was cheerful and light-hearted. He treated Dad like an old friend, and Dad played along with it. He was also friendly to Mom and me. In moments of silence he whistled. He spoke to us about Russia—what a strange place! People lining up everywhere, and total silence, even in the subways. Not to mention the prohibitions: don't go there, stop here . . . it was all you could do to keep from breaking the rules. The streetcars were operated by women. And everywhere they sold ice cream, even in that polar cold. And the Moscow subway—it reeked! But the Bolshoi was gorgeous. And only the best of the best went to school. And the chambermaids at the hotels, they could be had for the price of a Bic pen. And you could only buy caviar at stores for foreigners. Oh, and another good thing to buy was amber.

“Filomena,” he said to his wife, “show them the necklace I brought you back from Moscow.”

With two fingers, she lifted up a string of pink beads from her chest. Mother exclaimed: “Oh, so that's what amber is! I thought it was plastic . . . Filomena, did you go to Russia, too?”

“No, not me . . .” Pointing to the child sitting next to her, she added, “but he went . . .”

The boy didn't bat an eye, as if he hadn't even been mentioned. He had a nasty look on his face. We didn't talk at all. He even avoided my gaze. But I was so fascinated by what I knew that I couldn't take my eyes off of him—although I'd never met them, I could see the faces of his two dead brothers in his stare.

Once the long lunch ended, Dad and Signor Tavazzi went out. Dad had convinced him to go to the movies.

The women started clearing the plates. To break the silence, Mom told Signora Tavazzi, who was passing her the dirty dishes and glasses, that we would soon be moving: the landlord was selling and we were going to buy the Vignolas' one-bedroom apartment upstairs. The woman, as mechanical as a robot, listened without a trace of curiosity. She said that she and her husband had no intention of buying. They were fine with low-income housing. Some months they didn't even have to pay rent, since no one would come by to protest. And then, even if they did come by, who cared about the municipality! . . . She wouldn't say a word about the dead children. Not a word, even in passing.

“What a tragedy,” Mom said, to draw her out, unable to restrain herself any longer. “I'm so sorry—did they at least arrest the driver?”

Signora Tavazzi ignored her. Mom found nothing more to say and took a few deep breaths while she dried the dishes.

“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” the woman said out of the blue, “and we gotta learn to accept everything He sends us.”

*.

Mantegazza threw the grocery bags under the fuse box and flopped down on a chair. It took her a few minutes to catch her breath. She rummaged through her patent-leather purse, lit a cigarette, and after inhaling a puff of smoke, started to speak.