After Auschwitz: A Love Story (20 page)

I look furtively into the terrace next door to see if my little boy is there, but he isn't. I notice that I'm coming to think of him as mine, realizing how much I miss not having a grandchild, someone with my genes. Hannah sighs and looks for a moment as if she is going to tell me something important; but she only sighs again and goes back to her desk. I give her a few minutes and then go inside. I walk casually to the bathroom and on the way back go over and kiss her on the neck.

She is staring at something that she covers hastily but not before I see the letter announcing that she has won a prestigious prize. She has leaned the announcement against a photo so she can see it better. The photo is of me. “Lifetime
achievement award,” she says smiling up at me. She waits for a response.

“You deserve it,” I say, nuzzling her neck.

As though she senses the grudging nature of my acknowledgment, she moves away.

“I have to write a letter now sweetheart, then I'll go and get us something nice for lunch al fresco,” she says. “I hope the elevator doesn't act up. The
signora
next door told me it had gone dead twice. She told me that I should wait until I hear the door click before pressing the floor button.”

I hardly listen. The main point that enters my awareness is that she is going out soon. It strikes me that I'd feel better if she were depressed. Her cheerfulness makes me more unhappy. She takes my ailments in stride, as long as she has that old typewriter of hers and can pound away on it.

I walk back to the terrace, feeling like an old lion pacing in its cage. How can I feel so ungenerous towards Hannah when I spent years building her up, showing her how to make use of the terrible things that happened to her, turn them into art? And now that she has succeeded, how can I begrudge this, especially as she continues to acknowledge what I gave her? And she seems almost glad of my weaknesses so she can show her willingness to care. I shake myself. Stop it! I go out to the terrace and sit with eyes closed, listening to the sound of my little wall fountain. It makes the space magical, a fourth dimension away from any care. I can imagine being beside a gentle brook—the kind that sings over small stones, and bubbles. There was a brook like that at the edge of our vineyards up in Todi. It came from a deep spring and I used to go “fishing” there with a string on a stick. I can't remember catching anything. Probably there were no fish, though the word
catfish
keeps coming to my mind.

While I am refreshing myself with memories of the deep green of the trees surrounding the spring, I hear Roberto saying hello. He is on the other side of the lattice, of course, and
he says
ciao
so softly that it could almost be the voice of my fountain, but when I open my eyes there he is.

“Would you like to come and visit?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says, “I would.”

So I get the key off the top of my
armàdio
just inside the door and I open the lattice. The
signora
had put out the wash earlier, and the shirts and jeans and underwear are waving in the breeze. She must have hung them very quietly. I wasn't aware of her doing it.

“I see you didn't bring your book,” I say. “Would you like to have more Oz? I'd be glad to read to you.”

He looks down at his feet.

“Mama took my book for the day as a punishment for teasing the baby.”

“What were you doing?” I ask him.

“I was only playing,” he answers. “I'd put out a finger and he'd try to catch it.”

“Maybe he's a little young for that,” I said.

“He tried but he couldn't—then he started to cry. If she had left us alone I would have let him…” He paused, looking unhappy.

“I'm sure you would have,” I said, somewhat insincerely, remembering my brother's taunts and petty cruelties.

“I'd like to go out,” he said all of a sudden, “and get an ice cream. You know, downstairs to the bar.”

They had a particularly nice selection—all homemade with pure natural ingredients. Before I could think of any reason not to undertake this adventure, I took him by the hand. What better way to soothe an unhappy child? Eating ice cream was one of the best memories of my childhood—the mouth still longing for the breast, placated by the cool semiliquid, the licking and sucking.

“What a good idea,” I said looking down at him. The
signora
might not like it—my mind skittered away from her possible disapproval—but we could be there and back in a jiffy.
No reason why she had to know.

A few minutes later Roberto and I stood in front of the trays, drinking in the sight of the mounds: raspberry and mixed fruit, chocolate truffle, chocolate with orange, chocolate chip, cookies and cream, sorbets in bright colors.

“Maybe I should bring some back for Mama,” he said, “and the baby.” His handsome face took on a worried expression as though he was trying to work out a puzzle that was too hard for his age.

“Let's have ours first,” I said. “Then we'll think about what to get them.” He shuffled from foot to foot. “In fact it might be better if we kept our little outing a secret between us two.”

“I wish you had a magic spell to make us invisible or a belt like Dorothy's that could zip us home in a flash.”

“Don't worry,” I said. “We'll take some back with us. Just relax now and enjoy your cone. You'd better lick around the other side. It's going to drip.” I stopped short of saying, “you'll really make Mama mad.” What was the matter with me? My thoughts kept turning to times when I'd had the best intentions but things turned out badly, like making a birthday cake for my mother and putting in salt instead of sugar. I shouldn't have even been in the kitchen and the cook, one of the few servants I really liked, got fired.

“Pick two flavors for them. Don't worry. I'll explain.”

He looked dubious. We took wild berry and chocolate and I carried the bag for him while he licked slowly around his cone's volcanic tip.

Our elevator is uncertain in the best of times, a green metal box with faux-wood trim. As we got in I tried to remember what Hannah had said about its newest glitch, something about waiting, but it seemed to be working all right. Roberto was dancing from one foot to another. Either he was excited at the thought of giving ice cream to his new Mama or he had to pee. The elevator crawled slowly up to the
fifth floor and stopped. Roberto threw open the inner door. Too late. I remembered we should have waited to hear a click as the mechanism released. I felt a chill, my hand trembled as I tried the door myself. It wouldn't open. Roberto looked stricken.

“Don't worry,” I told him. “One of the neighbors will come by and I bet they can open the doors from the outside. While we wait maybe you could tell me what you were up to in
The Magic of Oz
book. Or more about how the characters from all the books come to you at night and you imagine adventures for them before you go to sleep.”

“I was up to where Captain Bill nails the Beast to the ground with a stake. He doesn't die because nothing dies in Oz.”

“But he can be kept from harming anyone.”

“Yes,” sighs Roberto.

I seem to remember being reassured as a child by the absence of death in the
Oz
stories—did I write about that before? It was clearly a comfort to Roberto. Who knows? He may even imagined going to find his dead parents. Though of course he may not have imagined anything of the kind.

Just then I heard the heavy front door bang shut and what sounded like our downstairs neighbor, a loud-voiced blond whose parents owned the
fruttivendolo
down the block, talking to her dog. Then I heard her cursing to herself,
“Porco madonna. Porco miseria,”
as she tried to get a response from the elevator, gave up, and slowly climbed up the stairs. When I thought she had gotten to her floor, I called out to her that we were stuck. Could she help? She climbed the extra floor with still more curses and tried our elevator door. No luck.

“Is there someone else who could help? A repair man?”

She pulled out her cell phone—I could see her though the grill—and called.

“He won't be back until tomorrow morning,” she flipped her phone shut.

“What! We have to stay here overnight? That's impossible. I have a child here with me.”

Roberto who had been listening intently, started to cry.

“I have to pee,” he moaned, “I really have to pee.”

Just then the blond's elderly mother appeared, with a second sausage-shaped dog on a leash. It was getting to be like a Becket play.

“Don't worry
poverino,
don't
piànge.
Poor little thing,” she said. “You can pee through the grate.”

Just then the sausage dog started to bark.

“Zitta, quiet,” she yelled at him. “Your neighbor next door might have a wire,” she said,
“Signora
Bussola. I'll ask her.”

Signora
Bussola was Roberto's new Mama. He moaned.

“The ice cream we got for her is melting,” he sobbed. “It's coming right through the box.”

“Here, I'll take it,” I said. I took out my pocket handkerchief and made a show of wrapping it around the bottom of the container, though I knew it would soak through in a few minutes. Still, it quieted Roberto.

A more serious problem was that I was having to pee as well. It happened regularly whenever I got close to home. These days, usually by the time I got to the front door, there'd be a terrible urgency. I'd have to rush for the bathroom. I could feel the urgency growing as the blond's father joined the group outside the elevator. Then when I was thinking this couldn't get any worse, I saw a new pair of legs outside the grill, and I heard Roberto's new Mama's voice.

“What in the world is going on,” she asked. “Roberto are you in there?” she barked. I wondered how I'd ever been entranced by her nurturing qualities—how nice she was with her baby.

“Yes,” Roberto rubbed his nose with his sleeve. “And I have to pee.”

“I'll get my wire,” she said, and I could hear a collective sigh from outside. “Just hold on, Roberto.” But it is already
too late. I can see the pale lemon liquid trickling down his leg beneath his shorts. He crouches in a corner of the elevator and puts his hands over his head as though that would make him invisible. I know how he feels. My bladder is clamoring to let go. I know in a few minutes it will start to leak and then…

I hear someone say in the high pitched voice Italians use when something dramatic is going on, “Move, give the
signora
some space.”

There is the chink chink of metal against metal while she inserts her wire. I was too distressed to see exactly how it worked. But the door opened.

The
signora
walked into the elevator and took Roberto by the arm, pulled him outside, all the while peppering me with questions.

“How could you take him out without checking with me?” she asked in that operatic voice. “What sort of way is that to behave? I was about to call the police.” She shook Roberto's arm. “Did he hurt you?” she asked. Roberto wouldn't look at her, he just kept crying.

“I got you ice cream,” he whimpered. She softened slightly.

“You're just a child,” she said pulling the container out of my hand and throwing it into a plastic container the blond held out to her. “He's just a child but you, Renzo.” It suddenly hit me that she might think I was a pervert.

“Excuse me,” I said with as much dignity as I could, “but I have to…” I pushed my way through the onlookers to my door and unlocked it. All the time I was turning the double bolt she followed behind me, pulling at my jacket, trying to get a response from me. “Remember, I am your landlady as well as your neighbor. This is not a game. I don't want you to have anything more to do with my son.”

I managed to pull the door shut after me. I couldn't make it to the bathroom so I dashed into the terrace and peed in the corner by the drain. As I peed, I could still hear their voices.
A new voice was added, and I recognized my Hannah. My god, what if the
signora
wanted to evict us? She owns half the building. The rest of us only rent. She definitely has the decisive voice around here. After I finished and shook myself off I leaned out the window so I could hear better.

“No,” I heard the
signora
say. “No, I meant what I said. I don't want him having anything more to do with Roberto.”

“Renzo wasn't doing anything bad,” Hannah is saying, remembering perhaps how quickly her village neighbors had turned against her. “It must have frightened you dreadfully and I'm really sorry. He's fond of the boy. Roberto is lonely. He has suffered a terrible blow. It seems like a perfect match. A marriage made in heaven.” I hear Hannah laughing, trying to make light.

“Nothing happened, thank God,” Roberto's new mother persists. “But it could have. If Renzo got distracted and one of those motorcycles came speeding around the corner. I just can't treat it as a lark.” I could see that she wasn't going to bend.

“I don't want to seem cruel,” she went on in a softer voice, “but I shouldn't have to tell you about Renzo's lapses of attention. I've seen him wandering around like a lost soul, not knowing where he is. What if he had the boy with him? And then there is the alarm. It has gone off three times in the last month because he used the wrong code. The security of the whole building depends on that alarm. People are starting to ignore it,” she proclaimed. “I'm sorry to say that I think Renzo is a danger not just to Roberto but to the other tenants and to himself.” For a moment I recognize the
signora
with the baby and am confused about which she is: monster or caring parent. Both? It is too complicated for me right now.

I go into the bathroom to take a shower and calm myself down.