Little Misunderstandings of No Importance

  To play with Cleliuccia … it was all very easy to say. And it would have been easy enough during the unusual days that followed, after the wind from the African desert had damaged the roof, carrying sand even into the drawing room, through the hole made by a flower pot which had rolled against the glass door onto the terrace. But one day it was The Mystery of the Yellow Room and another Carmilla, Queen of the Witches’ Sabbath, and all those dolls lined up on the bookshelves and the half-dark room … I didn’t know what games to suggest; my stock was exhausted. Aunt Esther’s eyes were always shiny, and she had a vaguely absent air. After lunch she went to her room and stayed there the whole afternoon until she came out, wandered desolately about the house, and finally sat down at the spinet and stumbled through Chopin’s Polonaises. I could only tiptoe from one room to another, trying to think up something to do and keeping out of range of the severe eyes of Flora, who would have looked at me reproachfully because my aunt needed to rest and I was doing everything possible to disturb her: Why didn’t I go and snatch a breath of fresh air in the garden?

  It was a revelation. Anything else I could have imagined, but not that. At first I couldn’t believe it but on second thoughts it was quite credible: I remembered how my Aunt Esther had been two years before, a witty, energetic woman. She used to take Clelia and myself to the beach on the luggage rack of her bicycle, arriving hot and red in the face, with her eyes gleaming and, in a second she was out of the cabin, in her bathing suit and into the water, where she swam like a fish. Something important and incredible must have happened to reduce her to this condition. This is what happened, said Clelia; did I understand? I understood, yes, but who had done it? Clelia’s eye rolled wildly, a sign of extreme nervousness, but her mouth remained shut, as if she were afraid to pronounce the name. Never mind; I understood. And bewitched wasn’t the word; better possessed, since the sorcery was the work of a diabolical being. I could almost have laughed at the idea of Uncle Tullio as Satan, with his bow tie and pomaded hair, his formal and considerate ways. I felt sure, if she wanted to know a secret, that my father thought he was ridiculous. Well then, if that was the way I saw it, did I want her to tell me the whole truth, did I want to know what this fellow with the pomaded hair and the diabolical smile had been capable of doing? That handsome Tullio with his bow tie had killed her father, yes he had; he was at the root of all the trouble. No, he hadn’t exactly killed him with his own hands, of course, but it came to the same thing. He’d turned him in to the Germans, and she had proof, in the form of a certain letter, of which she’d make a copy to show me. And why, did I know why? Simply in order to cast a spell over that stupid mother of hers, to possess her money and her life, that was why. This seemed to me exaggerated, unthinkable, but I didn’t argue about it, because Aunt Esther had told me not to contradict Clelia; it was bad for her health and brought on an attack. But that night I couldn’t sleep. I dreamed of Uncle Tullio, wearing a trench coat, in command of a firing squad, with his bow tie sticking out from the trench coat collar. The man sentenced to death was Uncle Andrea, whom I had never known and whom I couldn’t see because he was too far away, standing with his back to the wall. I knew he was Uncle Andrea because he called out: I’m Clelia’s daddy! That cry woke me up in the middle of the night; the garden was full of crickets and the beach was empty. I stayed awake, listening to the roar of the sea for I don’t know how long, perhaps until daybreak. But in the morning everything was just as usual, and the idea of writing to my father seemed absurd. The house was so beautiful, so bright, Aunt Esther had suggested that I go with her to do the weekend shopping, Clelia was working with wax and Uncle Tullio would be arriving the next day. He’d take us to the café and on Sunday evening we might go to see Son of Tarzan at the open-air cinema. Besides, a promise is a promise and I’d promised Clelia loyalty and silence.

  Uncle Tullio arrived with a kitten, a black kitten with a white spot on its forehead, which I found adorable. The kitten was in a cloth-lined straw basket, a tiny creature that had to be fed milk with a spoon. He had a pink ribbon around his neck, and his name was Cece. He was a present for Clelia; perhaps he’ll distract her a bit, there’s no harm in trying, I heard Uncle Tullio say to Aunt Esther. I remember the forced smile on Clelia’s face as she came down the stairs, the alarmed glance that she shot me and a rapid gesture, which I detected but could not decipher, but which seemed to say: Don’t worry, don’t be afraid. But afraid of what? And I remember the equally forced or, rather, fearful smile of Aunt Esther, who was worried lest Clelia fail to like the kitten and say so. Instead, she said he was a darling, a ball of fur. She thanked Uncle Tullio with casual grace, but distractedly. She wasn’t feeling up to scratch, she said, and she was busy finishing a wax puppet. For the time being Flora could look after the kitten. Cats are always happy in the kitchen; there’s no place they like better. Later on, in her room, I found out why, and I couldn’t stomach it. I’d had enough of such talk, honestly I had, and perhaps I’d better write to ask my father to take me away. And why did she insist on frightening me? It seemed as if she got a kick out of it. Just at that moment Flora cried out from downstairs, with a cry as penetrating as a drill, and then a lament, an invocation, tears and sobs like those of a death rattle. Clelia grasped and squeezed my hand. Oh, my God, she said, and then some incomprehensible words, followed by strange gestures. I realized that something terrible was going on, something mysteriously terrible and revolting. Clelia took off her glasses and laid them on the bed, as if she were afraid of breaking them, and her left eye rolled around wilder than I’d ever seen it. I felt fear rising within me like a fever. She had turned deadly pale; she clenched her fists and then her mouth stiffened, showing her teeth as if in a grin. She fell backwards and lay stiffly on the floor, twitching as if from an electric current. I ran, almost tumbling, down the stairs. I remember my disastrous entrance into the kitchen, where I nearly broke my neck by slipping on a spreading drop of oil which I failed to see. I remember Aunt Esther and Uncle Tullio trying to pull off Flora’s stockings as she sat, moaning, on a chair. I remember the horror of seeing the stockings peeled off, taking with them strips of flesh and leaving brown spots on the legs. I remember my stammering phrases, the inability to express myself, the nausea in my mouth until I managed to summon up the breath to shout that Clelia was dying, after which I broke into tears.

  The next day was one of silence. Clelia looked at me calmly, as if nothing had happened, as if the preceding evening she had not been at death’s door. Sunlight poured into her room through the wide-open window; it was late in the morning and the house seemed flooded with suspense. Did I understand that the horrible thing which had happened to Flora was intended for Clelia? Did I really feel, now, that I should get away? Was I capable of writing to my father and leaving them there, in that house? Would I really do it?

  The day dragged on. We ate a bite of lunch, very late, because Aunt Esther and Uncle Tullio spent the morning at the hospital and then came back, bringing Flora with them, her legs swathed in bandages after being treated for second-degree burns. Of course there was no mention of Son of Tarzan. Who could have wanted to see it? In the late afternoon Uncle Tullio went back to the city and life resumed its normal course, with the difference that we had to be on guard, intensely on guard, because danger hung over us and it might be necessary to do something in a hurry. But why did danger hang over us, that’s what I wanted to know, and why was I included; I had nothing to do with it, the problem was all Clelia’s. And what was the something that might have to be done in a hurry? My heart was pounding. Dusk was falling and the crickets were chirping madly. One of them must have been on the windowsill, and it filled the room with sound. I looked at Clelia’s dolls, lined up on the shelves. I didn’t like those dolls, there was something wicked and threatening about them, and I didn’t want to look into the suitcase guardedly pulled halfway out from under the bed. I’d have preferred to go away, yes, really, please, Melusina. The cricket fell suddenly silent, and its
silence underlined the silence of the house, the garden, and the quiet evening. Something had to be done at once, surely I understood, the treacherous mechanism had been set in motion; it had hit Flora, but Flora wasn’t the real target, she knew it, and so did I; yes, look, silly boy, I made this puppet out of wax, last night; don’t gape like an idiot, it’s only a little animal; do you think it looks like the real thing? And then she gave a little laugh when I cried out the name. Cece, my eye! Silly! The cat he gave me isn’t Cece, that’s the name he gave him to fool simpletons like you. Now I’ll tell you his real name, Matagot, yes that’s it; don’t stare at me as if I were mad, I can’t stand it. I know the name means nothing to you, but that doesn’t matter because I’m not fooled. You don’t know about Matagot, only a few of us do; he’s Beelzebub’s cat, they are always together, the cat walking ten feet ahead of him on the left side, in order to prepare the spell for his master. Give me that paper cutter. She looked at the lovely creature as if it had the plague, and yet she had fashioned it herself, and very successfully; it was the spitting image of Cece, but I simply couldn’t understand. A spell hung over us, certainly, yes, you little fool, over you, too, standing there as stiff as a scarecrow. Careful not to touch the victim with your hands, only with the instrument, and you must hold him up. Only stop calling him Cece or you’ll ruin everything. Try to concentrate and repeat, silently: Dies, mies, jasquet, benedo, efet, sovema enitemaus. She struck him, sideways, with the paper cutter, and the head came off cleanly, without the wax crumbling; there were only a few white cracks like those on a piece of glass struck by a stone. Clelia took the white cloth off her head and blew out the candle, but I hadn’t repeated the words. We’ll see tomorrow, she said; the spell is cast.

  That’s how the game began, as if we were in the book about the witch Carmilla. Finally I too had something to do; I wouldn’t spend the day hanging about the drawing room. But the day wasn’t as exciting as I’d imagined. My only job was not to let Cece out of my sight for a single second. Perhaps I was the emissary of the priestess Melusina and he was the diabolical Matigot, but he was still a cat and behaved like one, like a stupid household cat, with no mystery about him. He spent part of the morning dozing in his basket, which obliged me to go repeatedly into the kitchen or to linger nearby, arousing the suspicion of that idiotic Flora, who saw me as a threat to her jellies and jams, as if I could possibly go for the sticky concoctions she guarded so jealously in the pantry. Towards noon, Cece deigned to come out of the basket. Flora had given him some milk in a bowl—obviously she held no grudge against him for what had happened—and he licked the edge of the bowl indifferently, like a spoiled child. Then he continued to act like a cat, not in the least diabolically, rolling onto his back and pawing the air as if to catch something to a cat’s taste. Clelia had promised to take my place, briefly, before lunch, but she didn’t keep her word and I resigned myself to waiting, seated on the small sofa in the entrance hall and pretending to read the Children’s Encyclopaedia while I kept an eye on the kitchen door. Finally Flora called out that lunch was ready. Aunt Esther came in from the garden with some geraniums which she put into a vase on the console table in the entrance hall. The bell on the upstairs floor echoed, with its metallic ring, in the kitchen. I guessed, of course, what it meant and so did Aunt Esther and, sure enough, Flora came back down with a dark look on her face. Signorina Clelia didn’t feel well and preferred to have lunch in her room. Aunt Esther bowed her head over her plate and sighed, and I laid my napkin on my knees. Lunch was silent, as usual. There were ham and melon, and the melon was so sweet that I’d gladly have had a second helping, while Aunt Esther ate her portion listlessly; she had cut it up into tiny squares and carried them to her mouth in an incredibly slow manner, staring absentmindedly at the tablecloth. Finally she got up and said she was going to have a nap. Better if I didn’t go out; the light was glaring and the hot sun was bad for the digestion, we’d see each other at teatime. Flora finished washing the dishes and then went out into the little porch off the kitchen, where she dozed off during the heat of the early afternoon. The clock struck two and the afternoon loomed up like a huge puddle of light and silence, interrupted by the chirring of grasshoppers. I thought again of writing to ask my father to take me away. But would he reply? What if the letter came back to me, bearing the inscription “unknown”? What would Clelia say, what sort of a story would she make up? Doubtless she’d say that my father wasn’t like hers, like the Constantine Dragases, who sent her a facsimile of his feet in order to meet her memories halfway; my father was indifferent to any message, completely out of reach. What an idea! Why shouldn’t my father reply? He’d reply, of course he would. I’ll come right away, little boy; I realize that house is no place for your holidays. I’ll take the earliest train next Saturday or, better still, I’ll buy a car, a red Aprilia like the one you saw in front of the Andrea Doria Bathhouse. I know you took a shine to that car and you expect me to arrive sooner or later with one like it. Yes, I’ll go and get a handsome car and call for you, if not this coming Saturday then the next Saturday or the one after, have no fear; sooner or later you’ll see me turn up …

  Cece slipped out of the kitchen door and looked around, seeming undecided about what to do, and I pretended to be asleep and didn’t budge. He chased a fly and wheeled around several times, then came to a halt, bewildered, and made for the stairs. What if he were to start up them? The very idea made me break into a cold sweat. I imagined the commotion, Clelia’s outcry and the crisis that might well follow. I had to stop him. But I mustn’t touch him, Clelia had made that clear: to touch him meant breaking the spell, and besides it was very dangerous. Luckily Cece turned back, wrinkled up his nose at the carpeting of the stairway, tested his claws on it and began to whirl madly around chasing his tail. Then, with three joyful leaps, he made for the front door and went out into the garden. I followed him, not so much out of curiosity as just for something to do. The afternoon promised to be empty and lifeless, and there was no use writing to my father; he knew what I wanted and sooner or later he’d arrive with the red car. Only why had there had to be a war? Better not think about it and simply enjoy the day, including the sight of that stupid cat, so stupid that he was actually funny; he ran, leaping, after a butterfly, so heedlessly that he wound up in a rose bush. He didn’t like that, and he arched his back, furiously, as if a dog were attacking him. I gave a low bark, trying not to disturb the people in the house, but it was quite enough to terrify him to the point where his fur stood on end. Stupid little kitten trying to imitate a grown cat! Unexpectedly he veered to one side in the direction of the wall. I realized that he was running away and tried to coax him back. Cece, Cece, come here, kitty … but it was too late. He slipped through the fancy ironwork of the gate and crossed the road. I saw the accident happen, with the impressive deliberateness of a slow-motion film. The man on the scooter was approaching, at a low speed, on the right-hand side of the road. Cece had stopped at the edge, uncertain whether or not to cross. The man saw his indecision and moved over to the white line in the middle of the road. At this point Cece lunged forward, but stopped halfway across. The man wavered, then returned to the right. Cece remained motionless, then turned back just when the scooter was only a few yards away. The man leaned dangerously to one side in order not to hit him, but did hit, or rather, graze him. Cece jumped backwards and slipped through the gate, miaowing and dragging an injured paw behind him. The scooter described a zigzag path—fortunately nothing was coming in the opposite direction—until the handlebars escaped from the rider’s hands and it turned clear around; the mudguard scraped the cement, raising a stream of sparks, and the man rolled two or three times over on the ground as far as the lamppost. He got up quickly, and I saw that he was not badly hurt, even if he was in a scary condition, his trousers torn, one knee swollen and his hands bloody. Flora, awakened by the sound the scooter made when it ran against the wall, was the first to arrive on the scene. She went straight to the man and took
him into the house. Aunt Esther soon followed. Not Clelia, no, she must be behind the curtains of her bedroom window, in a state of terror, and didn’t come down; I could imagine what she’d have to say to me.