V
I
By the time that Gian-Luca was eleven years old, the resentment felt against the Bosellis for their choice of a school had all but disappeared. It could not well be otherwise; people still deplored it, but Fabio and Teresa were cogs in the machine that turned out the happenings of everyday life for the little group of exiles. And then, there was Fabio’s salumeria, no one could get on without his wares—the sausages, the paste, the rich yellow oil, the straw-covered bottles of Chianti; nor could they get on without Fabio himself—Fabio always so mild and friendly, with his halo of rough, grey hair. He had shown no resentment at their criticism, indeed he had seemed to feel that it was just; on the other hand, he had taken no steps to undo his grievous error. Against such humble but stubborn placidity the storm had raged in vain; now it had practically beaten itself out, and Fabio, Teresa, and the young Gian-Luca were once more at peace with their neighbors.
To this happy and desirable state of affairs Gian-Luca himself contributed not a little; people liked him, he was amiable and good on the whole.
“Can it be,” they murmured, “that the English Board School is not so infernal after all?”
Certainly Gian-Luca was not at all infernal, his temper was less violent than it had been. His manners were no worse than those of other children, indeed, they were rather better; he shone by comparison with Rosa’s son, Geppe—a turbulent creature of six years old, born just before Gian-Luca’s first term at school. Moreover, Gian-Luca was a handsome child; he was slim and tall for his age. His hair had retained its ashen fairness, and grew low on his forehead from a little cap-like peak—the boys made fun of this at school. His mouth was well modelled, but the underlip protruded slightly; a willful mouth, a mouth that might some day harden to endeavor or soften to dissipation. He was pale, with that curious southern pallor that turns to bronze in the sun. His hands were long-fingered and strong, like Teresa’s, but more firmly and delicately fashioned.
People whispered together: “He is beautiful, Gian-Luca, but not with the beauty of Olga Boselli.”
And their pleasure in his beauty was another ground for kindness; did they not spring from the race that had bred Donatello, Verrocchio, and the Della Robbias?
One thing only in Gian-Luca could they find to resent—he seemed to them strangely aloof. They could not be certain of what he was thinking—his eyes gave no clue to his thoughts. Other children looked tearful, or merry, or greedy, or sly, as the case might be; but Gian-Luca’s expression was calm and distant—he always seemed to be staring through people at something they had not perceived.
“What are you staring at?” Nerone would grumble. “Dio! One would think that you knew me by now! Is it that you find me so handsome a fellow? Or is it that you look at something beyond me—and if so what do you look at?” Gian-Luca would flush with embarrassment; conscious perhaps, that in staring at Nerone his eyes had merely sought an object to rest on while his thoughts were busy elsewhere.
At this time in his life he was very full of thoughts—almost as full as he had been when an infant—only now the thoughts were more definite and hard; they came striking at his brain like so many pebbles; he could almost feel them as they struck. Two thoughts in particular had begun to obsess him; the thought of his father and the thought of his country. No one at home ever mentioned his father, he might never have had a paternal parent—he began to think this was very strange. Certain awkward questions that he could not answer were occasionally asked him at school; the boys wanted to know if his father was dead, and if he had been an Italian.
Gian-Luca knew a little about his mother, but nothing about his father, and since every other child appeared to own a father, he supposed that he must have owned one, too, and further that his father must naturally be dead, otherwise why had he never seen him? Very well then, that was settled; his father must be dead, but he wanted to ask Fabio what to call him; a name was a very great assistance, he felt; it helped you to visualize the person—meanwhile he invented a name for his father, and after a little it became so familiar that it sounded quite true when he spoke it.
“My father was called Leonardo,” said Gian-Luca, in reply to a question at school one day.
“Then you’re an Italian,” was the prompt retort. “What’s the good of pretending you’re English!”
And this was another thing that worried Gian-Luca, he had pretended to be English—a kind of betrayal of something or someone in order to appear more like his schoolmates. This betrayal of his would haunt him at night when he lay in bed waiting for his pictures; they very seldom came now, which also disturbed him; his nights were just sleep, or those hard-little thoughts that struck against his brain like pebbles. He often heard Nerone inveighing against Fabio, for what he called “the desertion of his country.” But Gian-Luca could never understand what he meant; who could be more Italian than Fabio? Did not Fabio eat pasta and drink good red wine that came in big cases from Italy? As for Gian-Luca, it was only when at school that he ever thought of being English; he was lonely at school, they left him out of things—and moreover they called him “Macaroni.”
Fabio had taken to remarking lately: “You grow so very English, Gian-Luca.”
And Teresa would say: “You speak now as they do, you will soon have a Cockney accent.”
“That is not so,” Gian-Luca would protest. “I do not like their ugly accent.”
Nerone would pity him: “Poor Gian-Luca, you have no Church, what a disaster!”
But this fact did not worry Gian-Luca in the least, what he wanted was a country, not a Church.
“If I am English I cannot be Italian,” he argued, bewildered and distressed, “and yet if I am English I am like the other boys—then why do they leave me out of things?” He finally decided that he hated the English who always left him out of things. In spite of this, however, he made colossal efforts to model himself on their pattern; he longed with the unfailing instinct of youth to be like his companions at school. He yelled, he shoved, he kicked out his boots; if the other boys swore, Gian-Luca swore too. Whatever they did, he would follow suit, hoping against hope to win their approval. But although they liked him, it was only as a stranger who had suddenly appeared within their gates; his grandfather sold queer, outlandish foodstuffs, while Gian-Luca himself had been heard to speak Italian—enough in all conscience to set him apart as a kind of unnatural freak!
Gian-Luca grew an outward crust of indifference, which however, did not deceive them; they suspected that underneath it he was soft, and they prodded to find the softness. He still disliked passing Rocca’s shop, and this they quickly divined. They went out of their way to make him pass it whenever occasion offered. Rocca, these days, had relays of kids all hanging with their heads to the pavement; he was even more prosperous than he had been, a fact that he attributed entirely to the kids—he said that they had brought him luck. The boys made a habit of punching the kids for the pleasure of seeing them swing, for the pleasure also of laughing at Gian-Luca, who invariably turned a little pale. But one day Gian-Luca, in a kind of desperation, doubled up his fist and punched too. He punched until Rocca came out to protest, and even after that he still punched.
“Take that! And that! And that!” he spluttered, panting and white to the lips.
“Look at young Macaroni!” applauded the boys. “Go it, young Macaroni!”
Then Gian-Luca turned on them like a thing demented: “Beasts!” he yelled. “How I hate you—you beasts! Porci! Sporcaccioni!”
And naturally after this incident there was a coldness between Gian-Luca and his schoolmates.
II
That winter Gian-Luca decided to speak to Fabio regarding his two greatest troubles. Fabio could tell him about his father; he could also reassure him about his country; perhaps he might even be able to explain why the boys at school treated Gian-Luca like a stranger—why they so often left him out of things. Fabio would speak in the soft, happy language that always set the heart beating just a little faster; the language of deep-sounding, beautiful words—familiar, reassuring, fulfilling. Gian-Luca rehearsed the scene in his mind.
Fabio would say: “But you are an Italian, what need you care for the foolish English, they have nothing to do with us!”
And he, Gian-Luca would reply: “That is so. I hate the English as Nerone hates them; they are stupid, they have the brains of pigs, they think only of beer and roast beef!” Then Fabio would pat him on the back with approval: “It is good to be Italian, very good,” he would say; “your father was also an Italian. Your father was a very great man, he was a soldier; he also owned vineyards, enormous vineyards, from which comes the finest Chianti. When he died, he said: ‘Take care of my Gian-Luca and tell him how splendid I was!’ ”
Gian-Luca decided to speak on a Sunday, when Fabio would be free to attend. It should be in the morning before Fabio went out. Teresa would be sitting by the fire; Teresa would look up from her knitting for a moment; she might even wish to join in their conversation, adding some reassuring words of her own … In any case Teresa must be there. They would tell him those glorious things about his father that he had imagined for himself: they might even say that his father’s name was none other than Leonardo.
But when the momentous occasion arrived, Gian-Luca felt strangely shy; Fabio was reading his paper by the window, Teresa was knitting by the fire as he had pictured; it was all as it should be, it was all quite perfect, yet Gian-Luca felt strangely shy. He began to fidget with this thing and that, moving aimlessly about the room, picking up objects and putting them down—much as Fabio did when mentally distressed—until at last Teresa, who disliked this habit, looked up from her knitting with a frown.
“Can you not find what you want, Gian-Luca? I wish that you would read your book.”
He hesitated with a vase in his hand; it fell and was broken to pieces.
Teresa’s frown deepened: “Dio! Gian-Luca, now see what foolishness you do!”
He caught his breath, staring down at the vase; then suddenly he began to speak wildly. “I am not happy—I am very unhappy—I want to know about my father!”
In the silence that followed he could hear his own heart beating. Fabio had crushed the newspaper in his hand.
“Your father?” Fabio’s voice sounded very faraway, and the eyes that he turned on Gian-Luca were frightened.
But now Gian-Luca was feeling less afraid; he was able to go on almost calmly: “You knew my father, Nonno—I would like to hear about him—I have often thought that his name was Leonardo, I have thought that my father was a soldier.”
Then Fabio told the truth in a moment of panic: “But I never knew your father, Gian-Luca, I never knew your father’s name.”
Gian-Luca stood quite still staring at him: “You knew my mother—” he began.
“Your mother was my child—” said Fabio unsteadily. “Your mother was my own poor child!”
Gian-Luca considered for a moment, then he said: “And she never brought my father to show you? That was strange, for Rosa showed Mario to Nerone—she says so—Rosa showed Mario to Nerone, she says, a long time before they got married.”
“I think he is old enough to know,” said Teresa. “The children of our country age sooner than the English—”
Her voice was quiet; it was almost detached, as though she were speaking of a stranger.
“Not yet,” protested Fabio quickly.
“I would like to know,” said Gian-Luca.
Teresa surveyed him in silence for a moment, then: “You have a right to know—come here.”
He went and stood patiently beside her, while she picked up a stitch that she had dropped; this accomplished, she looked him full in the eyes:
“It is I who must tell you, it seems, Gian-Luca.”
“Too soon! Too soon!” muttered Fabio from the window.
But Teresa shook her head: “He has asked—he has been thinking—it is therefore not too soon—it is I who must tell him, it seems—”
Her fingers were moving with incredible swiftness, the sound of her needles was rhythmical, precise—like the tapping of a small machine. The eyes that met Gian-Luca’s were defiant, unafraid—but they made Gian-Luca feel afraid.
“Listen,” she said, “listen carefully, Gian-Luca—we never knew your father—we do not even know whether your father is dead or alive. He did not marry Olga as Mario married Rosa—he did not wish to give you his name. We do not know your father’s name, and that is why we call you by ours; that is why when Olga died at your birth you remained here and lived with us. Mario was good, he had love for Rosa, so he gave her his name in marriage. Your father had no love for you nor for your mother—he gave neither marriage nor name.” She paused to allow her words to sink in.
“Then he was not good?” faltered Gian-Luca.
“He was bad,” said Teresa. “He was cruel and bad; have I not just told you so?”
Gian-Luca stared at her, pale and aghast: “Then my father was not a great man—not a soldier?”
“Who knows, Gian-Luca; to be great in this world does not mean that a man is good.”
“But—” he said miserably, “you do not know his name—and I thought that his name was Leonardo—”
“We shall never know your father’s name, I am afraid; your mother kept it a secret.”
“Then was she also bad?”
“Your mother was all goodness,” Teresa’s sallow cheeks flushed with a painful crimson.
“And yet I have not got a name—” he persisted. “You say that I have not got a name—” Then a sudden thought struck him and he too flushed crimson: “Does that make me different from other boys, Nonna? Is that why they leave me outside?”
“I think not, Gian-Luca—they may not know—and yet you are not quite as other children—but if you are honest and good and hardworking that will not harm you, my child.”
“Yes, but how am I different?” he questioned anxiously. “I cannot myself see any difference.”
“Some day you will understand,” she told him, “and meanwhile be patient—work hard.”
“Yes, but how am I different? Why am I different?” Gian-Luca suddenly wanted to cry.
“You are all that we wish you to be,” broke in Fabio. “Is it not so, Teresa?”
“He is all that he can be,” she answered slowly. “Gian-Luca is all that he can be.”
Gian-Luca forced back his tears with an effort: “You do not know if my father is alive?”
“No,” said Fabio, “we do not, piccino—but we sometimes think that he is.”
“And he does not wish to see me, who am his son?”
“It would seem not, my little Gian-Luca.”
“But why?”
“Because,” intervened Teresa, “he does not love you, Gian-Luca.”
“Dio Santo!” exclaimed Fabio; “you tell things too soon.”
“I think not,” she answered coldly.
Gian-Luca looked from one to the other; he was trying to understand; he was trying to visualize quite a new world, a world where the most unheard-of things happened—where fathers, for instance, might not love their children. He thought of Nerone’s affection for Rosa, of Mario’s devotion to Berta and Geppe; of Rocca, who would shake his head and say sadly: “If only I had a son!” For with all these people among whom he lived, the love of children was a primitive instinct like that of eating and drinking—no higher and no lower—just a primitive instinct. A man loved his body and in consequence he fed it; a man loved the children who sprang from his body, because they were part of himself.
Gian-Luca, aged eleven, could not know all this—nor would he have cared very much if he had. All that concerned him deeply at the moment was the love that he felt himself to be missing. His thoughts turned to Berta and Geppe with their howls, their rages, their insatiable greed; and then to Mario with his tiredness, his bunion, and his infinite, long-suffering patience. He himself had found such patience in Fabio—he remembered this now—he had found it in Fabio. And Teresa? She had been patient with him, too, coldly, enduringly patient. But something had been lacking even in Fabio, and all in a moment he knew what it was; Fabio’s patience had lacked a certain quality of joy—the quality of joy that made Mario laugh sometimes at the sins of his small man-child. And as though Teresa had divined Gian-Luca’s thoughts, she turned her gaze full on his face.
“Remember,” she said, “that you always have yourself, and that should suffice a man.”
He nodded. He drew himself up, grateful to her for thinking of him as a man. “I am Gian-Luca,” he announced quite firmly, “also, I am an Italian!”
“You are not that,” she told him. “Nonno is naturalized—your mother became English, so you are English—you are English in the eyes of the law.”
“But I do not feel as they do!” he exclaimed in quick resentment. “At school they know that I do not feel as they do and they always leave me outside!”
“Nevertheless you are English,” said Teresa, “and perhaps it is better so.”
Then Gian-Luca forgot that she had called him a man, forgot to be more than eleven years old. “Non voglio! Non voglio!” he wept in fury. “I wish to be as Geppe is—Italian. I shall say to them all that I am an Italian—I will not pretend any more.”
“That is foolish,” Fabio told him gently. “In the eyes of the law you are English.”
“I am not! I wish only to be an Italian—I hate the English and Nerone hates them too—”
“And that is also foolish—” said Fabio patiently, “for the English provide us with money.”
“And some day you will earn their money,” said Teresa, “and by doing so you will grow rich.”
Gian-Luca stopped crying and eyed her gravely: “Is it not that I have no real country, Nonna, just as I have no real father?”
There was silence for a moment while she too looked rather grave. “You have yourself,” she repeated firmly. “No one can take that from you, Gian-Luca—remember that you always have yourself.”
III
That evening Rosa came in to supper, bringing her Berta and Geppe. Berta was now nearly ten years old; her locks as stiff and as black as horsehair—they were tied up with pale pink ribbon. Berta had enormous, flashing brown eyes, and large round calves to her legs. She was wearing a number of silver bangles and a pair of minute coral earrings. Berta was already decidedly feminine—she looked at Gian-Luca, who was reading, and she frowned. Presently she went up and snatched at his book, then she darted away as though frightened.
Gian-Luca felt unfriendly. “Get out!” he muttered. “Get out and leave me alone!”
At that Berta ran and complained to her mother. “He has pinched me!” she whined mendaciously.
“What is the matter with Gian-Luca?” inquired Rosa. “I think he has a devil on his back! Why will he not show his book to Berta? When she asked him so prettily, too!”
Geppe, as always, was busy sucking something, and what he sucked oozed down on to his chin. He looked like his father—very red, very black—and he clung to his mother’s hand with the persistence and the vigor of an octopus. Rosa made as though to disengage her hand whereupon Geppe started to howl.
“He is timid,” said Rosa, smiling round the room, “and moreover he adores his Mammina.” She lifted her son to a chair at the table, then seated herself beside him. Having tied a large napkin under his chin—“You must eat, tesoro!” she commanded.
The supper consisted of a cake of polenta, pastasciutta, a salad, some gruyère cheese, and a stout fiaschone of Chianti. Berta was greedy and kept asking for more—Geppe was greedy but he took without asking.
“Com’è carino,” laughed Rosa, beaming at him. “Com’è carino, il mio maschiotto!”
Geppe choked himself and in consequence was sick, so when Rosa had carefully wiped his chin, she gave him a drink of Chianti and water, by way of settling his stomach. They all went on eating; Fabio chewed his salad with the sound of a mule munching beans. At the head of the table sat Teresa with her knitting; from time to time she would put down her fork in order to knit off a row.
“Mario is suffering from his joint,” announced Rosa. “It is very swollen and red.”
“He should rub it with soap,” Fabio muttered, with his mouth full. “They say that soap hardens the skin.”
“The chemist gave us iodine and a plaster, but I think that the plaster draws.”
“Soap!” repeated Fabio. “I believe in soap! Myself I have got tender feet.”
“No doubt you are right. I will surely tell Mario—poor fellow, his new shoes pinch. It is difficult to find any shoes to fit him, unless we make slits for the swelling.” Rosa sighed, “He cannot move quickly enough, and that is bad for a waiter; a waiter should always get about quickly, especially when clients are hungry!”
“It is good that they are hungry,” said Teresa, looking up. “We gain money by way of their stomachs.”
“That is so,” laughed Fabio, cutting himself some cheese. “That is how we are able to fill our own stomachs.”
“A boy at Geppe’s school has got pidocchi in his head,” chirped Berta, licking her fingers. “I think that Geppe will get them too, and if he gets pidocchi, perhaps I may catch them—I do not wish to catch them, they tickle.”
“Be not so silly, tesoro,” smiled Rosa. “I am sure that you will not get pidocchi. Mamma will comb your hair every day; that will make it beautifully shiny.”
“Scema!” spluttered Geppe. “I have not got pidocchi, and if I get them I will give them to you. I will rub my head against yours!”
“Then I will scratch you,” said Berta firmly, and proceeded to put the threat into action.
There ensued a deafening shriek from Geppe, and a mild-voiced protest from Rosa.
“The good Saint Berta will not love you if you scratch,” she reminded her elder offspring.
“Give me some Chianti,” said Berta, quite unmoved. “I am thirsty; give me some Chianti!”
Fabio filled her glass with red wine and water, which she drank in a series of gulps.
“It is excellent Chianti,” murmured Fabio thoughtfully, “the best I have tasted in years.”
“The price of pasta has gone up,” remarked Teresa; “I blame the Italian Government for that.”
“If it rises much more we are ruined,” sighed Fabio, who, being replete, could afford to be gloomy.
“Mario’s Padrone is buying French pasta, because of the rise,” Rosa told them disapprovingly; “but I myself do not think that is right. After all, the Padrone is Italian!”
“One must live as one can,” Teresa retorted, “and the English will eat it just the same.”
“That is so,” agreed Rosa. “The English are stupid; my father thinks them very stupid.”
The meal finished, they wiped their mouths on their napkins and Fabio fetched a cigar.
“Even tobacco has risen,” he grumbled, burning his fingers with a match.
“Everything is always rising,” frowned Teresa, “but Fabio and I will rise with it. For those who have got the will to succeed there is nearly always a way. Our business grows, we have not enough room; soon we must hire a new shop.”
“That is your fine business head,” Rosa told her. “I sometimes think that my Mario’s is less fine, but then he is always so patient and kind, and moreover he suffers with his bunion.”
“Nerone should buy him a business of his own,” grunted Fabio. “I will speak with him about it.”
“That I fear he will never do,” sighed Rosa. “However, we are very well off as we are—the children have plenty to eat …”
IV
Gian-Luca escaped upstairs to his room—Olga’s room, in which he now slept. He wondered why Rosa’s children always howled; he could never remember them other than howling. He thought Geppe greedy and Berta a bore; he did not like either of them very much, and yet they had Mario for their father, and Mario loved them—that was so strange, for he, Gian-Luca went unloved. There was Fabio, of course, but Fabio did not count, or at least he counted very little. Fabio felt old when you touched his skin, he had pains in his back, he was timid of Teresa—Teresa who might have counted.
Gian-Luca sat down on the well-worn sofa and began to think over Teresa. With a queer, tight feeling round his heart, he realized that he no longer loved her. She allured him still, and that must be why he had that tight feeling round his heart. When she spoke in her quiet, flat voice, he had to listen; when she wished something done, he had perforce to do it, willing and eager to obey; but he no longer loved her or wished for her love—and that made him feel the more lonely.
He tried to picture Teresa as she had been, or rather, as he had once seen her; to recapture some of the sense of beauty that had shrouded her presence like incense. His head fell back and he closed his eyes, the better to conjure up the vision, but all that he saw now was a gaunt, ageing woman with beetling brows and a high, pinched nose; a woman whose hair showed the scalp at the temples, whose lips were too pale, whose chin sagged a little, and whose teeth were no longer very white. And something in all this was intolerable to him, so that unwilling tears trickled under his closed eyelids—tears for himself, but also for Teresa—because he no longer found her fair.
He could hear the sound of laughter coming up from downstairs; then of quarrelling—Berta and Geppe—Fabio’s voice, heavy and soft after supper; Rosa’s voice, loud, rather shrill; and from time to time Teresa’s slow words, spoken in a pause between stitches. A door banged; thump—thump—that would be Nerone, come to fetch Fabio for their game of dominoes—“Buona serai Buona sera; vanno bene tutti?” Then more talk, more laughter, and Nerone’s wooden leg stumping away with Fabio.
Gian-Luca put his head on one side and listened. His people! But were they his people? If he was English then they were not his people; and at this thought his weeping broke out afresh, he buried his face in his arm. All that was nearest and dearest about them came back to him in a flood; he wept for them now as a small child will weep for faces lost in the dark. Even Rocca and his goats seemed less to be condemned; had not Rocca offered him fruit drops?
There was something worth loving then, even in Rocca—something that he wanted to cling to.
He lifted his face and stared round the room, his eyes wandered over to the wound above the bed; it had grown in dimensions, for the thin, dry plaster had crumbled still further with the years. Gian-Luca no longer wished to prod it with his finger; he merely thought it very ugly; it seemed to add to his own desolation, itself so desolate a thing. He rubbed away the tears with the back of his hand—resentful, almost angry—then he suddenly remembered Teresa’s words—courageous words, coldly courageous. Going over to the table he found pencil and paper: “I have got myself,” wrote Gian-Luca. Climbing on to the bed, he pinned up his motto, then he climbed down again the better to see it.
And that was how Gian-Luca tried to cover up the wound in the plaster—and in his own heart.