Family and Borghesia E-Book

Natalia Ginzburg

• Herausgeber: Daunt Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 210

Beschreibung

Architect Carmine and translator Ivana were once lovers. Their child died and their relationship ended but now, decades on, both with marriages and children of their own, they are friends. Carmine – uneasy in his life of aspiration and materialism – begins to look back over opportunities missed and choices made. Set against post-war social breakdown, the melancholic, quietly dazzling Family elegantly examines the human condition and what brings happiness to a life. Widow Ilaria has three cats in quick succession, each one disappearing or dying. Living with her brother-in-law Pietro and her teenage daughter and husband, Ilaria shoulders all the housekeeping and cooking. At first comic, but becoming progressively dark, Borghesia is a delicate evocation of one life and the relationships that constrain and define it. In both novellas, underneath a subtle, stripped-down prose and a rich cast of characters, runs a seam of unhappiness and isolation, as Natalia Ginzburg explores the allure of memories and the complexity of family and relationships.

Leseprobe

‘Ginzburg is a unique voice and there’s a direct simplicity to her prose that makes her dry observations all the more riveting.’ Guardian

‘It was as if her writing was a very important secret that I had been waiting all my life to discover … her words seemed to express something completely true about my experience of living, and about life.’ Sally Rooney

‘Ginzburg’s beautiful words have such solidarity. I read her with joy and amazement.’ Tessa Hadley

‘[Ginzburg’s] stories have a subtle power that catches you at the end… each sings with the characteristic wit and piercing clarity of prose that holds you rapt when you read her work.’ Paris Review Daily

‘These two novellas are suffused with the rigorous wisdom Ginzburg earned through calamity and her determination to persist nonetheless in her work.’ Los Angeles Review of Books

Family and Borghesia

NATALIA GINZBURG

Translated by Beryl Stockman

daunt books

Contents

Title PageFamilyBorghesiaAbout the AuthorSelected works by Natalia GinzburgCopyright

12

Family

3

A MAN and a woman went to see a film one summer Sunday afternoon. With them were a young girl of about fourteen and two boys of about seven. The man was tall and handsome with black hair, a large dark-skinned face and a large mouth set in a serious line. He wore black glasses and a crumpled blue suit. The woman, who was short and not very good-looking, had a tiny face and an olive complexion. Her black hair was twisted into a tight knot on top of her head. She had a long thin nose, green eyes and bushy eyebrows, sloping shoulders and broad hips. She wore a denim skirt and a blue T-shirt faded almost white. The two were friends and had known each other many years. When they were young they had lived together for a while, as lovers, but now 4they were just friends. The girl, who was called Angelica, was the woman’s daughter. She was tall, with flaming red hair that fell about her shoulders, and a tuft over her forehead that completely hid one of her yellowy-brown eyes. She was covered in freckles. She wore a full grass-green skirt and a raw silk blouse. The smaller of the two boys was the man’s son. His name was Piergiorgio, but everyone called him Dodò. He was fat, with straight chestnut hair combed forward and round, shy eyes. A camel-hair jumper was tied round his waist. The other boy was thin and dark and had big, white, prominent teeth. He was the child of one of the neighbours, a woman called Isa Meli. She was tired that day and wanted to spend the whole afternoon sleeping. ‘Why has he got that jumper?’ said Angelica, pointing to the fat little boy. She had a thin, severe, matter-of-fact voice. She was most displeased at having to go out on a Sunday afternoon with her mother and with those two children, and her one eye, peering out from amongst the freckles, wore a stern, bored expression. The man pushed the tuft of hair back from her temple, and for a split second, her other eye appeared. Then the tuft of hair hid it again. ‘Because sometimes when you go to an air-conditioned cinema’, said the man, ‘it’s like the North Pole.’

The film, which was in colour, was called Abyss. It was about millionaires in a gleaming white villa on a lonely beach, drinking fizzy drinks, swimming, sunbathing and 5quarrelling over an inheritance. The man and the woman were not following the story, they were both engrossed in their own affairs. The man was thinking about a letter his wife had written him the day before, from Venice. He was carrying it in his jacket pocket. She had been in Venice for more than a month now. This year, for the first time in his life, Dodò had not been taken to the seaside for his holidays. He just spent the mornings in Fregene, and the afternoons at home, getting bored. The man did not love his wife any more, but he was jealous. He kept thinking she must have someone in Venice and mentally scrutinising the list of people who were there with her. He found himself doing this many times during the course of each day, in fact, and the whole process was humiliating. He could have taken Dodò on holiday himself perhaps, but he had not the slightest wish to, and told himself by way of an excuse that he must finish the book he was writing, on the suburbs of modern towns and cities. The woman was thinking about her parents. She and Angelica always went to dinner with them on Sundays, and, every week, she would end up arguing with them about politics. They had grown so reactionary of late. Daniele, the thin little boy, was laughing, even though Abyss was not in the least bit funny. He was laughing and wriggling about and swinging his legs and shaking Dodò who was sitting next to him. Dodò was laughing too, looking up at his father with round, frightened eyes. The air-conditioning must have 6been out of order, because there was no humming noise and it was as hot in there as outside. ‘North Pole indeed,’ said Angelica. The man said he thought there was a cartoon film on at another cinema nearby, which would be more suitable for children, and the air-conditioning there was normally in excellent working order. The woman asked him why he had not said so before. He said he had meant to but she had seemed so keen to see Abyss. She said that cartoons really were more than she could bear, but if they wanted to go and see them, she would wait for them outside in a café. Angelica said they were mad; they had paid five thousand lire for the tickets. Someone in the row behind went shh! The millionaires were in a speedboat, ploughing through a swirling blue sea, throwing spray high in the air all around them. They died one by one, some of them killed by each other and the rest eaten by a shark. It was still afternoon when they came out of the cinema. The man felt as if his head was full of sea, sand, fizzy drinks, sharks and gushing blood.

They went to a pavement café by the side of a small square. A waiter suggested they try the gypsy sundae, and Angelica and the two boys said that was all right. The man and the woman both ordered beers. The gypsy sundae came in a tall glass, with a mountain of whipped cream, topped by three glacé cherries, some pistachio nuts, and with a wafer stuck right in the middle. The man finished his beer and wiped his mouth, forehead and hands with his handkerchief. 7The woman asked him why he was so gloomy. He said he had had a nasty letter from Ninetta. Ninetta was his wife, Dodò’s mother. ‘What sort of nasty?’ asked the woman. ‘Petty and spiteful,’ said the man. Ninetta was absolutely detestable in the woman’s eyes. They thought about her, each in their different way. The man pictured her before him, tall and delicate-looking, with thin, slightly rounded shoulders and a long neck, her face framed in a soft, black fringe of hair. She had a milk-white complexion and a smile which she offered in the way that you would hold out a precious object. He did not love her, but he saw that black fringe before his eyes every moment of the day, and it was humiliating to see it there and suffer, not out of love, but out of feelings of irritation and the accumulation of years of grim, unhappy resentment. The woman thought Ninetta was as stupid as a pear. Strange she should have written a letter, said the man. It was not like her at all, she usually preferred to phone. She had not said when she intended to come home, either in the letter or by phone. Dodò was being looked after by a Spanish au pair girl, who was beautiful and totally useless because she had loads of money and boyfriends and was always going out. Fortunately, though, there was Evelina. Evelina came every day, took Dodò to Fregene then brought him back and stayed with him all afternoon. The caretaker’s wife was cooking for them because Ninetta had quarrelled with the cook and sacked 8her just before she went away to Venice. Evelina thought she had done the right thing, because the cook was dirty. ‘I can’t remember who Evelina is,’ said Angelica. Evelina was Ninetta’s mother, Dodò’s grandmother. ‘I’d be lost without Evelina,’ said the man, adding, however, that she was a terrible fusspot. She would have fainted if she had seen Dodò eating the gypsy sundae. She disapproved of whipped cream and pistachio nuts and glacé cherries. She saw artificial colouring everywhere. ‘There’s no colouring in whipped cream,’ said Angelica. ‘No, but there must be something else that’s not right, like dirty milk or dirty sugar, something of the sort,’ said the man, and added under his breath that, actually, Evelina was a frightful bore. She took Dodò to Fregene, but not to the beach. They spent the mornings with some friends of hers, in a villa with a swimming pool. She was enough to bore you to death with that swimming pool. According to her, the water was so clear and clean you could drink it. Dodò said they had a beautiful little white dog there called Snowflake. But no other children for you to play with, said the man. No, said Dodò, no other children. The caretaker’s son had been there twice, no, three times, but then he had gone away again almost at once. Dodò was eating the gypsy sundae very slowly. Daniele had finished his and was inside the café watching the table football. ‘We’ll still be here at midnight,’ said Angelica, ‘you wait and see.’ ‘What’s the hurry?’ said the man. ‘There’s 9nobody after us. Besides, it’s nice here, and it’s starting to get cooler now.’ The woman stroked Dodò’s hair. It was fair, straight and fine. She drew a comb out of her straw bag and started to make a parting at the front. The man told her to stop it. Dodò’s hair did not need combing. Anyway, he did not like him with a parting, he preferred him with a fringe, like his mother. What really needed combing was that tuft of Angelica’s. He took the comb away from the woman and started on the offending tuft. Angelica moved her head aside and gave him a slap on the hand. Cute, said the man. There were such things as hair grips and slides, he said, and they were excellent for keeping hair in place. You could even buy them at a tobacconist’s.

The man’s name was Carmine Donati and he was forty years old. He was an architect. He earned good money at his work, but had not achieved any of the goals he had set himself in his youth. The book he was writing on the suburbs of modern towns and cities seemed mediocre to him one moment, and fresh and original the next. The woman’s name was Ivana Riviera and she was thirty-seven. She made her living from translations, and was looking for a full-time job, but could not find one. Many years before, 10when they were lovers and lived together, they had argued constantly about everything and tried to change one another. She wanted him to be freer. He thought she was untidy in the way she organised her time and kept house, and in her ideas. They used to wake up in the night and start arguing, and discussing each other’s faults and wonder aloud whether they should get married or not. They had a tiny flat in via Casilina. It was more or less a single room, but there was a shower and a minute entrance hall. They cooked and slept in the same room. There was also a large terrace where they tried to grow flowers. They had an owl, a rabbit and a cat. The cat was called Fidel. Once, his parents came to stay with them. They were peasants from Vinchiaturo, a small village in the Abbruzzo. Ivana tried hard to be nice to them. It felt so strange to her, to be living with a man whose mother was almost illiterate and wore a black headscarf and had broken, black teeth. In turn, his parents were appalled and upset by the untidiness of the house, the rabbit, the owl and everything. They had plenty of rabbits of their own, but they gave them grass to eat. This rabbit was fed on dessert apples and specially cooked broccoli. Furthermore, they were absolutely unable to tolerate the idea of the two of them living together without being married, and they did not understand the reason why. Ivana’s parents were both in America at the time. Her father was a mathematician and had been sent over there to teach courses in several 11universities. The letters they wrote her were full of mistrust. They were afraid this Carmine Donati, whom they had never met, might be no good. They knew he came from a poor family, and they did not mind that, but the idea that his mother was almost illiterate was too much for them to take. They thought maybe he was living with her for self-interested reasons, because he wanted to improve his social status. But when she wrote and told them she was pregnant, they wrote back and said they must get married. They had a baby girl, and called her Carmela, after his mother. They decided they would get married but put it off until spring, so that they could invite all their friends and have a big party on the terrace. The rabbit died, and they gave the owl away because the baby was frightened of it. But they still had the cat. Spring passed, and then summer, and they still had not got married because he was a little in love with a woman they always met at the restaurant. She was a photographer. The baby’s birth certificate was in her mother’s name, Riviera, and said father unknown. They did not argue during the night any more, partly so as not to wake the baby, but partly because it bored them terribly now to exchange thoughts of any kind. They hardly ever saw each other during the day, because he was working long hours in an office he shared, in via della Vite, and, as her parents were back from America, she always took the baby to their house, where there was a cool, shady terrace, surrounded by trees, 12much better than the one in via Casilina. The baby died of infantile paralysis when she was one and a half years old. After her death, they separated. Ivana never wanted to go back to the flat in via Casilina, not even to collect her winter clothes, so she sent her father to collect them instead. Carmine stayed there for a few more years, with Fidel the cat and a new girlfriend, not the photographer, an actress this time. Fidel disappeared over the rooftops one night, and after that Carmine kept a large dog. But the dog insisted on sleeping on the bed at night, and his girlfriend would not tolerate that. Ivana eventually found living with her parents unbearable, and went to England, where she did a sculpture course. After that she took a job as an interpreter with a tourist agency, and then she worked as a cloakroom attendant in a home for the blind. She had her daughter Angelica by a Jewish glottology student she met at a party, a tall, lean boy with red hair. She did not love him, but wanted to have a baby. His name was Joachim Halevy. He took her to Bristol to meet his aunt, a gentle, white-haired woman who taught drawing in a kindergarten. He never knew he was a father, because, shortly after they met, he was taken into a psychiatric hospital. His aunt came all the way from Bristol to London to see Angelica, in the hospital where she was born. She came again when Ivana took Angelica back to Italy. She accompanied her to the train and gave Angelica a locket with a portrait of Joachim as a baby. Angelica was 13only four months old then. She wrote to them from time to time, and sent Angelica paper flowers to cut out every Christmas. News of Joachim was bad. When Ivana got back to Rome, she took a flat in via del Vantaggio. Her father and mother helped her out. They were tender and loving towards Angelica, bitter towards her. Her memory of Joachim was hazy, but somewhat painful. Sometimes, in her innermost thoughts, she would see his face, his leanness, the corduroy trousers he used to wear, his slouch. Occasionally she looked at the locket, and inside was his picture, a pink baby face against a sky-blue background. He used to beat her. Their relationship only lasted a few weeks, but, at the end of it, she locked herself in her room at the boarding house until some mutual friends told her he had been taken into hospital. She still woke up in terror sometimes, in the middle of the night. Suppose he escaped from the hospital; he might come to Rome and try and move in with her and the baby in via del Vantaggio. However, she knew her fears were absurd, because, from what his aunt said, he had lost all will and memory. He could not even speak. He lay at the back of the ward like a limp rag. She met Carmine again, one evening, in the home of some mutual friends. He kissed her on both cheeks. They had not seen each other for ten years. He had spent several years in America, living on student grants, then had come back to Italy and got married. His wife, Ninetta, was with him. She 14was a tall, delicate-looking woman enveloped in a black shawl. She moved in a languid sort of way, as if she felt cold all the time, and sat on the floor on a pile of cushions playing with her long necklaces and then with the fringe of her shawl. Her big, pale blue, trusting eyes seemed to beg protection, and she offered her smile as if it were a precious jewel. Carmine said they must go. Ninetta had to feed Dodò. She was a marvellous wet nurse, he said, and added that they had time to see Ivana home though. They went on foot, because via del Vantaggio was very close by. Carmine and Ninetta lived in via Barnaba Oriani, which was in another area altogether. Carmine talked about nothing but his son all the way, and Ivana was bored. It is so boring to hear about babies when you have none of your own. Angelica was quite big now, and going to school. Ninetta, dressed in her fur coat, and with her shawl wrapped around her head, said nothing, just offered her smile. Ivana thought to herself that when they had had their baby, he had taken very little notice. He had scarcely looked at her. He had busied himself preparing the cradle just before she was born, and it had been a pretty cradle, a basket, with a pattern of little red flowers on the lining material. But after that, he had taken very little interest in the child. Perhaps he had been too young. Ivana invited them to come upstairs for a moment, but they said they had to go because Ninetta had to feed Dodò, and because they had guests. Dodò had just 15cut his first tooth and Carmine’s parents had come up from Vinchiaturo to celebrate. The next day, he phoned and apologised for not having asked about her at all. He said he had done all the talking, but really he was dying to know if she was well, if she was working, if she was happy. He had heard she had a daughter and that made him very happy. He asked if he could come and see her. He came on his own. He said Ninetta had taken a great liking to her and had asked him a lot of things about her on the way home. She wanted her to come to dinner with them and see the house and the baby. She had a slight sore throat at the moment, but they would arrange it soon. He said it might be better to wait until the guests, his parents that was, had gone home. He asked her if she remembered them. She did remember them. He said they were absolutely enchanted by the baby. They spent hours gazing at him as he lay in his cot, talking about his eyes and hands and feet and admiring them. So the baby had a cot, not a cradle, said Ivana, inquiringly. That’s right, said Carmine, a cot with wooden railings you can take out and use as a playpen. He’s been sleeping in it ever since he was born. No one uses cradles any more. His parents were enchanted by the house and by Ninetta, who was absolutely delightful with them. She noted the adjective ‘delightful’. It was a word that was not him, he would never have used it at one time. He said his mother had taught Ninetta how to make hundreds of things: homemade pasta, 16aubergines in oil. Ivana was finding him boring. She could not care less about aubergines in oil or the sweet nothings Ninetta and his mother exchanged between them. She told him on the phone a few days later that he had become extremely boring. ‘I don’t give a fuck about aubergines in oil,’ she said, and went on to say she could not understand why that child of theirs was called Dodò. She thought it was horrible to call children by pet names and nicknames, Dodò, Fufu, Pupu. What a horrible, irritating affected habit! He got offended and told her she hadn’t become boring because she had always been extremely boring anyway, and scatty and full of screwy ideas. Nevertheless, he came round to see her immediately afterwards. He had bought a roast chicken from a takeaway in via del Babuino. Angelica was already in bed, but they got her up, and she sat at the kitchen table in her pink flannel nightdress and shared the chicken with them. Angelica and Ivana had had supper really, but they usually only had milky coffee and bread and butter. Carmine got into the habit of coming quite often. Ivana sat and worked at her translations, and he sometimes looked up words in the dictionary for her while he played chess with Angelica or lay on the settee and read the paper. About midnight, he would phone Ninetta to say he was coming home soon. Ninetta would send a big kiss to Ivana and Angelica. But he would still stay stretched out on the sofa for a while, reading, smoking and looking out of the window 17at the trees along the road, the bridge, the river and the rooftops bathed in moonlight. When they were alone, they usually talked about the present: Ninetta, Angelica and Dodò. They rarely talked of the time when they had lived together. To both of them it seemed like a strange, remote era when they had got the absurd idea into their heads that they could live together, even though they were so different and had opposite and irreconcilable characters. They sometimes remembered Fidel, the cat, with affection, but they never spoke of their dead daughter.

At last the dinner in the via Barnaba Oriani was arranged, or rather, a supper. But a long time had passed since Ivana and Carmine had met again at their friends’ house, and Dodò was now nearly three years old. Ninetta and Ivana hardly ever saw each other. Once or twice, Ninetta had been to via del Vantaggio, and once or twice, Carmine, Ninetta and Ivana had been out together for an evening. One day, Ninetta phoned Ivana and begged her to come because she was alone in the house with Dodò and he was very ill. He had a temperature of a hundred and two, and she could not find Carmine. She did not know where he was. She could not find her mother, or the paediatrician. She had not even been able to find Ciaccia Oppi, who was a dear neighbour of theirs and knew everything there was to know about children. She was so worried, she said. Ivana took a taxi and went to via Oriani, where she had never been 18