Sweet Dreams Read Free Page B

just how different I was from her.
    She was also gifted with an infectious laugh. My godmother used to tell me how at my parents’ wedding the priest had to halt proceedings because the bride couldn’t stop laughing. When she managed to suppress her giggles, her eyes were still full of laughter—and so she even sent her gruff husband-to-be into fits of laughter as well. My parents took their eternal vows while laughing fit to burst.
    My mother overcame Nonna Emma’s prejudices by the sheer force of her character, and my arrival did the rest. They became firm friends. Walking between them, holding their hands, I felt safe.
    Now there were only men left to walk next to me.

at least David Copperfield had an aunt

six
    At least David Copperfield had an aunt. I would have to make do with my mother’s four brothers.
    The youngest of them shared her sensitivity of character and so ended up by injecting a feminine note into an atmosphere which was otherwise heavy with the smell of aftershave lotion. I took to calling him “My Uncle.” I had a desperate need to bind the survivors to me.
    One Saturday afternoon My Uncle took me to see my maternal grandmother, who was now in a rest home set among the rolling vineyards of the Langhe region. During the drive there I found out why I wouldn’t be able to count on her.
    Grandma Giulia’s life had been filled with too many misfortunes and too many children. The youngest ofthese had been My Uncle. While she’d been pregnant with him she’d caught German measles and ever since had suffered from epileptic fits.
    At the start of the Second World War her husband had died in her arms from a cold which a simple shot of penicillin would have cured, leaving her with a widow’s pension and five hungry children. The eldest, my mother, had to shoulder the responsibility of feeding them on her own. At the age of sixteen she’d started work as a typist at the Fiat factory, while still looking after her mother and all her brothers.
    I can testify to the fact that she continued to keep an eye on them. Our house saw an endless coming and going of awkward young men who would turn up to ask their big sister’s advice on a variety of topics from their love lives and their jobs to what color of socks they should wear.
    Mom would talk to them in the kitchen, the oracle’s cave they would enter bearing the tribute of a box of marrons glacés. As the cook’s assistant and official sheller of peas I had a privileged ringside seat at these incomprehensible conversations, punctuated with expressions such as “She’s a nice girl” and “It’s a secure job.”
    My Uncle was twelve years younger than my mother and thought of himself a bit like her son. He told me about the night when he’d ridden across the city on aclapped-out scooter to get to the maternity clinic where I had just seen the light of day. While the rest of the family bombarded the midwife with questions about me, he’d wanted to know above all how she was.
    â€œThe number of times she showed me your number twos!”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” I blushed.
    â€œYou used to do your business in a potty shaped like a duck. Your mother used to carry it round the house, showing off the contents as if they were some kind of sculpture. She was crazy about you.”
    â€œSo why has she gone away?”
    It was obvious she’d liked me as long as I’d used the potty: when I’d started to sit on the toilet she’d stopped loving me.
    â€œIt wasn’t her decision. It was fate . . .”
    My Uncle lifted a hand from the steering wheel to put his sunglasses on so I wouldn’t see he was crying.
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    We arrived at the rest home and were taken through rooms packed with years. Would I ever see my mother’s face all covered in wrinkles? Or would she always remain the young woman staring out from a photograph on oneof the