The City and the House Read Free Page B

dry, and Enrique’s paintings of forests and jaguars were everywhere too. Aunt Bice’s flat became a den in a few days. Now the den has been sold and there is no trace anywhere of Aunt Bice’s optimism or of her faith in herself, or of her blue polka-dot aprons and white fat legs and spongy down-at-heel slippers.
    Egisto has just phoned me. He will call here and we shall have dinner together somewhere. I shall give this letter to him and he can take it to you on Saturday, because as I have already told you I shall not be coming on Saturday.
    Giuseppe

EGISTO TO LUCREZIA
    Rome, 25th October
    I meant to come to
Le Margherite
today but I shan’t because the spark-plugs on my Dauphine are dirty, and anyway I have to finish an article. I tried to phone you but there was no answer. That Sicilian you have now must be deaf. The one you had before, from the Abruzzi, was better.
    I have a letter for you from Giuseppe and I will give it to Albina who is coming by train. I will also give her these few lines of mine.
    I’m sorry, I would have liked to have come to stay with you and play tennis with Piero. It’s true that your tennis-court is wretched after that last storm, it’s full of holes and the last time I almost sprained my ankle. But it doesn’t matter.
    I met a very pleasant person the other night, at the Rotunnos’. He is called Ignazio Fegiz and he is a picture-restorer. He took me home because I had come on foot. He has an olive-green Renault. He is very intelligent. If you like, when I come next Saturday I will bring him with me. You have that still-life Piero bought in Salerno, the one that is full of stains and cracks, and perhaps you could have him look at it. It seems a mess to me but I know that Piero values it. He will be able to tell you how to get rid of the stains, and perhaps even the cracks too.
    I’ve seen Giuseppe. He seems to me very depressed. We were supposed to go and eat in a restaurant but then his cousin arrived and asked if we would like to eat something downstairs with her. She is called Roberta. I think you know her, she has come to
Le Margherite
a few times. She is blonde, with big hips, and big teeth that stick out. She is a cheerful, interfering, busybody of a woman. We went down and she made us spaghetti in a very complicated way that I can’t remember. It involved spinach, cream and eggs. The spinach was frozen, that I know. She is on a diet and didn’t eat the spaghetti. She only ate an apple and a little plate of chicory without oil or salt.
    Roberta’s flat is similar to Giuseppe’s but bigger. She and I talked about flats. Giuseppe has sold his. I think he has made a real cock-up of it. He had already been to the solicitor’s and signed the contract. A family called Lanzara are buying it. He is a psychoanalyst who is quite well-known.
    With the money from the sale of that flat Giuseppe is going to buy some Treasury Bonds. So he will have something if he decides to come back. Or they will be there for his son if he should need them. His son is rich because he inherited a lot from an aunt, but he has no desire to do anything. He has been in prison on a drugs charge. He’s a lost soul.
    Princeton is a tiny, very beautiful town. It was founded by the Quakers. It has big parks and lots of trees. The trees are full of squirrels. When Giuseppe opens his windows he will see squirrels. But I think he will soon come back here, in less than a month. America is not at all his kind of place. It’s because he no longer wants to go that he is so depressed.
    We’ll see one another next Saturday, I’ll bring Ignazio Fegiz.
    Egisto

LUCREZIA TO GIUSEPPE
    Monte Fermo, 26th October
    Albina gave me your letter and also one from Egisto. She rummaged in her handbag with that greenish lizard’s claw of hers and pulled out first a handkerchief, then a comb, and then some tampax and then the two letters. I was in the kitchen bottling wine