Mamma says that Zia’s true boyfriend will be like the snow that seemed it would never come in that poem she used to read us at Christmas when we were little. Sleet would come and just melt, whirling snow would come and turn into mud, and when everyone had eventually given up hope, all of a sudden the snow came ‘shyly splendid, confidently thick’. Zia’s boyfriend will come like that, all of a sudden; we will have no doubt and we will recognise him.
In the end he phoned me.
‘I’m trying to put this crappy marriage back together,’ he told me.
‘That’s the right thing to do,’ I said in a firm and resolute tone. ‘Happiness can’t be built on other people’s unhappiness.’
Not even my father’s God would put up with that.
Mamma is back in hospital and when I went to see her it was a stunning day but it was wasted on me.
As always, she was waiting, nicely dressed and sitting on the perfectly made bed. So that she wouldn’t see I was upset I went and looked out the window.
‘How are you?’ she asked.
‘Good.’ But I didn’t turn around because I was crying.
‘Why are you crying?’
I spun around and hugged her, weeping.
‘That man, the one in your stories – he hasn’t been in touch? Sorry for reading them, I found them one day when I wanted to tidy up your wardrobe a bit. And I know about the paintings too. One time Papà was talking so loudly on the phone . . . The thing is, you think I never notice anything.’
It was very late when I left. So, my mother had gone through my drawers, she who never wanted to know anything for fear the truth would be ugly. And it was ugly. Maybe that’s why she had no longer wanted to eat. I asked my father’s God, my mother’s God, Nonna’s God – crying the whole time – the reason why we inevitably hurt one another all the time, even those we love most.
‘You just have to endure it,’ I told myself. ‘You have to get used to eating shit because, like in the concentration camps, there’s always someone who makes it through.’
Just now when Mamma’s in hospital, the residents’ committee has summoned us all and said that they have obtained permission to add a storey to the building. There’ll be an apartment in place of the garden and a bit of money for everybody.
Out of nine, there are seven votes in favour of the new apartment and two against – mine of course, and that of the lady downstairs. Everyone else says it’s no big deal – we’ll divide up the pots and planters, the canopy, the awnings, the trellises and we’ll put them on our balconies and it’ll be just as nice, plus we’ll all get a bit of money. They’re sorry for the signora, who’s done so much work, but you’ve got to be a bit practical in life.