Free The Road To The City by Natalia Ginzburg Page B

answered. ‘I cried, too, when they told me. But later I thought maybe it was the best thing that could happen to him. I wish I were dead myself. I’m sick of being alive.’
    â€˜I caused him to die,’ I said.
    â€˜You?’
    â€˜Yes, he was in love with me and I led him on just to see him suffer. After he heard I was marrying Giulio he lost interest in everything and shut himself up in his room and drank worse than before.’
    Azalea looked at me incredulously.
    â€˜When someone’s dead it’s all very easy to imagine things. He took ill and died, that’s all. You can’t do anything about it and there’s no sense in embroidering explanations. What did he care for you? He always said that he was sorry for you because you were such a silly girl and couldn’t say no to the first man that came along.’
    â€˜He did so care for me,’ I said. ‘He was always taking me down by the river to talk. He read his books to me and told me what they were about. And once he kissed me. I loved him too. Only I didn’t know it and thought it was only that I liked to tease him.’
    â€˜Don’t go mooning over Nini,’ she said. One man’s just like another. The thing to do is to have one around for company because it’s too bad to be a woman alone. Nini wasn’t as much of a fool as most of them, that’s true, and his eyes were so bright that I can almost see them this minute. But even he was a bore in the long run, when you couldn’t fathom what he was thinking. I’m not surprised he died, with all the cheap brandy he had in him. It’s a wonder he lived as long as he did.’
    When Giulio came back Azalea hurried away to cook her husband’s supper because Ottavia had a toothache. That night I dreamed that Nini came to the hospital and ran away with the baby. I ran after him frantically, and he showed me the baby, about the size of an apple, in his coat pocket. All of a sudden Nini ran up a flight of stairs and Giovanni was with him, but when I called them there was no answer. I woke up breathless and perspiring and found Giulio standing beside my bed. He had come by early in the morning to see how I was feeling. So I told him about my dream.
    â€˜Nobody’s run off with the baby,’ he said. ‘He’s sleeping right here beside you and he won’t be kidnapped, don’t worry.’
    But I went on saying that I had seen Nini big as life before me and he had held out his hand and spoken to me. I sobbed and tossed on my bed until finally Giulio told me to control my feelings and went away.
15
    A few days later I left the hospital for my new apartment. This was the beginning of a different life. Nini was dead and there was no use thinking about him. Now I had Giulio and the baby, a houseful of new furniture and bright lights and my mother-in-law in person. The maid took care of the baby and I slept late every morning in the big double bed with the orange velvet cover. There was a bell beside me if I wanted to be waited on and a rug to put my feet on when i was ready to get up. I would walk around the apartment in my wrapper, admiring the wallpaper and the furnishings, running a brush slowly through my hair and drinking a cup of coffee. I thought back to my mother’s house, with the mess left by the chickens all over the floor, the damp spots on the walls, and the little paper flaps fastened on to the lampshade in the dining-room. Was that incredible house still standing? Azalea kept saying we must go out there together, but I had no desire to do it. I was ashamed to think that I had ever lived there and I knew it would make me sad to see the room where Giovanni and Nini had slept together when we were all at home. When I walked about the city I stayed away from the river and sought out the most crowded streets where people could see me with my painted lips and new clothes. I looked at myself in the mirror half the