I’m sure we loved him very much. Do you have children? Do you love your children? I know, there is more than one way. Look, it was ten years before we had him. We’d done everything. I had a fibroma, not that it bothered me, but if I wanted a baby I had to have an operation. It was ’39, there wasn’t penicillin then, I got septicemia. To save me they gave me paraffin injections in the thigh so the infection localized there — an abscess comes and the surgeon cuts it. I have legs full of scars. He was born in ’46, it wasn’t a good time to be born. Many were born in ’46, the soldiers came home, those who hadn’t died. No, Rodolfo didn’t get his illness in the war, he returned healthy, only a little thinner. He got sick the first time in ’51. Who knows why? If we knew why we get sick, we wouldn’t get sick. But he lasted a long time, until ’61—ten years. A little longer, in fact, he died in December. Excuse me if I cry. I didn’t want to cry, but the tears come down by themselves. It’s good for me to cry? You’re right, it’s good for me to cry.
The film I liked best among the few I’ve seen was called Roman Holiday—I remember that one as if it were yesterday — with Gregory Peck, and I liked Gregory Peck very much. I don’t remember the actress, she was very good. I know it doesn’t interest you, but it has something to do with it, I’m just telling you that Rodolfo had promised that all three of us would take a trip to Rome. He seemed to be better, there were years when he seemed to recover, we made a lot of plans for a long time, Rodolfo even bought a map so he could study the two-day tourist itineraries. I won’t repeat it to you, but I could, I remember it perfectly. Then all of a sudden Rodolfo needed dialysis, there wasn’t any money to go to Rome, so we went to see Roman Holiday. We even took the boy, though maybe it was a boring film for an eleven-year-old. However, we did see a lot of the famous places in Rome. There was one very funny scene when they go to visit some historic buildings and at a certain point he puts his hand into the mouth of a big stone mask on the porch of a church, and the legend says that if someone tells a lie, the mouth bites off his hand. He turns toward her — oh! it was Audrey Hepburn — and I think he tells her, “I love you,” and at that point he gives a cry and pulls out his arm without his hand, because he’s hidden it in the sleeve of his jacket, and they both laugh and hug each other.
We were always close to him. He never lacked affection, if this is what you were thinking. We were a very united family and he never gave us any worry, with Rodolfo in that condition, only comfort. He was so intelligent and particularly gifted in school, he was always an exceptional student — diplomas, medals, prizes. I didn’t want to send him to the lyceum, it didn’t seem to me a school appropriate to our situation. Afterwards what can a person with a lyceum certificate do? On the other hand, with a diploma in bookkeeping or surveying it’s always possible to find a job. But it was his professor who prevented me from doing it. He said that it was a crime, it really was, a boy of exceptional intelligence with A’s in Italian and Latin — to send him to a technical school was a crime. Besides, I never had to spend anything for his studies, not even later. He always supported himself with his splendid intelligence. He’s a little poet, his professor told me. This he got from Rodolfo. You say also his political ideas? Lei’s not talk nonsense. When Rodolfo died, he wasn’t yet fifteen years old. What ideas is it possible to think about at that age? Of course Rodolfo had his political ideas, they were well-known, I’m proud of them, yes. He was in the Resistance, of course, and also the war in Spain with the International Brigades, he took part in the battle of the Ebro. He knew the great people of that time — Longo, El Campesino, La Pasionaria. He always talked about this, you know, they were his favorite memories, especially in his last years. When he talked about La Pasionaria he called her Dolores, or else Ibarruri, as if she were an intimate friend. I see him again on the divan, he spent the afternoons on the divan with a lap robe. He was emaciated, hollow cheeks, the shadow of my Rodolfo…. And Piticche stayed to listen to him with his eyes watchful, he liked his father’s stories very much. Then they sang some Spanish songs together that Rodolfo knew, Piticche had learned them right away, too, “Gandesa,” for example: Si me quieres escribir ya sabes mi paradero, en el frente de Gandesa primera linea de fuego … No, he was not a communist, he was a libertarian socialist. He said that La Pasionaria had been a friend, too, that they had fought side by side, that she was an exceptional woman. Then they had had a furious quarrel, she said ugly words to him, and he retorted that one day she would cry bitterly over the mistakes she had made. He talked about it with much pain. He said that she had sold herself to the Russians, that she had committed atrocities against her comrades.
He was a dreamer, my Rodolfo. This he taught our son. And then he loved culture, books, he read a lot of them in his life, a kind of adoration. He said that in every book there’s always a man, and that to burn a book is like burning a person. He taught him the pleasure of reading … and writing, too. They wrote each other letters. They played a game, it was a beautiful game, I mean I think it was a very poetic thing. They read the books and then they wrote letters to each other as if each of them were a character in the books that they’d read, imaginary characters or historic personages. It was the last year of Rodolfo’s life. They wrote each other dozens of letters. Whoever received a letter read it at supper that evening. For me they were very beautiful moments. Excuse me if I cry. Rodolfo received many letters from Livingstone — Piticche liked being Livingstone so much — and then from Huckleberry Finn, from Kim, Gavroche, Pasteur. They were written with much maturity. I must have them somewhere, someday I’ll set out to look for them. And yet he was only fifteen years old, a child.
Rodolfo died in December of ’61, I know that I already told you. He spent his last days very upset, but not because of his illness. He was tormented by what was happening in the world, that is in Russia, I wouldn’t know exactly, I know that Khrushchev had revealed the atrocities committed by his predecessors, and he was in anguish. He didn’t sleep anymore, even the sleeping pills had no effect on him. Then one day a letter arrived for him. The return address said: “La Pasionaria, Moscow.’’ And inside was written: “Dolores Ibarruri sheds bitter tears.”
So, that was my son. What did they do to him? I saw his photo in the newspapers. They slaughtered him, and I couldn’t even see him. They wrote that he did … I don’t have the courage to say it … dreadful things. Did they say dreadful? However, you’ve heard another story, the story of a person you don’t know. I’ve talked to you about my Piticche. I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention this name in your newspaper. Excuse me if I cry. I didn’t want to cry, but the tears come down by themselves. It’s good for me to cry? You’re right, it’s good for me to cry.
THE LITTLE GATSBY
The evenings were slow, lingering, bloodstained by magnificent sunsets. Hot, languid nights followed, punctuated by the green sob of the lighthouse on the other side of the gulf. You’d like my story to begin like this, right? You’ve always had a certain predilection for the stereotyped. Under your docile and discreet refinement — your charme—you’ve always hidden a veneer of bad taste which perhaps deeply belonged to you. And yet how you hated ‘bad taste”! It disgusted you. And the banal, the everyday, they were monstrous things. Well, then, I can begin my story this way. Of course I loved the villa. The evenings were slow, lingering, bloodstained by magnificent sunsets. Hot, languid nights followed, punctuated by the green sob of the lighthouse on the other side of the gulf. I was at the window. I always slept very little. You never noticed. I would get up and stand at the window behind the curtains. Sometimes around two o’clock a light breeze arose which rippled the surface of the water. It slipped above the overheated tiles of the portico and reached my face almost tepid, comforting. There was always some ship that glided into the windowpane, freighters for the most part, I think, guided by the call of the lighthouse. In the background, on the left, the harbor teemed with lights. It seemed to be waiting. For what? Was I waiting for something? The minutes passed slowly. The breeze blew the awnings. Desire flowed in my blood. With difficulty I managed to control it. I leaned on the windowsill overlooking the sea. The coast was a promise. Its lights glittered. It was like a holiday. I repeated to myself that my story was inside me. One day I would have written it. I would have sat down, as in a dream, at the table, without even looking at the white sheet of paper that was in front of me, and the story would have gushed out like a spring of water. And then I would have written as if by magic. The words would have arranged themselves on the page as if enchanted, drawn by a magnet called inspiration. Would you expect that I had thought this way, leaning at the window? I never thought so, naturally. It never crossed my mind. I wouldn’t have written another line.