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Authors: Natalia Ginzburg
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have a long, careful breakfast, which I donât take part in but at which I am present. When they have finished breakfast I help Anne Marie to wash the dishes. I take the rubbish bags to the dustbin which is in front of the door. And hereâs my brother in his loden overcoat and Anne Marie with her bun. Anne Marie puts her cap on in front of the hall mirror, and tilts it over one ear. They take their bicycles out of the garage and go off to the Institute. I wave to them from the window. I am alone.
I donât go out much. During the first days I was here I went out with my brother a few times. They were the only times in which he and I were together without Anne Marie, and I anxiously searched around inside myself for things to say to him, without finding a single phrase. He was a bit embarrassed, too. Perhaps he thinks that I donât like Anne Marie. Itâs true, I canât stand her; I canât stand either her long neck, or her clear squinting eyes, or her smile, or her plait, or her bun. But I canât tell him that and Iâm unable to tell him anything else. When Iâm alone I donât want to go out, I donât feel any great curiosity to go and look around, I feel that Iâm neither a visitor passing through nor an inhabitant of the place; Iâm someone who doesnât know what to be and who stares at everything indecisively.
Anne Marie and my brother come back at seven in the evening. Anne Marie immediately starts cooking. She cooks very complicated dishes, slices of meat with minced carrots, beetroot and cabbage mixed up together, sauces with flour and cream. Since I have been here she has never made a meat-loaf but Iâm sure that if she did make one it wouldnât fall apart. She hurries about the kitchen darting that long neck of hers this way and that, smiling the whole time. I offer to help her. She politely refuses. My brother and I sit in the living-room and wait for supper to be ready. He reads scientific journals and I read detective stories. Every now and then he raises his head and asks me if what I am reading is interesting. I always say yes. I look at him. As I look at him, whilst he is reading seated at the table, with his chin cupped in his hand and his wrinkled forehead, I experience once again the feeling of great calm that he always used to give me when we were children, and when I thought of him in Italy. He has always been a secure point of reference for me, a tree-trunk I could lean against, someone from whom I could at every moment ask for explanations, judgements, reproaches and absolution. But in fact I never ask him for anything now. Our relationship has been interrupted. It seems to me that he doesnât have space for me now. After the evening of my arrival he has said nothing more to me about his marriage. And whilst I look at him I feel that behind his authoritative appearance an extreme embarrassment, as far as I am concerned, is hiding itself-a dislike even, a disgust, which is not at all severe or condemnatory, but simply irritated. We go and sit down to supper. I donât like Anne Marieâs soups at all but I eat them all the same and praise them to the skies in French and in English. At table my brother and Anne Marie hold hands. They drink milk and fruit juices. Towards evening I always go to the âWines and Spiritsâ and buy myself a can of beer. They could remember at least once that I drink beer and buy some for me. They donât do so. They donât remember. It will seem silly to you, but this upsets me.
Sometimes two of my brotherâs friends come over after supper. Their names are Schultz and Kramer. They work in the same Institute. My brother and Anne Marie talk and laugh a lot with them , until late at night. I stay for a while during these conversations, without understanding anything because they are on scientific subjects and because I donât know English well enough. I go to bed early.
I had an
I donât go out much. During the first days I was here I went out with my brother a few times. They were the only times in which he and I were together without Anne Marie, and I anxiously searched around inside myself for things to say to him, without finding a single phrase. He was a bit embarrassed, too. Perhaps he thinks that I donât like Anne Marie. Itâs true, I canât stand her; I canât stand either her long neck, or her clear squinting eyes, or her smile, or her plait, or her bun. But I canât tell him that and Iâm unable to tell him anything else. When Iâm alone I donât want to go out, I donât feel any great curiosity to go and look around, I feel that Iâm neither a visitor passing through nor an inhabitant of the place; Iâm someone who doesnât know what to be and who stares at everything indecisively.
Anne Marie and my brother come back at seven in the evening. Anne Marie immediately starts cooking. She cooks very complicated dishes, slices of meat with minced carrots, beetroot and cabbage mixed up together, sauces with flour and cream. Since I have been here she has never made a meat-loaf but Iâm sure that if she did make one it wouldnât fall apart. She hurries about the kitchen darting that long neck of hers this way and that, smiling the whole time. I offer to help her. She politely refuses. My brother and I sit in the living-room and wait for supper to be ready. He reads scientific journals and I read detective stories. Every now and then he raises his head and asks me if what I am reading is interesting. I always say yes. I look at him. As I look at him, whilst he is reading seated at the table, with his chin cupped in his hand and his wrinkled forehead, I experience once again the feeling of great calm that he always used to give me when we were children, and when I thought of him in Italy. He has always been a secure point of reference for me, a tree-trunk I could lean against, someone from whom I could at every moment ask for explanations, judgements, reproaches and absolution. But in fact I never ask him for anything now. Our relationship has been interrupted. It seems to me that he doesnât have space for me now. After the evening of my arrival he has said nothing more to me about his marriage. And whilst I look at him I feel that behind his authoritative appearance an extreme embarrassment, as far as I am concerned, is hiding itself-a dislike even, a disgust, which is not at all severe or condemnatory, but simply irritated. We go and sit down to supper. I donât like Anne Marieâs soups at all but I eat them all the same and praise them to the skies in French and in English. At table my brother and Anne Marie hold hands. They drink milk and fruit juices. Towards evening I always go to the âWines and Spiritsâ and buy myself a can of beer. They could remember at least once that I drink beer and buy some for me. They donât do so. They donât remember. It will seem silly to you, but this upsets me.
Sometimes two of my brotherâs friends come over after supper. Their names are Schultz and Kramer. They work in the same Institute. My brother and Anne Marie talk and laugh a lot with them , until late at night. I stay for a while during these conversations, without understanding anything because they are on scientific subjects and because I donât know English well enough. I go to bed early.
I had an
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