Read Online The City and the House by Natalia Ginzburg - Free Book Online Page B

interview for an Italian teaching post. They accepted me. I shall teach Italian in a school. A few days ago my brother and I went to see the director. I start at the beginning of January.
    My brother has advised me to buy a bicycle. I shall cycle to school. According to my brother you enjoy the fresh morning air better on a bicycle than on foot.
    I shall teach for two or three months or so and then perhaps I shall return to Italy. Goodness only knows why I was such an idiot as to sell my house.
    Giuseppe
    Anne Marie’s daughter and son-in-law have arrived. They are sleeping in the drawing room where there are two sofa-beds. They will spend the New Year here. The daughter is a thin, skinny girl. She wears spectacles and she’s pregnant. The son-in-law is a little fellow, thin, with red hair and jug ears. The son-in-law’s name is Danny, the daughter’s Chantal. They both work in an advertising agency.
    I’ve bought a bicycle.

ROBERTA TO ALBERICO
    Rome, 15th January
    Dear Alberico,
    I was very pleased that you phoned me yesterday, and I thank you very much for your New Year’s greetings, even though I realize that you didn’t phone to wish me a Happy New Year but for your own purposes. You asked me to find you a house to rent in Rome, and you want it at once, by the end of the month.
    My dear boy, if you think it is easy to find a house in Rome you are mistaken. You say you want it to be central, really central, in old Rome; poor boy if you think it is easy to find a house to rent in old Rome you have another think coming.
    Your flat in via Torricelli was not in old Rome, but it was a splendid flat. You made a terrible mistake when you sold it, and your father made a terrible mistake too when he sold his flat here, above me, where the Lanzaras are now. You have been a couple of real fools.
    I’ve asked someone I know who has an estate agent’s to look out for a house for you wherever possible.
    You told me you have also phoned your father recently, and that was very good of you. You get in touch so seldom that every sign of life you give is all to the good.
    I also phoned your father over the New Year. He seemed to me to be in a very bad mood. When I phoned there were guests in the house, your Uncle Ferraccio’s wife’s daughter and son-in-law. The house was probably in something of a muddle and your father detests muddle, and he doesn’t like guests in the house as you know. And perhaps he doesn’t like your uncle’s wife, this Anne Marie woman, much. That’s the impression I got. He doesn’t like America at all either, though what’s he seen of it? He hasn’t seen anything, in New York he had a bit of a sore throat and stayed holed up in his hotel, and now he’s in Princeton he’s always shut up in the house - from what he told me - even if he hasn’t got a sore throat any more. He’s a real character your father is.
    I spent New Year’s Eve upstairs in the flat that used to be your father’s. The Lanzaras invited me. The flat is still a bit disorganized because they only moved in a few days ago. They have made some changes and it’s unrecognizable, but in those places where I did recognise it I felt very sad, because I remembered when I used to come up and find your father there and now I find the Lanzaras instead. They are kind, pleasant people, but you can well understand how it’s not the same for me.
    They have made a lot of changes. They have given those pale blue kitchen fittings to the caretaker and they’ve made a new kitchen with co-ordinated units. To tell the truth I’d have been grateful if they’d given them to me, but apparently it didn’t occur to them. It’s a pity your father didn’t think of giving them to me, seeing that the Lanzaras didn’t want them - I suppose they thought them old-fashioned and not very stylish.
    Anyway, I had a really lively New Year’s Eve with the