In Memory of Two Lives

Last night I remembered that today, March 3rd, would have been Aunt Nora's birthday. She still comes to mind often. We frequently practice the Beethoven variations for cello and piano, the Haydn trios, the "classical pieces for beginners" (e.g. Händel's "Harmonious Blacksmith"), etc. that she, Papa, and (whenever he visited) Uncle Pu played during our Saturday visits to her old house in Victoria. Besides, she bequeathed us her books, so many of our music books were once hers, and we are the richer for a large and eclectic range of literature. I tried to think of a nice story about her, but I remember generalities better. First and foremost there was her generosity -- inviting people often and having bountiful edible provisions (e.g. Veuve Clicquot,), her role as Maecenas for the carpenters and artists and so on with whom she was acquainted, the seeds that she scattered out freely in the bird-house, our Easter egg hunts in her garden, etc. Besides, there was her sense of humour, which could be either benign or biting; her fondness of Einstein and an anecdote about his frustrated music teacher ("Can't you even count to three?!"), of crosswords, and of television shows like Dame Edna; and her habit of saying "Mon Dieu, quel horreur!" quickly when, for example, she nearly stumbled over something.

A few days ago Alice Ricciardi, a friend of Omama and Opapa died, too. I knew of her first when Opapa suggested that I send our family newsletter to her, so I wrote a letter (somewhat timidly addressing her by the first name, but she doesn't seem to have minded) to go with it, and a nice correspondence started. Her postcards and letters were brief and friendly; the cards generally had paintings by old Italian masters -- and, once, a black-and-white photograph of what I suspect to be the Arno -- on the front. When Mama and I went to Europe, she invited us to visit her in Italy. When we finally showed up, it was, I fear, quite unexpectedly, because we didn't have her current phone number. It was a rainy day and we had taken the train from Florence to Camucia. There we found out that she did not live in the town, but quite a ways further out, so we obtained her telephone number, called her and told her that we were at the train station. As it turned out that no taxi was available, we had to telephone again, and then she offered to come and fetch us in the car. I felt intensely guilty about the whole affair, especially as it turned out that her driver's license had lapsed and that she was running some legal risk, but her manner when she arrived was grave but not displeased.

First of all we walked a little through the streets of Camucia to buy dinner; we bought fish at what was probably a small restaurant, bread at a bakery, lettuce and grapes at a grocer's, and eggs in a store devoted largely to meats, with Parma hams hanging above the counter at the back. She had crutches, but got along the cobblestones quite well, as far as I remember. On the way back to her home, the right sideview mirror accidentally hit that of another car so that it snapped back; Alice remarked, "We'll get away with that one," and drove on with some preoccupation but no other feeling apparent. I felt rather awful at the time, but she undeniably handled it well.

Her house itself was an old brick building, which, I think she told us, was built in the early nineteenth century. Three or four cypresses stood to the right, and to the left there were pines, a garden shed, and a white gazebo with cosmea flowers around it. The guest bedroom was on the first floor, and to the right one could enter a long and cavernous living room, where boxes still stood chaotically after her move from Rome, and she told us that we could use the phone there to call home. On the second floor, accessible by an exterior staircase, there was the main living room, a kitchen, and her bedroom. The living room walls, adorned with paintings both modern and older (one scene of Mount Etna erupting had not yet been hung up), were simple, with a crack or two in one corner, and there were low shelves filled with books, like Omama's memoirs.

We ate dinner, with grapes for dessert (or "pudding," which, as Lela says, was the term she preferred), and then I cleaned out the hearth and, on the andirons, made a fire with newspaper, pinecones and pine wood under her direction. Then, in British English with an agreeably snuffly-sounding aristocratic accent, or in German, she told us about the house and the neighbourhood: her English neighbours, who had problems with their house because it was sinking into the ground, which was formerly swampland; the state of the olive and grape harvests; the marauding wild boars in Northern Italy and their predilection for chestnuts; etc. Politics came up, too. She mentioned that nearly everyone she knew in the area was an ex-communist, so it was surprising that Silvio Berlusconi had so much support; her friends in Israel, she said, were also amazed that people would vote for Ariel Sharon. Besides, she talked about her journey to a convention in Turkey, and about her work -- as a psychoanalyst -- with schizophrenic patients. When the subject turned to Mama's drawing, she was immediately interested, too. (I was mostly quiet -- partly because I liked listening, and partly because I only wanted to say something when it was worthwhile -- and it was quite comfortable.)

At that time I had gotten to know the sad part of growing old, like losing one's memory and mental acuity and self-control, and I was worrying about vegetating completely in the sedentary and depressed life I was leading. So it was a relief to meet Alice, who, at over ninety years of age, was most clear-minded, and who -- despite being stranded in the countryside with no friends nearby, essentially without a car, and with no television apparent -- was still interested in and well-informed about the world, and ready to go out and travel with an unforced stoicism. I still know little about her life and work, but as far as I have read about them, both testify strongly to the high calibre of her mind, her tolerance, and her bravery.