All Our Yesterdays by Natalia Ginzburg Page A

their cigarettes out against the prisoners’ foreheads. Then Emanuele, too, began to wonder what had become of Franz’s parents. But Danilo said that for people who were dying in the camps there was nothing to be done ; on the other hand something could be done for his friends who were still in prison, they had taken them to Rome in a prison van and now they had to stand their trial by the Special Tribunal, and did Emanuele and Ippolito know what a journey in a prison van was like, a journey that went on for ever, all chained together? Did they know what prison was like? They didn’t put their cigarettes out against your forehead, but it was not comfortable, and people became consumptive if they ate nothing but the soup they gave them, unless they had money to buy themselves something else. And they needed money also to pay the lawyer at the trial, and money to help their families. To raise money, that was the important thing, not to sit by the radio and be bored because the war was a cold war. Emanuele went red and said that perhaps he could give them just a little money, not much because he could not touch his capital, his uncle who was a colonel would know if he did, he always started to stammer a little when he spoke of his capital. But he could save a little on his cash expenses. Danilo shrugged his shoulders, more was needed than Emanuele’s small savings, which he put aside a little each day as a good child does. A good big sum was needed and it must be raised at all costs.
    Anna was always hoping they would start on their politics again, with their newspapers and pamphlets, but Giustino told her they would not start again, all they thought of was finding the money for Danilo’s friends in prison, in any case that was politics too, finding the money was called Red assistance and it was very dangerous. But nobody now shut themselves up in the sitting-room and the sitting-room was always deserted, with the shutters closed and a cold fit to kill you, because Ippolito said they must economize with wood, and there was no need to light the stove in that room as well. Signora Maria complained that Concettina could no longer play the piano, but Concettina said she did not care in the least about the piano and in fact she had decided to sell it, the piano belonged to her and she could do what she liked with it, it had been her grandmother’s and her grandmother before she died had said she was leaving it to her. Every day at table she talked about selling the piano, and she asked Emanuele what had to be done to put an insertion into the paper, how much it cost and where you had to go. She said she had decided to sell it because she wanted to make herself a trousseau, she couldn’t possibly go naked to get married. So Ippolito said that when she had somebody to marry she could then think whether or not to sell the piano, at present she had no one but those fiancés of hers, she had had them for years and years and not one of them was any good to marry. And Concettina said there was one who was extremely good to marry, the one who always came to take her out in his car, and she was marrying him at once, at the end of the month. And he was a young man who was extremely good to marry, he was far better than Ippolito and Emanuele and the usual run of their friends, he was a young man who was fond of her and he had been waiting for her for a great many years. And in any case she had no need to give explanations to anyone and was acting according to her own ideas. She went out banging the door and they were all left looking at each other in bewilderment, and then suddenly they heard the sound of Concettina’s violent sobs coming from her room, and Emanuele wanted to go to her, but Ippolito restrained him. Giustino said he knew the young man with the car perfectly well, he was a Fascist and he went round in a black shirt in processions. Emanuele knew him too and said what his name was, he was called