G. by John Berger Page A

political manipulation. For the next twenty years in Italy—as in most of the rest of Western Europe—the spectre of revolution was banished from men’s minds.

    In the garden in Livorno the fountain is playing. The fountain, the palm trees, the hibiscus and flowering shrubs have not been allowed to deteriorate since the death of Umberto’s wife, three years ago in1895. He employs two gardeners. He travels specially to Settignano to order rare plants. Each year his memory of his wife approximates more closely to the picture of her preserved by her acquaintances and friends. He no longer disputes that his wife was a person of great spirituality.
    Occasionally there is a noise which suggests a marble dropped into water. It is made by a perch, basking on the surface of the water, abruptly plunging. Umberto cannot enjoy the peacefulness of the garden alone. Alone he feels old and nervous. He will agree to anything Laura asks in exchange for being able to have his son in Livorno.
    Umberto thinks that his son is not like a modern Italian but like a youth painted during the Renaissance; his face is like a window onto his soul. He finds the gaps in the boy’s teeth a little disconcerting when he smiles, but these he will have stopped with gold. He tells Laura of all the advantages which the boy would enjoy if he lived in Livorno. Laura does not say what she thinks. Instead she complains, hints, contradicts herself. The more persuasive Umberto becomes, the less encouraging she is. He pleads with her, he begs her on his knees.
    No, No, she cries, holding his arms to make him get to his feet.
    He reminds her of times they have spent together.
    Ah my little one you were mad, quite quite mad.
    Italy, she insists, is not a country for a child.
    Come with him, says Umberto becoming more agitated, I’ll buy a house. I’ll buy you …
    The father’s sentimentality will ensure that the mother has her way.
    Whilst his unknown mother and newly-discovered father argue about where he should live and with whom, the son returns again and again to his memory of being led into the yard where the water-tap was. Again the Roman girl throws water on his face. Again he is amazed by her expression. Again something is revealed to him. The revelation is as wordless as the water she threw was colourless.
    Where he is (in the garden in Livorno) or where he was (in the Via Manin) is unimportant; what he sees in front of him (his mother’s round face and her hair impeccably arranged in a bun) or what hesaw (the Roman girl’s blemished open mouth) belongs to the particular moment; what he hears (the sound of the fountain playing) or what he heard (screams and curses of women) are simple alternatives; what matters is what her expression in the yard confirmed but what, until this moment, was wordless. What matters is not being dead.

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    It has begun, the struggle unto death against what is.
    The veil of St Veronica: a kerchief with the image of Christ’s head wearing the crown of thorns imprinted upon it.
    I see another image miraculously printed on cloth. Her body with her head thrown back and her eyes shut. The image is naturalistic, quite unstylized. Dark areas of hair. Her pale skin almost indistinguishable from the colour of the linen sheet on which she lay.
    Again and again two pigeons fly into the wood and out of it: the male always in pursuit. As the pair approach the wood with the hen bird in the lead, she checks herself in mid-air by holding herself vertical, with her tail down and her outstretched wings now acting as a brake. Her head is thrown back, her beak points to the sky. She hangs there motionless and yet not falling. The male bird finds himself at her side. She begins to drop, puts her head down and her tail up, dives, and they enter the wood together. A moment later they emerge from the far side of the wood to circle once more and repeat the same flight.
    The description so far as it goes is accurate. But my power to select (both the