Read The House in Via Manno for Free Online

old story. I refused to take my dolls and games back home. When I was older, it was my books. I said that I absolutely had to stay at Nonna’s to study because transporting my dictionaries was so inconvenient. Or if I invited friends over, I preferred Nonna’s place because she had a terrace. And so on. Anyway, maybe I loved her in the right way, with all my tragic scenes and weeping and tantrums and attacks of happiness. When I returned from trips, she would always be down in the street waiting for me, and I’d run towards her, and we’d hug and cry from the emotion as if I’d been away to war instead of off enjoying myself.
    After Papà’s concerts, because Nonna never came, I’d get straight on the phone from various cities in the world and describe everything to her in detail, and I’d even sing some of it for her, and I’d tell her what the applause was like and what feelings the performance had created. Or if the concert was nearby, I’d go straight to via Manno, and Nonna would sit down and listen to me with her eyes closed, smiling, and beating time with her feet inside her slippers.
    Signora Lia, on the other hand, couldn’t stomach Papà’s concerts. She said that her son-in-law didn’t have a real job, that his success could end at any moment, and that, if it weren’t for the parents — who weren’t going to be around forever — he’d find himself begging for alms with Mamma and me. She knew what it meant to make do on your own and not to ask for help from anybody. She’d known life, unfortunately. My father didn’t hold it against her, or perhaps he didn’t notice the disdain of his mother-in-law, who never complimented him and threw out any newspapers that mentioned him or else used them to clean the windows or to put down on the floor if there were workmen in the house.
    Papà has always had his music, and has never cared about anything else.

10
    The first night they spent together, risking ending up in Hell, Nonna told the Veteran about her fleeing suitors, the well, the mangy hair, the scars on her arms, and the bordellos. (Nonna said that there were only two people she had ever been truly able to talk with — him and me.)
    He was the thinnest, most handsome man she’d ever seen, and the love was the longest and most intense. Because the Veteran, before entering her over and over, got her to undress slowly, and he stopped to caress each part of her body, smiling and telling her she was beautiful. And he wanted to take out her hairpins and plunge his hands into that cloud of raven curls the way that children do, and unlace her clothes and gaze at her naked on the bed, full of admiration for her big firm tits, her soft white skin, her long legs, all the while caressing her and kissing her right there where she’d never been kissed. It was enough to make you faint with pleasure. And then Nonna undressed him and delicately rested his wooden leg at the foot of the bed and slowly kissed and caressed his scar.
    And in her heart, for the first time, she thanked God for letting her be born, for pulling her out of the well, for giving her nice breasts and nice hair and even — above all — kidney stones.
    Later, he told her she was very good and he’d never met anyone like that in any bordello for any price. So Nonna proudly listed her services.
    The Prey: the man captures the woman, naked, in a fishing net in which he makes a cut through which to penetrate her. She’s his fish. He touches her all over but can only feel her shape and not her skin.
    The Slave: he gets her to bathe and caress him in the tub; her breasts are bare, and she offers them to him to bite without daring to look at him.
    The Geisha: he simply gets her to tell him stories that distract him from everyday problems; she is fully dressed, and they won’t necessarily have sex.
    The Meal: she lies down and the man spreads food on her like on a dinner table, for example, a fruit in the vagina or jam on the breasts, or ragù,