The terrace here has plants on it. Lavender, jasmine. It smells nice. They are the plants from the terrace at home. At home my mother waters them every night and every morning. She comes out and says something about the heat of the day. Then she waters the plants. The kind people who work here have brought the lavender and the jasmine from the terrace at home in Naples to make me feel at home.
Nothing is too much trouble for the kind people. It is nice to be at a spa. This spa is not like the spa my father took us to last year and the year before. We always go to Montecatini Terme in Tuscany. This is not Montecatini Terme. There you drink the waters and talk in the streets to the same people you see every year. The waters are good for your digestion. Sometimes in Montecatini Terme you or your parents are talking to a friend in the street and then suddenly the friend is not there any more. He has gone to the lavatory to answer a call of nature. In Montecatini Terme it is not necessary to say “goodbye” or apologise for leaving. Everyone knows you just turn away and absent yourself. And one day you realise that your three weeks’ stay is over and tomorrow you too must leave, it is over, and you must go back home to Naples.
In Naples we have lavender and jasmine on the terrace and my mother waters it every day, twice a day. The kind people who work here have brought the lavender and jasmine from our terrace and put it outside where I can see it. It makes me feel at home. Some time I will have to leave the spa and go back home. It has been a nice holiday. There have not been any waters to drink. But the kind people have made me comfortable. There is risotto to eat sometimes and sometimes soup, a cold bright green vegetable soup, very nice. The vegetable soup is my favourite to eat and I look forward to it. Last year I went with my parents and the year before that, we went to Montecatini Terme in Tuscany. This year I came here, and my parents did not come. They went to Montecatini Terme. There is plenty of time left before I have to go back home. My brother is here, I see him sometimes at the other end of the room, where the television set hangs on the yellow wall, but once I went over to say hello, and found myself about to speak to an old man by mistake. I don’t know where my brother went.
The kind people who work here make us comfortable and talk to us. Sometimes it is the kind ladies, the ones from Africa, who bring us our lunch and our supper. There is a kind lady from Russia who does not talk, who hits us when we are slow to get into bed and she is in a hurry. There are some strict gentlemen and strict ladies too, who come and ask me questions. I have told them these things before, but I don’t mind telling them again. I am between 40 and 50 years in age. It is 1974. (Sometimes I make a small joke, and I tell them that the year is 1975. The strict ladies write this down just the same.) The name of the Pope in the Vatican is John Paul, and he is Polish. They ask us the names of other people. They are different questions. But they always ask us the name of the prime minister of the country. Silvio Berlusconi, I always say. I look down when I say this. Berlusconi is a very good friend of my husband, Pierluigi, who is away at Montecatini Terme with my parents. In the past, he has come round to our house, and sat and told us about what he wants to do, and sometimes he has sung a song. I do not tell the strict ladies and gentlemen about this, there is no need. In the mornings they ask us what Silvio Berlusconi does for this country and in the afternoon Silvio Berlusconi comes to the spa and he visits us.
There are mostly old people at this spa. I am the youngest here, 30 or 40 years younger than the rest of them. The old man who sits in the chair next to me, he dribbles in his risotto at table and we pretend not to notice. They ask all of us one by one who the Pope is and who the prime minister is. The old man in the chair next to me, the risotto-dribbler, he gets the answer right about the Pope but then he says that the prime minister is Craxi. The strict lady writes the answer down. She does not correct him. She goes on to the next old person who knows like everyone else that the prime minister’s name is Silvio Berlusconi. I want to ask the old man how he can say something so stupid. But I don’t. In the afternoon the prime minister sometimes comes to visit us. Bettino Craxi has never been to visit us and he never will.
Berlusconi does not clean up after accidents but he sometimes brings us our risotto or our vegetable soup, which is my favourite. He sets it down and asks me if I’m good to go. Sometimes I am not sure what he means
On the terrace, the lavender and jasmine come from the terrace in Naples. The kind people who work here brought it, to make me feel at home. I like to smell it when the windows are open and it makes me feel homesick and it stops me feeling homesick. The kind people brought the lavender and the jasmine here.
Silvio Berlusconi does not look as he looks. But now I know that is what he looks like. His hair is black and smoothed down and his skin is tanned the colour of the risotto. He smiles at us but I did not think he recognised me at first. Now he has remembered me and he talks to me sometimes when he comes. Once he sang the line of a song to me, and he held my hand and I knew the tune. Volare… Cantare… Other famous people come to the spa to visit us. Eros Ramazzotti comes. He is the grandson of one of the old ladies. Sophia Loren has come with her pet dogs, one under each arm, and Gina Lollobrigida, very beautiful, as beautiful as ever. I recognised her immediately, but I said nothing. Nino Brunacci comes very often. He was my favourite star when I was young and it is so nice that he comes very often to visit us. He comes so often because he is one of the kind people. He is a big star but he does not mind cleaning up when one of the old people has an accident. He has not grown any older. But the most regular one who comes is the prime minister.
It is nice that the prime minister comes. He comes because he wants to hear what ordinary people think and what ordinary people like us are saying. He does not clean up after accidents but he sometimes brings us our risotto or our vegetable soup, putting them down in front of us. Vegetable soup is my favourite. Silvio Berlusconi sets it down and he asks me if I’m good to go. Sometimes I am not sure what Silvio Berlusconi means, but I agree, and pick up the spoon to eat it. Sometimes Silvio Berlusconi says that I am his favourite old dear, and if he ever runs out of talent, I’ll be at the top of his list. Silvio Berlusconi is an old friend of my husband, and so he talks to me like this, and neither of us mind it. My husband would not mind if he was here. My husband is in Montecatini Terme with my parents. He did not want to come here. We will meet again in Naples. I will tell him all about the things that Silvio Berlusconi has said to me and how nice it was that I and Silvio Berlusconi were at the same spa and Silvio Berlusconi was a kind person giving me some soup to eat.
Sometimes a kind man comes to visit me. He calls me Nonna. He sits with me and sometimes he talks and sometimes we sit and we watch the television together. Today Miss Lollobrigida came on the television and I explained that she had come to visit us all only that morning. He shook his head, the kind man who calls me Nonna. But I explained again about all the people who come to visit – about Sophia Loren, and Gina Lollobrigida, and Marcello Mastroianni, and Nino, but he had not heard of Nino Brunacci. And not just stars but the prime minister too, I explained. Silvio Berlusconi comes to visit. I often talk to him, I said. He gives me risotto to eat if it is a risotto day and vegetable soup if it is a vegetable soup day. Oh Nonna, the kind man says. Soon it is time for him to leave.
But quite soon after he leaves, Silvio Berlusconi comes into the room. He has been at the spa all day. Just now he was working in the kitchen. He takes off his washing-up gloves and comes over to say goodbye for the day. I want to say something to him, because behind him I can see the kind lady from Russia just taking off her coat and I do not want to be left alone with the kind lady from Russia. I ask him if he knows the plants outside, they come from my father’s terrace in Naples. The lavender and the jasmine. They smell here just as they smell in Naples. I was thinking of leaving them here, it would be kind to all the old people. But Silvio Berlusconi says something. You didn’t bring the lemon tree, then, he says. I am very surprised that he should remember that we had a lemon tree on the terrace at home, but he is right. They have brought the lavender and the jasmine from home but they have not brought the lemon tree. My father will be very disappointed at that. I agree with Silvio Berlusconi. Then Silvio Berlusconi puts on his own coat, and the big blue car that sits outside the spa sometimes takes him away.
I close my eyes. I pretend to sleep. The Russian kind lady is in the room. I don’t want her to know that I see her. I don’t want her to catch my eye. Some time soon it will be time to return home, some time soon, the holiday will be over. I have had a good time. It has been a long time. Soon it will be over.
- Philip Hensher is an award-winning author. The Emperor Waltz is published by Fourth Estate.
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