grew and grew within me, like a demon, like a monster. I hated it. I hated it before it was even born. My life was already difficult; it was difficult enough without it. I had gone back to live with my parents when my husband threw me out. In actual fact, my mother wanted neither me nor my four daughters. My father was tenderer at heart and it was thanks to him that we were allowed to stay. But had she known I had gone to her house expecting again, my mother wouldn’t have let me in in the first place.
Finally, months later, I was rent open and Pippa came out. With great ease, as if she knew she wasn’t safe inside me and wanted to throw herself out as soon as possible, she just popped out. She was such a small baby, so feeble; a lump of flesh, something ugly. I went dry the first week. After her four big sisters I had neither the breast to give her nor the will to give it.
It was because of her that I quit my job at Banca di Roma. It was a busy branch and my director appreciated me. And it was because of her that my mother and I fell out again. When I stopped bringing home money, my mother wanted us even less.
I didn’t want to go back to my husband. I had no place to go other than the house of my mother who didn’t want me. I did not want this baby.
When she was thirty-two days old, towards the evening one day, I pressed a pillow against her face. My mother thought of it. It would look as if she smothered herself burying her face in the pillow in her sleep, ‘come, let’s do that,’ she said. Or was it me who said that? I don’t remember. I pressed the pillow against her face. She was so tiny anyway. She just had a teeny-weeny bit of life in her. Just as we were thinking that she’d be gone in less than a minute, can you believe it, my aunt came in! She pounced upon me like an eagle! She threw the pillow aside and slapped me. She swore at my mother. My mother swore at her: ‘Why do you interfere, are you going to look after it?’ While they were fighting the baby suddenly made a sound. That baby that hadn’t made a sound for thirty-two days, not even when she was born, and this time she made a strange sound. It was neither a cry nor a laugh. Just a plain sound. I froze within. It was at that moment that I realized that I wouldn’t be able to get rid of this child.
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