Administration

On my first night home after being away on business for a week, I was relaxing after supper when the Pasionaria turned off the radio. I told her to turn it on again because there was something I wanted to hear.

"Later," she said. "First we have to have the meeting."

"Meeting?" I was bewildered. "Is this something new?"

"No, it's nothing new," replied Margherita, coming up with two ledgers and some pens. "Now we have a meeting every night after supper. We began it right after you left."

Margherita sat down and opened a ledger.

"The evening meeting," she said, "is divided in two parts: balancing the books for the past twenty-four hours and estimating the budget for the next twenty-four hours."

I confessed that although everything was as clear as it could be I didn't understand a word of it. Margherita then took it upon herself to enlighten me.

"Until now," she said, "we've been living like a family of horses pasturing in the meadow and eating what we find without a thought for the morrow. We've never had an administration. A house without an administration is like a building without a foundation-it stays up because it stays up, but nobody guarantees its stability. But now our house has an administration. This is very important, above all because the children take part in the evening discussion and thus get a precise idea of how much it costs to run a family and they learn to distinguish between what is essential and what is unnecessary. They don't grow up packed in cotton wool, they become aware of the various difficulties that must be overcome in order to live."

I felt enormous admiration for Margherita.

"The children," she went on, "understand the basic concept to perfection. You," she said, "you tell Papa what a house is, speaking administratively."

The Pasionaria recited, all in one breath: "A house, administratively speaking, is a ship whose crew consists of a father who does the rowing, a mother who holds the tiller, and children who don't lie around sleeping but help their father and their mother and thus learn to row and to navigate. Amen."

"This is no time for joking," Margherita reproved her. "The meeting is now open. Are there any suggestions or observations on the management of the past twenty-four hours? Was the money that was spent, well spent?"

The Pasionaria and Albertino looked at each other.

"As far as I'm concerned," said Albertino, "yes."

"As far as I'm concerned," said the Pasionaria, "the money that was spent on minestrone was wasted. I like spaghetti better."

Margherita tossed her head.

"So when I boil a chicken," she said, "am I supposed to throw the broth away? Come on, are there any other observations? Could any savings have been effected?"

"Too much salt in the soup," muttered the Pasionaria.

Margherita refused to accept the provocation.

"We will now," she said, "pass on to the estimate for tomorrow. Take notice that your father is now present. You, write!"

Albertino, with a grinding of his teeth, grasped a pen and at the head of a fresh page wrote: "Thursday, March 5. Potential forces, four. Actual forces, four." Then he read it aloud.

"Very well," said Margherita in a crisp, almost military voice. "Now, Albertino, list the various requirements."

Albertino listed:

"Four requirements of bread at breakfast, four at lunch, two for afternoon tea, and four at dinner. Total, fourteen."

"Thirteen," corrected the Pasionaria. "I want a requirement of polenta at dinner."

"Impossible," declared Margherita, "because uneconomic. Either all bread or all polenta."

Four requirements of polenta were then approved for the evening meal.

"Every requirement," Margherita explained to me, "whether for bread or anything else, is expressed in both quantity and cost. We've made a complete reference book."

Both the type of soup and its accompaniment having been agreed upon, the administrative council then deter­mined the relative requirements.

"We also," observed the Pasionaria, "need a require­ment for the cat."

"The cat is not included among the forces," Margherita declared. "The cat will have to make do with what's left over. We will now list the totals. How much are we going to spend for tomorrow's food?"

Albertino and the Pasionaria worked for quite a while over the addition and came up at the end with a result that did not please Margherita.

They did the problem over and achieved a second result remarkably different from the first, but Margherita liked it no better. She shook her head.

"Two hundred lire more than today," she said. "That won't do. Tomorrow we'll have to make our choice with greater care. Meanwhile, inasmuch as we have to make up the deficit, we will remove the two hundred lire from the fixed quota estimated for Group B."

Margherita took this opportunity to explain Group B to me.

"We've established how much we ought to spend annu­ally for clothes, linen, shoes, laundry, cleaning, assorted repairs, light, heating, gas, domestic service, recreation, travel, studies, cigarettes, culture, taxes, weekends, amor­tization of capital, tips, stamps, drugs, upkeep of the house, and so on. Then we added it all up and divided by three hundred and sixty‑five, in order to establish how much we ought to spend daily. That's Group B. There's another ledger for Group B, listed according to item."

As I turned over the pages of the Group B ledger, I felt a growing horror.

"Margherita," I said, "did you establish this adminis­tration?"

"No, Signora Marcella established it, using as a basis her own family, which is the same size as ours. Naturally, it's been adapted to our particular way of life. It's a masterpiece of precision. You can be absolutely sure that when conditions are normal, as they are now, the house and the family will come to this figure daily."

I looked at the figure, which was colossal, outrageous.

"Margherita," I stammered, "I couldn't possibly spend an amount like this every day."

Margherita smiled.

"Really, Giovannino," she said, "you're arguing like a man who has a car and says, `My car does ten kilometers on a liter of gas, and since gas costs a hundred and thirty lire a liter, I'm spending thirteen lire a kilometer.' But what about the oil? the tires? repairs? taxes? insurance? amortization of capital? Think about it for a minute, Giovannino."

I thought about it: Margherita was right.

I was dismayed.

"Margherita," I moaned, "it's frightening."

The Pasionaria broke in. "A requirement of cognac for the gentleman!"

Cognac was brought and I drank it down. .

"You may have another, Giovannino," Margherita told me. "It's in the budget under the sum appropriated for liabilities."

The cognac picked me up, and I was able to study the Group B ledger somewhat more calmly. Every sum ap­peared to be hideously precise.

I realized that every day of my life was costing me an unimaginable amount of money. I had never thought about it before, and now I felt I was carrying a tremendous weight on my shoulders.

"Margherita," I said finally. "Administratively speaking, the family is a boat where the father rows, the mother holds the tiller, and the children help and so learn to row and navigate. All this is absolutely correct. But if the poor oarsman must, in addition to rowing the boat, also every time he dips his oar take into consideration the agitation his oar causes in the liquid mass, and the number of calories consumed by his efforts, and equate them with the volume of air breathed, the number of red corpuscles, the variations of nervous tension, the vitamins, proteins, toxins, decalcification of the tibia, tension of the sciatic nerve, blood pressure, absorption of ultraviolet rays, pyloric reactions, and so on-if he has to do all this, Margherita, can you guess what this unhappy oarsman is going to do one day?"

"Throw himself in the water," declared the Pasionaria.

"Exactly. Throw himself in the water and die of drowning, but not without first having accurately calculated the volume of liquid displaced."

Margherita spread her hands.

"Don't be like the ostrich, Giovannino," she said, "who hides his head in the sand. You must live consciously. And to live consciously, there is nothing better than a competent family administration."

I did not agree.

"Margherita," I said, "there is only one family administration that I'll put up with. It's based on the following principle: the father rows lightheartedly, taking pleasure in steering his boat across the vast sea, and the children watch the father rowing and so learn by his example that to cross the sea you have to keep rowing."

"What about the mother?" Albertino asked. "What does she do?"

Margherita poured out a requirement of cognac and hurled the Group A and Group B ledgers into the fire.

She rose.

"The mother," she said, "removes the inconvenience of her presence. She abandons the tiller and departs."

"Potential force: four," murmured the Pasionaria. "Actual force: three. Force that will stay in bed until eleven in the morning: one."

Margherita disappeared, and the little boat, now pilotless, foundered along with all its crew on an enormous fruitcake that was brought to the table under the heading of liabilities.