How to Travel With a Salmon and Other Essays (20 page)

Pornographic movies are full of people who climb into cars and drive for miles and miles, couples who waste incredible amounts of time signing in at hotel desks, gentlemen who spend many minutes in elevators before reaching their rooms, girls who sip various drinks and who fiddle interminably with laces and blouses before confessing to each other that they prefer Sappho to Don Juan. To put it simply, crudely, in porn movies, before you can see a healthy screw you have to put up with a documentary that could be sponsored by the Traffic Bureau.

There are obvious reasons. A movie in which Gilbert did nothing but rape Gilbertina, front, back, and sideways, would be intolerable. Physically, for the actors, and economically, for the producer. And it would also be, psychologically, intolerable for the spectator: for the transgression to work, it must be played out against a background of normality. To depict normality is one of the most difficult things for any artist—whereas portraying deviation, crime, rape, torture, is very easy.

Therefore the pornographic movie must present normality—essential if the transgression is to have interest—in the way that every spectator conceives it. Therefore, if Gilbert has to take the bus and go from A to B, we will see Gilbert taking the bus and then the bus proceeding from A to B.

This often irritates the spectators, because they think they would like the unspeakable scenes to be continuous. But this is an illusion on their part. They couldn't bear a full hour and a half of unspeakable scenes. So the passages of wasted time are essential.

I repeat. Go into a movie theater. If, to go from A to B, the characters take longer than you would like, then the film you are seeing is pornographic.

1989

Many years ago a TV actor, who made no secret of his homosexuality, said to a youth whom he was frankly trying to seduce, "You go with women? Don't you know that can cause cancer?" The remark is still quoted around the Milan television studios, but now the time for such joking has passed. I read recently that according to the revelations of Professor Matré, heterosexual contact
is
carcinogenic. High time somebody came out and said it. I would go even farther: heterosexual contact causes death, period. Even a fool knows that it ends in procreation, and the more people are born, the more people die.

With scant regard for democratic principles, the AIDS psychosis threatened to constrict the activity only of homosexuals. Now we will limit heterosexual activity as well, and all of us will once again be on the same footing. But (while I would not want to foster excessive alarmism) I would still like to point out some other high-risk categories.

Drama Critics, Intellectuals, Aspiring Politicians

Do not attend Off-Off-Broadway theaters in New York. It is a known fact that, for phonetic reasons, English-speaking actors spit a great deal. You have only to see them in profile, against the light, to notice this; and experimental theaters seat the spectator directly in the line of the actor's spray. If you are an elected official, have no dealings with mafiosi, or you will have to kiss the godfather's hand. Connections with the camorra are also not advised, in view of the blood rituals. Anyone embarking on a political career through Catholic Action membership must somehow avoid Holy Communion, as germs can be transmitted from mouth to mouth via the fingertips of the celebrant, and the risks of auricular confession are self-evident.

Ordinary Citizens

Swimming in an oil-polluted sea increases the risk of contagion, because the oil droplets transport particles of saliva from other swimmers, who have previously swallowed the polluted liquid and spat it out. Anyone who smokes more than eighty Gauloises a day touches—with fingers that have touched other things—the upper part of all those cigarettes, and the germs enter the respiratory channels. Avoid being fired from your job, because you then spend the day chewing your fingernails. Take care not to be kidnapped by Sardinian shepherds or by terrorists: the kidnappers as a rule use the same hood for many kidnapped victims. Never travel by train between Florence and Bologna, as terrorist explosions in the confined area of the tunnels spread organic detritus very quickly, and in such moments of confusion it is difficult to protect oneself. Avoid areas subject to bombardment by nuclear warheads: faced with the sight of a mushroom cloud, the spectator has an instinctive tendency to put his (unwashed) hands to his mouth, as he murmurs, "My God!"

Further risk is caused by the dying who kiss crucifixes, those sentenced to death (the blade of the guillotine is seldom properly disinfected before reuse); and orphans in institutions, where the wicked nuns make each little malefactor lick the floor, after tying his leg to his cot.

Ethnic Minorities and Inhabitants of the Third World

Native Americans are severely threatened: passing the calumet from mouth to mouth has caused, as everyone knows, the near-extinction of the Indian nation. Citizens of the Middle East and of Afghanistan are exposed to the licking of camels, hence the high mortality rate in Iran and Iraq. A desaparecido runs great risk when his merciless torturers spit in his face. Cambodians and the inhabitants of Lebanese camps should avoid the (blood) bath, discouraged by nine physicians out of ten (the tenth, more open-minded, is Dr. Mengele).

South African blacks are exposed to infection of various kinds when the white man considers them with contempt, grimaces, and ejects saliva. Political prisoners of every color must take great care to elude the backhand slap of the police, striking their teeth after similarly touching the gums of other persons held for questioning. Members of populations subject to endemic famine must try not to swallow frequently in an attempt to allay the pangs of hunger, as their saliva, which has come into contact with the foul air of their surroundings, can contaminate their intestines.

The authorities and the press, instead of printing scandalous headlines about other problems whose solution could reasonably be postponed to some future date, should devote their energies to a vigorous campaign of hygienic instruction of the sort indicated here.

1985

There are certain jobs that are much in demand and that pay very well, but they require careful preparation.

For example, the job of setting up around the city those signs that indicate the way to the superhighways. Their purpose is to clear traffic from the downtown area—and also from the superhighways, as we promptly realize once we have followed them and ended up, exhausted, on the most dangerous dead-end street in the industrial suburbs. But it is not easy to put the signs in exactly the right places. A simpleton might consider placing them at a spot where the driver is confronted with a complicated choice among several streets, and where there is thus a good chance he will get lost if left unassisted. But, on the contrary, the sign must be affixed only where, since the proper route is obvious and the driver would instinctively choose it, he must be sent off in another direction. To do the job really well the applicant should have some notion of urban planning, psychology, and the theory of games.

Another very desirable job is that of writing the instructions included in, or printed on, the packaging of domestic appliances and electronic instruments. Above all, these instructions must prevent installation. The ideal model is not that of the thick manuals supplied with computers; these also achieve this aim, but at great cost to the manufacturer. The proper model is rather the folded slip of paper accompanying pharmaceuticals, products with the extra feature of having names that, while apparently scientific, have actually been devised to make obvious the nature of the product as if to ensure that its purchase embarrasses the purchaser (Prostatan, Menopausin, Cra-bex). The instructions enclosed in the box, in contrast, succeed with a minimum of words in making incomprehensible the warnings on which our lives depend: "No counterindication, except in cases of unforeseen lethal reaction to product."

For domestic appliances et similia the instructions must expound at length things so self-evident that you are tempted to skip them, thus missing the one truly essential bit of information:

In order to install the PZ40 it is necessary to unwrap the packaging and remove the appliance from the box. The PZ40 can be extracted from its container only after the latter is opened. The container is opened by lifting, in opposite directions, the two flaps of the upper side of the box (see diagram below). Take care, during the process of opening, to keep the container in a vertical position, with the lid facing up, otherwise the PZ40 may fall out during the operation and suffer damage. The lid to be opened is clearly marked with the words THIS SIDE UP. In the event that the lid does not open at the first attempt, the consumer is advised to try a second time. Once the lid is opened, it is advisable to tear off the red strip before removing the inner, aluminum lid; otherwise the container will explode. WARNING: after the PZ40 has been removed, the container can be discarded.

Another job that is not to be dismissed lightly is that of compiling questionnaires, usually during the summer season, for popular weekly magazines. "Between a bottle of Epsom salts and one of twenty-year-old cognac, which would you choose? Would you rather spend your vacation with an eighty-year-old leper or with Demi Moore? Do you prefer being sprinkled with ferocious red ants or sharing a sleeping compartment with Claudia Schiffer? If you have answered '1' to all the above questions, then you are inventive, original, brilliant, but sexually a bit frigid. If all your answers are '2', then you're a rascal."

In the Medicine and Health supplement of a leading daily I came upon a questionnaire about sunbathing, which allowed you to choose among three answers for every question, A, B, and C. The A answers are interesting: "If you expose your skin to the sun, how red does it get? A: Intensely. How often do you suffer from sunburn? A: Every time I go out in the sun. How would you describe your skin forty-eight hours after the erythema? A: Still red. Solution: if you have answered A to most questions, your skin is very sensitive and you are subject to painful sunburn." I am thinking of a questionnaire that would ask: "Have you often fallen out of a window? If yes, have you suffered multiple fractures? After each fall, have you been certified as permanently disabled? If your answers are A, either you're pretty stupid or your aural labyrinth is in bad shape. Don't look out the window when the usual jokester yells up from below urging you to come down and join him."

1991

Barbarians

Dante does not treat my native Alessandria with great tenderness in his
De vulgari eloquentia,
where, in recording the dialects of the Italian peninsula, he declares that the "hirsute" sounds emitted by our people are surely not an Italian dialect and implies they are barely acceptable as a language. All right, so we're barbarians. But this, too, is a vocation.

We are not Italians (Latins), nor are we Celts. We are the descendants of Ligurian tribes, tough and hairy, and in 1856 Carlo Avalle, beginning his history of Piedmont, recalled what Virgil said of those pre-Roman Italic peoples in Book IX of the
Aeneid:

And what sort of people did you think to find here?
Those perfumed Atridae or the double-talking Ulysses?
You have come upon a people harsh from birth.
Our children, barely-born; are cast into the icy rivers,
whose waves toughen them first,
then through mountain and forests
the youth go day and night...

Et cetera. Avalle says further that these barbarians "were thin and undistinguished of person, having soft skin, small eyes, sparse hair, gaze filled with pride, harsh and loud voice: thus, at first sight, they did not give an accurate indication of their exceptional strength...."

One woman, it is said, was "seized by the pangs of birth while she was at work. Giving no sign, she went and hid behind a thorn bush. Having given birth there, she covered the infant with leaves, and returned to her tasks, and so no one noticed. But when the babe began to cry, the mother's secret was revealed. Yet, deaf to the urgings of friends and companions, she did not cease working until the master obliged her to, after giving her her wage. This episode inspired the saying, often repeated by historians, that among the Ligurians the women had the strength of men, and the men, the strength of wild beasts." This was written by Diodorus Siculus.

On the Field of Marengo

The hero of Alessandria is named Gagliaudo. In the year 1168, Alessandria exists and yet it doesn't; that is to say, it doesn't exist under that name. It is a collection of hamlets, perhaps, a fortified settlement or castle. In the area live some peasants and perhaps some of those
mercatanti
(merchants) who, as Carducci was to say later, will appear to the German feudal lords as unacceptable adversaries, who "only yesterday girded their paunches with knightly steel." The Italian communes join forces against Barbarossa, forming the Lombard League; and they decide to build a new city at the confluence of the Tanaro and the Bormida, to block the advance of the invader.

The people of those scattered hamlets accept the proposal, probably because they can see a number of advantages. They seem only to be concerned with their private interests, but when Barbarossa arrives, they stand fast, and Barbarossa is stopped. It is 1174, Barbarossa is pressing at the gates, Alessandria is starving, and then (the legend goes) the wily Gagliaudo appears, a peasant who might be a relative of Schwejk. He makes the richest men in the city give him what little wheat they can manage to collect, he gorges his cow Rosina on it, and leads her outside the walls to graze. Naturally, Barbarossa's men capture her, disembowel her, and are stunned to find her so stuffed with grain. And Gagliaudo, an expert in playing dumb, tells Barbarossa that in the city there is so much wheat that they have to use it to feed the livestock. Let's go back for a moment to Carducci: picture his army of romantics who weep at night, the bishop of Spires who dreams of the beautiful towers of his cathedral, the paladin Count of the blond locks who now despairs of ever seeing his Thecla again, all of them depressed and oppressed by the thought of having "to die at the hand of
mercatanti.
..." Then the German army strikes its tents and goes off.