The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico (6 page)

I have a non-existent novel whose story I would like to tell. The novel was called
Letters to Captain Nemo
, a title later altered to
No One Behind the Door.
I wrote it in 1977, I think, in two weeks of rough seclusion and rapture in a little village near Siena. I'm not sure what inspired me: partly memories, which in my mind are almost always mixed up with fantasy and as a result not very reliable; partly the urgency of fiction itself, which always carries a certain weight; and partly loneliness, which is often the writer's company. Without thinking much about it, I turned the story into a novel (a long short story) and sent it to a publisher, who found it perhaps rather too allusive, and a little elusive, and then from the point of view of a
publisher, not very accessible or decipherable. I think he was right. To be quite frank, I don't know what its value in literary terms may or may not have been. I left it to settle for a while in a drawer, since I feel that obscurity and forgetfulness improve a story. Maybe I really did forget it. I came across it again a few years later, and finding it made a strange impression on me. It rose quite suddenly from the darkness of a dresser, from beneath the stacks of paper, like a submarine rising from obscure depths. I saw an obvious metaphor in this, a message almost (the novel was partly about a submarine); and as though in justification, or expiation (it is strange how novels can bring on guilt complexes), I felt the need to add a concluding note, the only thing that now remains of the whole and which still bears the title:
Beyond the End.
This would have been the winter of 1979, I think. I made a few small changes to the novel, then entrusted it to a publisher of a variety I thought might be more suitable for a difficult book like this. My choice turned out to be right, agreement was quickly reached and I promised delivery for the following autumn. Except that during the summer
holidays I took the typescript with me in my suitcase. It had been alone for a long time and I felt it needed company. I read it again towards the end of August. I was by the Atlantic in an old house inhabited by wind and ghosts. These were not my ghosts, but real ghosts: pitiful presences which it took only the smallest amount of sensitivity or receptiveness to become aware of. And then I was particularly sensitive at the time because I knew the history of the house well and likewise the people who had lived there: by one of life's inexplicable coincidences my own life and theirs had become mixed up together. Meanwhile September came around bringing those violent sea storms that usher in the equinox; sometimes the house would be blacked out, the trees in the big garden waved their restless branches, and all night long the corridors echoed with the groans of ageing woodwork. Occasionally friends would come to dinner, the headlamps of their cars carving white swathes in the darkness. In front of the house was a cliff with a fearful drop straight into the seething waves. I was alone, I knew that for certain, and in the loneliness of existence the restless
presences of the ghosts tried to make contact. But real conversations are impossible, you have to make do with bizarre, untranslatable codes, stratagems invented
ad hoc.
I could think of nothing better than to rely on a flashing light. There was a lighthouse on the other side of the bay. It sent out two beams and had four different time gaps. Using combinations of these variables I invented a mental language that was very approximate but good enough for basic conversation. Some nights I would suffer from insomnia. The old house had a big terrace and I would spend the night talking to the lighthouse, using it, that is, to transmit my messages, or to receive messages, depending on the situation, the whole exchange being orchestrated by myself, of course. But some things are easier than one imagines; for example, all you have to do is think: Tonight I'm transmitting; or: Tonight I'm receiving. And you're set.

I received many stories during those nights. I confess to transmitting very little. Most of the time I spent listening. Those presences were eager to talk and I sat and listened
to their stories, trying to decipher communications which were often subject to interference, obscure and full of gaps. They were unhappy stories for the most part, that much I sensed quite clearly. Thus, amidst those silent dialogues, the autumn equinox came round. That day the sea was whipped up into a storm. I heard it thundering away from dawn on. In the afternoon an enormous force convulsed its bowels. Come evening, thick clouds had descended on the horizon and communication with my ghosts was lost. I went to the cliffs around two in the morning, having waited for the beam of the lighthouse in vain. The ocean was howling quite unbearably, as if full of voices and laments. I took my novel with me and consigned it to the wind page by page. I don't know if it was a tribute, a homage, a sacrifice or a penance.

Years have gone by, and now that story surfaces again from the obscurity of other dressers, other depths. I see it in black and white, the way I see things in dreams usually. Or in faded, extremely tenuous colours; and with a light mist all around, a thin veil that blurs and softens the
edges. The screen it is projected on is the night sky of an Atlantic coast in front of an old house called São José de Guia. To those old walls, which no longer exist as I knew them, and to everybody who knew the house before I did and lived there, I duly dedicate this non-existent novel.

It's a splendid day, you can be sure of that, indeed I'd say it was a summer's day, you can't mistake summer, I'm telling you, and I'm an expert. You want to know how I knew? Oh, well, it's easy, really, how can I put it? All you have to do is look at that yellow. What do I mean by that? Okay, now listen carefully, you know what yellow is? Yes, yellow, and when I say yellow I really do mean yellow, not red or white, but real yellow, precisely, yellow. That yellow over there on the right, that star-shaped patch of yellow opening across the countryside as if it were a leaf, a glow, something like that, of grass dried out by the heat, am I making myself clear?

That house looks as if it's right on top of the yellow, as if it were held up by yellow. It's strange one can see only a bit of it, just a part, I'd like to know more, I wonder who lives there, maybe that woman crossing the little bridge. It would be interesting to know where she's going, maybe she's following the gig, or perhaps it's a barouche, you can see it there near the two poplars in the background, on the left-hand side. She could be a widow, she's wearing black. And then she has a black umbrella too. Though she's using that to keep off the sun, because as I said, it's summer, no doubt about it. But now I'd like to talk about that bridge – that delicate little bridge – it's so graceful, all made of bricks, the supports go as far as the middle of the canal. You know what I think? Its grace has to do with that clever contrivance of wood and ropes that covers it, like the scaffolding of a cantilever. It looks like a toy for an intelligent child, you know those children who look like little grown-ups and are always playing with Meccano and things like that, you used to see them in respectable families, maybe not so much now, but you've
got the idea. But it's all an illusion, because the way I see it that graceful little bridge, apparently meant to open considerately to let the boats on the canal go through, is really a very nasty trap. The old woman doesn't know, poor thing, she's got no idea at all, but now she's going to take another step and it'll be a fatal one, believe me, she's sure to put her foot on the treacherous mechanism, there'll be a soundless click, the ropes will tighten, the beams suspended cantilever fashion will close like jaws and she'll be caught inside like a mouse – if things go well, that is, because in a worst-case scenario all the bars that connect the beams, those poles there, rather sinister if you think abut it, will snap together, one right against the other with not a millimetre between and, wham, she'll be crushed flat as a pancake. The man driving the gig doesn't even realise, maybe he's deaf into the bargain, and then the woman's nothing to him, believe me, he's got other things to think about, if he's a farmer he'll be thinking of his vineyards, farmers never think about anything but the soil, they're pretty self-centred, for them the world ends
along with their patch of ground; or if he's a vet, because he could be a vet too, he'll be thinking about some sick cow on the farm which must be back there somewhere, even if you can't see it, cows are more important than people for vets, everybody has his work in this world, what do you expect, and the others had better look out for themselves.

I'm sorry you still haven't understood, but if you make an effort I'm sure you'll get there, you're a smart person and it doesn't take much to work it out, or rather, maybe it does take a bit, but I think I've given you details enough; I'll repeat, probably all you have to do is connect together the pieces I've given you, in any event, look, the museum is about to close, see the custodian making signs to us, I can't bear these custodians, they give themselves such airs, really, but if you want let's come back tomorrow, in the end you don't have that much to do either, do you? and then Impressionism is charming, ah these Impressionists, so full of light, of colour, you almost get a smell of lavender from their paintings, oh yes, Provence . . . I've always had a soft spot for these landscapes, don't forget
your stick, otherwise you'll get run over by some car or other, you put it down there, to the right, a bit farther, to the right, you're nearly there, remember, three paces to our left there's a step.

‘I'm afraid we're going to get bad weather this evening,' said the girl, and she pointed to a curtain of clouds on the horizon. She was skinny and angular, her hands moving jerkily, and she had her hair done up in a little ponytail. The terrace of the small restaurant looked out over the sea. To the right, beyond the screen of jasmine which climbed up to form a pergola, you could glimpse a little courtyard full of bric-à-brac, cases of empty bottles, a few broken chairs. To the left was a small ironwork gate, beneath which gleamed the little stairway carved into the sheer rock face. The waiter arrived with a tray of steaming shellfish. He was a little man with slicked-back hair and a shy manner. He put the tray down on the
table and made a slight bow. On his right arm he carried a dirty napkin.

‘I like this country,' said the girl to the man sitting opposite. ‘The people are simple and kind.'

The man didn't answer; he unfolded his napkin, tucking it into the collar of his shirt, but then registered the girl's disapproving look at once and rearranged it on his knees. ‘I don't like it,' he said. ‘I don't understand the language. And then it's too hot. And then I don't like southern countries.'

The man was sixtyish, with a square face and thick eyebrows. But his mouth was pink and moist, with something soft about it.

The girl shrugged her shoulders. She seemed visibly annoyed, as if his confession contrasted somehow with her own candour. ‘You're not being fair,' she said. ‘They've paid for everything, the trip, the hotel. They couldn't have treated you with more respect.'

He waved his hand in a gesture of indifference. ‘I didn't come for their country, I came for the conference. They treat me with great respect and I show mine by being
here, so we're quits.' He concentrated on cracking open his lobster, making it plain there was nothing else to say about the matter. A small gust of wind blew away the paper napkin covering the bread basket. The sea was getting choppy and was deep deep blue.

The girl seemed put out, but maybe it was just a show. When she finally spoke it was in a tone of faint resentment, but with a hint of reconciliation too. ‘You didn't even tell me what you'll be talking about, it's as if you wanted to keep me in the dark about everything, which isn't fair, I don't think.'

He had finally managed to overcome the resistance of his lobster and was now dipping the meat in mayonnaise. His face brightened and in a single breath, like a schoolboy parroting a lesson, he said: ‘Structures and Distortions in Middle Latin and Vulgar Texts of the Pays d'Oc.'

The girl gulped, as if her food had gone down the wrong way, and she began to laugh. She laughed uncontrollably, covering her mouth with her napkin. ‘Oh dear,' she hiccupped. ‘Oh dear!'