Authors: Antonio Tabucchi
… Frau couldn’t set you up in Daphne’s rooms, there’s nothing left now, just the bare walls. Don’t get mad, I just wanted to see what she’d do when you asked, even if I already knew; she put you in my study, that’s where she puts the guests – all of them – a government minister came once, and Frau asked me right in front of him if she should put him in my study, and his assistant, there by protocol, stared at her, scandalized, outraged, and said: the esteemed minister will return to Rome tonight … but you like my study, I know you do, you came looking for the truth and it’s as if she’s right there in the room beside you, in among the mold and trash … congratulations. You know what happened to the truth? She died and never found a husband.
Who understands matter’s slippery ways? Scientists? You writers? You might understand how things work, but no one knows their secrets. Listen, things have an agreement among themselves that we’re not privy to, a different kind of logic …
Gravity doesn’t behave the way we think, and neither do the chemical combinations we studied in school, an oxygen molecule attached to two hydrogen molecules that forms the liquid we call water … you have to know the tactics of the universe, because the universe does have its tactics, but they won’t show up in any lab … Newton’s binomial theorem is wonderful, but there are other depths, other mysteries to mathematics. Am I waxing philosophical? Say something – no – just let me talk, all right? You intellectuals, you’re always philosophizing, always explaining the world to us, everybody’s always wanting to explain the world … A rose is a rose is a rose. Not true. Did you know the rose bush and the pear tree both belong to the family
Rosaceae
? Study your botany: the pear tree produces pears and the rose bush, roses; do they seem the same to you … So let me philosophize … I have so little left, you see … Please don’t look at my leg – no – pull the sheet up … There’s a big fly, you hear it? – it keeps hitting the mirror, stupid thing wants out, thinks the mirror’s a window. I told you, don’t look at my leg, it’s disgusting, even if I can’t see it, the way they’ve got me lying back against the pillows, the doctor made his ruling that the leg had to be amputated and I told him if he felt so inclined to amputate something, then he could just go ahead and cut off his own balls, but my leg, rotten as it was, was going into the grave to rot alongside the rest of me – if you please; I know it’s disgusting, eaten away with gangrene, up to the groin now, in a little while everything will be eaten away, what’s left of my manhood, if I don’t die first, but there’s not much left to chew on, my sack’s empty,
and this too gives me the right to philosophize as much as I see fit, it’s the philosophy of someone who’s all dried up, humorless, like stone … Have you seen what the world’s come to, at least our world?, I’m talking about our part of the world, where we live … all gone to fat, oily, look at them, those I was talking about earlier, the windbags, they’re full of humors circulating under fat … triglycerides, all cholesterol, and here I am instead, practically a mineral, see?… stones … stones don’t say a thing … I’m a talking stone, a rock on a riverbank that just sits there being oh so good watching the water saying, go on, go on now, sister water, keep on flowing, who knows who you think you are, I’m staying put here on my riverbank, still as stone, because I’m a stone, brother stone … Did Frau give you a nice room? Frau’s like that, she loves me but she does things out of spite, she likes being spiteful, it’s what’s left to an old woman, being spiteful to others; if she didn’t love me so much, she’d be the same with me, and maybe she is already, and I just don’t notice – we grew up together, you know – she’s my same age even if she thinks she’s my mother, but women are like that, they always think of themselves as your mother even when they’re your same age. Put a bed in one of the rooms where Daphne stayed … when she was there … she was there such a short while, now they’re just two empty rooms, her old furniture’s spread all over the house now, it hurts less that way, but to Frau, her furniture’s sacred, holy … you know, I think Daphne could only tolerate it here because Frau was here, because Frau loved her so … she told me once that it was thanks to Frau that she’d forgotten about
hating the Germans; how do I make her understand, she said, that nothing’s her fault?… You know, Frau judges everyone on sight, like they were chickens: if someone has his feathers down, she puts him in the worst chicken coop, and you come off as timid – speak up now – raise your crest, Frau notices that sort of thing, at noon insist you’re staying in those rooms, you just need a bed and nightstand … from this part of the house you can see the towers of the city, they’re beautiful, you seen them yet?, they almost float in the heat, it makes them tremble from below, cuts them off, lifts them, pulls them toward heaven … They’re ancient towers, they seem to long for the sky, you’ve seen them, right?… go ahead and open the shutters a little, see if you can get rid of that big fly – you hear it? – it keeps hitting the mirror, it’s so stupid, it thinks the mirror’s a way out … Look at the towers of the city, the surrounding hills, this landscape I’m leaving behind, look at it for me. And from this part of the house you can hear the cicadas, from the back you can’t hear them, the cicadas sing outside the entire afternoon, I like their little concert, their simple music, castanets and cymbals … I’ve returned here to leave, returned to where I was born, to hear my cicadas, that I used to listen to on summer afternoons when I was little and they’d send me in for my siesta and I entertained myself with the cicadas, and with books to explain the world, as if books could explain the world … Dreams … Why did I ask for you in particular? You know why: because I liked your book, I’d already been the inspiration for another novel, you know that better than me, but it was so close to what happened, it was so
realistic it seemed false, but I didn’t phone you so you’d record me, I don’t want my voice to remain – besides, that’s too easy – what sort of writer would that make you? Write it down, if you can; I want to remain in written words, and if you can’t write it down now, then record it in your mind, mentally record it, and then write it in your own words, like I know you can, someone tells you one thing, and you write it so it seems like something else … Tell Frau to come give me my morphine, and then you should come back later, the last one’s worn off, the pain’s making me complain, and I don’t want to complain – too depressing … Did I already tell you about Vanda? I can’t remember …
… They saw a dog, but that had to be a different day, who knows when, late in their life together, anyway. The dog’s name was Vanda – not with a w, just a v, a begging mutt like that. The dog didn’t tell them its name, it couldn’t, it couldn’t even pant any more, but Rosamunda remembered, when she saw the dog up ahead. Look, a dog – it’s Vanda – you remember? They almost hit her – it was dark in the tunnel and they were rounding a curve. Once out of the tunnel, on the straightaway, they pulled to the side to wait, to avoid being rear-ended by a truck, which can happen; Vanda appeared, limping along, head drooping, tongue down to the asphalt, but she was off to the right, well clear of the white line. Her teats swung low, like she’d been nursing, nursing a litter, though this wasn’t possible: just from her lips and teeth, she looked to be at least twenty, even older,
which was fine for a person but decrepit for a dog. It’s because she’s so kindhearted, one of them said, I don’t remember who, Vanda’s good, a good girl, she’s spent her life buried up to the neck. They hauled her onto the back seat, the pads of her paws were raw from her journey. They knew she’d gone a thousand kilometers for them to find her, though they didn’t say it, some things you just don’t say; a being has to drill through layers and layers of time, pulling round itself the bits and pieces necessary in order to take shape, until it breaks the surface, a living creature, though perhaps already dying, like Vanda, so fucked from the start, thinking it’s about to start, when it’s already arrived. Christ, he said, what’s the point? A rhetorical question … It was noon and very hot and the sun was blinding – the Mediterranean sun. When things like this happen, it’s always very hot, the sun’s always blinding, and it has to be Mediterranean – that’s a well-known fact. So well-known, you can believe it or not, your choice. And if you feel like believing it, at that moment he was driving slowly, the rocky coast stretched out, reddish, the strip of sea, a deep blue. Vanda seemed to be sleeping, but she wasn’t, she had one eye closed, one eye open, fixed upon the back car door and the ashtray full of butts, as if this ashtray were the meager aleph she’d been granted and in this, her universe of butts, she might discover the sick god who’d created her, the sinister mysteries of his religion. Glancing back at her, he could see the question in her fearful eye, the pupil dilated, and he whispered, the father’s a dark turn, the son’s those spat-out cigarette butts, and the holy spirit’s a time long gone by now – there’s
your holy trinity, dear Vanda, accept your fate – there’s nothing you can do. You never wanted children, Rosamunda said, and she seemed to be speaking to the slight haze of heat dancing on the horizon, all those years, your sperm always left on my belly, thrown away, and now my Vanda’s been born, but it’s late, too late. She’ll die tomorrow, he said, but keep her tonight, rock her like she’s your child, offer her your breast, if you want, it’s better than nothing, I threw my sperm away because you lied, so I lied, too … What a strange night, in Taddeo’s
Zimmer
. Framed by the window, two ships sliding by, lit up, silent, dreamlike. Only afterwards, when the ships had moved beyond the frame, did they catch a handful of notes on the wind, weak notes, maybe a waltz. Were they dancing on board? Not out of the question: there’s often dancing on board a ship, especially on a cruise, even a short, cheap Sunday cruise like the one that crosses from San Fruttato to San Zaccarino and lasts for only a day. As soon as they can, the people on board start dancing, you have to take advantage of the time you have to enjoy yourself, especially if you bought the ticket, because Monday comes soon enough. Rosamunda tried to offer Vanda her breast, but she wouldn’t nurse. They heard her weak breathing almost till dawn, then it stopped. They buried her there, on the beach, in a pocket-sized cove full of pebbles where a path drops down to the water’s edge, the small waves washing over pebbles, over them again, century after century. With shells and small stones, Rosamunda spelled out Vanda zero zero zero zero on the grave, those zeros referring to the day she was born and the day she died, and
also, as Tristano alone would know, filling them with the time gone by from the day Rosamunda had begun to desire a child to that day when her desire had been buried beneath the body of an old dog, because bit by bit, desires also die and wind up buried underground. They stayed to watch the sun rise over that sliver of horizon between two promontories, in that charming seaside resort, which they’d been to other times by bus. The sun was quite strong, and they both understood without speaking, because everything under the sun is old, sometimes very old. Which doesn’t diminish anyone’s suffering, including theirs. Sing me something, she said softly, like you used to. Like what? he asked. Like when we were up in the mountains and you carried me on the handlebars of your bicycle, and you sang to me, remember?, I leaned my head on your chest and while you sang, I caught whiffs of garlic – we ate so much garlic in the mountains! – but maybe that was another time, when we ate escargot à la provençal, we’d eat escargot à la provençal, we’d treat ourselves, and those were full of garlic, too. He sang, the olive falls, no leaves fall, your beauty won’t ever, you’re like the sea of waves that grows with wind, but with water, never. It was a lullaby. Hard to say if it was to rock Vanda toward her final nothing, or if it was for them, or for their never-ending dreams.
… It opens with … wait, let me think … it goes: I saw some girls screaming in the storm, the wind carried their words away then brought them back again, and I – coward – heard these
words but didn’t understand that maybe they were telling me my youth had died … that’s how it goes, but it’s too long, one of those things Frau tortures me with on Sundays, maybe I’ll recite some more, when it comes to me, we’ve got plenty of time … I told Frau, Renate, have a heart, don’t read me poems like that on Sunday, can’t you see what state I’m in? – how about something lighter, something from our childhood, like March sprinkles tinkling silver on the eaves, please, Renate, something like that, okay? It’s August, she says, it’s ungodly hot down here – it’s August, young sir – what do March sprinkles have to do with anything?
Her name was Daphne, but he also called her Mavri Elià, for her big eyes like two black olives. It happened that day in Plaka, the Nazi officer lay sprawled out, legs apart, in the middle of the square, a few meters from the boy and woman he’d killed, a thread of blood trickling from his mouth; a group of Germans came running down the narrow lane leading from the Columns of Zeus, the headquarters were in the Hotel Grande Bretagne, someone started firing out the windows overlooking the square – Greek partisans – bullets chipped Aeolus’s Column, bullets carried by the wind, Tristano pulled off his Italian military jacket and tossed it to the pavement, by the dead Nazi, because he didn’t want to get shot by partisans, but mostly because he didn’t want to be Italian anymore, didn’t want that horrible cloth next to his skin, that cloth of an invading soldier sent by a mad, grim
reaper who wanted to rip Greece’s heart out on the shore … She emerged from behind a green front door; Tristano saw a small door open in that massive one, and she stepped out like a small, stray animal; she looked around, confused, she walked into the square, hesitated, saw Tristano nearby, stared at him with those enormous dark eyes. I’m an Italian soldier, he said. I just killed a German officer. She didn’t understand, and Tristano poked himself in the chest and repeated, Italian. And then he made his finger and thumb into a pistol, which he pointed at the Nazi lying on the ground, and he said, bang, and blew on his finger. She started to go back, and she gestured that he should follow her inside. Why am I telling you this, writer?… I don’t know, a writer like you doesn’t need this sort of episode … or maybe you do … you’re not a writer who looks down his nose at sentiment, when it’s there, that’s why I’m telling you this … Tristano followed her, and she shut the door. She looked at him with those enormous bewildered eyes, disbelieving, maybe she was frightened – he was the enemy. Tristano told her his name, his nickname as a boy, Ninototo. She said in Greek, I’m Daphne, and Tristano smiled as though he’d forgotten what was happening all around them, and he said he’d learned a little Greek with the invasion: I only know how to use the infinitive, but I to call you Mavri Elià because your eyes to be black olives. She gestured that he should follow, and they climbed the ancient stairway, the ceiling was vaulted, and against the walls stood amphora vases encrusted with barnacles, and on the walls hung dark paintings of solemn, bearded men. She led him through
empty rooms around an inside courtyard. They didn’t speak. He was shivering, she said something he didn’t understand, meanwhile the sun had pierced the grayness of the day, a sunbeam cut through the silent rooms, there was gunfire, but it seemed far, far away, they came to an enormous room, almost bare, with only a small bed, an icon above it, a mirror, and a piano. She spoke to him in French. She said, this room, it’s mine, and now it’s yours. And then she said in her own language,
efharisto
. And she started to go. Thank you for what? he asked. For killing my enemy, she said. I’m the enemy, too, Tristano said. She smiled, she sat down on the edge of that small bed with a flowered shawl for a bedspread, and she said, who are the two of us, really? She was smiling, and her eyes had a sweetness to them that you can’t imagine, writer, even if you’re a writer who’s good at describing women, you’ll never get at that sweetness, it was just as inconceivable to Tristano, that Italian soldier, that invader who had no idea why he’d just killed a Nazi officer, an ally of his country, nothing seemed to make any sense to him. And you know what? – nothing did make sense back then, and that’s the truth. Tristano felt very uneasy, and his heart was pounding, too much emotion that day for a boy his age, you can imagine, writer, seeing how you toy with others’ emotions. He slipped closer to the window overlooking the square, cautious, peering through the lace curtains at the bodies of the woman and boy still lying on the pavement; the Germans had managed to drag the dead officer past the Tower of the Winds, but no one was around, not one living soul, a suspended moment,
like in an empty theater, there was only a motorcycle with a sidecar, a soldier slumped over the handlebars, his helmet on crooked, probably the poor bastard they first sent out to recover the body, but a Greek sniper got him. She left him alone in that room. He studied himself in the mirror, he was young then, Tristano was, but he seemed like an old man. He looked at the sheet music on the piano: a piece by Schubert. He stretched out on the bed, in that room that was so Franciscan for such a palatial house, a modest room, with a dirty mirror and a bed that would see so much love … But he didn’t think that – I’m only telling you this because Frau read me yet another poem. Do you recognize that one? Tristano didn’t, but he understood that the Franciscan simplicity of the room was the only way to counter the squalor of that life and that world; he rose, and as if he were sleepwalking, he stretched his arms in front of him, almost to protect himself from the disgust that had settled over this time in which he was living, that had settled over everything, he moved toward the dark hallway, and he shouted, Mavri Elià! Mavri Elià, we have to save each other! Then he lay down on the small bed and closed his eyes. She tiptoed in so he didn’t even hear,
vous m’avez appelée
? she asked. Please, Tristano said, please play me some Schubert, what’s there on the piano. She sat down to begin. Tristano stopped her. You know that theme Schubert used as the accompaniment in “Rosamunde?” Then they made love the entire night, silently, as if this were something necessary, natural. In the morning, he held her while she spoke of Saint George’s face on a Byzantine icon found on one
of the Aegean Islands, I don’t remember which one. I think he told her about a Romanesque cathedral in his hometown that had an enormous rose window, and half-asleep, almost delirious, he told her about a rose of the winds and that the only thing to do in life was follow the winds, Aeolus, he kept saying, Aeolus … It was dawn. Tristano got up and peeked through the curtains at the square. It was deserted. All that was down there by the Tower of the Winds were the bodies of the boy and woman in black, along with the German soldier slumped over his sidecar motorcycle. Tristano went to her and kissed her closed eyes, spoke into her ear, Mavri Elià, he said, I’ve found you and I’ll never let you go, I’m taking you away with me, you know what we’re going to do? – it’s dawn, we’re getting out of here, we’ll block out the cold with the tapestries from this old house, you’re getting in the sidecar, I’m getting on the motorcycle, and we’re going to Piraeus, the allies are there, they’ll take us away, we’ll make it to my home, that’s where the head of the serpent lies, and that’s where he has to be fought, we have to crush his head, otherwise his poison will spread everywhere, I’m going to crush his head and I’m taking you with me, we’re going to cross this city under siege and make it to the sea, and why not – it’s no more absurd than this absurdity all around us … She opened her eyes, maybe she heard what Tristano was whispering in his sleep, or maybe not, and she gave him a smile that was just as lost. If I can, I’m taking you to another Principate, Tristano said, but luckily, that one’s dying, they told me it was dying, so at least we’ll be stepping out of the fire and into the frying pan.