Letter from Casablanca

by Antonio Tabucchi

  June passed fairly well. The azaleas finally flowered, even if not as majestically as in the preceding year. Mama was very busy building them a little greenhouse out of mats, “because the sun bothers them,” it made them wither in the twinkling of an eye, and she placed the pots in the bottom of the garden by the boundary wall, where the sun beat down only after five o’clock.

  Poor Tommaso bustled around like mad in spite of the tremor in his hands and the step that was no longer what it once had been. He tried to be as useful as he could. He cut the grass with the sickle, gave egg yolks to the lemon trees in pots on the terrace, even tried to sulphur the pergola of grapes, infested with parasites, in front of the garage door. However, he did more harm than good and realizing this he seemed terrified, although without reason. But it was difficult to make him understand this, and he spent the day repeating to Mama not to send him to the nursing home, for the sake of the young gentleman officer whom he had loved like a son, because at the nursing home they would keep him in bed and make him pee in a urinal. His cousin, whom he had gone to visit on Sunday, had told him this, and he rather preferred to die. He had never married. The last time his mother had seen him naked was when he was fourteen years old, and the idea of a young lady making him pee in a urinal sent him into a panic. Then Mama’s eyes grew shiny. She told him, “Don’t talk nonsense, Tommaso. You’ll die here—this is your home,” and Tommaso would have kissed her hands, but Mama drew back and told him to stop complaining, that she had enough sadness already, and he should think instead of pulling up that couch grass thriving under the privet and making the plants die.

  The worst days came at the end of July when a heat wave like nothing that had been felt in years broke out. The morning was quite bearable. I put on my roller skates and got a little exercise on the brick avenue that went from the front door to the boundary wall. Mama was busy with dinner. At times she even kept the radio on, and this was a good sign—but only talk programs like the news or “Our Listeners Write to Us.” And if there were songs, she immediately changed the station. But the hours after dinner were sultry and monotonous, heavy with sadness and silence. Even the faraway drone of the city quieted. It seemed that on the house and on the garden a bell of misted glass descended in which the only surviving living things were the cicadas. Mama sat down in the armchair in the living room with a damp handkerchief over her eyes and leaned her head back. I was at the little desk in my anteroom—from where I could see her if I stretched my neck—trying to imprint on my mind nix-nivis and strix-strigis in order to take the make-up exam in September. Nena I could hear messing about in her pied-à-terre singing “Banana Boat” to herself or else shuffling along the avenue because she was taking her Belafonte for a walk as far as the main gate, poor beast, and she whispered to him, “Let’s go see a bit of the world, dearie,” as if in front of our house there was who knows what? But the avenue at that hour was completely deserted, not that it was much frequented at other times either. From the street there, beyond the clearing where the first villas sprang up, you could see the city immersed in a flickering haze, and on the left the avenue ended in the yellow countryside punctuated by trees and isolated farm houses. Toward five o’clock, but not every day, the little ice cream cart passed, with a large chest made like a gondola on which were painted the view of San Marco and the inscription Venetian Specialities. There was a little man who pedaled with great difficulty, blew into a brass trumpet to attract attention, shouted at the top of his lungs, “Two cones, fifty francs!’’ And then there remained silence and solitude.

  From the time, after it happened, when Mama had taken to locking the gate so that no one could come in and we could not go out, even to see the ice cream man was better than nothing. My teacher had said that it would have been opportune to have me take private lessons, but Mama had replied that it seemed a bit difficult. We all led a very retiring life, she hoped she understood, and that if it had not been for the tradesmen, she would even have had the telephone cut off. She kept it only for that necessity or if sometime one of us fell sick, and furthermore she kept it off the hook all day because she couldn’t stand its ringing. This was perhaps an excessive precaution, because whoever would have telephoned after Aunt Yvonne moved to Lausanne?

  Nena had taken harder than I did Mama’s new habit of not going out anymore, but she didn’t have my luck of being able to fill the after-dinner hours with the plurals in ium. She had nothing to do, poor little thing. In the elementary school they don’t take make-up exams in September. For a little while she tried to while away the time in her pied-à-terre, or she dragged her Belafonte on his leash as far as the gate in order to see a bit of the world. But then she got fed up, she even lost the desire to sing “Banana Boat’’ and she came on tiptoe up to my window and said to me, “I’m bored. Come to my pied-à-terre a little while and play 'Visiting.’ I’ll be the lady and you be the architect who comes to court me.” I sent her away in a low voice so as not to disturb Mama, and if she insisted I told her, strix-strigis strix-strigis, which was an offense she understood very well, and she went away with a furious look, sticking out her tongue at me.

  But Mama wasn’t asleep and I knew it. I was aware that at times she cried silently with her head bowed. I would see two tears slide down her cheeks under the handkerchief that covered her eyes. And her hands in her lap, apparently motionless, were imperceptibly trembling. Then I would close my Latin grammar for a while, stare lazily at the sepia-colored Minerva on the cover, and then slip out into the garden by the screen door of the back-kitchen and through part of the garage in order not to be involved in Nena’s stupid games in which I would have to be the architect. On that side the grass was rather tall because Tommaso was not able to cut it, and, immersed in the sticky heat, feeling the savoy cabbage brush against my bare legs, I liked to walk there, as far as the metal grating of the low wall that bordered on the open country. I would go to look for lizards, which nested in that part and which sat on the stones motionless in the sun with their heads raised and their eyes pointing at nothing. I even knew how to catch them with a reed snare which a schoolmate had taught me to make, but I preferred to observe those small bodies, uncomprehending and suspicious of the least little noise as if absorbed in an undecipherable prayer.

  I often felt like crying, and I didn’t know why. The tears ran down without my being able to do anything about them, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of my Latin—by then I knew the parisyllabics and the imparisyllabics from memory. Mama was right after all—for these things there’s no need to take lessons or leave the house, a little study is enough. It was just that I felt like crying. And then I sat on the wall watching the lizards and thinking about the previous summer. The memory that made me cry the most was an image of Papa and me on a tandem, he in front and I behind, and Mama and Nena following us on a tandem shouting, “Wait for us!” In the background was the dark pine grove of Forte dei Marmi and in front of us the blue of the sea; Papa wore white trousers, and whoever arrived first at the Balena bath would be the first to eat bilberry ice cream. And then I couldn’t hold back the sobs and I had to cover my mouth with my hands so as not to let Mama hear. My repressed voice was a weak muttering that was like the sound Belafonte made when he refused to be dragged along on his leash. And the saliva, mixed with tears, soaked the handkerchief that I desperately stuffed in my mouth, and then I felt like biting them—my hands—but slowly, very slowly, in nibbles. How strange! At that point everything was mixed up, and I tasted on my palate, sharp, very distinct, with an unequivocal aroma, the flavor of bilberry ice cream.

  It was that taste that succeeded in calming me. I felt suddenly exhausted, without strength to cry anymore, to move, to think. Around me in the grass the gnats buzzed and the ants walked by. I seemed to be in a well. I felt an enormous weight inside my chest. I couldn’t even swallow. I remained staring beyond the hedge at the pall of heat that dimmed the horizon. Then slowly I got up and went into the kitchen again. Mama was still p
retending to sleep in the armchair, or maybe she really was asleep. I heard Nena scolding her Belafonte. She said, “You silly thing! How is it possible you don’t appreciate a bow like this? Why do you insist on ruining it, silly? None of the other cats have one.” I raised the latch of the window screen and called to her in a low voice, “Pst, pst, Nena! Come into the house and we’ll have a snack. Do you want bread or ricotta? Or would you rather have jam? I’ll open a jar.” And she ran cheerfully, leaving Belafonte, who tried in vain to untie the bow from his neck, in the lurch. She was completely satisfied that I had finally remembered her. Perhaps she still had the hope she would succeed in convincing me to be the architect.

  Mama usually came alive around six. She walked through the house putting in order whatever there was to put in order, moving a knickknack an inch or two, smoothing a wrinkled lace doily under a vase. Then she came into the kitchen, washed the dishes that she had not had the heart to wash after eating, and set about to get supper, but without any hurry because there was nothing else to do all evening. Tommaso would not return before ten o’clock. They would give him some soup at the nursing home, where he spent all his days now because his cousin was sick and the young ladies let him stay with him the whole day. “Indeed, they’ll do a favor for anyone who’ll do their sweeping for them,” said Mama disdainfully.

  It was the nicest part of the whole day. At least we were together with Mama. We finally talked a little, even if il wasn’t really a proper conversation, but there was always some small satisfaction. The radio, for example, which could be turned on, and even if it broadcast songs, Mama didn’t change the station as long as the volume was low and provided that Nena implored, “Please, Mama, give us a little music.” And how could you resist her when she made her voice both cajoling and sad? But I preferred a gentleman who talked about the whole world and evoked the capitals which were represented in my geography book. How I liked to stay and listen to him! He would say, “Today in Paris General DeGaulle in consultation on the Suez problem …” and I closed my eyes and saw the Eiffel Tower of my book, slender and all openwork, the pyramids, and the Sphinx with her face gnawed by the weather and the desert dust.

  In bed I found it hard to fall asleep. I remained with my eyes open staring at the glimmer from the windowpane, listening to the regular breathing of Nena, who slept peacefully. Before going to bed Mama came to make an on-the-spot investigation, because Belafonte often slipped under Nena’s bed and then during the night slept curled up at her feet, and Mama said that it was not hygienic. But by this time Belafonte succeeded in getting away with it because he understood the method and got out from under the bed only when the house was perfectly quiet. I didn’t say anything, even though I didn’t like Belafonte, because it was obvious that Nena needed a little company.

  So, in the dark of the bedroom, while Nena slept and Belafonte purred or scratched the sheet with his claws, I remained listening to the noise of the trains that whistled as they left the city. Often I imagined going away. I saw myself get on one of those trains at night, stealthily, when the train slowed down because of work in progress on the roadbed. I had a tiny suitcase with me, my watch with the luminous hands, and my geography book. The corridors had soft carpets, the compartments were lined with red velvet and had white linen headrests, there was an odor of tobacco and upholstery, the few travelers slept, the lamps were low and light blue. I settled myself in a deserted compartment, opened my geography book, and decided that I would go to one of those photographs. Sometimes it was “The City of Light from the Top of Notre Dame,” sometimes “The Parthenon in Athens at Sunset.” Bui the photograph which attracted me the most was the port of Singapore, swarming with bicycles and with people in cone-shaped hats, and strange-looking houses in the background. Vapors from the heat of a hazy dawn woke me. Through the strips of the Venetian blinds, the first rays of the sun drew on the floor a yellow staircase that climbed obliquely up the fringes of Nena’s bedspread.

  I had no desire to get up. I knew that I was again about to begin a day identical to the others: cod-liver oil, bread with butter and jam, coffee with milk, the morning lost in waiting for dinner, and finally the interminable hours after dinner, my Latin, Mama dozing in the living room, Nena singing “Banana Boat” to herself in her pied-à-terre dragging Belafonte behind her. All this until that afternoon when Nena crossed the garden at a run, stood under the living room window, called, “Mama! Mama!” and made that statement. It was a Saturday afternoon. I remember the day because Saturday morning the grocer came, stopped the delivery van in front of the main gate, and unloaded what Mama had ordered by telephone. That particular morning he had also brought the caramel puddings that Nena adored. I would have liked them, too, but I tried to control myself because they hurt the cavity in my molar and I had to wait until September to go to the dentist because Aunt Yvonne was coming for a week in September and she would take care of it. Can you imagine for one moment Mama being willing to take me down to the city? I was concentrating on studying Jupiter-Jovis, which had an infamous declension, even though it fortunately lacked the plural, and so at first I took no notice of the statement. Besides, Nena often came to bother me or to distract Mama with sentences like, “Hurry, quick, Belafonte hurt himself!” or “Mama, when I’m grown up can I make my hair blue like Aunt Yvonne’s?” And if you consented to listen to her, heaven help you—she would begin to be impertinent and wouldn’t stop. The best thing was to discourage her from the beginning by pretending not to hear. So that time it took me perhaps a minute to realize what she had said. I had my head in my hands and was desperately repeating the ablative. Nena’s statement seemed like more of her usual nonsense. But all of a sudden I felt a blast of heat rise to my forehead. Then I began to shake, and I realized that my hands were trembling on the Minerva of my Latin grammar, which had closed by itself.

  I don’t know how long I remained motionless, with my hands inert on the book, unable to stand up. It seemed that a glass bell had descended over the house and plunged it into silence. From my table I could see Mama, who had got up from the armchair and was leaning on the windowsill, very pale. The handkerchief had fallen to the floor. She supported herself on the windowsill as if she were about to fall, and I saw her move her mouth as she talked to Nena, but by a strange magic I heard nothing. Her slowly moving lips looked like the mouth of a fish in the agony of death. Then I made a sudden movement, the little table my knee had bumped groaned on the floor, and it was as if I had pushed a button—the sound returned around me, I heard again the concert of the cicadas in the garden, the whistle of a train in the distance, the buzzing of a bee which attacked the screen, and Mama’s inexpressive voice, automatic and distant, saying, “Come into the house now, love. It’s too hot. You need to take a nap. You can’t stay out there in that humidity—it’s not good for children.”

  It was a strange afternoon. Nena resigned herself without raising objections to rest on the divan, something that had never happened before, and when she woke up she stayed quietly in the kitchen drawing pictures. That day I wasn’t able to study Latin no matter how hard I tried. I forced myself to concentrate on the adjectives with three endings and I repeated them stubbornly, but my mind was far away. It ran as if crazed after that statement of Nena’s that perhaps was my misunderstanding, that surely was my misunderstanding, and Mama would tell me was a misunderstanding if only I would ask her. But the fact is that I had no desire to ask her.

  On Monday a letter arrived from Aunt Yvonne, and we were very close to tears. She was not coming to visit us in September as she had promised when she left. She and Rodolfo went to Chamonix, not because they liked Chamonix: “I can’t stand the mountains, you know, they make me sad, but everyone comes here in the summer, all of Rodolfo’s colleagues, I mean. And if you don’t have at least a minimum of social life here, I mean if you don’t put yourself forward a little, they look at you as if you’re a baboon. They already have a superiority complex about Italians. If you even hint that you
don’t like the chic places, you’re laughed at, no one looks at you anymore. Rome was really almost better, except for the bother and the salary. At least there was sun there. The climate here is infamous…”

  Perhaps it was because of that letter that Mama’s silences began, or maybe because of that nonsense that Nena had said—who knows?—but more probably because of the letter. Not that Mama was moody, and not even melancholy. Rather she was absent. You saw that something occupied her thoughts. You said to her, “Excuse me, Mama. May I have the caramel pudding that was left over from dinner?” or whatever, and she didn’t answer you. After a few minutes she said, “Oh, did you ask me something?” And her eyes were fixed far away beyond the kitchen window on the avenue that ended in the country, as if someone were about to arrive. And you repeated the same question to her as before: “I asked you for the leftover pudding, Mama.” But the answer didn’t come this time either, only a vague gesture in the air that could mean, “All right, do whatever you want. Don’t you see that I’m thinking of something else?” And so even the desire for the dessert left you, so what sense was there in sitting down to eat the caramel pudding? Wasn’t it better to go and study Latin in order to occupy your mind a little?

  I learned the fourth declension perfectly. It’s true that it didn’t present the same difficulties as the third—you can’t even compare them. Even the directions in the first paragraph said so: “The fourth declension does not present particularities of any kind, save for rare exceptions to be learned from memory, for which see paragraph four,” and I very nearly felt like mourning the third declension. If that week I’d at least had a really difficult thing to learn, I’d be distracted a little, but with that stupid domus-dornus I did nothing but think of that statement of Nena’s, of Aunt Yvonne who wasn’t coming, and Mama’s silences. In my notebook I wrote little sentences like silentium domus triste est, which I then cancelled out with many little crosses connected to each other like barbed wire. It was a method my desk-mate had taught me. He called it “erasure by barbed wire,” and I liked it very much.