Nocturne (English version)

by Viola Victor

21 - Remedies for insomnia

  For her fifteenth birthday I bought Martina a piano. I was able to introduce it in the lighthouse without her realizing it, and made her find it wrapped in an elegant purple cloth Malera gave me, with a big bow on top.

  It seemed like a good idea: there was nothing more amazing that I could offer her by the sole use of my person.

  Malera too liked the piano so much that she asked Martina to teach her to play a bit. So once a week she did her best to read the music sheets I had found her – without great success, anyway – and play a few notes on the instrument, which Martina, instead, played magnificently.

  Between songs, she lit a cigarette and complained. Why couldn’t the piano be played with one hand only? How was she going to smoke while playing? Martina laughed and invited me to listen to her progresses. Nonexistent, it is clear. But she was so pleased that I had no courage to refuse.

  Malera's enthusiasm infected me. Maybe Martina could teach me to read a little. She thought it was a very good idea, but once we put it into practice she found that teaching unnerved her terribly.

  "No! No! Look better! Can’t you see that if you read it like that it doesn’t mean anything? Try again. What word is that? No, you are impossible! Make some effort, for heaven's sake..."

  I made efforts, but there was nothing to do. I would never become good at writing. A little bit I learned to read. But not too much. Martina, in the end, even wanted me to write a letter.

  "Why should I write you a letter? You are not far away."

  "Imagine that I am."

  "And why should I?"

  "So you'd miss me and write something nice to me. No poems, for heaven's sake, please. Just some thoughts. So I can read them again whenever I want."

  "I can tell you, it’s faster."

  "But if you tell me, how can you imagine that I am far? You want me to leave?"

  No, of course not. Stay here with me, Martina. Don’t go away.

  And so I committed to write her a letter. It wasn’t a great success: my handwriting was shaky and my ideas too. How can you explain yourself well in writing? It’s just impossible. All those letters inked on the paper make me uncomfortable. They stare at me and I don’t know what to do with them.

  "Is that all?" they ask me. "Can’t you do any better?"

  Then do it yourselves!

  "Oh no, it’s you who have to. It’s your problem, now. We are here, waiting. Come on, what are you waiting for?"

  There was nothing to do. I didn’t like the t. I never thought before that that sound could also have a form, and such an unpleasant one. It seemed half dead of starvation, numb. The v gave me the impression that it was about to tip over, and anyway it was clear that it could not stand on its own for long. The o rolled everywhere: it ran here and there and I could not keep it together with the others. The s seemed unreliable. How could I put it close to the innocent a?

  In short, it was really impossible to write. But I made an effort to please her.

  The response? Here it is: "This letter really sucks."

  But what can I do about it?

  One day, during a lesson in which I struggled to recognize some words, Martina took a deep breath, sat on the old rocking chair of her uncle, and ordered me to sit next to her.

  "I must tell you something."

  I began to worry a bit. Because of her talking about leaving and stuff like that.

  Her coal mines stared my button eyes. She parted her lips, shut them again, tight. She rocked a bit, stroking her belly with both hands, and her eyes became slots.

  "We’re having a baby."

  I was silent for a while.

  "Aren’t you glad?"

  Of course I am. But I'm afraid of saying the wrong thing, so I say nothing. I want to smile, but I'd hate to ruin this moment by showing my broken incisor.

  "Of course I'll choose the name, otherwise, poor baby, who knows what you would pin on him. We have already seen with Luppolo..."

  "Luppolo is a beautiful name."

  Mine eyes stared at me sceptically.

  "All right. All in all, I don’t care about the name. And for sure I wasn’t going to call him Luppolo."

  "You don’t look happy."

  "I am."

  "Then you should show it somehow, because you really don’t seem to be."

  Broken incisor then. I hugged her and held her close for a long time, wondering how the Baby could feel in that narrow little girl belly, and what name she would choose for him. It would undoubtedly be a boy, I felt it. Well, I already had one Martina and it was more than enough: I knew it was impossible for another one to arrive. I had to share her love with another male, but the fact that it would be our son comforted me and excluded more shadowy thoughts.

  See her little belly grow frightened me a bit: at times I had wondered when she would stop being a child. That time had come.

  And indeed something in her changed: first, it seemed that the Baby didn’t let her sleep well. Maybe she just had to get used to her inhabited tummy, or he to having some shape, after having been nothing. Anyway the no-longer-child belly which grew day by day, damming the overflowed soul of the Baby within increasingly certain – and bulky – boundaries, didn’t let her sleep.

  So she thought about her uncle's book. The Study on sleep, remember?

  After her uncle had left his book unattended, because of that regrettable incident that a peaceful sudden death is, Martina had read a few pages.

  "That's why he cared so much for his flowers! Uncle’s remedy for sleep is not a generic recipe: it’s done with those. Can you believe it? Uncle suffered from a terrible insomnia and, in his laboratory, he was able to extract a substance to help him sleep, that he had discovered by himself. The book says that he imported these flowers from one of his long journeys. Australia, apparently. But you don’t even know where it is, do you? There are instructions to prepare the compound. It would be fun to try. Maybe I could start to get some sleep if it worked. And it doesn’t seem difficult at all. What do you say?"

  Me, I never liked those pale flowers, I already said so, didn’t I? Their petals where too thick and too white. Martina’s uncle cared for them more than it was necessary. On the other hand, you can’t blame a traveller, by now so far from the desires that had driven him for his whole life, for such a harmless pastime. But it did not seem suitable for Martina. I don’t know why, instinct.

  While I was trying to decide whether it was a good idea or not, Malera exclaimed: "It seems to me a very good solution. We’ll try."

  And I was left alone in the garden to finish two slices of otherwise abandoned cake, of course without waiting to hear my opinion.

   

  "See I was right? Tonight I slept wonderfully! Although it was a strange sleep. I felt as if in a dark room where the air was pressing on me. I felt discomfort, but not too much. So I kept sleeping. And I didn’t dream anything. Strange, isn’t it? I always dream. Anyway, today I feel rested and well."

  The fact that Martina had slept well made me happy: I felt a bit guilty. The child was business of us both, but while I slept very well, she struggled on long climbing stairs, out of breath, and in the morning her eyes were very black, as usual, but tired. The fact that her eyes hadn’t changed made me happy: the baby was not taking away anything, to fill his child holes.

  But her sensations made me uneasy.

  After a week of deep sleep – not good, just deep – disturbing dreams started. It was a sleep in which she plunged keeping some part of her conscience. Not her conscience, mind you. Only some part. Her sleep was like an half-broken dam: through the cracks of the barrier, her liquid conscience crashed with force into the wall. Then it began to flow in spasms, and some shreds passed through. Others didn’t. So she, so frayed that she could not stay inside the dammed part, slipped into the dream.

  She woke up panting, full of terror.

  Was it possible? We had a history of games, clear moon, scarecrow at worst. I couldn’t bear to
see her that way.

  Here's the first dream: there was a woman in a room, she was about to give birth. The woman did not look like her at all, it certainly wasn’t her. Yet, the dreamer, or at least the owner of the consciousness that was dreaming, knew there was an identity between them. So Martina knew she was the woman in the dream, but the woman in the dream didn’t know she was Martina. It must be a time far away, long past. People wore strange clothes and spoke in an equally strange manner. Martina suffered the pain of childbirth, then held the baby in her arms. But not any child: the baby was me. Not that it looked like me, not at all. But she felt it, somehow. Her, the dreamer, while the woman in the dream didn’t notice anything. She hadn’t even ever known Viktor.

  Martina was very agitated, she seemed out of her mind. But once she calmed down, after I had stroke her forehead and hair for some time and brought her breakfast in bed, she seemed relieved.

  It was our first child (was she planning to make more? I wouldn’t have minded) and she was scared. It was natural. Her dream must be totally normal for a woman in her condition. Malera too expressed her opinion, seconding that of Martina, although she had never had children herself.

  "Now," she sighed, "it's too late." Sure, there had been a man, once, just once in her life, that had changed her in some way. A man who had given her the desire to feel a little being inside her, something that belonged to both. That was his – his – and hers – hers – forever. Because creating that life, that had instead remained sterile, would unite their lives in the great cycle of the Universe. And that unexpected mutation that was their joint life would change things forever. A matter of a few cells? Not at all. A matter of tasting a small eternity and inscribe themselves together in the flow of things. No longer alone. No longer cells that break down and reassemble in perfect solitude. But atoms, finally aggregated into something, which might even make no sense, but was very nice anyway. Then she looked at Martina’s uncle (or at his picture, after the unpleasant event) and sighed. I felt sorry for her, for the baby she hadn’t had. On the other hand, Martina’s pregnancy, somehow, questioned the solid relationship I had had until then, with my certainties. The certainty that Martina was all for me. Selfish, isn’t it? But I was just afraid that she could start loving the Baby and left me aside. Which, of course, didn’t happen. Meanwhile, I was sorry for her sickness and her insomnia.

  Sleep is a great thing, don’t you think? Even a bit strange, if we think about it. When I lived alone in the tower, sleep came differently than now. Since when Martina popped up, with her nightshirt and her bag of biscuits, everything changed. No, not it. It’s me who have changed my mind. I cannot explain how it is now, but I can try to describe how it was before. It’s a sudden idea: I got dead tired of myself. Of my expressions, of the ceaseless thoughts, of the grain and the figure of the scarecrow seen through my eyes. Of the landscape of uneven houses, seen through my eyes. Of the moon seen through my eyes. Of my reflection in the mirror, seen through my eyes. Even of the way I felt myself moving, worrying, smiling, doing, seen through my eyes. I hated, in the long run, the consciousness of myself. In short, I got tired alone, me and the other consciousness living in something else that maybe wasn’t me. Or maybe it was, but what does it matter? You have to live with it, somehow. This is a fact.

  "That's enough, go somewhere else for a while, leave me alone."

  "But where? I'm you, there’s nothing I can do, nor you. Unnerving, isn’t it? Don’t think that it is better for me. Moreover, if I left, someone else would come and you'll get tired in the same way. Sorry, no way."

  "Enough, enough. Leave me alone! I can’t take it anymore! "

  The only way I found to get rid of me – of that stranger who was me and whom I couldn’t suffer any longer after a while – was sleeping. Exactly, that’s it. I loved sleep because it freed me from myself for the time needed. Martina, like a conscious sleep or an unconscious wake, makes me forget about me, and I hardly need the freeing sleep anymore. For her, on the other hand, sleep was no longer a freedom, not even from fatigue.

  The second dream came after a few days: Martina lived in a bright house, with a husband and many children. No, the husband wasn’t me. This one too seemed a long time ago. Martina lived in a large house with a caring husband and children, but she wasn’t happy. She also felt guilty for that. What more could she ask for? Unfortunately, she knew all too well: a new farmhand had just arrived in town, a tall one with tanned skin and an absentminded attitude. Since when that man had arrived, Martina lost her peace of mind. As the first time, her conscience, engaged in the dream experience, knew it was Viktor. But the woman in the dream didn’t. The woman in the dream was lost and confused. The woman in the dream loved her husband and children, but knew that she couldn’t resist him. "But it's Viktor!" the Martina-consciousness exclaimed. In the dream, however, she didn’t notice anything. She suffered much, she missed her children. She loved her husband too. But she could not resist the attraction that, in a sunny morning, forced her to mount on his fast horse with him and never come back.

  "You should write a book too," Malera remarked. But Martina had somehow lost her carefree smile.

   

  The garden in front of the lighthouse. Sticky scent of saltiness, light and warm wind. A wrought iron table in the shadow under the pergola. Cups of tea and biscuits.

  "I think you're just scared. Because of the pregnancy. There have always been just the two of you and now a stranger comes. Sure, it's not really a complete stranger. But you have to get used to it."

  "I hope these nightmares will not go on until the birth of the baby. Fortunately, with uncle’s remedy at least I can get some sleep."

  "I'm glad. Who would have thought that he cultivated his beloved flowers to get a remedy for insomnia? And who knows why he never told anyone?"

  "You knew him better than me. You know he was taciturn and didn’t speak much about himself. But these flowers have been under our noses the whole time and it seems so strange that he never mentioned it."

  "Yeah. Strange. But after all he was a very original man. What about the name for the Baby? Have you chosen it?"

  "Yes, I have. He will undoubtedly be called Sebastian."

  "What does Viktor think about it?"

  "Viktor will not mind. I think he likes it. He wanted to give him a ridiculous name, of course. I don’t know how it is possible, but he can only think about unlistenable names. He can’t help it, it’s stronger than him. Good there’s me having some common sense."

  "And how would he have called him?"

  Malera is on tenterhooks. Since when Martina is hosting the Baby, she’s been trying not to smoke in her presence, but she’s having a hard time. When she really can’t stand it any longer, she moves to the other side of the glass, if they are in the lighthouse, and tries to make herself heard from the terrace. Outdoor she walks away a bit, but she’s sorry to leave her friend alone, even if in the end she can stand no more and goes away to smoke. So, to make herself heard, she screams from the end of the garden.

  "He had chosen an absurd name. The name of a city, apparently. I don’t know how he could think about it, but giving a child the name of a city makes no sense, does it? Cause you should know that he believes it is a boy. He doesn’t even want to talk about a female. Well, the name Viktor chose was Austerlitz. Can you believe? Austerlitz. Absurd, isn’t it? Ugly, awkward. Ridiculous."

  I pretended not to notice, but I was a bit sorry. In my opinion, Austerlitz was a beautiful name. Luppolo was too.

  "Sebastian." Malera weighed it. "Yes, it really is a nice name."

  Austerlitz didn’t seem bad either, to me. Next one, maybe?

  "Don’t even think about it! Forget it!"

  That night, another dream: Martina slipped out of the bed, from the dark bed to the dark room. That the bed was dark it was sure, but without certainty she slips out and leaves the room. Martina is a teenage girl, she does not know her name, but she knows she is and is not herself. Th
e actress in the dream ignores Martina. "You aren’t me!" and she slips into the bed of her older brother, full of desire. Desire to be hugged, to be not alone. Desire to be someone else, a lover, not a sister. Not her. If she were Martina, she would hug her brother and call him Viktor. Instead she hugs him and says nothing. Confused scenes ensue. The next morning, at the breakfast table, they conceal embarrassment with their family. A girlfriend, a boyfriend. "They spend much time together, to be siblings." He is Viktor but she does not recognize him: it's only her brother. What will happen when they no longer live under the same roof? What will save the little sister Martina from the darkness of the bed and the embarrassment of sitting at the breakfast table?

  When Martina wakes up, happy that Viktor is just Viktor and she’s just Martina, she starts wondering why.

  I try to dissuade her. Whys don’t make people happy. Hows do. How well are we! Not – why are we well? We're like two starfish twisted together. Not – why does something drive us to make ourselves indispensable to each other? How strong and beautiful is night. And how delicate is the time when sunset begins. Not – why are we alive? Why is there darkness? How, how. How pink are the flowers on the tree outside. How could we be not happy now? Like an endless journey. Now is now. How? As if nothing else existed. And in fact, it doesn’t exist. This is the dirty little secret. Dissolving in sleep, is the secret. Don’t dream, is the secret. Don’t expect to be someone else when you wake up, is the secret. Expect nothing, just nothing, is the secret. Don’t ever ask why. That's no secret: simply, there is no explanation. It’s easy to understand, don’t you think? Even a blockhead like me can.

  But Martina hasn’t learned and she always asks why. I am mortified. I wish there were answers good for her. But there aren’t. I can try to manufacture them, what do you think? Like the stories I made up in half before sleeping. This is not a bluff.

  I try to find a reason which does good to Martina, she realizes it and believes that my attempts are something. Just that something that makes it necessary to ask why. But no, nothing like this, but I'll let her believe it all the same.

  Why are we intertwined starfish? Martina asks. I make up a beautiful story that answers her question. Martina has faith, believes, and she’s happy. Because there is an always, I tell her before sleep. This is obvious. And if there is an always, there must exist a where. A where in which things take shape, otherwise what kind of where would it be? But not only: in the when and in the where things would not have shape if there wasn’t a will, which is consequently good and necessary. It shaped us, we are its followers and we must continue together.

  Here, Martina. We are that will, it must be so, there is no other explanation. And its followers. The after, not the before. About the after having an after, and that we won’t be there, I’m silent. Otherwise she’ll want to know why again, and I like her to believe to my story of the starfish. In the after of the after, instead, there is nothing, not even a goldfish, not even a shell. Nothing. But now, an inexhaustible will holds matter close and shapes it. And because our will is a yellow will, a will of biscuit, a bit bright, crumbly, salty like the salt under your coal mines, then we got to the top of the tower, and from there to the lighthouse, to be starfish clinging to each other.

  Starfish. My hows. Her whys.

  Do not ask me about the after, Martina. There, there are only my hows and no whys.