Glass Souls

by Maurizio de Giovanni

For no good reason, the young man feels completely inadequate and deeply moved. He thinks it over, while the old man observes him with a half smile on his face. And he finds the reasons.

  Inadequate, because he thinks that maybe, in order to sing such a sorrow, a person must have experienced it. Deeply moved, because he’s sung that song a hundred times, and he’s never really listened to it.

  The old man resumes, in a low voice.

  Then he prepares the refrain with the second verse, and they’re the same words as before. But the meaning, that changes. It’s different. Just as we’re different, as we listen to it now, as we watch the little moth with fear and sorrow as it flutters around the flame. He tells her: I’ll do without you. Because this love can kill me.

  He turns his eyes to the small, narrow neck of the very old instrument he’s holding in his hands.

  And he begins to sing again.

  Carulí, pe’ nu capriccio,

  tu vuo’ fà scuntento a n’ato

  e po’, quanno ll’hê lassato,

  tu addu n’ato vuo’ vulà.

  Troppe core staje strignenno

  cu ’sti mmane piccerelle;

  ma fernisce ca ’sti scelle

  pure tu te puo’ abbrucià.

  Vattenn’ ’a lloco!

  Vattenne, pazzarella!

  Va’, palummella, e torna,

  e torna a ’st’aria

  accussí fresca e bella!

  ’O bbí ca i’ pure

  mm’abbaglio chianu chiano,

  e ca mm’abbrucio ’a mano

  pe’ te ne vulè caccià?

  (Carolina, for some caprice,

  you want to make another man unhappy

  and then, once you’ve left him,

  you want to fly to yet another.

  You’re clutching too many hearts

  With these little hands of yours,

  But it turns out that you can

  Also burn these wings of yours.

  Get out of here!

  Get away, silly thing!

  Go, little butterfly, and go back

  go back into this air

  so cool and clear!

  You see that I, too,

  am slowly being dazzled

  and that I’m burning my hand

  as I try to shoo you away?)

  XXIII

  There is a moment, in every night, that is a crossover point. It’s not the same for everyone, of course. It comes when the territory of consciousness begins to blur, like when you’re walking through the countryside in a winter dawn and the fog conceals everything in a dreamland.

  At that moment our fears push forward into the midst of our decisions and break them apart, one stone after the other, and they begin to build the dreams that will ensue only to dissolve in silence when morning comes.

  At that moment all our certainties cease to exist, hunger becomes less urgent, and even pain steps aside to let our farthest-flung passions walk onstage, the passions we have kept safely shut up behind the door of reason.

  Mothers know that moment, and they run a hand over their children’s foreheads to soothe their eyes and their souls, letting them imagine that it is them, their mothers, behind that fog, that they might move forward into it comforted by that memory of maternal tenderness.

  What happens is that you feel strong, at that moment. That it seems possible to knock down obstacles effortlessly, solve matters beyond the shadow of a doubt. Or that you feel weak, and every obstacle seems like a mountain without handholds or escape routes. What happens is that you become afraid of feeling strong.

  Afraid you will not be able to make it through, to stick to your decision.

  But even more afraid that you will.

  I’ll do without you.

  I’ll do without your face and your laughter, your flesh beneath my hand. I’ll do without your voice whispering in the shadows of our absurd early morning trysts, those half-hours that give a jump-start to the rest of my terrible day.

  I’ll do without you because I have to. Because I owe you that.

  I’ll do without you because you believed in me when no one else did, and I believed less than anyone. Because you gave me the strength to smile at the sun, to hold my head high. Because you pulled my life out of the narrow tunnel of a couple of dice tumbling into fate, a horse’s nose a couple of inches ahead of another horses’s nose. Because you told me that destiny lay not in those cards yet to be turned faceup, but in your smile.

  I’ll do without you, because no one can get between the two of us. Because if it’s going to be a life, it can’t be born in blood, but rather out of the tenderness you’ve bestowed upon me.

  I’ll do without you because of the decision you made, because your hand is the hand of my joy, not the hand of the death that I caused.

  I’ll do without you.

  And I’ll die every single day, gazing into the flame of the candle from which I shooed you away.

  A crossover point.

  A slender veil that can stitch up the virginity of a dream, that can keep truth on one side and madness on the other.

  A curtain made of memories and hopes.

  I’ll do without you.

  I’ll have no trouble doing it, because you’re no longer the man I met, ravenously hungry for life, happy about everything that hit you in the impetus of sunny days and blue skies.

  I’ll do without you, because it will be easy for me to remember the long months of silences, when you stopped searching for absurd justifications of the things you did and what you’d turned into. It will be easy for me to remember your returns home, the uncertain sound of your drunken footsteps, your fumbling among the papers and the glasses on the other side of the wall.

  I’ll do without you, the way I’ve learned to do over the years, when I finally understand that the false mask of the man that you are was nothing but a lie, a squalid falsehood disguised by the face I thought I’d fallen in love with. Because what I don’t forgive you for, what I can never forgive you for, is that you left my eyes with the memory of your face as it is now, shattering the image of our youth, an image that was the image I had of myself.

  I’ll do without you, once I’ve figured out why. Once I’ve learned the reason for all this, and I can finally stop puzzling through the nights. Because I know that you lied to me. I know you did.

  I have to understand. I have to know. Then, at last, I’ll be able to do without you.

  And contemplate the emptiness of my life.

  It was just a moment.

  A tiny, simple instant, a tick of the second hand on the watch, not even the space of one complete breath.

  A glint of awareness, vivid, terrible, and brightly colored, that comes just before the oblivion of silence.

  I’ll do without you.

  It will be necessary, and I’ll succeed. I’m already getting used to it, in the seemingly normal days that must flow past, untroubled, to keep anyone from guessing that these are the days of my new life.

  I’ll do without you, and I’ll be sorry about it, because you were the dream of a different, brilliant future, full of fun and laughter. But dreams don’t last long, as we all know, even the loveliest ones make way for the morning.

  I’ll do without you. And as far as that goes, perhaps, I knew from the very beginning that we weren’t going to be allowed to get away with it. But it was nice to dream of it, when I felt your knowing, trembling hands on my flesh, when I heard you whisper your nectar-sweet illusions.

  Then I’d forget that it was going to prove impossible. Then I’d listen the way you listen to a fairy tale, and you believe in the story that everyone, and I mean everyone, is going to live happily ever after.

  I liked to let myself be talked into it, and pretend that we were going to live in the light of day
. That when people looked at us, their eyes wouldn’t be filled with ill will and malice, and that all told, when it came to it, we too would have our chance.

  I’ll do without you, and I’ll look forward. Forgetting that I ever dreamed and smiled and felt my heart beat in a doorway early one morning.

  Forgetting the blood shed, and that long, flaccid, wet gasping breath that whirled through the air.

  I’ll do without you. And I’ll live my life.

  How long does an instant really last? Can’t it stretch out into infinity, if it’s kept alive by a simple fantasy?

  If through the window cracked open onto the September night, the words of a distant song arrive, in an ancient, unknown language that speaks of flames, moths, and hearts gripped in small hands.

  If those words drop like seeds borne on the wind, and they take root in the unconsciousness of a mind yielding to the pounding blows of sleep. And weeping.

  And if those tears sprout leaves, and bitter fruit.

  I’ll do without you. Now I know that. You told me yourself that’s what I’ll have to do.

  At last, maybe I can. Perhaps I can find a way to be reborn.

  I believed that I was alive because I had you. Because I looked forward and it seemed to me that you held in your hands both your future and mine.

  I believed that we were going to be able to laugh together, and cry as well, if we felt like it, opening so many different parentheses in the midst of so much solitude. I believed that I was going to be able to get you out of the prison in which you had stubbornly taken refuge.

  I wanted to feel your flesh and no one else’s beneath my palms. I wanted to give you flavors you’d never tasted, teach you how to reach paradise and never set foot on earth again. I wanted to tell you about all the days you didn’t even know you had in your pocket and open your heart to yourself. Your heart and mine.

  I was certain that it was going to be tonight, our night. That the sun, our sun, was going to break through your shadows and mine, and that it would warm us so much that neither you nor I would be able to do without it.

  I’d prepared everything, foolish woman that I am. I’d even thought about these sheets, the pillows that absorb these damned tears I can’t seem to choke back. I’d thought about the music, the liquor, and your weariness.

  I’d believed that once that pointless dream you were pretending to cherish had been swept away, you’d finally understand that I’m a real woman, made up of petals and tears and laughter, and that you’d choose life. I’ve never been as explicit as I was then, I’d never known so well what I wanted. I’d never been so sure of myself, of my beauty and my desire.

  And now, now that I know I’ll do without you, I hate you.

  I hate you for what you’ve condemned yourself to, and me along with you. I hate you for not being what I was sure that you were. I hate you for the image of your shoulders, indifferent to my pain and grief, when you turned your back on me and left. I hate you for the frustration, for the humiliation.

  I hate you because I loved you.

  I’ll do without you, because not even the dream of a rebirth can be enough to pay for this suffering. I’ll do without you, because a love like this can kill a person, leave her burning in the flame of a lonely candle in the night.

  I’ll do without you.

  Then the consciousness hunkers down, squatting patiently in the night. And it gives way to tangled dreams.

  And desperate nightmares.

  XXIV

  It had been a long time since Ricciardi last set foot in prison.

  Unlike many of his colleagues, he didn’t enjoy taking people to jail. In any case, it represented a defeat to him.

  He had pondered at considerable length, when he first began his career, about what it meant to him to be a policeman. He, a constant witness to the sorrow of life’s last instant, knew perfectly well that at that point nothing can be fixed, that no preexisting order can be restored. But he also knew that the only relief, however marginal and transitory, that he could offer his own soul was to track down whoever had been responsible for that sorrow. In the final analysis, he was doing it more for himself than for the victim, who by this point really couldn’t enjoy any relief.

  But every time he found himself looking into the eyes of someone who had put an end to another person’s life, he often detected an even greater and deeper pain there. Leaving aside the issue of repentance, someone who had killed suffered and would continue to suffer for every single day of life that remained to them.

  That was probably why he’d stopped taking to prison those arrested for the murders he’d successfully investigated. He didn’t see how he could interpret that as a victory, something to celebrate with that act, depriving someone of their freedom, perhaps for the rest of their lives. Taking pleasure in someone else’s suffering only filled him with horror.

  And now, as he was setting out for the prison of Poggioreale where he had arranged to meet Counselor Moscato, he was very pleased to be a virtual stranger to the prison guards.

  Moscato was waiting for him at the corner of the street that led to the prison’s front gate. Moscato had called him that morning, informing him over the phone that by a singular piece of luck he’d managed to procure the interview immediately, and that they’d therefore need to take advantage of that opportunity. In part because, he had added, Bianca was pestering him relentlessly.

  It was strange for Ricciardi to see the lawyer in such a different setting from the last time. At the yacht club Moscato had been relaxed, speculative, and serene. Now he seemed brusque, worried, and even a little ill at ease.

  “Ah, Commissario, buongiorno. I apologize for giving you such short notice, but in order to procure this opportunity I had to presume upon a number of my acquaintances, and I don’t want to embarrass myself.”

  Ricciardi shrugged his shoulders.

  “It’s fine with me, Counselor. How should we proceed?”

  “We’ll tell them that you’re accompanying me in, as we had agreed. I’ll make it evident at the entrance that you’re one of my assistants, though I won’t explicitly say so, otherwise I might later be accused of having smuggled someone into the prison under false pretenses, which would be a very serious crime, as you know. Do you think that anyone is likely to recognize you?”

  “I doubt it. I haven’t been here for quite a while, and in any case I’ve only been a few times before. I generally let my officers run my prisoners in. What are we going to say to the count?”

  Moscato gestured vaguely with one hand.

  “I don’t think that’s particularly important. You see, Romualdo is . . . it’s not easy to speak with him, these days. I was here ten days ago, not because I had anything to talk to him about, but because I was hoping that he’d change his mind, that he’d give me a little something more to work with, in other words. And when I was here, I found him . . . well, it’s not easy to speak with him.”

  Ricciardi understood. The reason for the lawyer’s attitude, for his unmistakable malaise, was in fact the upcoming meeting with his client. He wondered why.

  Clustered around the entrance was the usual, perennial cast of characters. The families of the convicts were milling around beneath the high gray walls, trying to let their loved ones know, with occasional shouts, that they were there. Ricciardi thought that this was what purgatory, if such a thing existed, must be like: the despairing sorrow of parting, of a love kept far away by a partition wall. Women, old men, children with creased, weary faces, sitting on the ground waiting for nothing.

  As the two men approached the iron gate, a number of women tried to grab them by the hems of their jackets. Counselor, counselor, they kept saying: take us inside with you. Take us to see our son, our husband. Let us touch his face, let us kiss him; and if you can’t take us inside, here, take this, it’s a note with his name, we had the scrivener write it out
for us, you talk to him. Tell him that we love him, that without him out here is the real prison. Tell him not to worry, that we’re waiting for him, that we think of nothing but him. Tell him that, counselor.

  For the love of God, please tell him that.

  A trolley car went screeching past near the sidewalk. The people crammed inside averted their eyes, unwilling to gaze at those people. Was that out of habit? Shame? Perhaps it was just a secret happiness at not being in the same situation.

  Moscato shook off the hand of a pale young woman who was grabbing him by the sleeve.

  “For pete’s sake, Signo’, don’t touch me! Just look here, the stains your fingers left on the fabric. Why, what manners! This is what you always do out here! I’ve told you a thousand times that I can’t summon your husband, I can’t meet with anyone for you, talk to your own lawyers if you’re looking for legal assistance!”

  A toothless graybeard commented, in a loud voice: “Sure, and do you think that if we could afford a lawyer we’d be out here asking for the charity of taking a message inside? Are you of all people pretending that you don’t know that there’s one kind of justice for the poor and another kind for the rich?”

  The ashen-faced young woman turned to look at him, her eyes wide with terror.

  “Papa, be quiet! Counselor, pay him no mind, he’s just an old man and . . . ”

  Moscato gestured with one hand.

  “Don’t worry about it, Signo’. I didn’t hear a word he said. But tell your father, or your father-in-law, or whatever he is to you, that he should think before he speaks, because around here, we all do our jobs and we’re just trying to make a living, it’s certainly not our fault that not everyone can pay us.”

  The large door swung open with a muffled shriek. When the guard appeared in the opening, three women with bundles in their hands stepped forward, asking permission to take the contents of those bundles to their sons and husbands. Some of them called the guard by name, as if they knew him, but he showed no sign of even glancing at them. He did, however, greet Moscato, and ushered them in.