“What’s that?” asks the friend.
How’s he going to tell the bride’s parents that his father is a magistrate?
Patrono had his snigger all to himself. Personally, I was embarrassed.
“I’ve got a rather good one too. About animals,” said La Mantovani. “Snake and Fox are wandering in the woods. At a certain point it starts to rain and they both take shelter in an underground tunnel, going in at opposite ends. They begin making their way along the tunnel, where it’s pitch dark, getting nearer and nearer each other until they meet. They actually bump into each other.
“The tunnel is very narrow and there’s very little room for them to pass. In fact, for one to pass the other has to flatten himself against the wall, in other words give way.
“But neither of them is willing to give way and so they start to quarrel.
“ ‘Move over and let me pass.’
“ ‘Move over yourself.’
“ ‘Who d’you think you are?’
“‘Who are you anyway?’
“ ‘You tell me first.’
“ ‘No, my dear, you tell me first who you are.’ And so on and so forth.
“In short, the situation seems to have reached an impasse and the two of them don’t know how to get out of it, partly because neither wants to take the initiative of attacking the other, not knowing who he is up against.
“Fox then has an idea. ‘Listen, it’s no use going on quarrelling, because that way we’ll be in here all day. Let’s have a game to solve the problem. I’ll stay still and you touch me and try to guess who I am. Then you stay still, and I’ll touch you and try to guess who you are. Whoever finds out the identity of the other wins and can pass first. What d’you think of that?’
“ ‘It’s an idea,’ says Snake. ‘I agree, but I have first guess.’
“So Snake, moving sinuously, starts touching Fox.
“ ‘Now then, what long, pointed ears you have, what a sharp muzzle, what soft fur, what a bushy tail ... You must be Fox!’
“Fox is rather miffed, but has to admit that the other has got him.
“ ‘However, now it’s my turn, because if I guess right we’ll be even and we’ll have to find another way of deciding who goes first.’
“And he starts to touch Snake, who in the meanwhile has stretched out on the floor of the tunnel.
“ ‘What a small head you have, you don’t have any ears, you’re long and slimy ... And you have no balls!
“ ‘You wouldn’t by any chance be a lawyer?’ ”
I lowered my eyelids and laughed to myself. Patrono tried to laugh too, but failed. He came out with a sarcastic cackle and tried to say something, but nothing equal to the occasion occurred to him. He didn’t know how to lose.
La Mantovani took off her robe, said she was going to her office, that we’d all be meeting when the hearing resumed and went her way.
Every so often, a real man, I thought.
16
Some days passed and then I got a telephone call from Abajaje.
She wanted to see me. Soon.
I told her she could come that very day, at eight in the evening, when the office closed. That way we’d be able to talk more calmly.
She arrived almost half an hour late, and this amazed me. It didn’t fit with the image I’d formed of her.
When I heard the bell ring I was already beginning to think of leaving.
I crossed the empty offices, opened the door and saw her. In the middle of the unlit landing.
She came in, dragging a big box. It contained the books and a few other belongings of Abdou, including an envelope with several dozen photographs.
I told her we could go through and talk in my room, but she shook her head. She was in a hurry. She remained where she was, one step inside the door, opened her bag and took out a roll of banknotes similar to the one she produced the first time she came to the office.
She held out the money and, without looking me in the face, began talking quickly. This time her accent was very noticeable. As strong as a smell.
She had to leave. She had to return to Aswan. She was forced, she was forced – she said – to return to Egypt.
I asked when and why, and her explanation became confused. Broken at times by words I didn’t understand.
She had taken her final exams more than a week before. In theory she should have gone straight back, and in fact all the other scholarship holders had already left.
She had stayed on, asking for an extension of the grant, claiming that she had to do further work on some subjects. The extension had been refused and yesterday she had had a fax from her country ordering her to return. If she didn’t do so, and at once, she would lose her position at the Ministry of Agriculture.
She had no choice, she said. Even if she stayed she could do nothing to help Abdou. Without money or a job.
Without anywhere to live, since they had already told her to vacate her room at the annexe as soon as possible.
She would go back to Nubia and try to obtain temporary leave. She would do everything she could to come back to Italy.
She had collected all the money she could to pay for Abdou’s defence, meaning me. It came to nearly three million. I must do all I could, all I could to help him.
No, Abdou didn’t know yet. She would tell him tomorrow, at visiting time.
However – she repeated, too quickly and without looking at me – she’d do everything she could to come back to Italy. Soon.
We both knew it wasn’t true.
Curse it, I thought. Curse it, curse it, curse it.
I had an urge to insult her for leaving me alone with all the responsibility.
I didn’t want that responsibility.
I had an urge to insult her because I saw myself in her unexpected mediocrity, in her cowardice. I recognized myself with unbearable clarity.
There passed through my mind the time when Sara had talked about the possibility of having a baby. It was one October afternoon and I said that I didn’t think the right moment had yet come. She looked at me and nodded without saying anything. She never mentioned it again.
I did not insult Abajaje. I listened to her justifications without saying a word.
When she had finished, she backed away, as if afraid of turning her back on me.
I was left standing near the door, with the cardboard box containing Abdou’s things, holding the roll of banknotes. Then I picked up the telephone on my secretary’s desk and without really thinking rang Sara’s number, which had been my number.
It rang five times, then someone answered.
The voice was nasal, fairly young-sounding.
“Yes?” The tone was that of a man who feels at home. Maybe he’s just back from work, and when the telephone rang he was loosening his tie, and now while he’s answering he’s taking off his jacket and tossing it onto a sofa.
For some unknown reason I didn’t hang up.
“Is Stefania in?”
“No, there’s no one here called Stefania. You’ve got the wrong number.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Could you please tell me what number I’ve rung?”
He told me and I even wrote it down. To be certain I’d heard right.
I looked for a long time at that piece of paper, my brain circling round and round a nasal voice, faceless, on the telephone in my own home.
17
“That was a lovely film this evening. What are the actors’ names again?”
“Harry is Billy Crystal. Sally, Meg Ryan.”
“Wait, how did it go ... the bit with the dream about the Olympics?”
“ ‘Had my dream again where I’m making love, and the Olympic judges are watching. I’d nailed the compulsories, so this is it, the finals. I got a 9.8 from the Canadians, a perfect 10 from the Americans, and my mother, disguised as an East German judge, gave me 5.6.’ ”
She bursts out laughing. How I love her laugh, I thought.
A person’s laugh is import
ant because you can’t cheat. To know if someone is genuine or fake, the only sure way is to watch – and listen to – his laugh. People who are really worthwhile are the ones who know how to laugh.
She made me jump by touching my arm.
“Tell me your three favourite films.”
“Chariots of Fire, Big Wednesday, Picnic at Hanging Rock.”
“You’re the first who’s ever answered like that ... quickly. Without thinking.”
“This favourite film game is one I often play myself. So you might say I was ready for it. What are yours?”
“Number one is Blade Runner. No doubt about it.”
“ ‘I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. And all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time – to – die.’ ”
“Well done. It’s said just like that. ‘Time – to – die.’ With the words spaced out. And then he releases the dove.”
I nodded and she went on talking.
“I’ll tell you the other films. American Graffiti and Manhattan. Tomorrow perhaps I’ll tell you a couple of others – Blade Runner is a fixture – but that’s them for today. I’ve often said Metropolis, for example.”
“Why these for today?”
“I don’t know. Come on, shall we go on playing?”
“All right. Let’s try this game. An extraterrestrial arrives on our planet and you have to give him an example of what’s best on earth, so as to persuade him to stay. You must offer him an object, a book, a song, a quote or, well there’d also be films but we’ve already done those.”
“Good idea. I already know the quotation. It’s Malraux: ‘The homeland of a man who can choose is where the biggest clouds gather.’ ”
We remained for a moment in silence. When she was on the point of speaking, I interrupted her.
“You must do me a favour. Will you?”
“Yes. What is it?”
“If you fall madly in love with me, I’d like you to tell me at once. Don’t trust me to know instinctively. Please. Is that all right with you?”
“Fair enough. Does the same hold good for me?”
“Yes, it does. And now tell me the other things for the Martian.”
“The book is The Catcher in the Rye. I’m pretty doubtful about the song. ‘Because the Night’ by Patti Smith. Or else ‘Suzanne’ by Leonard Cohen. Or ‘Ain’t No Cure for Love’, by Cohen again. I don’t know. One of those. Perhaps.”
“And the object?”
“A bicycle. Now tell me yours.”
“The quote is really a quick exchange. From On the Road. It goes like this: ‘We gotta go and never stop going till we get there.’ The reply: ‘Where we going, man?’ ‘I don’t know but we gotta go.’ ”
“The book?”
“You’re sure not to know it. It’s The Foreign Student, by a French writer—”
“I’ve read it. It’s the one about a young Frenchman who goes to study in an American college in the 50s.”
“Nobody knows that book. You’re the first. What a coincidence.”
Her eyes flashed for a moment in the darkness of the car, like little knife blades.
We were parked on the cliffs, almost sheer above the sea at Polignano. Outside it was February and very cold.
Not inside the car though. Inside the car, that night, we seemed to be sheltered from everything.
“I’m glad I came out with you this evening. At the last moment I was about to call you and say I wasn’t feeling up to it. Then I thought you must have already left home and that anyway it would be bad-mannered. So I said to myself: we’ll go to the cinema and then I’ll ask him to take me home and I’ll get an early night.”
“Why didn’t you want to go out?”
“I don’t want to talk about it now. I only wanted to tell you I’m glad I came. And I’m glad I didn’t ask you to take me home right after the cinema. Let’s play some more. I like it. Tell me the song and the object.”
“The object is a fountain pen. The song is ‘Pezzi di vetro.’ ”
“Can I say something about the book?”
“What is it?”
“I’m no longer sure about The Catcher in the Rye.”
“You want to change?”
“Yes, I think so. The Little Prince. It seems more appropriate, maybe. What does the fox say to the little prince when he wants to be tamed?”
“ ‘The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the colour of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat ...’ ”
She turned and looked at me. In her eyes was a childlike wonder. She was very beautiful. “How do you manage to remember everything by heart?”
“I don’t know. It’s always been like that. If I like something, I only have to read it or hear it once and it sticks in my mind. But The Little Prince I’ve read lots of times. So it’s not really fair.”
“What do you think is the most important quality in a person?”
“A sense of humour. If you have a sense of humour – not irony or sarcasm, which are different things entirely – then you don’t take yourself seriously. So you can’t be catty, you can’t be stupid and you can’t be vulgar. If you think about it, it covers almost everything. Do you know any people who have a sense of humour?”
“Very few. On the other hand, I’ve met a lot of them – men especially – who take themselves a hell of a lot too seriously.”
She had a moment of hesitation, then added: “My boyfriend is one of them.”
“What does your boyfriend do?”
“He’s an engineer.”
“Pompous person?”
“No. He can make you laugh, he’s nice. What I mean is, he’s intelligent, he makes funny remarks and so on. But he can only joke about other people. About himself he’s always tremendously serious. No, he hasn’t got a sense of humour.”
Another pause, then she went on, “I’d like it if you had a sense of humour.”
“I’d like to have one too. To tell the truth, in view of what you’ve just said, I’d sell my mother and father to the cannibals just to have one. Without taking myself seriously, of course.”
She laughed again and we went on chatting like that, in the car that protected us from the wind and the world. For hours.
It was past four in the morning before we realized that we ought to get back.
When we arrived outside her place, in the centre of town, the sky was already beginning to lighten.
“If tomorrow you think you still want to come out with me, phone me. If you call, I’ll give you a book.”
Sara took my chin between finger and thumb and gave me a kiss on the lips. Then, without a word, she got out of the car. A few seconds later she had disappeared through a shiny wooden door.
I gave myself a couple of light punches in the face, on one side and the other. Then I started up the car and drove away, music playing full blast.
Ten years later there I was alone in my empty office, with my memories and their heart-rending melody.
It was a long time since I’d been able to memorize songs, passages in books or parts of films just by hearing or reading them once.
Among the many things gone down the drain there was also that.
So I had to go home at once, hoping that among the books I had brought away with me I would find The Little Prince. Because at that hour there were no bookshops open and I was in a hurry, I couldn’t wait till the next morning.
It was there. I turned to near the end, where the little prince is about to be bitten by the snake and is saying farewell to his airman friend.
“In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night ... You
– only you – will have stars that can laugh!” ...
“And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure ... And your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them ‘Yes the stars always make me laugh!’ And they will think you are crazy.”
18
I slept for exactly two hours.
I slipped between the sheets a few minutes before three, opened my eyes at five on the dot and got up feeling strangely refreshed.
I had no commitments that morning, so I thought I’d go for a walk. I had a shower, shaved, put on some comfortable old cotton trousers, a denim shirt and a sweatshirt. I wore gymshoes and a leather jacket.
Outside it was starting to get light.
I was already at the door when it occurred to me that I might take a book, stop and read somewhere. In a garden or a café, as I used to do years before. So I looked over the books that I’d never arranged but were there in my flat. All over the place, scattered provisionally.
I had a momentary thought that they were provisional there just as I was, but immediately I told myself that this was a banal, pathetic notion. I therefore stopped philosophizing and returned to simply choosing a book.
I picked up Arthur Schnitzler’s Dream Story, in a cheap edition that fitted easily into the pocket of my leather jacket. I took some cigarettes, deliberately did not take my mobile, and left the house.
My flat was in Via Putignani, and immediately to the right as I went out I could see the Teatro Petruzzelli.
From the outside the theatre looked normal, with its dome and all the rest of it. Not so inside. One night nearly ten years ago it had been gutted by fire, and since then there it stood, waiting for someone to rebuild it. It was inhabited meanwhile by cats and ghosts.
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