by Mark Martin
In the dream, goodness knows why, I meet people I had interviewed three years earlier. They are so pleased to see me, they tell me everything, all over again, from the beginning. I say goodbye to them feeling very satisfied, aware that it will be a good book. Then I discover that all the time, She is hobbling along behind me: the Historian. She is left behind in a cloud of dust, but still recognizably me: twenty-five years old and behind with my thesis. I turn up late and nobody wants to talk to me because I have already been there before.
––. . . work did you do?
––I was a writer, I reply to Matteo.
––A writer? What sort of thing did you write?
––Novels. At least that’s what people called them.
––Novels. And he pauses to think. I used to read them too, but I don’t think I read any by women. I used to read detective stories and stuff like that.
––Yes, before the Crisis they were very popular. But who’d want to read books like that these days?
––That’s true. So now what do you do?
Words precede thought.
––I’m still a writer, in a way, but I don’t write any more.
––What a strange thing to say. What do you mean?
––That these days I don’t write: I see.
––I don’t follow.
––The future. I see the future.
A pause.
––So, you’re . . . What’s it called? . . . A soothsayer?
––Don’t know if that’s the right word.
––But you see the future. Is that why you managed to dodge my cudgel? So can you tell what’s in store for us?
––No. No to both your questions. I’m not interested in that kind of insignificant future.
––Insignificant! You say these things but I don’t know what you mean. And what a funny phrase to use, “interested in” . . . I haven’t heard that for a long time.
––Yes, I’m interested in something. In the future perfect. The one that comes after the insignificant future. I see it and I tell people about it.
––What people?
––I have a family, a very large one. I tell the future perfect, we see it together, and we all feel better. They depend on me and I’m going back to them.
––Fair enough. So, you . . . erm . . . took a holiday. I know that’s not the right word. I mean that you needed to distance yourself a bit, to see the place where you were born. Is that right?
The simple thing that is difficult to say.
––Yes. That’s absolutely right. Then, without preamble, I add, Do you remember how to say “great tit” in the Ferrarese dialect?
Matteo doesn’t seem surprised by this reference to a local bird. He concentrates, not speaking. He looks up at the branches of the trees and the roof of the church. He stands up, takes a sip from his water-bottle and walks around slowly. Very slowly. I am no longer there, he’s lost in childhood memories. Not even his, probably: his mother’s. His grandmother’s and even further back than that. Finally he stops and opens his eyes wide. He points his right index finger––rigid and straight as a flagpole––toward the sky. He turns toward me and exclaims:
––Arzèstula! But why did you ask me that? Is it something to do with the future perfect?
And at that very moment we hear it, a female great tit, and we can see it, too, on the branch of a leafless ash tree behind the parish church. Yellow and black, perfectly formed, a heartbreaking marvel of Evolution. We are left open-mouthed, here, now.
III. From the Parco della Chiusa to the
ex-motorway café, the Cantagallo, at
Casalecchio sul Reno, November 26–27
There are a lot of fallen trees and their rotten trunks block the paths, making the ground very slippery. The soles of my boots are muddy and I fall, two, three times, and when I get up again I sink up to my ankles in mud. I’m forced to make little detours to clean the soles of my boots on stones and dry twigs. On my right, a powerful river, the Reno, flows by; I can’t see it but I can hear its roar, beyond this strip of woodland that lines one of its deep banks, beyond the screen of alders and willows and the tangle of reed beds.
I finally reach the bridge, a small steel walkway that is just as I had left it. I stride on to it, and then there it is, the river, and I’m overcome; the river is stereotypically blue, just as it’s supposed to be, but different from everything else. It flows down from the Apennines and crosses the great plain, toward me and the places that I am leaving behind.
On the other side, the old gravel heaps belonging to the SAPABA quarry await me; now they are just hills, nothing more, covered in plants so green they hurt my eyes. But I leave them behind and quicken my pace. A sudden frenzy moves my legs along. Off with my hood, off with my scarf, I’m nearly home, home! Once upon a time there was a camp of nomads here, but nowadays the whole of Italy is one big camp of nomads. And maybe a good part of the world, too. But I am home. I turn right, I step onto one last pathway and there it is. The Cantagallo Café.
My family welcomes me joyfully. I’ve been gone forty days, visiting my old haunts, back to my origins, clearing my mind and my body. For weeks I had been suffering from visual disturbances, caused by waves of heat, hot flushes, which started deep inside me and pervaded my whole body. I felt them in my chest, I felt them on my neck. I turned up at the ritual tired out after sleepless nights, troubled by a burning sensation whenever I went for a pee and the friction of my exploratory fingertips on dry mucosa, everything setting me on edge. At times I would burst into tears during the storytelling, upsetting the others, bringing the whole ritual to a halt. Entering into this new stage of life stopped me from functioning properly. The menopause forced me to face my insignificant personal future, to ask myself what would become of me and my place in the world. It was a final farewell to fertility: an unexpected blow even for me. I had always been infertile because of some peculiarity of my womb. I had to stop, withdraw, withdraw and rethink everything, remember everything, far away from this place, which belongs to a different stage. I had to shake up my body, put it to the test.
––Tonight, we are going to celebrate! Eat, drink and make love! Nita announces.
It’s lovely to see her again. Forty days ago, when she said goodbye to me her voice was cracked and unhappy. Now it rings out like the telephone used to when I was a child. Nita is twenty-five years old, and I’m about to turn fifty-two. We are the vice and the versa. While I was away, I know she was the one who led the ritual, who saw, who started the storytelling. I am confident she has worked well. I have taught her a lot of what I know.
A lot, yes, but not everything. There are a lot of things I do unconsciously, without thinking, so I can’t teach them.
I see. Much more than that, I couldn’t say.
I am the clairvoyant from the Cantagallo Café, the woman who leads this family, who sees and narrates distant futures. I went through my personal crisis at the time of the Crisis, and I have returned to where I feel better, to live with those I love, to grow old with those I love, and one day to die with those I love by my side.
Here they are, laughing, hugging and kissing me. I find the hugs from those who only have one limb very moving. They are off-balance, they remind me of the dancers in Zorba the Greek.
There they are, my little ones, with their illnesses, their strengths, their hopes.
I greet Antioco, who suffers from Capgras syndrome. If he looked me in the face he would not recognize me. I would look like some stranger who resembles me, a dummy made of flesh with my features. In order to love me, in order to love anyone, he has to close his eyes, because a person’s voice, that always stays true. He lowers his eyelids and smiles at me.
I greet Ileana, who suffers from Fregoli syndrome. She doesn’t look at me either, she moves, eyes wet with tears, towards Nita; overwhelmed by emotion, she hugs her and greets her . . . calling her by my name. Nita doesn’t correct her, nor do I. It’s fine as it is.
&nbs
p; I greet Ezio, who is nearly blind but doesn’t know it, he refuses to know it. He suffers from Anton syndrome. He fixes his sightless gaze on my nose. My face is maybe just a pale spot, and maybe not even that, but Ezio is happy to see me again and he says––You look radiant. Your trip has really done you good!
I greet Demetra, Tiziano and Lizbet, who don’t suffer from any syndrome. I greet Edo, Yassin, Pablo and Natzuko. I greet the children who cling to my legs. I greet the dogs and goats. In my thoughts I greet every animal and every plant in our orbit, in this world of splendid refugees, this nation gathered together in an old motorway café, above a deserted motorway, where the rare sight of a passing motor vehicle is a source of wonderment. This café that can still function as such, because we give sustenance and shelter to travelers, because we were all travelers before coming here from far and wide. Rejects. Rejects who every morning grab hold of the future by its tail to be pulled at speed out of the present, happy to be here, ready to face the day, to raise animals and cultivate crops, to teach and educate, to go off to explore and return to tell the story.
The middle of the night, a curved sliver of a moon and not a cloud in the sky. I stare down through a long window at the A1 motorway. Every stone, every slab, every nail and screw of the Cantagallo Café could tell millions of stories.
Here, in 1971, the workers went on a wildcat strike so that they wouldn’t have to fill up the car belonging to Giorgio Almirante––a politician back then––or serve him coffee. A popular song, maybe one of the last ones, was written about it, and I can still remember the words:
Arriving at the Cantagallo, he finds a nice place to eat,
Thank goodness, Almirante thought: at least we’re in for a treat.
Everybody out, arms folded, Almirante pleads in vain.
No lunch for black shirts, hungry they must remain.
Nowadays it seems like a myth from the Bronze Age.
––Who was Al Mirante? Nita asked me one summer’s afternoon.
––He was the leader of the fascists.
––And who were the fascists?
It was here, on New Year’s Eve 2002, that the first receipt was issued in the new currency, the euro. It was in the papers. The holder of this record was called Lorenzo. His purchase: a packet of chewing gum full of aspartame. Memento of the Second Age of Cancer.
––What was ’spartame? Pablo asked one autumn evening.
––Something sweet that was very harmful to people’s health, but everybody ate and drank it.
––Why, if it was harmful?
It was here, in 2006, that a lorry driver shouted that he was wearing a belt packed with explosives, causing panic in the restaurant. He demanded that the police shoot him, otherwise he would blow the building up. He wanted to be killed. The Cantagallo was evacuated and the authorities closed the A1 between Casalecchio and Sasso Marconi. There was chaos everywhere. After an hour of negotiations, the police convinced the man to surrender. He had a cushion hidden under his coat and the detonator wire was a mobile phone charger. He said he had problems at work, he was being exploited and his family was falling apart.
Mine isn’t. After the party, music is still playing in some of the rooms. A few people are wandering around, talking to each other, others are snoring, reassured, clinging to each other in their sleeping bags.
I go up onto the roof, where we have built a kind of telescope. It’s a perfect night for looking at the stars. Nights like this are less rare than they once were; thanks to the Crisis, the vault of heaven is clear, you no longer feel as if you are at the bottom of a glass of fluorescent barley water.
I don’t touch the telescope. With the naked eye you can see the mass of the Pleiades, the daughters of Atlas and Pleione.
When you next lose yourself between water and land, stare up at the night sky, examine it, searching for secrets. Deepest space will be there to draw you in, a never-ending, tantalizing emptiness.
Afterwards, you will lower your gaze, your spirit cheered, aware of your center of gravity.
I have traveled through the womb of the earth, I have witnessed the breaking of its waters and I am reborn.
Back in the world, back in my place.
For me.
And for the others.
IV. The former motorway café, the Cantagallo,
Casalecchio sul Reno, December 1
Two hours from now it will be dawn. We are getting ready to welcome it.
From the roof of the motorway café, from a hundred mouths, the vapor from our breath rises up.
Venus, the light-giving morning star, the only planet with a woman’s name, is visible in the east. I can see it out of the corner of my right eye.
Facing north, eyes closed, tongues pressing against our palates, we breathe through our noses. Teeth mustn’t touch.
Hands relaxed over our abdomens, between the umbilical cord and the pubis.
Those who only have one hand use them both anyway.
We imagine that we are holding a sphere, a black sphere, we test its weight. Our lungs are full. Now we breathe out and the sphere starts to turn anticlockwise, caressing the palms of our hands and our fingertips. We feel its movement, we savor it, we sense the slight friction of its smooth surface. With every exhalation, the rotation quickens, and when we breathe in it begins to slow down. This is repeated eighteen times.
From now on, with every exhalation the sphere becomes bigger until it enters our abdomens, right up to where it can caress our kidneys. We breathe in, the sphere slows down and returns to the same size as before, contained within the bounds of our circle of hands.
This is repeated ninety, one hundred and eighty times. Our hands are on fire.
Now, while the sphere expands and contracts, we imagine that we too are getting bigger, with every exhalation we are taller and taller. Beside us, level with our eyes, we see the moon.
We fix our gaze on the North Star. Polaris, the last star in the Little Bear. Let’s look at it: its light travels in the void for more than four hundred years before it reaches our eyes and activates our photoreceptors.
The light that we now see was emitted when the Inquisition was trying Galileo––the scholar who bequeathed us our telescope.
The light that we now see was emitted while building on the Taj Mahal––a distant palace, much older than the Cantagallo––was just beginning.
The light that we now see was emitted nearly thirteen billion seconds ago.
We hold our breath for thirteen seconds.
We multiply by one thousand the time we hold our breath.
We multiply the result by one thousand.
This is one thousandth of the time it takes for the light from Polaris to reach us.
We cannot see the light that it emits now. The people who come after us, in four centuries’ time, will see it.
Now look at the North Star, look at it with new eyes.
One day, in twelve thousand years’ time, Polaris will be replaced and at that point in the sky we shall see Vega.
Let’s say goodbye to Polaris and thank it. It has done good work.
Let’s welcome Vega.
Now we look down, towards the planet. Down, towards the planet, twelve thousand years hence.
Where once upon a time the city of Bologna rose up, everything is now one huge wood.
The sphere enters our abdomens for the last time. As it does, it becomes smaller and smaller until it disappears. We place our hands just below our abdomens and massage ourselves in an anticlockwise direction.
We imagine ourselves becoming smaller, too. With every exhalation we become shorter and shorter until we return to earth.
The Cantagallo is no longer there. In its place, just a grassy clearing. Around us only trees.
We are not alone. There are other humans around us. They move without bumping into us even though they don’t see us.
We have advanced twelve thousand years minus two hours. Again it’s two hours until dawn. These humans, our
descendants, face north and get ready to welcome it. Their gaze seeks out and finds Vega, the North Star. In their hands the sphere expands and contracts. In their minds, their heads are already above our atmosphere. They can touch the moon.
One day, in thirteen thousand years’ time, Vega will be replaced at that point in the sky and in its place humans will see Polaris again.
These descendants of ours say goodbye to Vega and thank it. It has done good work. They welcome back Polaris, and so do we.
Now, from on high they look down, towards the planet, towards us, but they do not see us.
They see what it will be like in thirteen thousand years’ time.
Soon they will descend and by their side their descendants will look north.
And so on, along the chain of millennia, through ice ages and thaws, the rise and fall of civilizations, until they witness the night of the last ritual.
Now we turn back, we return here, to the Cantagallo. Each exhalation takes us back a thousand years.
The sun begins to rise. A day’s work awaits us, our hands are full of energy.
Let’s get to work.
THE TAMARISK HUNTER
by Paolo Bacigalupi
A big tamarisk can suck 73,000 gallons of river water a year. For $2.88 a day, plus water bounty, Lolo rips tamarisk all winter long.
Ten years ago, it was a good living. Back then, tamarisk shouldered up against every riverbank in the Colorado River Basin, along with cottonwoods, Russian olives, and elms. Ten years ago, towns like Grand Junction and Moab thought they could still squeeze life from a river.
Lolo stands on the edge of a canyon, Maggie the camel his only companion. He stares down into the deeps. It’s an hour’s scramble to the bottom. He ties Maggie to a juniper and starts down, boot-skiing a gully. A few blades of green grass sprout neon around him, piercing juniper-tagged snow clods. In the late winter, there is just a beginning surge of water down in the deeps; the ice is off the river edges. Up high, the mountains still wear their ragged snow mantles. Lolo smears through mud and hits a channel of scree, sliding and scattering rocks. His jugs of tamarisk poison gurgle and slosh on his back. His shovel and rockbar snag on occasional junipers as he skids by. It will be a long hike out. But then, that’s what makes this patch so perfect. It’s a long way down, and the riverbanks are largely hidden.
