Tristano Dies

  Copyright © Maria José de Lancastre, 2015

  English language translation © Elizabeth Harris, 2015

  First Archipelago Books Edition, 2015

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  First published as Tristano Muore by Feltrinelli in 2004.

  Tristano Muore copyright © Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore Milano, 2004

  Archipelago Books

  232 3rd Street #A111

  Brooklyn, NY 11215

  www.archipelagobooks.org

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Tabucchi, Antonio, 1943-2012.

  [Tristano muore. English]

  Tristano Dies : a life / Antonio Tabucchi; translated from the Italian by Elizabeth Harris. – First Archipelago Books Edition.

  pages cm

  eISBN 978-0-914671-25-1

  I. Harris, Elizabeth (Translator) II. Title.

  PQ4880.A24T89513 2015

  853’.914–dc23 2015023969

  Cover art: Pablo Picasso

  The publication of Tristano Dies: A Life was made possible with support from Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

  v3.1

  Who bears witness for the witness?

  PAUL CELAN

  It’s hard to contradict the dead.

  FERRUCCIO

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  First Page

  Author’s Note

  Translator’s Note

  … Rosamunda Rosamunda on such a lovely evening I truly am believing it’s fairy dust I’m breathing a thousand voices thousand choices thousand hearts are all rejoicing such happiness is ours such joy beneath the stars Rosamunda if you look at me Rosamunda I’ll your sweetheart be … You like that one?… that’s from my time, when Rosamunda looked at Tristano and the more she looked at him the more he liked her … Rosamunda if you look at me Rosamunda I’ll your sweetheart be … Oh Rosamunda all of my love is for you oh Rosa-munda the more I look at you the more I like you Rosa-mu-u-u-undà … Hearts are all rejoicing such happiness is ours – not that it was so happy back then, it was cold in the mountains, frozen, really, outside, inside, I’ll tell you about it, get comfortable, you’ve got a bit ahead of you, but not too long, don’t worry, rough guess, maybe a month or so, you’ll see, I’ll be gone before the end of August, how was the drive?… it’s not easy finding your way around here with all the twists and turns, I told Frau to be really careful giving out directions, I expected you earlier, but I’m sure she did her best to confuse you, not that her Italian isn’t good – it’s better than mine – been here her whole life – but when she doesn’t want to do something she starts turning German, just for spite. You’ll take Daphne’s rooms, tell her I said so.

  … You know, all told, life’s more what you don’t remember than what you do … Frau popped her head in, not a ripple now, she told me, where you once swam with a woman, and she shut the door again. I don’t know if that was Sunday’s poem or some decree … Frau gets moralistic when there’s work to be done. But what work? – what’s there left to do in this house, and today’s not exactly Sunday, right?… You’ve got to have the memory of an elephant, but that’s not what we men have, who knows, one day maybe they’ll come up with an electronic memory, a card the size of your fingernail that they’ll slip into your brain to record your entire life … Speaking of elephants, of all the creatures of this world and all their funeral rites, I’ve always admired elephants’ the most, they have this strange way of dying – you know about it? When an elephant feels his time has come he leaves the herd, but not alone, he chooses a companion, and they leave together. They start out across the savannah, often at a trot, depending on how urgent the dying elephant is feeling … and they wander and wander, sometimes kilometers and kilometers, until the dying elephant chooses his place to die, and he goes round and round again, tracing a circle, because he knows it’s time to die, he is carrying death inside him but needs to find it in space, as though he has an appointment, as though he wants to look outside himself, look death in the eye, and tell her, good morning madam death, here I am … of course it’s an imaginary circle, but it helps to geograph death, if you will … and he’s the only one who can enter this circle, for death is a private act, extremely private, so no one else can enter except the one who’s dying … and at this point he tells his companion he can leave, goodbye, thanks so much, and the other returns to the herd … I started reading Pascal when I was a young man, I used to like him, especially his Jansenist beliefs, it was all so black and white, so clear; see, back then, in the mountains, life was black and white, your choices had to be precise, here or there, black or white, but then life teaches you the different shades of gray … But I’ve always liked Pascal’s definition, a sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere, it reminds me of the elephants … And in a way, this has something to do with why I called you here … like I said, you’ll need to be patient because it’s not quite my time yet, but you knew at once to trot along beside me, to accompany the one who’s dying … I’m the only one who knows my circle, I know when the moment will arrive; it’s true that the hour chooses us, but it’s also true that you have to agree on being chosen, it’s something the hour decides but in the end it’s something you decide as well, as if you’d made your choice and were only giving in … For now, let’s trot along together, and while it might seem we’re moving forward, we’re really going backward, because I’m an elephant who’s called you to go backward, but I’m going back to reach my circle that’s ahead. So for now, just listen and write. When the time comes for us to say goodbye, I’ll let you know.

  I have something to confess … after I called you I had second thoughts. I’m not sure why, maybe I don’t believe in writing, writing falsifies everything, you writers are falsifiers. Or maybe it’s that a person must carry his life to the grave. I mean a person’s real life, the one he lives inside. What should be left to others is just the life outside, what’s already plain to see, obvious. But I feel like writing my life – telling it – writing it down by proxy – you’re the one doing the writing, though it’s me. Strange, don’t you think?

  … I’d like to try and start from the beginning, if a beginning even exists, because … where does the story of a life begin, I mean, how do you decide? You can start with a fact, that’s true, and so I have to pick a fact, a fact concerning this life of mine you’ve come to write. So I’ll pick a fact. But does a fact begin with a fact? Sorry, I’m confused, I’m not sure how to explain … I mean, someone does something, and this thing determines the course of his life, but this thing he’s done, it probably doesn’t happen by a miracle, it’s probably inside him already, and who knows how it started … Maybe a childhood memory, the glimpse of a face, a dream from long ago that you thought you’d forgotten, and here it is one day, this thing that occurs, but its origins … who can say … Tristano talked about Schubert that day in Plaka, it was winter, and in that eerie square people were lined up, bowl in hand, waiting for their koinè soup – you know what that is? – the swill those in charge back then gave to Greek citizens so they wouldn’t starve: nasty, lukewarm water, a few shreds of potato and cabbage floating on top … variations, said Antheos, though Tristano called him Marios because he reminded him of his friend in the outskirts of Turin, the spitting image of his dear friend Marios who hid in a barn with his lover, an extraordinary woman, until thirty-nine, when he said I prefer not to, and he started his own resistance early on, meaning, before the real
Resistance began, but you didn’t know that for your novel … Sometimes I can’t help but smile at what you thought you knew, but other than that, I liked your book, really, it’s the very best testimony to that heroic time, the only heroic time we’ve ever known, for that matter … I’m using testimony loosely, because you couldn’t have been there, but it feels like you were, like you were witness to a time, a choice, a moral stance … but you also got the facts down, September eighth, the Republic of Salò that cropped up again with such arrogance, like an arbiter of Italian fate, a denial of the meaning of civil war, a strong position to take these days, a bit rash, maybe, you know better than me that back then people were shooting at their enemies and friends alike, but that’s not what’s important, what I enjoyed about your novel is how well-informed it is on the nature of heroism, loyalty, disloyalty, of pleasure and emotions … You’re a very patient man, otherwise, considering how rude I was when you arrived, you’d have left already, said the hell with it, and this commitment you made, this book you’re writing in my place, you’d chuck it all and tell me what I’ve got coming to me … But instead, here you sit, not moving a muscle; you’re really something, writer; I don’t know if you’re chicken or braver than me, and that’s why you put up with me … I think there’s a big fly buzzing around – you hear it? – there’s a buzzing in this room, really loud, is it the music of the heavens?, no, the universe isn’t buzzing, it’s the sound of writers, the unpleasant scratching of pens on paper, but you, you’re not scratching the page, you tame the page, like a lion tamer at the circus … this heavenly music I’m talking about is truly great, the music that the angels played, the angels imagined by the painters in my Tuscany, and there’s no fixed score, because there are always variations … variations, that gaunt Greek soldier told Tristano across a small café table in Plaka, while the apocalypse loomed … Variations, he said: for now, I’m just introducing variations, you see, by now, all the music’s been played already, and the only thing left for us poor bastards is introducing variations, take Schubert’s Impromptu Op. 142 for the piano, you know that one?, there’s a sadness to it, a sadness that lays siege to the soul, that gives some idea of this occupation of yours, this siege on my homeland; there’s an obsession to this music, maybe something Schubert was obsessed with, that’s also present in the accompanying music to that piece titled “Rosamunde.” And then Tristano gave a tired wave toward the Parthenon, as though the gods themselves had been trampled beneath the invaders’ boots … and at that point a boy approached from across the square, wheeling an old bicycle beside him, skinny, just a child, bundled in an enormous military coat that dragged along the ground, his aluminum mess-kit hanging from his neck by a piece of twine, he saw the German soldiers standing watch by the line of people, and he began to whistle a tune, a partisan song with a slow, grave refrain that his whistling made sound almost cheerful, almost a march … a German approached, pointed his submachine gun at the boy who wouldn’t stop, who kept walking, defiantly whistling, as if this were some sort of game, his face, teasing … everyone watching, everyone knew what was going to happen, but no one moved, no one budged, like they were all under a spell, the metallic sound of the magazine clip like a rock falling to the pavement, and the soldier fired, and the small boy crumpled to the ground, the bicycle on top of him … and then an old woman stepped out of line, her voice pierced the frozen silence of Plaka, and she screamed a curse at them, Tristano understood, it was an ancient curse of eternal damnation, the Germans along the portico heard but didn’t understand her words, they understood her tone, the soldier raised his submachine gun and fired again, the woman slumped to the pavement, a figure in black, arms thrown out in agony, and Tristano, as by divine gift – no, more like divine regulation, because he had his regulation musket – aimed his gun at the German’s chest, and killed him on the spot … and like magic Plaka came to life, and men appeared out of nowhere, because some unforeseen stagehand like Tristano had decided it was time for the avenging furies in this Greek tragedy to enter the scene; he didn’t anticipate a revolt would break out due to something he’d done by instinct, not even thinking what might happen, but it was as though the gears had started turning on their own; through death, life had resumed at an uncontrollable pace, because that’s how life is, and history’s what follows, you ever think of it that way, writer?…

  … Frau couldn’t set you up in Daphne’s rooms, there’s nothing left now, just the bare walls. Don’t get mad, I just wanted to see what she’d do when you asked, even if I already knew; she put you in my study, that’s where she puts the guests – all of them – a government minister came once, and Frau asked me right in front of him if she should put him in my study, and his assistant, there by protocol, stared at her, scandalized, outraged, and said: the esteemed minister will return to Rome tonight … but you like my study, I know you do, you came looking for the truth and it’s as if she’s right there in the room beside you, in among the mold and trash … congratulations. You know what happened to the truth? She died and never found a husband.

  Who understands matter’s slippery ways? Scientists? You writers? You might understand how things work, but no one knows their secrets. Listen, things have an agreement among themselves that we’re not privy to, a different kind of logic … Gravity doesn’t behave the way we think, and neither do the chemical combinations we studied in school, an oxygen molecule attached to two hydrogen molecules that forms the liquid we call water … you have to know the tactics of the universe, because the universe does have its tactics, but they won’t show up in any lab … Newton’s binomial theorem is wonderful, but there are other depths, other mysteries to mathematics. Am I waxing philosophical? Say something – no – just let me talk, all right? You intellectuals, you’re always philosophizing, always explaining the world to us, everybody’s always wanting to explain the world … A rose is a rose is a rose. Not true. Did you know the rose bush and the pear tree both belong to the family Rosaceae? Study your botany: the pear tree produces pears and the rose bush, roses; do they seem the same to you … So let me philosophize … I have so little left, you see … Please don’t look at my leg – no – pull the sheet up … There’s a big fly, you hear it? – it keeps hitting the mirror, stupid thing wants out, thinks the mirror’s a window. I told you, don’t look at my leg, it’s disgusting, even if I can’t see it, the way they’ve got me lying back against the pillows, the doctor made his ruling that the leg had to be amputated and I told him if he felt so inclined to amputate something, then he could just go ahead and cut off his own balls, but my leg, rotten as it was, was going into the grave to rot alongside the rest of me – if you please; I know it’s disgusting, eaten away with gangrene, up to the groin now, in a little while everything will be eaten away, what’s left of my manhood, if I don’t die first, but there’s not much left to chew on, my sack’s empty, and this too gives me the right to philosophize as much as I see fit, it’s the philosophy of someone who’s all dried up, humorless, like stone … Have you seen what the world’s come to, at least our world?, I’m talking about our part of the world, where we live … all gone to fat, oily, look at them, those I was talking about earlier, the windbags, they’re full of humors circulating under fat … triglycerides, all cholesterol, and here I am instead, practically a mineral, see?… stones … stones don’t say a thing … I’m a talking stone, a rock on a riverbank that just sits there being oh so good watching the water saying, go on, go on now, sister water, keep on flowing, who knows who you think you are, I’m staying put here on my riverbank, still as stone, because I’m a stone, brother stone … Did Frau give you a nice room? Frau’s like that, she loves me but she does things out of spite, she likes being spiteful, it’s what’s left to an old woman, being spiteful to others; if she didn’t love me so much, she’d be the same with me, and maybe she is already, and I just don’t notice – we grew up together, you know – she’s my same age even if she thinks she’s my mother, but women are like that, they always
think of themselves as your mother even when they’re your same age. Put a bed in one of the rooms where Daphne stayed … when she was there … she was there such a short while, now they’re just two empty rooms, her old furniture’s spread all over the house now, it hurts less that way, but to Frau, her furniture’s sacred, holy … you know, I think Daphne could only tolerate it here because Frau was here, because Frau loved her so … she told me once that it was thanks to Frau that she’d forgotten about hating the Germans; how do I make her understand, she said, that nothing’s her fault?… You know, Frau judges everyone on sight, like they were chickens: if someone has his feathers down, she puts him in the worst chicken coop, and you come off as timid – speak up now – raise your crest, Frau notices that sort of thing, at noon insist you’re staying in those rooms, you just need a bed and nightstand … from this part of the house you can see the towers of the city, they’re beautiful, you seen them yet?, they almost float in the heat, it makes them tremble from below, cuts them off, lifts them, pulls them toward heaven … They’re ancient towers, they seem to long for the sky, you’ve seen them, right?… go ahead and open the shutters a little, see if you can get rid of that big fly – you hear it? – it keeps hitting the mirror, it’s so stupid, it thinks the mirror’s a way out … Look at the towers of the city, the surrounding hills, this landscape I’m leaving behind, look at it for me. And from this part of the house you can hear the cicadas, from the back you can’t hear them, the cicadas sing outside the entire afternoon, I like their little concert, their simple music, castanets and cymbals … I’ve returned here to leave, returned to where I was born, to hear my cicadas, that I used to listen to on summer afternoons when I was little and they’d send me in for my siesta and I entertained myself with the cicadas, and with books to explain the world, as if books could explain the world … Dreams … Why did I ask for you in particular? You know why: because I liked your book, I’d already been the inspiration for another novel, you know that better than me, but it was so close to what happened, it was so realistic it seemed false, but I didn’t phone you so you’d record me, I don’t want my voice to remain – besides, that’s too easy – what sort of writer would that make you? Write it down, if you can; I want to remain in written words, and if you can’t write it down now, then record it in your mind, mentally record it, and then write it in your own words, like I know you can, someone tells you one thing, and you write it so it seems like something else … Tell Frau to come give me my morphine, and then you should come back later, the last one’s worn off, the pain’s making me complain, and I don’t want to complain – too depressing … Did I already tell you about Vanda? I can’t remember …