Tristano Dies, Page 2

  … They saw a dog, but that had to be a different day, who knows when, late in their life together, anyway. The dog’s name was Vanda – not with a w, just a v, a begging mutt like that. The dog didn’t tell them its name, it couldn’t, it couldn’t even pant any more, but Rosamunda remembered, when she saw the dog up ahead. Look, a dog – it’s Vanda – you remember? They almost hit her – it was dark in the tunnel and they were rounding a curve. Once out of the tunnel, on the straightaway, they pulled to the side to wait, to avoid being rear-ended by a truck, which can happen; Vanda appeared, limping along, head drooping, tongue down to the asphalt, but she was off to the right, well clear of the white line. Her teats swung low, like she’d been nursing, nursing a litter, though this wasn’t possible: just from her lips and teeth, she looked to be at least twenty, even older, which was fine for a person but decrepit for a dog. It’s because she’s so kindhearted, one of them said, I don’t remember who, Vanda’s good, a good girl, she’s spent her life buried up to the neck. They hauled her onto the back seat, the pads of her paws were raw from her journey. They knew she’d gone a thousand kilometers for them to find her, though they didn’t say it, some things you just don’t say; a being has to drill through layers and layers of time, pulling round itself the bits and pieces necessary in order to take shape, until it breaks the surface, a living creature, though perhaps already dying, like Vanda, so fucked from the start, thinking it’s about to start, when it’s already arrived. Christ, he said, what’s the point? A rhetorical question … It was noon and very hot and the sun was blinding – the Mediterranean sun. When things like this happen, it’s always very hot, the sun’s always blinding, and it has to be Mediterranean – that’s a well-known fact. So well-known, you can believe it or not, your choice. And if you feel like believing it, at that moment he was driving slowly, the rocky coast stretched out, reddish, the strip of sea, a deep blue. Vanda seemed to be sleeping, but she wasn’t, she had one eye closed, one eye open, fixed upon the back car door and the ashtray full of butts, as if this ashtray were the meager aleph she’d been granted and in this, her universe of butts, she might discover the sick god who’d created her, the sinister mysteries of his religion. Glancing back at her, he could see the question in her fearful eye, the pupil dilated, and he whispered, the father’s a dark turn, the son’s those spat-out cigarette butts, and the holy spirit’s a time long gone by now – there’s your holy trinity, dear Vanda, accept your fate – there’s nothing you can do. You never wanted children, Rosamunda said, and she seemed to be speaking to the slight haze of heat dancing on the horizon, all those years, your sperm always left on my belly, thrown away, and now my Vanda’s been born, but it’s late, too late. She’ll die tomorrow, he said, but keep her tonight, rock her like she’s your child, offer her your breast, if you want, it’s better than nothing, I threw my sperm away because you lied, so I lied, too … What a strange night, in Taddeo’s Zimmer. Framed by the window, two ships sliding by, lit up, silent, dreamlike. Only afterwards, when the ships had moved beyond the frame, did they catch a handful of notes on the wind, weak notes, maybe a waltz. Were they dancing on board? Not out of the question: there’s often dancing on board a ship, especially on a cruise, even a short, cheap Sunday cruise like the one that crosses from San Fruttato to San Zaccarino and lasts for only a day. As soon as they can, the people on board start dancing, you have to take advantage of the time you have to enjoy yourself, especially if you bought the ticket, because Monday comes soon enough. Rosamunda tried to offer Vanda her breast, but she wouldn’t nurse. They heard her weak breathing almost till dawn, then it stopped. They buried her there, on the beach, in a pocket-sized cove full of pebbles where a path drops down to the water’s edge, the small waves washing over pebbles, over them again, century after century. With shells and small stones, Rosamunda spelled out Vanda zero zero zero zero on the grave, those zeros referring to the day she was born and the day she died, and also, as Tristano alone would know, filling them with the time gone by from the day Rosamunda had begun to desire a child to that day when her desire had been buried beneath the body of an old dog, because bit by bit, desires also die and wind up buried underground. They stayed to watch the sun rise over that sliver of horizon between two promontories, in that charming seaside resort, which they’d been to other times by bus. The sun was quite strong, and they both understood without speaking, because everything under the sun is old, sometimes very old. Which doesn’t diminish anyone’s suffering, including theirs. Sing me something, she said softly, like you used to. Like what? he asked. Like when we were up in the mountains and you carried me on the handlebars of your bicycle, and you sang to me, remember?, I leaned my head on your chest and while you sang, I caught whiffs of garlic – we ate so much garlic in the mountains! – but maybe that was another time, when we ate escargot à la provençal, we’d eat escargot à la provençal, we’d treat ourselves, and those were full of garlic, too. He sang, the olive falls, no leaves fall, your beauty won’t ever, you’re like the sea of waves that grows with wind, but with water, never. It was a lullaby. Hard to say if it was to rock Vanda toward her final nothing, or if it was for them, or for their never-ending dreams.

  … It opens with … wait, let me think … it goes: I saw some girls screaming in the storm, the wind carried their words away then brought them back again, and I – coward – heard these words but didn’t understand that maybe they were telling me my youth had died … that’s how it goes, but it’s too long, one of those things Frau tortures me with on Sundays, maybe I’ll recite some more, when it comes to me, we’ve got plenty of time … I told Frau, Renate, have a heart, don’t read me poems like that on Sunday, can’t you see what state I’m in? – how about something lighter, something from our childhood, like March sprinkles tinkling silver on the eaves, please, Renate, something like that, okay? It’s August, she says, it’s ungodly hot down here – it’s August, young sir – what do March sprinkles have to do with anything?

  Her name was Daphne, but he also called her Mavri Elià, for her big eyes like two black olives. It happened that day in Plaka, the Nazi officer lay sprawled out, legs apart, in the middle of the square, a few meters from the boy and woman he’d killed, a thread of blood trickling from his mouth; a group of Germans came running down the narrow lane leading from the Columns of Zeus, the headquarters were in the Hotel Grande Bretagne, someone started firing out the windows overlooking the square – Greek partisans – bullets chipped Aeolus’s Column, bullets carried by the wind, Tristano pulled off his Italian military jacket and tossed it to the pavement, by the dead Nazi, because he didn’t want to get shot by partisans, but mostly because he didn’t want to be Italian anymore, didn’t want that horrible cloth next to his skin, that cloth of an invading soldier sent by a mad, grim reaper who wanted to rip Greece’s heart out on the shore … She emerged from behind a green front door; Tristano saw a small door open in that massive one, and she stepped out like a small, stray animal; she looked around, confused, she walked into the square, hesitated, saw Tristano nearby, stared at him with those enormous dark eyes. I’m an Italian soldier, he said. I just killed a German officer. She didn’t understand, and Tristano poked himself in the chest and repeated, Italian. And then he made his finger and thumb into a pistol, which he pointed at the Nazi lying on the ground, and he said, bang, and blew on his finger. She started to go back, and she gestured that he should follow her inside. Why am I telling you this, writer?… I don’t know, a writer like you doesn’t need this sort of episode … or maybe you do … you’re not a writer who looks down his nose at sentiment, when it’s there, that’s why I’m telling you this … Tristano followed her, and she shut the door. She looked at him with those enormous bewildered eyes, disbelieving, maybe she was frightened – he was the enemy. Tristano told her his name, his nickname as a boy, Ninototo. She said in Greek, I’m Daphne, and Tristano smiled as though he’d forgotten what was happening all around them, and he said he’d learned a little Greek with the in
vasion: I only know how to use the infinitive, but I to call you Mavri Elià because your eyes to be black olives. She gestured that he should follow, and they climbed the ancient stairway, the ceiling was vaulted, and against the walls stood amphora vases encrusted with barnacles, and on the walls hung dark paintings of solemn, bearded men. She led him through empty rooms around an inside courtyard. They didn’t speak. He was shivering, she said something he didn’t understand, meanwhile the sun had pierced the grayness of the day, a sunbeam cut through the silent rooms, there was gunfire, but it seemed far, far away, they came to an enormous room, almost bare, with only a small bed, an icon above it, a mirror, and a piano. She spoke to him in French. She said, this room, it’s mine, and now it’s yours. And then she said in her own language, efharisto. And she started to go. Thank you for what? he asked. For killing my enemy, she said. I’m the enemy, too, Tristano said. She smiled, she sat down on the edge of that small bed with a flowered shawl for a bedspread, and she said, who are the two of us, really? She was smiling, and her eyes had a sweetness to them that you can’t imagine, writer, even if you’re a writer who’s good at describing women, you’ll never get at that sweetness, it was just as inconceivable to Tristano, that Italian soldier, that invader who had no idea why he’d just killed a Nazi officer, an ally of his country, nothing seemed to make any sense to him. And you know what? – nothing did make sense back then, and that’s the truth. Tristano felt very uneasy, and his heart was pounding, too much emotion that day for a boy his age, you can imagine, writer, seeing how you toy with others’ emotions. He slipped closer to the window overlooking the square, cautious, peering through the lace curtains at the bodies of the woman and boy still lying on the pavement; the Germans had managed to drag the dead officer past the Tower of the Winds, but no one was around, not one living soul, a suspended moment, like in an empty theater, there was only a motorcycle with a sidecar, a soldier slumped over the handlebars, his helmet on crooked, probably the poor bastard they first sent out to recover the body, but a Greek sniper got him. She left him alone in that room. He studied himself in the mirror, he was young then, Tristano was, but he seemed like an old man. He looked at the sheet music on the piano: a piece by Schubert. He stretched out on the bed, in that room that was so Franciscan for such a palatial house, a modest room, with a dirty mirror and a bed that would see so much love … But he didn’t think that – I’m only telling you this because Frau read me yet another poem. Do you recognize that one? Tristano didn’t, but he understood that the Franciscan simplicity of the room was the only way to counter the squalor of that life and that world; he rose, and as if he were sleepwalking, he stretched his arms in front of him, almost to protect himself from the disgust that had settled over this time in which he was living, that had settled over everything, he moved toward the dark hallway, and he shouted, Mavri Elià! Mavri Elià, we have to save each other! Then he lay down on the small bed and closed his eyes. She tiptoed in so he didn’t even hear, vous m’avez appelée? she asked. Please, Tristano said, please play me some Schubert, what’s there on the piano. She sat down to begin. Tristano stopped her. You know that theme Schubert used as the accompaniment in “Rosamunde?” Then they made love the entire night, silently, as if this were something necessary, natural. In the morning, he held her while she spoke of Saint George’s face on a Byzantine icon found on one of the Aegean Islands, I don’t remember which one. I think he told her about a Romanesque cathedral in his hometown that had an enormous rose window, and half-asleep, almost delirious, he told her about a rose of the winds and that the only thing to do in life was follow the winds, Aeolus, he kept saying, Aeolus … It was dawn. Tristano got up and peeked through the curtains at the square. It was deserted. All that was down there by the Tower of the Winds were the bodies of the boy and woman in black, along with the German soldier slumped over his sidecar motorcycle. Tristano went to her and kissed her closed eyes, spoke into her ear, Mavri Elià, he said, I’ve found you and I’ll never let you go, I’m taking you away with me, you know what we’re going to do? – it’s dawn, we’re getting out of here, we’ll block out the cold with the tapestries from this old house, you’re getting in the sidecar, I’m getting on the motorcycle, and we’re going to Piraeus, the allies are there, they’ll take us away, we’ll make it to my home, that’s where the head of the serpent lies, and that’s where he has to be fought, we have to crush his head, otherwise his poison will spread everywhere, I’m going to crush his head and I’m taking you with me, we’re going to cross this city under siege and make it to the sea, and why not – it’s no more absurd than this absurdity all around us … She opened her eyes, maybe she heard what Tristano was whispering in his sleep, or maybe not, and she gave him a smile that was just as lost. If I can, I’m taking you to another Principate, Tristano said, but luckily, that one’s dying, they told me it was dying, so at least we’ll be stepping out of the fire and into the frying pan.

  … Of course that’s not how it went – you probably knew that already. But you should write it down like it was real, because it was certainly real for Tristano, and what’s important is what he imagined his entire life, till it turned to memory. Yes, he really did kill the Nazi soldier, and Daphne really did take him into that old house and play Schubert for him and stare at him with those big, dark eyes. But they never came close to touching each other, she only spoke to him about her violated country and at dawn she had him sneak out in her father’s overcoat, and he never went to Piraeus at all, he only reentered Italy after September eighth, two of Daphne’s friends took him as far as Corinth, where he joined the Greek partisans in the Peloponnese Mountains. And when he slipped outside the door that morning, he whispered to her, I’m coming back, Daphne – I swear it – please, wait for me.

  I don’t know what it could mean, why I’m so sad, I find a fairytale from times unseen won’t vanish from my mind … That was yesterday’s poem, in German, sometimes Frau behaves as though we’ve returned to childhood, there seems to be a little arteriosclerosis going around. Now, young sir, here’s Sunday’s poem, she tells me. It’s a ritual from the past, she likes following orders, she does. It was my grandfather’s order when he sent for her, so I’d learn the language. Our ritual went like this: I sat in the armchair in the living room for fifteen minutes before the lesson began, because children must wait, a quarter to five, my grandfather didn’t compromise on schedules, on everything else, yes, but because of a schedule, he’d say, some people missed the boat for Calatafimi; on the little end table there was the pot of hot chocolate and two cups, one for me and one for Frau, I wore knickers, knock knock, and then Guten Abend Herrchen, Entschuldigung, it’s poetry time, she was a little girl, my age, yes, Fräulein, she was shy back then, Frau was, and I was even shyer, she was embarrassed to read and I to listen, she avoided looking at me, I avoided looking at her, Frau, she loved me, even if she can be spiteful, and in my way, I love her, too; as you well know, she’s the only one with me now, if you think about it, we’ve spent our whole lives avoiding looking at each other, maybe because we wanted so badly to look at each other back when we were children and we never got up the nerve … Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten, Dass ich so traurig bin, Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten … You know that one? German children learn it in elementary school, it’s about a siren, a blond creature sitting on a rock along the Rhine, and with her golden hair and singing, she seduces sailors, and they shipwreck, Lorelei, she’s called … Frau always started up like this again, every time I returned, as if nothing had changed, an empty ritual, but it still had to be honored because of a contract from years ago, a life’s work to fulfill, even if her language changed over the years, different poems, different accents, but always the same shell of a ritual, Frau knows it’s her right and she takes advantage of it, she picks the poems, she’s always picked them, and that’s as it should be, she knows, she knows so many things, Frau does, she knows the hours, the days of my life, like a book of hours that the monks used so long ago …
life passes in a breath, you know, but sometimes a Sunday afternoon can go by so slowly, and Frau has always known how to pick just the right poem for the right time – when I was home, of course, because I often wasn’t – I was almost never home, in fact – but you know what she told me? She told me something troubling, almost moving, it’s strange, because feelings are for those with humors left in the bottle, and a mineral like me no longer holds moisture, but when she told me in her terse way, in that rasping Italian of hers that she’s always pretended not to know very well even after more than seventy years of living here, I had to turn my head toward the shutters to keep her from seeing that this stone wasn’t completely dry, and the slats of the shutters started trembling, and not because it was so hot outside but because she told me, surly as usual, that even when I was far away, or in danger, or when she thought I was in danger, that every Sunday at a quarter to five, she went into the living room, she imagined pouring hot chocolate into two cups, and she’d say to herself in German, now, young sir, it’s poetry time. And she’d read the poem she thought was right for me that day, like a viaticum or a book of hours … So many hours, writer, so very many. How many Sundays must there be in seventy, no, nearly eighty years? – count them. I’d guess thousands … Get me a glass of water, but rinse it out first, Frau’s always adding a little hops, and I get even more dazed, take the water from the bathroom sink, it’s that door by the wardrobe, sorry to make you my nurse – no, not that door, that’s to the dressing room – the one to the right – you have to push a little, the door knob sticks, it’s the faucet with the red handle, the blue one’s hot water, the plumber screwed up putting them in and I never got them reversed, are you by any chance looking at the photograph in my dressing room?… I bet you are, since you’re not answering, please, don’t let it make you feel uncomfortable, I don’t want that, photos like that can make a person uncomfortable, they’re embarrassing, even after so many years, that body’s real, though, even if it’s imitating a painting, trying to imitate a Courbet, there’s a yellow stain almost up to the navel, a devouring hand, like my gangrene, photos keep up with us, we grow wrinkled, they turn yellow, deteriorate, they have skin like ours, you know, skin preserves that internal sea we’re made of, because we’re made of water, it protects the body from external heat while at the same time holding our heat inside, getting rid of any excess, depending on the season … and when the sea has evaporated, the shell remains, shriveled, useless … That shot was taken with a Leica I got off a German officer; in his jacket, by his pistol, he carried a photo of his family and also his precious Leica, he loved his own family even if he slaughtered the families of others, it’s human to love your own family, that photo has to be from forty-eight, or maybe a little before that, when Tristano found Guagliona again, that’s what I feel like calling her today, just girl, they wound up at a sort of pensione, by accident, everything in life happens by accident, at times I think even free will is just an accident … how strange, can you believe that I remember exactly what we ate – cacciucco – fish stew – and I can’t remember if we made love, but he suggested to her that she pose like the origin of the world, that’s the truth, the proof’s in that sorry photo, it was a late summer afternoon, the light was low, beautiful; Rosamunda, Tristano said, let’s do the origin of the world … but for them there was no origin of the world, they didn’t originate a damn thing, a sterile love, I’d say, with no transmission of the flesh … well, it’s better that way, besides … This water’s warm, I told you the faucets are reversed, cold water’s on the right, and next time, put in the straw that’s there on the nightstand, otherwise I drench the sheet, see, I can’t really swallow, I can’t lap up water like a dog … I was telling you about Frau, last Sunday she read me a poem, seemed like a nice one … Last night I had a good dream, I entered the origin of the world … but whose?… bring me a little more water, but get the straw … dreams are pretty wretched miracles … I’ve never believed in real miracles … the real ones are illusions … especially dreams. Sunday was the day before yesterday, right? – I’ve lost track of time – there’s Frau, knocking quietly like she used to seventy-five years ago, now, it’s poetry time, young sir. She sits down, opens a book … Sunday … Frau understands Sundays, she’s one of those people in life who understands Sundays, she tries to clear her voice, which isn’t possible, by now she sounds like a bellows, she puffs when she speaks, emphysema, the doctor was clear about that, but she pretended not to understand, Frau’s incredible, if you tell her something she doesn’t like, then she makes sure she’s a German just off the boat, she sneaks cigars, smokes them, hiding out in the vineyard, Agostino’s nephew told me, he does the tilling, which is useless in that diseased vineyard; professor, sir, he says, madam Frau will sit under the poplar at the back of the vineyard, and she’ll smoke three Toscano cigars, one after the other, every day she’s there, from three to five, I thought you should know – it’s a bit shocking. And what’s she doing while she smokes? I asked. Nothing, Agostino’s nephew says, staring off into the distance, looking lost; I walked right past her and she didn’t even notice, or she pretended not to. She must be thinking back to when she was a girl in Germany, I told him; don’t you ever think back to when you were a child? – sure you do, but it’s easier because you’re at home and you were a child here, so don’t concern yourself with her, let her smoke all the cigars she wants, even people who don’t have anyone have to think about someone … I heard a buzzing, something on my face, must be that big fly. Maybe if you cracked the shutters, it could find its way out, but just a crack now – too much light – that light seems to make my leg hurt even more … Frau read me a poem by a poet I don’t know, must be a poetess instead of a poet, right? – if the poet’s female she’s a poetess, right? – oh, it doesn’t matter – young sir, she tells me, Sunday’s poem, and she begins … this quiet dust. I know that one by heart, I said, it’s American, and has always filled me with regret. No, she says, this one’s Italian, it just has the same title, but it’s already five to five, we’re ten minutes late … Renate, I said, how on earth is it possible, you’re really something, so much time’s gone by since we were children, all the time in the world, and everything time brings with it, hunger, war and famine, our own disasters, and especially the dead, everyone’s dead, Renate, we’re the only ones left, and you come in here and tell me we’re ten minutes late – but late for what? – just be patient. For your morphine, she says firmly, and even though I can barely see right now, I sense her stubborn expression, her white hair a halo, with her loose bun … For your morphine: the doctor said you should get it every eight hours, the next one’s in five minutes, so there’s hardly any time, and I want to read your five o’clock poem before you can’t understand a word of it. So go ahead, Renate – read. And she: where’s my child, where’s my roe deer? He’ll come just three more times, then never come again. Renate, I said, please, no nursery rhymes. That’s just how it starts, she says, now be quiet and listen … the dead are cold to the touch, but the living are something else again, when I touched my love I was happy, yesterday I had a vision, my love was in the garden, he was half-man, half-child … I can’t remember the rest, Frau was reading and while she read, she gave me my morphine, I didn’t notice, and so I wound up in a dream world, and I entered the origin of the world, sometimes a person’s lucky and gets to dream what he wants to dream, but that’s rare, a rare privilege, maybe I’ll tell you my dream, if it stays with me, but later: now, I’m tired. What time is it?