Antonio Tabucchi - Letter from Casablanca

Rodolfo died in December of ’61, I know that I already told you. He spent his last days very upset, but not because of his illness. He was tormented by what was happening in the world, that is in Russia, I wouldn’t know exactly, I know that Khrushchev had revealed the atrocities committed by his predecessors, and he was in anguish. He didn’t sleep anymore, even the sleeping pills had no effect on him. Then one day a letter arrived for him. The return address said: “La Pasionaria, Moscow.’’ And inside was written: “Dolores Ibarruri sheds bitter tears.”

So, that was my son. What did they do to him? I saw his photo in the newspapers. They slaughtered him, and I couldn’t even see him. They wrote that he did … I don’t have the courage to say it … dreadful things. Did they say dreadful? However, you’ve heard another story, the story of a person you don’t know. I’ve talked to you about my Piticche. I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention this name in your newspaper. Excuse me if I cry. I didn’t want to cry, but the tears come down by themselves. It’s good for me to cry? You’re right, it’s good for me to cry.

The evenings were slow, lingering, bloodstained by magnificent sunsets. Hot, languid nights followed, punctuated by the green sob of the lighthouse on the other side of the gulf. You’d like my story to begin like this, right? You’ve always had a certain predilection for the stereotyped. Under your docile and discreet refinement — your charme —you’ve always hidden a veneer of bad taste which perhaps deeply belonged to you. And yet how you hated ‘bad taste”! It disgusted you. And the banal, the everyday, they were monstrous things. Well, then, I can begin my story this way. Of course I loved the villa. The evenings were slow, lingering, bloodstained by magnificent sunsets. Hot, languid nights followed, punctuated by the green sob of the lighthouse on the other side of the gulf. I was at the window. I always slept very little. You never noticed. I would get up and stand at the window behind the curtains. Sometimes around two o’clock a light breeze arose which rippled the surface of the water. It slipped above the overheated tiles of the portico and reached my face almost tepid, comforting. There was always some ship that glided into the windowpane, freighters for the most part, I think, guided by the call of the lighthouse. In the background, on the left, the harbor teemed with lights. It seemed to be waiting. For what? Was I waiting for something? The minutes passed slowly. The breeze blew the awnings. Desire flowed in my blood. With difficulty I managed to control it. I leaned on the windowsill overlooking the sea. The coast was a promise. Its lights glittered. It was like a holiday. I repeated to myself that my story was inside me. One day I would have written it. I would have sat down, as in a dream, at the table, without even looking at the white sheet of paper that was in front of me, and the story would have gushed out like a spring of water. And then I would have written as if by magic. The words would have arranged themselves on the page as if enchanted, drawn by a magnet called inspiration. Would you expect that I had thought this way, leaning at the window? I never thought so, naturally. It never crossed my mind. I wouldn’t have written another line.

There was something else much more urgent. I murmured the beginning of a novel. Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow, said Mrs. Ramsay. But you’ll have to be up with the lark . The wind moved the awnings, you slept, the lighthouse sobbed, the night was peaceful, almost tropical. But I would have arrived at my lighthouse soon. I felt it, it was near. It was enough to wait for it to send me a signal of light, at night, and I would have understood. I wouldn’t have let this opportunity escape ( my only opportunity). I wouldn’t have spent my old age regretting missing a trip to the lighthouse. And in the meantime, I realized I was already getting old. And yet I was still young, I was a “good-looking man.” When I went down to the terrace I was aware of lingering, appreciative glances from your friends. But the age that I felt did not pertain to a registry office. It was suffocating, like a curtain over one’s face. I looked at my hands leaning on the windowsill. They were long, strong, agile. And they were old. Not you. The old age that you feared was something else. You tried to avert it with creams and lotions. You were afraid of those little spots that appear on the backs of hands. Your worst enemy was the midday sun, and when you smiled, two little menacing lines marked the corners of your mouth. You looked enviously at your guests who basked in the sun, plunged into the swimming pool, went down to the beach heedless of the saltiness. What a fool! You suffered for nothing. You were really young. This isn’t old age. You would have understood it then, you understand it now. You had a splendid body. I gazed at your legs, long, smooth legs, the only part of your body that you dared to expose to the sun. It was the Mediterranean midday. Gino wandered around the veranda serving Calvados, Bacardi, and Mazagrán. Someone stood up lazily. “We’re going down to the beach, Marline, we’ll wait for you down there …” You half-opened your eyelids, an imperceptible smile marked the corners of your mouth. Only I realized why I recognized those two little lines. You didn’t move. You remained in the deck chair immersed in a pool of shadow. Only your two legs glowed in the sun. The breeze moved the fringe on the big umbrella.

Of course I loved the villa! I liked the two mansards with their crowns of vertical wall tiles on the tiled roofs, the portico with the bell tower like that of a monastery, the white shutters renewed every summer. Early in the morning, when you were still asleep, the palm grove was full of seagulls. They came to spend the night there, leaving traces of coming and going on the sand. The afternoons were sultry, so Mediterranean, smelling of pine and myrtle. I was in the wicker chair under the colonnade, next to the little granite stairs invaded by creepers, waiting for Scottie to wake up. Around four o’clock she arrived barefoot, with pillow marks on her flushed face and a doll trailing by one leg.

“Do you like best to be called Scottie or Barbara?”

“Scottie.”

“But Scottie isn’t your real name.”

“Miss Bishop gave it to me. She says that you invented it.”

“I didn’t invent it.”

“Anyway, a friend of yours, the one who’s a writer. And when I grow up I’m going to be a little fool.”

“Did Miss Bishop tell you this, too?”

“Yes, because she says you can’t escape the destiny of all the ‘flappers.’ ”

“Of what?”

“Of the little girls, that is, but Miss Bishop calls them ‘flappers’ because a lady called Zelda said it, too.”

In the evening we talked about Fitzgerald, listening to Tony Bennett sing Tender Is the Night . To tell the truth, nobody liked the film, not even Mr. Deluxe, who really wasn’t very hard to please. But Tony Bennett had a voice “all-consuming, like the novel,” to hear him gave atmosphere, and Gino had to put on the record again who knows how many times. Inevitably I was asked for the beginning of the book. Everyone found it delicious that I knew the beginnings of Fitzgerald’s novels from memory — only the beginnings, which were a passion of mine. Mr. Deluxe, solemn as usual, invited those present, to be silent. I tried to be evasive, but it was impossible to refuse. The Tony Bennett record played softly. Gino had served the Bacardi. I stared at you. You knew that that beginning was dedicated to you, it was almost as if I had written it. You lit a cigarette and slipped it into the cigarette holder. That, too, was part of the scenery. You played the flapper, but you had nothing of the flapper about you, neither the mop of hair nor the rayon stockings, much less the soul. You belonged to another category, you could even be in a novel by Drieu, maybe, or by Pérez Galdós. You had a tragic, sense of life, perhaps it was your insuperable selfishness, like a condemnation. And then I began, amid the impatience that had already begun to manifest itself. Gino avoided serving in order not to disturb. Only the voice of Tony Bennett and the lapping of the Mediterranean could be heard. On the pleasant shore of the French Riviera, about half way between Marseilles and the Italian border, stands a large, proud, rose-colored hotel. Deferential palms cool its flushed facade, and before it stretches a short dazzling beach. Lately it has become a summer resort of notable and fashionable people; a decade ago it was almost deserted after its English clientele went north in April ….