Antonio Tabucchi - Letter from Casablanca

The house is very large, he said. It’s an old house. There’s furniture that belonged to my ancestors, awful furniture in the Empire style, with feet. And worn-out carpets, and pictures of surly men and proud, unhappy ladies with their lower lips imperceptibly drooping. Do you know why their mouths have that curious shape? Because the bitterness of all their lives outlines their lower lips and makes them droop. Those women have spent sleepless nights next to stupid husbands incapable of tenderness. And they too, those women, remain in the dark with their eyes open, cultivating resentment. In the dressing room next to my bedroom there are still some of her things, those that she left. A few underclothes atrophied on a footstool, a little gold chain she used to wear on her wrist, a tortoise-shell hairpin. The letter is on the chest of drawers under the glass bell that once guarded a gigantic alarm clock from Basel. I broke that alarm clock when I was a child. One day when I was sick, no one came up to see me. I remember it as if it were yesterday. I got up and liberated the alarm clock from its safe-keeping. It had a frightening tick-tock. I removed the bottom cover and methodically took it apart until the sheet was strewn with all its tiny gears. If you want, I can read it to you — the letter, I mean. In fact, I repeat it to you from memory — I read it every night: Manning, if only you knew how I have hated you all these years. … It begins like this. The rest you can deduce for yourself. The glass bell guards a massive, repressed hatred.

And then he again skipped a passage, but this time I thought I understood the connection. He said, And now how will Jimmy be? Who will he have become? He’s a man, somewhere in the world. And then I asked him if that letter was dated August fifteenth, because I had known by intuition, and he said yes, it was the very anniversary and he would celebrate it appropriately. He already had the instrument ready for the celebration — it was there on the table next to the telephone.

He was silent. I had expected he would talk some more, but he said nothing else. Then I said, Wait for another anniversary, Manning. Try to wait one more year. I was immediately aware of how ridiculous that sentence was, but at the moment I had nothing else in mind, I talked for the sake of talking, and in the end all that counted was the concept. I’ve listened to a lot of telephone callers of all kinds with the most absurd situations, and yet maybe that was the moment in which my habitual bravura vacillated, and I even felt lost myself as if I needed another person who would stay to listen to me and tell me something appropriate to say. It lasted a moment, he didn’t reply, I recovered promptly. Now I knew what I could say. I could talk about microperspectives, and I talked about microperspectives. Because in life there are all kinds of perspectives, the so-called great perspectives which everyone considers fundamental, and those that I call microperspectives which are insignificant, I admit. But if everything is relative, if nature permits eagles and ants to exist, why can’t we live like the ants, I asked, by microperspectives? Yes, microperspectives, I insisted, and he found my definition amusing. But in what would these microperspectives consist, he asked, and I set out to explain punctiliously. Microperspectives is a modus vivendi , all right? Let’s say so, anyhow. It’s a way of concentrating the attention, all the attention, on a little detail of life, of daily routine, as if that detail were the most important thing in the world. But ironically, knowing that it isn’t the most important thing in the world at all, and that everything is relative. One help is to make lists, mark down appointments, give yourself strict schedules, and don’t compromise. Microperspectives is a concrete way of attacking concrete things.

He didn’t seem very convinced, but my objective wasn’t to try to convince him. I was perfectly aware that I wasn’t revealing the secret of the philosopher’s stone. And yet just the fact that he felt that someone could be interested in his problems must serve for something. It was as much as I could do. He asked me if he could telephone me at home. Sorry, I didn’t have a telephone. And here? Certainly, here whenever he wanted. Not tomorrow, no, unfortunately. But of course he could leave me a message, in fact he had to. There was another friend in my place who’d then pass it on to me. I’d be happy if he told me what had been the microperspectives of his day.

He said good-bye to me politely in a tone of voice that seemed to say he was sorry. The evening was hot and I hadn’t noticed. At times certain conversations require frightening concentration. From the window I saw Gulliver crossing the street, coming to relieve me. Gulliver could be seen from the top of a skyscraper — it was not for nothing that we called him Gulliver. I collected my things and prepared to leave. Only then did I verify that it was ten minutes to nine. Damn! I had promised Paco that I’d be home at nine sharp, and even if I hurried I couldn’t make it until half past nine. In addition, you can imagine public transportation, which was a disaster even on normal days, on the fifteenth of August. Maybe it was better to go on foot. I went by Gulliver like an arrow, without even giving him time to say hello. He shouted something jokingly after me. I answered on the stairs that I had an appointment, and the next time come on time, please. I was leaving him the fan even though he didn’t deserve it. However, as soon as I went out the front door I saw the number 32 rounding the corner. Even if it didn’t take me as far as my house it saved me a good stretch of road, so I flung myself up. It was completely empty. The 32 empty that way makes an impression, if you think how it usually is. The driver went so slowly that the desire to say something to him came to me, but I let it go — he had such a resigned air, eyes dull. Well, I thought, if Paco is irritated, too bad for him. I certainly can’t fly. I got off at the stop in front of the big stores. I started to walk fast, but it was already nine twenty-five. It was useless to set out to run in order to arrive late anyway, all sweaty and panting like a madwoman.

I slipped in the key, trying to be quiet. The house was dark and silent, and it made an impression on me. Who knows why I thought of something unpleasant? And I let myself be conquered by anxiety. I said, Paco, Paco, it’s me, I’m back. For a moment I felt overcome by depression. I put my books and purse on the stool by the front door and went as far as the door to the living room. I still felt like saying Paco, Paco. Silence at times is a dreadful thing. I know what I would have wanted to tell him if he had been there. Please, Paco, I would have said, it wasn’t my fault. I got an extremely long telephone call, and transportation is on half-schedule today — it’s August fifteenth. I went to close the door to the small terrace in back, because there are mosquitoes in the garden and as soon as they see the light they come in in swarms. It crossed my mind that a tin of caviar and one of paté remained in the refrigerator. It seemed to me like the time to open them, and also to uncork a bottle of Moselle wine. I set out yellow linen placemats and put a red candle on the table. My kitchen has light wooden furniture and with candlelight acquires a comforting atmosphere. While I made preparations I weakly called again, Paco. With a spoon I tapped lightly on a glass— ping . Then I tapped harder— PING . The sound lingered all through the house. Then suddenly an inspiration came to me. Opposite my plate I put another placemat, a plate, silverware, and a glass. I filled both glasses and went into the bathroom to make myself tidy. And if, later, he had really returned? Sometimes reality surpasses the imagination. He would have rung with two brief repealed rings, as he always did, and I would have opened the door with an air of complicity. I set the table for two, I would have told him. I was expecting you, I don’t know why, but I was expecting you. Who knows what kind of face he would have made?