Antonio Tabucchi - Letter from Casablanca

“I am distressed that you oblige me to be more explicit,” continued Nuno Meneses de Sequeira. “I assume that you like Pessoa.” ‘I like him very much,” I admitted. “Then perhaps you are also aware of his translations that go abroad.” “What do you mean?” I asked. “Nothing special,” he said. “Only this: Maria do Carmo received many translations from abroad. You understand me, do you not?” “I don’t understand you,” I said. “Let us say that you do not want to understand me,” Nuno Meneses de Sequeira corrected me, “that you prefer not to understand me, and I understand that you prefer not to understand me. Reality is unpleasant and you prefer dreams. I beg you not to insist on details — details are always so vulgar. Let us limit ourselves to the concept.”

From the window came the sound of a siren. Perhaps a ship had entered the harbor. Immediately I felt an immense desire to be one of the passengers on that ship, to enter the harbor of an unknown city called Lisbon, and to have to telephone an unknown woman to tell her that a new translation of Fernando Pessoa had come out, and that woman was called Maria do Carmo. She would come to Bertrand’s Bookstore wearing a yellow dress, she loved the fado and Sephardic food, and I already knew all this. But that passenger, who was I and who was gazing at Lisbon from the deck of the ship, did not know it yet, and everything would be identical and new for him. And this was saudade . Maria do Carmo was right — it’s not a word, it’s a category of the spirit. In its way it, too, was backwards.

Nuno Meneses de Sequeira observed me in silence. He seemed calm and satisfied. “Today is the first day of Maria do Carmo’s new life,” I said. “You could at least concede a truce.” He nodded his head imperceptibly as if in assent, as if to say, “That’s really what I wanted to propose to you.” And then I said, “I believe we have nothing further to say to each other.” He rang a bell and a servant in a striped jacket appeared. “Domingos, the gentleman is leaving.” The servant stepped aside at the door so that I could precede him. “Ah — one moment,” said Nuno Meneses de Sequeira. “Maria do Carmo left you this.” He extended a letter that, was on a little silver tray on a small table next to his armchair. I look it and put it in my pocket. When I was at the door, Nuno Meneses de Sequeira said something else to me. “I feel sorry for you,” he said. “The feeling is mutual,” I said, though probably with a different nuance. I walked down the stone stairs, went out into the afternoon light of Lisbon. A taxi drove by and I hailed it.

In the hotel I opened the letter. On a sheet of white paper was written, in capital letters and without accents, the word SEVER . I reversed it mechanically in my mind and then under it I, loo, wrote with a pencil, in capitals and without accents, REVES . I meditated for a moment on that ambiguous word, which could be Spanish or French and have two absolutely different meanings. I thought that I had no desire to return to Madrid. I would have a check sent from Italy and would write to the Madrid hotel to send my luggage. I telephoned the front desk and asked the concierge to find an agency. I needed a plane ticket for the next day, the airline was not important, the first available flight. “What, are you leaving already?” asked the concierge. “You’ve never had such a short visit before.” “What time is it?” I asked. “It’s five-fifteen by my watch, sir.” “Well, then, wake me for supper, around nine.” I undressed calmly, closed the shutters. The sheets were cool. Again the faraway wail of a siren reached me, muffled by the pillow on which I rested my head.

Perhaps Maria do Carmo had finally achieved her backwards side. I wished for her that it was as she had desired, and thought that the Spanish word and the French one perhaps coincided at one point. It seemed to me that this was the vanishing point of a perspective, as when the perspective lines of a picture are drawn. And at that moment the siren wailed again, the ship docked, I went slowly down the gangplank and began to walk along the quays. The harbor was completely deserted. The quays were the perspective lines that verged toward the vanishing point of a picture. The picture was The Young Ladies in Waiting by Velásquez. The figure in the background, on which the lines of the quays converged, had that melancholy, enigmatic expression that was impressed on my memory. And how funny — that figure was Maria do Carmo in her yellow dress. I was saying to her, “I understand why you have that expression, why you see the backwards side of the picture. What do you see from that point? Tell me. Wait for me to come, too. I’m coming to see now.” And I walked toward that point. And at that moment. I found myself in another dream.

Born in Pisa in 1943, Antonio Tabucchi studied at the University of Pisa and did research at the Scuola Normale there. He currently teaches Portuguese Language and Literature at the University of Genoa and is married to Maria José de Lancastre, with whom he translated and edited the Italian edition of the works of Fernando Pessoa ( Una sola moltitudine , 1979) for Adelphi. He has two children and lives for most of the year at his home at Vecchiano in the Tuscan countryside, although he also spends long periods in Lisbon, which he regards as his adoptive city. As part of the “European Foundation Libraries in Extra-European Countries” project (sponsored by the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon and the University of Genoa), Tabucchi has made extensive research trips to Latin America and India.

Antonio Tabucchi made his debut as a novelist with Piazza d’Italia (Bompiani, 1975). This winner of the I’lnedito Prize was followed by 11 piccolo naviglio (Mondadori, 1978), and II gioco del rovescio (II Saggiatore, 1981), which won the Pozzale-Luigi Russo Prize. Two additional books, Donna di Porto Pun and Notturno indiano , were published by Sellerio in 1983 and 1984, respectively. Tabucchi’s most recent collection of stories, Piccoh equivoci senza importanza . was published by Feltrinelli in 1985 and won the prestigious Comisso Prize for that year. Tabucchi’s work has been translated into German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and Hungarian. This edition of his prize-winning Il gioco del rovescio (here titled Letter from Casablanca ) marks his first appearance in English.