Antonio Tabucchi - Letter from Casablanca

I stayed two years at the Salesian conservatory. With Father Matteo, an old man, half-blind, with deathly pale hands, I studied Bach, Monteverdi, and Palestrina at the organ. The classes of general culture were held by Father Simone for the scientific part and Father Anselmo for the classical part, in which I was particularly gifted. I studied Latin willingly, but I preferred history, the lives of the saints, and the lives of illustrious men. Among those particularly dear to me were Leonardo da Vinci and Ludovico Antonio Muratori, who had gotten his education by eavesdropping under the window of a school, until one day the teacher had discovered him and told him, “Come into the classroom, poor boy!”

In the evening I returned to the Pensione Albano. Work awaited me because the monthly allowance that Uncle Alfredo sent me was not enough. I slipped on a jacket that Señora Pepa made me wash twice a week and stationed myself in the dining room, a room painted pale blue with around thirty tables and pictures of Italy on the walls. Our clients were pensioners, business agents, an occasional Italian immigrant to Buenos Aires who could permit himself the luxury of spending fifteen days at Mar del Plata. Signor Albano ran the kitchen. He knew how to make pansoti with walnuts and trenette al pesto : he was Ligurian, from Camogli. He was a follower of Peron. He said that he had lifted up a nation of lice. And then Eva was enchanting.

When I found steady work at the “Bichinho” I wrote Uncle Alfredo not to send me my allowance anymore. It wasn’t that I was earning enough salary to fritter it away, but, well, it was enough for me, and it didn’t seem fair that Uncle Alfredo was fixing tractors in order to send me a few pesos every month. “O Bichinho” was a restaurant-nightclub run by a plump, cheerful Brazilian, Senhor Joño Paiva, where you could have supper at midnight and listen to native music. It was a place with pretensions of respectability and considered itself to be different from the other shady night clubs, even if whoever went there to look for company found it easily, but with discretion and with the complicity of the waiters, because the prostitution was not so exposed. Everything had a respectable appearance — forty tables with candles. At two tables in the rear of the room, near the coatroom, there were two young women sitting in front of a plate that was always empty, sipping an aperitif as if waiting for their order to arrive. And if a gentleman entered, the waiter guided him skillfully and asked him discreetly, “Do you prefer to dine alone or would you like the companionship of a lady?” I was an expert at these games because my job was at the rear of the room, while Ramón attended to the tables near the platform for the show. To make those propositions you needed tact, good manners. It was necessary to understand the client in order not to offend him. And who knows why by intuition I immediately understood the client? In short, I had a flair for it, and at the end of the month my tips were greater than my salary. Besides, Anita and Pilar were two generous girls.

The high point of the show was Carmen del Rio. Her voice was no longer what it had been, of course, yet she still constituted an attraction. With the passing of the years the hoarse timbre that gave charm to her more desperate tangos had weakened, had become more limpid, and she tried in vain to regain it by smoking two cigars before her performance. But what was spectacular about her and what she knew would send the public into a frenzy was not so much her voice as a combination of resources: her repertory, her movements, her make-up, her costumes. Behind the curtains of the platform she had a little room crammed with rubbish and a majestic wardrobe with all the clothes she had used in the Forties when she was the great Carmen del Rio. There were long chiffon dresses, marvelous white sandals with very high cork heels, feather boas, tango singers’ shawls, one blonde wig, one red one, and two raven black ones parted in the middle and with large chignons with white combs, as in Andalusia. The secret of Carmen del Rio was her make-up. She knew it. She spent hours making herself up. She did not neglect the smallest detail: the tinted base, the long false eyelashes, on her lips the glittering lipstick she had used in earlier days, the very long fatal fingernails painted vermillion.

She often called me because I helped her. She said that I had a very light touch and exquisite taste, I was the only person in the night club whom she trusted. She opened her wardrobe and wanted me to advise her. I went over the repertory for the evening. For the tangos she knew what to wear, but the makeup for the sentimental songs I chose. Usually I went for the light, filmy, pastel dresses — I don’t know, apricot, for example, which was enchanting on her, or a pale indigo that seemed to me unbeatable for Ramona . And then I did her nails and eyelashes. She closed her eyes and stretched out in the easy-chair, surrendered her head to the head-rest, and whispered to me as if in a dream, “Once I had a sensitive lover like you. … He spoiled me like a baby. … His name was Daniel…. He was from Quebec…. Who knows what became of him….” Close up and without cosmetics Carmen looked her age, but under the spotlight and after my make-up she was still a queen. I overdid the base and the grease-paint, naturally, and for face powder I insisted on a very pink Guerlain, instead of the too-white Argentine brands which gave prominence to her wrinkles. And the result was sensational. She was most grateful to me. She said that I pushed back the clock. And for her perfume I converted her to violet — much, very much, violet — and on principle she had protested, because violet is a vulgar perfume for schoolgirls. And she didn’t know that on the other hand it was this contrast that fascinated the public: an old defeated beauty who sang the tango made up like a pink doll. It was this that created the pathos and brought tears to the eyes.

Then I went to do my work at the rear of the room. I circulated among the tables with a light step. “More carabine-ros a la plancha, señor ?” “Do you like the rose wine, señorita ?” I knew that while she was singing, Carmen was searching for me with her eyes. When with the boss’s gold cigar lighter I lit the cigarette which some client had just finished inserting between his lips, I made the light shine a minute at heart level. It was an agreed-upon signal between Carmen and me. It meant that she was singing divinely, that she went right to the heart. And I observed that her voice vibrated even more and gained warmth. She needed to be encouraged, the splendid old Carmen. Without her, “O Bichinho” would have been nothing.

The night Carmen stopped singing there was panic. She did not give up of her own accord, obviously. We were in her dressing room, I was doing her make-up, she was stretched out in the armchair in front of the mirror. She was smoking her cigar, keeping her eyes closed, and all of a sudden the powder began to get sticky on her forehead. I realized that she was sweating. I touched her: it was a cold sweat. “I feel bad,” she murmured, and said nothing else. I put my hand on her chest, took her pulse, and couldn’t feel it any longer. I went to call the manager. Carmen was trembling as if she had a fever, but she did not have a fever. She was icy. We called a taxi to take her to the hospital. I helped her to the back entrance so the public wouldn’t see her. “ Ciao , Carmen,” I said to her. “It’s nothing. I’ll come to see you tomorrow,” and she attempted a smile.

It was eleven o’clock. The clients were having supper. On the platform the spotlight made a circle of empty light. The pianist played softly in order to fill the void. Then from the room came a little impatient applause. They were demanding Carmen. Senhor Paiva, behind the curtain, was very nervous. He sucked his cigarette anxiously, called the manager and told him to serve some champagne gratis. Probably the idea was to keep the public in a good mood. But at that moment a little chorus chanted, “Car-men! Car-men!”