Antonio Tabucchi - Time Ages in a Hurry

And if we were to play the if game? The memory came with a voice at the little table next to his, as though his uncle were there, hidden behind the hedge bordering the terrace of the coffee bar. It was his uncle’s voice this time, actually his uncle was the one who’d invented that game. Why? Because the if game is good for the imagination, especially on certain rainy days. For instance we are at the beach, or in the mountains, it doesn’t matter, since the kid is sick and the sea and the mountains are both good for him, it all depends, otherwise a bad worm will gnaw at his knee, and for instance it’s September, and in September sometimes it rains, never mind, if it’s raining and he’s at home, a kid can find a lot to do, but during this forced vacation, especially in a poorly furnished rental cottage or even worse in a pensione, if it rains, boredom sets in, and with it melancholy. But fortunately there’s the if game, and so the imagination gets to work, and the best player is the one who throws out the craziest ideas, totally crazy, mamma mia that laughter, listen to this: and what if the pope were to have landed in Pisa?

He asked for a double espresso in a large cup. The hospital grounds were coming to life: two young doctors in white uniforms were chatting, a little truck marked Hospital Supplies set off, a man in light-blue coveralls came down a side street carrying a whisk and a plastic bag, now and then he’d stop and sweep up some leaves, some butts. On his little table he spread out the paper napkin folded next to his cup and smoothed it carefully so he could write on it. On a corner of the napkin, a brand: Caffè Honduras. He circled it with his fountain pen. The paper, porous, absorbed a little ink but held up: he could try. The first sentence was obligatory: what if I were to go to Honduras? He continued numbering the sentences. Two: and what if I were to dance the Viennese waltz? Three: and what if I were to go to the moon and eat Cain’s fritters? Four: and what if Cain hadn’t made any fritters? Five: and what if I had left on the ship? Six: and what if the ship had already left? Seven: and what if at a whistle it would turn back? Eight: and what if Betta were to get married? Nine: and what if the Maltese cat were to play the piano and sing in French?

Read as a poem it had its own personality, maybe that woman who’d asked him to write something for a poetry anthology for children would like it, but that wouldn’t be honest, it wasn’t for children, it was a poème zutique. But children like zutiques , what matters is saying silly things, so even if it’s done out of melancholy, children won’t realize. I’ll phone him, he said to himself. There was no need for a cell phone, besides, he’d never had one: right by the coffee bar was a phone booth, and some change left on the table, tempting him. Sure, it wouldn’t be easy to explain himself, the conversation had to be set up right, like a teacher wants with an essay, because if you set up the theme correctly, you’re safe, even if you express yourself poorly. Perhaps before approaching the topic you’d need a code, something that once suggested complicity, a sort of watchword, like sentinels in the trenches would use when they changed guard. He thought: hand hand square and there passed a crazy hare. Sure that he’d get it. And then he’d say: I know very well you can’t wake up someone at this hour after not calling him for three years, but the fact is I went into hiding for a bit. Hand hand square and there passed a crazy hare. He went on: I set my mind on writing a big novel, let’s put it that way, that novel everyone’s waiting for, sooner or later, the publisher, the critics, because sure, they say, the short stories are splendid, and also those two books of meanderings, even that fake diary is a text of the first order, no doubt, but a novel, when are you going to write us a real novel? Everyone’s fixed on the novel, so I was fixed on it too, and if you’re going to write the novel everyone wants from you, which will be your masterpiece, you realize you need the right atmosphere, and the right place, and you need to search for the right place God knows where, because where you are is never the right place, and so I went into hiding to look for the right place to write my masterpiece, am I making myself clear? Hand hand square and there passed a crazy hare. Ingrid is in Göteborg, she went to see our daughter, I don’t know if you know but she got married in Göteborg, she went back to her maternal roots, besides, she’s better off there than here around someone dying, but I’ll explain that later, no, I’ll explain right now, I’m in my usual haunts, at the city hospital, no, no, I’m really fine, sure I’d like to see you, I’m coming to the point, because my call is nothing but an SOS from a radio operator who turned off his radio, but it’s not that there was a storm around me, if anything a dead calm, without even any shadow lines to cross, they had been crossed a long time ago, there was a sandbar instead on which the boat ran aground. Hand hand square and there passed a crazy hare. My aunt is dying, said en passant. Mine, not yours, we each have a mother, and our father didn’t have sisters, so it’s my aunt, though that’s not really why I’m calling, it’s that actually I wanted to read you a passage from the novel I’ve been working on these past three years of silence so you’ll have some idea of the effort I’ve put into it, I’m sure you’ll understand why I didn’t show up earlier, you ready? It goes like this: and what if I went to Honduras? And what if I danced the Viennese waltz? And what if I went to the moon and ate Cain’s fritters? And what if Cain hadn’t made his fritters? And what if I left with the ship? And what if the ship had already left? And what if at a whistle it would turn back? And what if Betta got married? And what if the Maltese cat played the piano while singing in French? It cost me more than the Serchio River cost the people of Lucca, you like it?

He sat there, with the coins in hand, staring at the phone booth, there’s a world of difference between saying and doing, and doing was saying: listen, I’m back, I’m here at the hospital, no, I’m totally fine, well, not totally, the fact is these three years have heaped up one on top of the other as though they were all just one day, actually just one night, I know I’m not making myself clear, I’ll try to be clearer, think of plastic bottles, the ones for mineral water, the bottle makes sense as long as it’s full of water, but when you’ve drunk it you can scrunch it up and throw it out, that’s what happened to me, my time has scrunched up, and my vertebrae too, if I can put it that way, I know I’m jumping around but I can’t express myself any better, be patient. And while he was thinking of what he’d come up with, he noticed a nurse in white pushing a wheelchair coming out of the low pavilion not far from the coffee bar, its glass door opened from the inside. And on the door closing behind them was a yellow sign with three blades, like a fan. The nurse was moving forward slowly because the path from the pavilion to the coffee shop rose slightly, and in the wheelchair was a boy, or at least from a distance it seemed a boy because he had no hair, but gradually as they approached he realized it was a girl. The features of the face, even though it was a childish face, weren’t male, because the difference is already clear at ten or twelve, which seemed roughly the age of that boy, which is to say, that girl, and also the voice was already female, since at that age the vocal cords are well differentiated, and she talked with the old nurse pushing the wheelchair, although from there he couldn’t make out what they were saying, he caught only the sound of the voices. He’d stood up with the coins in his hand aimed at the phone, rather he’d almost stood, he half stood, just like the day before getting out of bed, when the same razor blade cut into his back again, slicing all the way down to below his navel. He stood very still, like that figure of Pontormo he liked so much, whose face is a landscape of pain almost as though he were bearing the cross instead of the one destined for such a task. The two female voices were still too feeble to be deciphered, but they were cheerful, this he got from the tone, they seemed to be twittering back and forth, like two little sparrows telling each other something, he shut his eyes and the twittering became a squeak and he thought instead of mice chattering together in their cage, those white mice that scientists experiment on, they were two guinea pigs for the science of so-called life, the most agonizing science of all, one of them was being subjected to it prematurely, the other, the old one, had endured the experiments and gone on. They fell silent, perhaps because the woman pushing the wheelchair was getting tired and the girl didn’t want to wear her out, but as soon as they reached the top of the path the girl began talking again, and must have been responding to something the nurse had said, from her tone of voice it was clear she was affirming something, a solemn affirmation that nobody could prove wrong. Her voice was joyful, full of life, as when life, through the voice, is willful and affirms itself. The girl repeated what she’d said just as they were passing him, and while she spoke a broad smile lit up her face: but this is the most beautiful thing in the world! But this is the most beautiful thing in the world!