Antonio Tabucchi - Little misunderstandings of no importance - stories

That’s how the game began, as if we were in the book about the witch Carmilla. Finally I too had something to do; I wouldn’t spend the day hanging about the drawing room. But the day wasn’t as exciting as I’d imagined. My only job was not to let Cece out of my sight for a single second. Perhaps I was the emissary of the priestess Melusina and he was the diabolical Matigot, but he was still a cat and behaved like one, like a stupid household cat, with no mystery about him. He spent part of the morning dozing in his basket, which obliged me to go repeatedly into the kitchen or to linger nearby, arousing the suspicion of that idiotic Flora, who saw me as a threat to her jellies and jams, as if I could possibly go for the sticky concoctions she guarded so jealously in the pantry. Towards noon, Cece deigned to come out of the basket. Flora had given him some milk in a bowl — obviously she held no grudge against him for what had happened — and he licked the edge of the bowl indifferently, like a spoiled child. Then he continued to act like a cat, not in the least diabolically, rolling onto his back and pawing the air as if to catch something to a cat’s taste. Clelia had promised to take my place, briefly, before lunch, but she didn’t keep her word and I resigned myself to waiting, seated on the small sofa in the entrance hall and pretending to read the Children’s Encyclopaedia while I kept an eye on the kitchen door. Finally Flora called out that lunch was ready. Aunt Esther came in from the garden with some geraniums which she put into a vase on the console table in the entrance hall. The bell on the upstairs floor echoed, with its metallic ring, in the kitchen. I guessed, of course, what it meant and so did Aunt Esther and, sure enough, Flora came back down with a dark look on her face. Signorina Clelia didn’t feel well and preferred to have lunch in her room. Aunt Esther bowed her head over her plate and sighed, and I laid my napkin on my knees. Lunch was silent, as usual. There were ham and melon, and the melon was so sweet that I’d gladly have had a second helping, while Aunt Esther ate her portion listlessly; she had cut it up into tiny squares and carried them to her mouth in an incredibly slow manner, staring absentmindedly at the tablecloth. Finally she got up and said she was going to have a nap. Better if I didn’t go out; the light was glaring and the hot sun was bad for the digestion, we’d see each other at teatime. Flora finished washing the dishes and then went out into the little porch off the kitchen, where she dozed off during the heat of the early afternoon. The clock struck two and the afternoon loomed up like a huge puddle of light and silence, interrupted by the chirring of grasshoppers. I thought again of writing to ask my father to take me away. But would he reply? What if the letter came back to me, bearing the inscription “unknown”? What would Clelia say, what sort of a story would she make up? Doubtless she’d say that my father wasn’t like hers, like the Constantine Dragases, who sent her a facsimile of his feet in order to meet her memories halfway; my father was indifferent to any message, completely out of reach. What an idea! Why shouldn’t my father reply? He’d reply, of course he would. I’ll come right away, little boy; I realize that house is no place for your holidays. I’ll take the earliest train next Saturday or, better still, I’ll buy a car, a red Aprilia like the one you saw in front of the Andrea Doria Bathhouse. I know you took a shine to that car and you expect me to arrive sooner or later with one like it. Yes, I’ll go and get a handsome car and call for you, if not this coming Saturday then the next Saturday or the one after, have no fear; sooner or later you’ll see me turn up… Cece slipped out of the kitchen door and looked around, seeming undecided about what to do, and I pretended to be asleep and didn’t budge. He chased a fly and wheeled around several times, then came to a halt, bewildered, and made for the stairs. What if he were to start up them? The very idea made me break into a cold sweat. I imagined the commotion, Clelia’s outcry and the crisis that might well follow. I had to stop him. But I mustn’t touch him, Clelia had made that clear: to touch him meant breaking the spell, and besides it was very dangerous. Luckily Cece turned back, wrinkled up his nose at the carpeting of the stairway, tested his claws on it and began to whirl madly around chasing his tail. Then, with three joyful leaps, he made for the front door and went out into the garden. I followed him, not so much out of curiosity as just for something to do. The afternoon promised to be empty and lifeless, and there was no use writing to my father; he knew what I wanted and sooner or later he’d arrive with the red car. Only why had there had to be a war? Better not think about it and simply enjoy the day, including the sight of that stupid cat, so stupid that he was actually funny; he ran, leaping, after a butterfly, so heedlessly that he wound up in a rose bush. He didn’t like that, and he arched his back, furiously, as if a dog were attacking him. I gave a low bark, trying not to disturb the people in the house, but it was quite enough to terrify him to the point where his fur stood on end. Stupid little kitten trying to imitate a grown cat! Unexpectedly he veered to one side in the direction of the wall. I realized that he was running away and tried to coax him back. Cece, Cece, come here, kitty… but it was too late. He slipped through the fancy ironwork of the gate and crossed the road. I saw the accident happen, with the impressive deliberateness of a slow-motion film. The man on the scooter was approaching, at a low speed, on the right-hand side of the road. Cece had stopped at the edge, uncertain whether or not to cross. The man saw his indecision and moved over to the white line in the middle of the road. At this point Cece lunged forward, but stopped halfway across. The man wavered, then returned to the right. Cece remained motionless, then turned back just when the scooter was only a few yards away. The man leaned dangerously to one side in order not to hit him, but did hit, or rather, graze him. Cece jumped backwards and slipped through the gate, miaowing and dragging an injured paw behind him. The scooter described a zigzag path — fortunately nothing was coming in the opposite direction — until the handlebars escaped from the rider’s hands and it turned clear around; the mudguard scraped the cement, raising a stream of sparks, and the man rolled two or three times over on the ground as far as the lamppost. He got up quickly, and I saw that he was not badly hurt, even if he was in a scary condition, his trousers torn, one knee swollen and his hands bloody. Flora, awakened by the sound the scooter made when it ran against the wall, was the first to arrive on the scene. She went straight to the man and took him into the house. Aunt Esther soon followed. Not Clelia, no, she must be behind the curtains of her bedroom window, in a state of terror, and didn’t come down; I could imagine what she’d have to say to me.

That danger more than ever hung over us, that everything was worse than before, that the real guilty party must be struck… it had to be done and Saturday was only forty-eight hours off. The suitcase dragged out again from under the bed, her thin hands with the bitten nails working over the white suit of that curious doll with the bow tie and the smile… How do yon like him, tell me. Doesn’t he remind you of somebody? Now we take this string, we have to make knots, a little knot here, a little knot there, and you must repeat this word after me, no, not like that, silly, but as if you meant it, otherwise it won’t work. And finally that big pin, brandished like a dagger in search of the right place to strike — the eyes, the heart, the throat… we had to decide. And what did I advise? I advised nothing, I didn’t want to advise. It was no longer a game, the way it was in other years, a game to pass the summer away.