Antonio Tabucchi - Little misunderstandings of no importance - stories

And so he spoke up as he thought he should under the circumstances. First he apologized for quoting himself, he simply had to do it. Meanwhile he called his hearers’ attention to examples of phonetics, scansion, and vocabulary which he had picked out in order to show the similarities between the poet’s text and those of his manneristic contemporaries. He was perfectly aware of the autonomy of a poetical text, but every text has its place in a context, and the context was here. At this point he unsheathed his long sword. The classicist had used old-fashioned, outdated language — he was not up on contemporary criticism; in short, he was poorly equipped. And so he spoke of Bachtin and the meaning of context within the text; he displayed the gems of his chosen examples against a broad cultural panorama. This allowed for no indulgence or compromise; he left no space for the no-man’s-land of literature shaped by a Platonic canon; he showed them, peremptorily and incontrovertibly, an x-ray labelled literature and life. And he won. Not immediately, of course, because he incurred an aggressive attack on the part of three young intellectuals. But the important thing was that in academic circles he won the reputation of an uncompromising scholar, with a cutting edge like that of a diamond.

And then there were comforting and reassuring domestic victories: an apartment in the centre of the city, a rich library, a study where the photograph of Machado was finally hung in an appropriate setting, near to books that were worthy of him. He transcribed the tercet of the curious poem by Drum-mond de Andrade that he had chosen to analyze, and wondered what title to give to its presentation at a forthcoming congress. He attempted a translation and read it aloud in order to measure the effect it would have on his hearers.

What are our poems made of? And where?

What poisoned dream responds to them?

If the poet is embittered and the rest is clouds?

He rather liked the poet, after all; he was dry and realistic, with clear vision, even if it was, perhaps, veiled by a metaphysical streak which he considered superfluous. On second thoughts there was something querulous in that late-Romantic reference to a vague empyrean where poetical concepts floated in abstract form before descending in the shape of words into such a miserable receptacle as the poet, a mortal man contaminated by sin and embitterment. But perhaps this elegantly melancholy poet was unaware; he was, in his way, a young gentleman who had written these words without understanding their meaning, in the belief that they had mysteriously arisen out of some depth of cosmic space. But for him, as he read them, they held no mystery, they were clear as crystal, he had the key, he could snatch and hold them in the palm of his hand, and play with them as if they were the wooden letters of a child’s alphabet. He smiled and wrote: Bitterness and Clouds. For a rhythmical reading of a twentieth-century poem.

He himself was the true poet, he could feel it.

Be thought he might put it this way: Dear Maria Assunta, I am well and hope the same is true of you. Here it’s already hot, it’s nearly summer, but with you, on the other hand, good weather perhaps hasn’t yet come; we’re always hearing about smog, and then there’s all that big-city and industrial waste. Anyhow I’m expecting you if you want to come for a holiday, with Giannandrea, too, of course, and God bless you. I want to thank you for his and your invitation, but I’ve decided not to come, because, you know, your mother and I lived here together for thirty-five years. When we first came we felt as if we were in the North, and in fact we were, but now I’ve grown fond of the place and it’s filled with memories. Then, since your mother’s death I’ve grown accustomed to living alone and even if I miss my work I can find a lot of distractions, like looking after the garden, something I’ve always enjoyed doing, and also after the two blackbirds, which keep me company, too, and what would I do in a big city, and so I’ve decided to stay in these four rooms, where I can see the harbour and if I feel like it I can take the ferry to go and visit my old mates and have a game of cards. It’s only a few hours by ferry, and I feel at home on board, because a man misses the place where he has worked all his life, every week for a lifetime.

He peeled the orange, dropped the peel into the water, watched it float in the foaming wake of the boat and imagined that he had finished one page and was starting another, because he simply had to say that he was missing his work already; it was his last day of service and already he missed it. Missed what? A lifetime aboard the boat, the trip out and the trip in, I don’t know whether you remember, Maria Assunta, you were very little and your mother used to say: how is this little one ever going to become a big girl? I got up early; in winter it was still dark and I gave you a kiss before going out; it was bitterly cold and they never gave us decent coats, only old horse-blankets dyed blue, those were our uniforms. All those years made for a habit, and I ask you again what would I do in a big city, what would I do in your house at five o’clock in the morning? I can’t stay in bed any later; I get up at five, as I did for forty years, it’s as if an alarm clock rang inside me. And then you’ve had schooling and school changes people even if they’re from the same background; and the same with your husband — what would we have to talk about? He has ideas, which can’t be mine, from this point of view we don’t exactly get along. You’re educated, both of you; that time when I came with your mother and after dinner some friends of yours arrived, I didn’t say a word the whole evening. All I could talk about were things I knew, that I learned in the course of my life, and you’d asked me not to mention my job. Then there’s something else, which may seem silly to you, who knows how Giannandrea would laugh, but I couldn’t live with the furniture in your house. It’s all glass, and I bump into it because I don’t see it. So many years, you understand, with my own furniture and getting up at five o’clock.

But, mentally, he crumpled up this last page, just as he had written it and threw it into the sea where he imagined he could see it floating, together with the orange peel.

“I sent for you so that you’d take off the handcuffs,” the man said in a low voice.

His shirt was unbuttoned and his eyes were closed as if he were sleeping. He seemed to have a yellow complexion, but perhaps it was the curtain strung across the porthole that gave the whole cabin this colour. How old could he be; thirty, thirty-five? Perhaps no older than Maria Assunta; prison ages a man quickly. And then that emaciated look. He felt a sudden curiosity and thought to ask the fellow his age. He took off his hat and sat down on the opposite bunk. The man had opened his eyes and was looking at him. The eyes were blue and, who knows why, this touched his feelings. “How old are you?” he asked in a formal manner. Formal, perhaps because this was the end of his service. And the man was a political prisoner, which was something special. Now he sat up and looked at him hard out of his big blue eyes. He had a blond moustache and ruffled hair. He was young, yes, younger than he seemed. “I told you to take off my handcuffs,” he said, in a weary voice. “I want to write a letter, and my arms hurt.” The accent was from the North, but he didn’t know one northern accent from another. Piedmontese, perhaps. “Are you afraid I’ll escape?” he asked ironically. “Look here, I won’t run away, I won’t attack you, I won’t do anything. I wouldn’t have the strength.” He pressed one hand against his stomach, with a quick smile which traced two deep furrows in his cheeks. “And then it’s my last trip,” he added.