Antonio Tabucchi - Little misunderstandings of no importance - stories

He waited for her on the edge of the crowd in the foyer, at the beginning of a passageway; she arrived with a trace of a smile still on her lips and walked resolutely towards him. She was the contact, no doubt of it. “Good evening, would you like a drink?” “No thanks, I’d rather do business right away; I imagine you left a box of chocolates at the cloakroom. Shall we exchange checks? If, on the other hand, you’ve the money on you, let’s go to a telephone booth, where I can use this big evening bag. I had to look all over to find this size.” Her voice was steady, indifferent. High cheekbones, brown eyes, good-looking. Thirty perhaps, or forty, hard to tell. She lit a cigarette and looked quietly at him. An easy, professional manner. “Not now,” he said, “sorry, it’s not the moment. At the end of the opera, if that big businessman doesn’t get in the way.” “What businessman?” “The one sitting next to you.” “Don’t be silly, I came alone, never saw him before in my life, but I don’t understand why you’re making me wait until the end.” “You’ll understand later.”

Why, though, really? Did he really understand why? No, he didn’t, and he didn’t want to think about it. Exactly. Because I’m tired. Because I snapped a photograph. Because Dolores is gone, because too much time has passed, because, because, because, that’s all. Because I want to have some dinner. “Come and have dinner with me.” They left their seats while the audience was on its feet to call the tenor back to the stage. She followed him in silence. At the cloakroom he picked up his coat and scarf and showed her his hands, palms upward: “Nothing up my sleeve, no chocolates. I left the money at the hotel, if you want it, just come by, but first I’m going to have some dinner, I’m hungry as a wolf, I’ve had nothing to eat since yesterday, when I had a melted pistachio ice-cream.” “What hotel are you at?” “Never mind, if you want the money come to dinner with me, if you’re not hungry then you can just watch me eat.” She laughed and slipped her arm into his: “Let’s decide in the taxi, I opt for Lutece, the best French restaurant in New York. This evening deserves a French dinner.” “Fair enough.” Silence in the taxi except: “It’s against the rules, you were supposed to slip the money to me at the Opera.” “True, I agree. But no more of that now. Let’s concentrate on French cooking.”

They chose an inconspicuous table. “Waiter, take away all these candles, one’s enough, we want subdued light… Shall we go overboard?” “Yes, let’s.” “Then oysters to begin with, and champagne, not too cold.” “What’s your name?” “It doesn’t matter. Call me Franklin, how about you?” “Call me what you like.” “Perfect, Callmewhatyoulike is a lovely name, more like a surname, isn’t it, but whatever you say, Callmewhatyoulike.” That’s the way it all starts sometimes, with a joke, and then a conversation is sparked and carried on, that is, if the channel is working. It was working, wine helped. He did most of the talking: the East River, years ago, trips to Mexico, enthusiasms, dead friends, all ghosts. “I’m tired,” he said, “I’m all alone, I’ve had enough…” Pineapples in brandy to top it off, and two cups of coffee. “Waiter, bring me a big box of chocolates, please.” He asked her to excuse him for a moment and went to the lavatory, where he threw away the chocolates and filled the box with dollars. On the way back he paid the bill, bought a rose from the cloakroom girl and laid it in the box. “Here,” he said when he had come back to the table, “the very best chocolates, I had them with me the whole time. Forgive my playing games with you.” She took a look inside. “Why did you do it?” “I needed company, for too many years I’ve been dining alone. I hope the dinner was to your taste, and now excuse me again, I’m going to bed, thanks for your company, Callmewhatyoulike, and goodnight, I doubt if we’ll meet again.”

As he crossed the room he left a generous tip with the waiter, “Merci, Monsieur, au revoir,” his legs were holding out, he was only slightly drunk, no headache, only a pleasurable sensation. She caught up with him when he was already in the taxi, slid in beside him and said decisively, “I’m coming with you.” He looked at her and she smiled. “I’m alone, too. Let’s keep each other company, just for tonight.” “The responsibility is yours, Callmewhatyoulike… Driver, the Park Lane, please.”

“Let’s leave the curtains open so we can see the city by night, New York is something to see from a fortieth floor, so many lights, so many people, so many stories behind all those windows, put your arms around me, it’s lovely standing here, just look at that building, it’s like an ocean liner, if it were to slip anchor and take off into the night it wouldn’t surprise me.” “Or me either.” “What’s your name? Callmewhatyoulike is a surname, tell me your first name, invent it if you must.” “Sparafucile’s my name.” “That’s better Sparafucile Callmewhatyoulike; it’s been wonderful, I felt I really loved you, a way I haven’t felt for years: excuse me while I go to the bathroom.”

The bathroom lights, too bright as usual, too bright for even a theatre dressing-room. He looked at himself in the mirror. Under the dazzling reflector his baldness was painful to note, but he didn’t really care. He rinsed his mouth and rubbed his forehead. He might even have whistled. Her makeup kit lay on the marble shelf. He couldn’t say why he opened it, sometimes we make such gestures out of sheer intuition. It’s a funny feeling to find yourself in a make-up kit. But there was his photograph, between the face powder and the mirror, a full-length picture, captured by a telephoto lens, on the street, somewhere or other. He held it between his thumb and forefinger for a few seconds before he could draw any conclusion. She couldn’t know who he was, much less know him personally. She wasn’t supposed to. He looked hard at the image staring out at him from the coarse-grained paper on which pictures snapped by a telephoto lens are often printed, an anonymous man in the crowd, the face a little thin and drawn, Franklin. In his imagination he saw the viewfinder framing his face and his heart. Click. While he was turning the doorknob he thought of her big evening bag; now he knew that there was something in it besides money; if he’d wanted to think about it earlier he’d have realized… but perhaps he hadn’t wanted to think. He was sorry, he reflected, not about the fact in itself, but about all the rest. Because it had been wonderful. He’d have liked to tell her he was sorry that she had to be Sparafucile; it was too bad and also funny because everything had seemed different. But he knew he wouldn’t have time.

The small station was almost deserted. It was the station of a town on the Riviera, with palms and agaves growing near the wooden benches on the platform. At one end, behind a wrought-iron gate, a street led to the centre of the town; at the other a stone stairway went down to the shore.

The stationmaster came out of the glass-walled control room and walked under the overhanging roof to the tracks. He was a short, stout man with a moustache; he lit a cigarette, looked doubtfully at the cloudy sky, stuck out a hand beyond the roof to see if it was raining, then wheeled around and with a thoughtful air put his hands in his pockets. The two workmen waiting for the train on a bench under the sign bearing the station’s name greeted him briefly and he nodded his head in reply. On the other bench there was an old woman, dressed in black, with a suitcase fastened with a rope. The stationmaster peered up and down the tracks then, as the bell announcing a train’s arrival began to ring, went back into his glass-walled office.