Antonio Tabucchi - The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico

He started to laugh too, but stopped himself because he wasn’t sure whether it was best for him to join in her outburst of hilarity or not. ‘Explain,’ he asked, when she had calmed down.

‘Nothing,’ the girl said, between intermittent giggles. ‘It just occurred to me that you’re rather better suited to the vulgar than the Middle Latin, that’s all.’

He shook his head in fake pity, but you could see deep down he was flattered. ‘In any event we can begin the lesson now; so listen carefully.’ He held up a thumb and said: ‘Point number one: you have to study the minor authors, it’s the minor authors will make your career, all the greats have already been studied.’ He raised another finger. ‘Point number two: make the bibliography as long as you possibly can, taking care to disagree with scholars who are dead.’ He raised yet another finger. ‘Point number three: no fanciful methodologies, I know they’re in fashion now, but they’ll sink without a trace, stay with the straightforward and traditional.’ She was listening carefully, concentrating hard. Perhaps the sketch of a timid objection was forming on her face, because he felt the need to offer an example. ‘Think of that French specialist who came to talk about Racine and all Phaedra’s complexes,’ he said. ‘A normal person, would you say?’

‘What? Phaedra?’ asked the girl, as though thinking of something else.

‘The French specialist,’ he said patiently.

The girl didn’t answer.

‘Quite,’ he said. ‘These days critics are in the habit of unloading their own neuroses onto literary texts. I had the courage to say as much and you saw how outraged everybody was.’ He opened the menu and set about a careful choice of dessert. ‘Psychoanalysis was the invention of a madman,’ he concluded. ‘Everybody knows that, but you try saying it out loud.’

The girl looked absent-mindedly at the sea. She had a resigned expression and was almost pretty. ‘So what next?’ she asked, still speaking as though her mind were elsewhere.

‘I’ll tell you that later,’ said the man. ‘Right now I want to say something else. You know what’s positive about us, our winning card? Do you? It’s that we’re normal people, that’s what.’ He finally settled on a dessert and waved to the waiter. ‘And now I’ll tell you what’s next,’ he went on. ‘What’s next is, you apply for the place right now.’

‘But we’ll have your philologist friend against us,’ she objected.

‘Oh, him!’ exclaimed the man. ‘He’ll keep quiet, he will, or rather, he’ll be on our side, you’ll see.’ He left a pause that was full of mystery.

‘When he walks down the corridor with his pipe and hair blowing about, you’d think he was God and Father himself,’ she said. ‘He can’t bear me, he doesn’t even say hello.’

‘He’ll learn to say hello, sweetie.’

‘I told you not to call me sweetie, it brings me out in a rash.’

‘In any event he’ll learn to say hello,’ he interrupted. He smiled with a sly look and poured himself some wine. He was doing it on purpose to increase the mystery and wanted it to be obvious he was doing it on purpose. ‘I know all sorts of little things about him,’ he finally said, letting a glimmer of light into the darkness.

‘Tell me about them.’

‘Oh, little things,’ he muttered with affected casualness, ‘certain escapades, old friendships with people in this country when it was not exactly a paragon of democracy. If I was a novelist I could write a story about it.’

‘Oh, come on,’ she said, ‘I don’t believe it. He’s always in the front row when it comes to petitions and meetings, he’s left-wing.’

The man seemed to think over the adjective she’d used. ‘Left-handed, rather,’ he concluded.

The girl laughed, shaking her head, which made her ponytail bob from side to side. ‘In any event, we’ll need support from someone from another university,’ she said. ‘We can’t keep everything in the family.’

‘I’ve thought of that too.’

‘You think of everything, do you?’

‘In all modesty. .’

‘Who?’

‘No names.’

He smiled affably, took the girl’s hand and assumed a paternal manner. ‘Listen carefully, you have to analyse people’s motives, and that’s just what I do. Everybody runs a mile from him, have you ever asked yourself why?’

The girl shook her head and he made a vague, mysterious gesture. ‘There must be a reason,’ he said.

‘I’ve got a reason of my own,’ she said. ‘I’m pregnant.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said the man with a cutting smile.

‘Don’t be stupid yourself,’ the girl answered sharply.

The man had frozen with a slice of pineapple just an inch from his mouth; his face betrayed the surprise of someone who has recognised the truth.

‘Since when?’

‘Two months.’

‘Why wait till now to tell me?’

‘Because I didn’t feel like it before,’ she said firmly. She made a broad gesture which included the sea, the sky and the waiter who was arriving with the coffee. ‘If it’s a girl I’m going to call her Felicity,’ she said with conviction.

The man slipped the pineapple into his mouth and swallowed in haste. ‘A bit too passé and sentimental for my taste.’

‘Okay, so Allegra, Joy, Serena, Hope, Letitia, Hilary, as you will. I don’t care what you say, I think names have an influence on a person’s character. Hear yourself called Hilary all the time and you begin to feel a bit hilarious, you laugh. I want a cheerful child.’

The man didn’t answer. He turned to the waiter hovering patiently at a distance and made as if to write on his hand. The waiter understood and went into the restaurant to prepare the bill. There was a curtain of metal beads over the door which tinkled every time someone went in. The girl stood up and took hold of the man’s hand, pulling him up.

‘Come on, come and look at the sea, don’t play the crotchety old fogy, this is the best day of your life.’

The man got up a little unwillingly, letting himself be pulled. The girl put her arm round his waist, pushing him on. ‘It’s you who looks pregnant,’ she said. ‘About six months, if you ask me.’ She let out a ringing laugh and hopped like a little bird. They leaned on the wooden parapet. There were some agave plants in the small unkept piece of ground in front of the terrace and lots of wild flowers. The man took a cigarette from his pocket and slipped it between his lips. ‘Oh God,’ she said, ‘not that unbearable stink again, it’ll be the first thing I’ll cut out of our life.’

‘You just try,’ he said with a sly look.

She held him tight against her, stroking his cheek with her head. ‘This restaurant is delightful.’

The man patted his stomach. His expression was one of satisfaction and self-assurance. ‘You have to know how to take life,’ he answered.

‘Listen, my good man, your father has cancer of the pharynx, I can’t leave the conference to operate on him tomorrow, I’ve invited half of Italy, do you understand? And then, with what he’s got, a week isn’t going to make much difference.’

‘Actually our doctor says the operation should be done immediately, because it’s a type of cancer that spreads extremely quickly.’

‘Oh really, immediately indeed? And what am I supposed to say to the people coming to the conference, that I have to operate tomorrow and the conference is being postponed? Listen, your father will do what everybody else does, wait until the conference is finished.’

‘You listen to me, Professor Piragine, I don’t give a damn about your conference, I want my father to be operated on immediately, and any others too, if they’re urgent.’