Antonio Tabucchi - Indian Nocturne

‘Welcome to Goa,’ he grunted. ‘You have committed the imprudence of coming from Madras; the road is full of bandits.’

He had a very hoarse voice, and made occasional gurgling noises. I looked at him in amazement. It seemed odd to me that he should use the word ‘bandits’, and odder still that he knew where I had come from.

‘And the overnight stop in that horrible place certainly won’t have been very reassuring for you,’ he went on. ‘You are young and enterprising, but you are often afraid; you wouldn’t make a good soldier, perhaps cowardice would get the better of you.’ He looked at me indulgently. I don’t know why, but I felt a deep embarrassment which prevented me from replying. But how did he know about my trip, I thought, who had told him?

‘Don’t worry,’ said the old man, as if guessing what I was thinking. ‘I’ve got plenty of informers, I have.’

He pronounced this last remark in an almost menacing tone, and this made a strange impression on me. We were speaking in Portuguese, I remember, and his words were cold and dull, as if a great distance lay between them and his voice. Why did he speak like that, I wondered, who on earth could he be? The long room was in semi-darkness and he was at the other end, quite a distance from me, his body partly hidden by a table. All this, together with the surprise, had prevented me from seeing his face. But now I saw that he wore a triangular hat of soft cloth and had a long grey beard that brushed against his chest which was covered by a corset embroidered with silver thread. His shoulders were wrapped in a roomy black cloak cut in an antique style, with puffed-out sleeves. He read the uneasiness on my face, shifted his seat and sprang up toward the middle of the room with an agility I would never have suspected. He was wearing high boots turned down at the thigh and had a sword at his hip. He made a somewhat ridiculous theatrical gesture, tracing a generous spiral with his right arm which he then placed over his heart, exclaiming in a booming voice: ‘I am Afonso de Albuquerque, Viceroy of the Indies!’

Only then did I realise that he was mad. I realised it and at the same time, in an odd way, I thought that he really was Afonso de Albuquerque, and none of this surprised me: it just made me feel tired and indifferent, as if everything was predestined and unavoidable.

The old man looked me over warily, suspiciously, his small eyes gleaming. He was tall, majestic, arrogant. I realised that he was expecting me to speak; and I spoke. But the words came out of their own accord, involuntarily. ‘You look like Ivan the Terrible,’ I said, ‘or rather the actor who played him.’

He said nothing and put his hand to his ear.

‘I mean in an old film,’ I explained, ‘you made me think of an old film.’ And while I was saying this, a glow spread across his face, as if a fire were blazing in a hearth nearby. But there was no hearth, the room was getting darker and darker, perhaps it had been the last ray of the setting sun.

‘What have you come here for?’ he shouted suddenly. ‘What do you want from us?’

‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘I don’t want anything. I came here to do some archive research, it’s my job. This library is almost unknown in the West. I’m looking for old chronicles.’

The old man tossed his large cloak over one shoulder, just as theatre actors do when they’re about to fight a duel. ‘It’s a lie!’ he cried vehemently. ‘You had a different reason for coming here.’

His violence didn’t frighten me, I wasn’t afraid he would attack me: yet I did feel a strange sense of subjugation, as if he had uncovered some guilt that I had been concealing from him. I lowered my eyes in shame and saw that the book open on the table was Saint Augustine. I read these words: Quo modo praesciantur futura. Was it just a coincidence, or did someone want me to read those words? And who, if not the old man? He had told me he had his informers, that was his word, and this I found menacing and inescapable.

‘I’ve come here to search for Xavier,’ I confessed. ‘It’s true, I’m searching for Xavier.’

He looked at me triumphantly. There was irony in his expression now, and scorn perhaps. ‘And who is Xavier?’

I saw this question as a betrayal, because I felt he was going back on a tacit agreement, that he ‘knew’ who Xavier was and shouldn’t have had to ask me. And I didn’t want to tell him, I felt that too.

‘Xavier is my brother,’ I lied.

He laughed cruelly and pointed his forefinger at me. ‘Xavier doesn’t exist,’ he said. ‘He’s nothing but a ghost.’ He made a gesture that took in the whole room. ‘We are all dead, haven’t you realised that yet? I am dead, and this city is dead, and the battles, the sweat, the blood, the glory and my power, all dead, all utterly in vain.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘there is always something survives.’

‘What?’ he demanded. ‘His memory? Your memory? These books?’

He took a step toward me and I was swept by a great sense of horror, because I already knew what he was about to do, I don’t know how, but I already knew. With his boot he kicked a little bundle that lay at his feet, and I saw it was a dead mouse. He shifted the creature across the floor and grunted with derision: ‘Or this mouse?’ He laughed again and his laughter froze my blood. ‘I am the Pied Piper of Hamelin!’ he cried. Then his voice became friendly, called me professor and said: ‘I’m sorry if I woke you.’

‘I’m sorry if I woke you,’ said Father Pimentel.

He was a man of about fifty with a solid build and a frank manner. He held out his hand and I got up, confused.

‘Oh, thank you,’ I said, ‘I was having a bad dream.’

He sat on the small armchair near mine and made a reassuring gesture. ‘I got your letter,’ he said. ‘The archives are at your disposal, you can stay as long as you like. I imagine you’ll be sleeping here this evening, I’ve prepared a room for you.’ Theotónio came in with a tray of tea and a cake that looked like pão de ló.

‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘your hospitality is most kind. But I won’t be stopping this evening, I’m going on to Calangute, I’ve hired a car. I want to try and find out something about somebody. I’ll be back in a few days’ time.’

Another thing that can happen to one in the course of a lifetime is to spend a night in the Hotel Zuari. At the time it may not seem a particularly happy adventure; but in the memory, as always with memories, refined of immediate physical sensations, of smells, colour, and the sight of a certain little beasty beneath the washbasin, the experience takes on a vagueness which improves the overall image. Past reality never seems quite as bad as it really was: the memory is a formidable falsifier. Distortions creep in, even when you don’t want them to. Hotels like this already populate our fantasy: we have already come across them in the books of Conrad or Somerset Maugham, in the occasional American film based on the novels of Kipling or Bromfield: they seem almost familiar.

I arrived at the Hotel Zuari late in the evening and I had no choice but to stay there, as is often the way in India. Vasco da Gama is a small town in the State of Goa, an exceptionally ugly, dark town with cows wandering about the streets and poor people wearing Western clothes, an inheritance of the Portuguese period; it thus has all the misery without the mystery. Beggars abound, but there are no temples or sacred places here, and the beggars don’t beg in the name of Vishnù, nor lavish benedictions and religious formulas on you: they are taciturn and dazed, as if dead.

In the lobby of the Hotel Zuari there is a semi-circular reception desk behind which stands a fat male receptionist who is forever talking on the telephone. He books you in, talking on the telephone; still talking on the telephone he gives you the keys; and at dawn, when the first light tells you you can finally dispense with the hospitality of your room, you will find him talking on the telephone in a monotonous, low, indecipherable voice. Who is the receptionist of the Hotel Zuari talking to?