Antonio Tabucchi - Tristano Dies - A Life

Pancuervo! Pancuervo! he started screaming one day. Frau rushed to his study: he seemed to be dozing in his chair, a branch from the cherry tree was coming through the open window beside him. It was the end of May, the cherries were bright red, he leaped to his feet and screamed out the window, at the fields, Pancuervo! Frau stood very still, petrified, he stepped onto the sunny terrace, raced down the stone steps, and started dancing round the cherry tree, grasping the trunk now and then, tugging, as if he wanted to pull the tree up by the roots, kicking his legs high like a wild man of the forest, screaming, cherry pink and apple blossom white!.. Frau had followed behind him and stood there, terrified, while he danced crazily and sang these strange words, and she thought he was having some kind of fit, poor Frau, she was petrified, stood absolutely still, even when he raced off to the fields, still screaming, Pancuervooo! Pancuervooo!.. It wasn’t some kind of fit, it was that he understood, he suddenly understood, a flash of lightning come too late, that it all began in Pancuervo many years before, that there, at the end of the line from his boy exploding, sat Pancuervo, that’s where he had to look, Pancuervo … But did Pancuervo really exist?… The train pulled in, then pulled away, but he hadn’t climbed on board, he’d stayed put in a remote little station in Castile, staring off at the rolling hills, barren and strange, hills like white elephants.

… I was just drowsing a little and something popped into my head … why are you doing all this? I mean, you put up with my rotten moods, and everything else … in my opinion you’re a tricky devil, no offense, and maybe you don’t even realize it … well … you’re awfully patient … so that phrase popped into my head, tricky devil … don’t be offended, I’m a jerk, no, I’m a jailed jerk, blame it on this gangrene that’s eating me alive, I think it’s got my balls by now, do me a favor, get me that menthol talcum powder on the dresser … sorry to be so intimate, but I’ve been telling you such private things, we’re pretty close at this point … I notice you come rushing in at the ring-a-ling of my bell, no matter what time it is, even if it’s just to hear me say something mean to you, like right now … So, I guess Tristano’s life really must matter to you, huh?

The Abderites insisted that Tristano was raving mad, and I told you he was crazy, too, but the truth is, he just arrived too early … early arrivals always seem crazy, they’re fated to be Cassandras, they might just be little nothing Cassandras, but nothing Creons are still scared of them, that’s why they invented asylums, places to stuff those harmless Cassandras, while the dangerous people are on the outside, and they’re the ones in charge … You know what’s going to happen, writer?… I’ll tell you what Tristano thought after he figured out pippopippi’s true nature, because now it’s all coming to pass … pippopippi, with the solemn goal of obliterating from the mind any thought that might be harmful to him, to pippopippi, will slowly expunge all images carrying even the slightest trace of thought from all his glass boxes, until you’re all completely weaned, and anything with any sign of meaning will have completely disappeared, because the image itself, even the most paltry, wretched, repulsive image — like the ones they dish up to you every night — can lead to a thought, and thoughts are dangerous … and so you all will simply stare at the light, at the trembling electric lines, the crackling dots of light, where you’ll lose your thoughts, and the shipwreck will be sweet for you in that shimmering … a modern nirvana? maybe the fateful mu, finally attained, that Buddhism speaks of. That’s what awaits you tomorrow, writer, because after all, as Scarlett said, tomorrow is another day, I can see you all there, at night, gathered in your carpeted caves, fixated on your electric fire, all of you together murmuring muuuu … and on the hearth I lay my war cross, that piece of junk, because he shall be the lord your god, and you shall have no other gods before him … not that the electric fires in other countries will be so different from yours, to each according to his due … I say your country because mine’s almost gone … I’m already more there than here, my feet practically swinging in the air, I’m stateless, I don’t belong to anyone, my passport’s useless for the customs I have to get through, and there’s no one who can grab hold of my feet and pull me down from the orange tree, like Tristano did for his Daphne, that I can assure you.

… as I was saying, letters started arriving. No — voices — they arrived in the form of voices, even if he saw them as written, he could read each and every one of them written in the air, all with different handwriting, because each voice had its own handwriting, the timbre of the writing, each had its own tone, its own inflection, the color of the voice sending the letter. Doctor Ziegler had told him this sort of thing sometimes happened … sounds turned to colors, a type of aura … even the ink varied in color, with all shades of the color spectrum, mostly black, but also white on black sometimes, and yellows, and oranges like a summer sunset … reds … a few blues … a great many greens, all kinds of green, bottle-green, flag-green, Verona-green, and especially blister-green verging on brownish yellow. That green entered his auricle like a hiss, a green carried by the sound of sssssssssss … hissing, snaking letters, the green whistling in his ears turning magically bitter on his tongue, like chewing on a thistle. He called that green bitter-green. And he received numerous letters every day, ten, twenty, more, even at night, he’d finally fall asleep, after a great deal of effort, he might not even dream, he’d turn off like a radio turned off, no reception … actually he fooled himself into thinking he’d shut off all contact, over and out, but no, he might be over but he wasn’t out … the thing would start with a sizzle, I’m not sure how to describe it, like when you twist the radio dial and there’s a crackling, and he’d wake up, hoist his head off the pillows, frozen in the dark room, a letter was arriving, that strange mailman was ringing, the doorbell insisting, sizzling in the dark, as though they’d laid his ear on a red-hot grill, shssss shssss shssss, and they weren’t all written in black or bitter-green ink, maybe some were in blue, even a sky blue, a blur of childhood and lost memories … Dear Ninototo, you scratched Ninototo Ninototo all over the walls of the stable with a piece of coal, and I found that amusing, because no one taught you how to write, so you learned it on your own, but this morning, I found this same writing on the wall to the farm, and along with it, words I never heard you say, and I had to call Amilcare, and it took two buckets of lime to cover all that writing, all those words, my dear boy, you mustn’t write these things, because they shock peasants like Amilcare, on Sundays they go to mass, and the priest will scold them if they say these words, and finding them written here has an impact, these peasants are respectful, they believe in god, and we must let them believe in god, so you may only say these words to Nonno when we’re together, otherwise Nonno won’t take you to the town fair again for the San Giovanni Festival, like we did last year, is that clear, Ninototo?… His grandfather’s voice was written in blue. His grandfather kept a red shirt hanging in his wardrobe because he’d been in Garibaldi’s army, and there was a saber leaning against the red shirt that Ninototo saw on Saturday afternoons when he was allowed in his grandfather’s room. But even with that red shirt, his grandfather’s voice was sky-blue and Tristano, head hoisted off the pillows, completely awake at this point, frightened, would clearly see that blue voice in the dark. Nonno, he’d say into the darkness, why’d you wake me? — I was just falling asleep, I can barely sleep these days, listen, Nonno, that was so long ago, I don’t remember anymore, so much time has passed, Nonno, I’m as old as you — no, older — please, Nonno, rest in peace and let me rest, too, but what’s gotten into you, sending me a letter just now, I worked so hard to fall asleep, you know, I’m all alone now, I don’t have anyone anymore, that boy I loved like a son brought death with him … so gentle, so quiet, how’s that even possible?… Nonno, what I did back then was wrong, I know why you’re scolding me, but are you trying to tell me what I did as a grownup was wrong, too, is that why you’re writing me, Nonno?