Antonio Tabucchi - Tristano Dies - A Life

Ferruccio said you mustn’t tell your dreams or you’ll give away your soul. I always paid attention to him, but with you, I don’t think that’s the case, you’ve come to hear my life, come all this way, dropped everything, you also deserve my dreams … I want to tell you about a beach, I don’t know if I just dreamed it or if I dreamed it over the years, but that’s all relative, I’ll tell you about it later, because I think I found a thread of logic, and I don’t want to lose it, it’s so tenuous … I don’t know how Frau holds on so tight. Imagine, since I’ve come back she’s resumed this ritual from when we were children, when she taught me German, with her Sunday poem … like it was yesterday and life hadn’t gone by in the meantime …

… And in the meantime the years went by, long years, all the same, the same bombs year after year, on trains, in piazzas, in banks … I’m skipping ahead, I’m already getting to the end, I want to be there already, though I can’t get much closer than this … and it’s all the same, like I was saying, trials all the same, defendants all the same, in the sense that there weren’t any — defendants — there were trials but no defendants, strange, right? — in a democracy what’s important is what’s on the outside, what’s on the inside doesn’t matter in the least, it’s the ritual that counts, and if there aren’t any defendants, well, who gives a shit?… everything exactly the same, all the same smiles, oh, all the same enormous smiles around that table of world powers where we were told we had a seat … all of them, puffed up like roosters, spouses at their sides, because this was the stuff of ceremony, no joke, extremely selective places, embassies, delegations, homes, estates … especially estates, with this minister and that and heads of state and prelates and entrepreneurs and special correspondents and direct envoys, Sunday and every other day, and the banquets … first-rate, delicious, and hanged bankers or bankers to hang, and poisoned bankers or bankers to poison, and some terrorist monks, every once in a while, a nice big crack, crr-aack, and so-called civilization advanced some more, chipping away with its tiny teeth, like a stubborn creature inside the oak, crr-aack, my god what a century, said the rats, gnawing at the framework … that’s what Tristano was thinking, delirious, maybe, but like I told you, I’m getting toward the end, and it isn’t right to end here, otherwise why’d I call for you, just to write the end? But the fact is, when Tristano and Daphne returned, after everything that had happened, he started watching the years go by from his little Malafrasca, the name he’d given to this hill where the olive trees were turning yellow and the vineyard had grown infested … sometimes he thought he was the one who’d brought the phylloxera to the vineyard, he confessed to Daphne … don’t be so hard on yourself, she whispered, coming close, while Tristano, a lost look in his eyes, stared off over the plains, to the sun dying on the horizon, and she caressed his neck, like she was stroking the keys on her piano, don’t think about your fine wine and extra-virgin olive oil — it was a wonderful idea, that farm you wanted so long ago, those ideas you had were all wonderful, but they weren’t for you, they weren’t important, not really, our books are what’s important, our Hypnos Pages, they were your real dream, and now they exist, and they’ll live on, you left our boy the land, you loved it vicariously, you wanted someone to love it in your stead because you were born here, grew up here, that’s understandable, you wanted it to go on, but life was bitter and the branch broke, still, you’ve got your Daphne here with you, stop thinking about these vineyards and these olives … But Tristano wasn’t thinking about the land; he was looking past the crowns of the trees with their suffering olives, he was looking toward the horizon and thinking of this country that he’d picked up a rifle for, wondering if it had been worth it, and his eyes wandered, settled on a canvas director’s chair that Daphne had given him as a joke one year for his birthday, and on the back of the chair she’d used a marker to write the Scarlett O’Hara line, after all, tomorrow is another day, so he wouldn’t be the director of a bitter wide-screen film as seen from the porch, but he thought, after all, some things in life are worth the effort, if the spirit’s not suffering from the rickets; you have to fight off the rickets on certain days, when the spring seems to have dried up, because then all at once the water will start to spout, you weren’t expecting it at all and there it is, so beautiful, gushing cold water, surrounding you, reviving you, sweeping you along, where did that karstic river come from, with the plains so dry, what twists and turns did that river have to make below ground before reaching you and telling you that after all, tomorrow is another day? But in the meantime he was staring off at the plains, which in cinemascope were so fertile and to him looked so dry, the land, the vineyards, and the industrial farms, and those still owned by families, lands as far as the eye could see, mostly owned now by Germans and Americans, with the occasional exception for some local aristocrat, to keep up tradition, or pretend to, and the most annoying were the Pontormos, not so much for their fine wine, which was a farce, anyway, he thought, but because they’d stolen the portrait of his favorite painter for their label and made a pop version of it, in the style of that sinister-looking American painter … But now I’m rambling, and this stuff isn’t very interesting, if you really think about it, nothing here is all that interesting, except maybe one thing, meaning, the riddle, only maybe I don’t feel like telling you the riddle, when I think about it, you’ve told the riddle of Tristano better than I ever could, it’s all so clear in your book, why should I interrupt the sermon?… Anyway, I’m tired now, and you must be tired, too; I think I’ll take a little nap, maybe I’ll call you in later with this bell I had installed, rings all over the house, this room, too — want to hear it? — it croaks, sounds like a toad — not on purpose — that’s just a coincidence, the electrician told me it’s because he dropped the celluloid amplifier, and it cracked … you made Frau give you a nice room, right? like I told you, don’t take her first offer, ask to switch, she never gives anyone the best room right away, not out of spite, it’s just her nature, I think there’s a big fly, can you hear it, too, or is that just my own ears buzzing?

Badum badum, badum badum, elle avait des yeux des yeux d’opale qui me fascinaient, qui me fascinaient, il y avait l’ovale de son visage pâle de femme fatale qui me fut fatal … you hear the little birds, how they’re chirping? — today I’m chirping, too, I’m feeling cheerful, it’s cooler out, you can feel it, the wind’s up, on s’est connu, on s’est reconnu, on s’est perdu de vue, on s’est reperdu de vue, on s’est retrouvé, on s’est réchauffé, puis on s’est séparé … Days like this, writer, you should head to this beach I know, take off your shirt that’s whipping around you, it’s the first Libeccio wind of the season, not too strong yet, gusts ruffling your hair, a few short steps from the pine woods, and you’re on the sandy shore, your face moist with the salt water, you can lick your lips, they taste of … the sun so strong, oh, the longing, you feel it in your groin, it aches, so hot, everything burning, the sun, the sand, your gut, the beach is deserted — where is she?… Je me suis réveillé en sentant ses baisers sur mon front brûlant, ses baisers sur mon front brûlant , badum, badum … you look to the horizon, squint your eyes against the sun, not a soul in sight, take off your clothes, go on, leave them on the shore — Giuditta! You call out to her, the pine trees answer back — Giudittaaa! It’s me, Giuditta! It’s me, Giuditta! I want you, Giuditta! I want you, Giudittaaa!.. on s’est connu, on s’est reconnu, on s’est perdu de vue, on s’est reperdu de vue, on s’est séparé, puis on s’est réchauffé , badum badum, badum badum, chacun pour soi est riparti dans le tourbillon de la vie , badum badum … your testicles are small and hard like two walnuts, stupid, useless testicles, and meanwhile he’s hard as a club — Giuditta! — you feel like dancing, you spread wide your arms … je l’ai revue, un soir la-la-la, elle est retombée dans mes bras, elle est retombée dans mes bras … that dance floor of a beach so huge, in your arms once more, back in your arms, and now you’re dancing and she’s dancing with you, silly girl, you’re here finally, I couldn’t take it anymore, I really couldn’t take it, it’s been like that for an hour, it hurts almost, I couldn’t take it anymore, let’s go up to that mountain village, to Sassète, she says, the pistou festival’s going on right now, I don’t give a damn about pistou, you say, let’s go into the beach hut, the shed in the shade, the shaded shed, badum badum, but was that beach really in Provence? — what do you think, writer — was it a beach in Provence?… maybe yes, maybe no, I could be wrong, it doesn’t matter, today I’m cheerful as a little bird, you hear the birds chirping? Meanwhile, they go inside the beach hut, they don’t even need to lay out a towel, the sand’s a little warm, but it’s cool inside the shed, oh, Cary, Cary, she says. She hugs you. You kill me, Cary. Silly Giuditta, what were you doing someplace else? — why were you so late coming back?… on s’est connu, on s’est reconnu … such a silly Giuditta — and why are you calling me Cary? I’m not Cary, Cary was your uncle. Oh, yeah, that’s right, Clark, you always wanted to be called Tristano, yes, like that, Tristano, enough, no, yes, keep going, badum badum, badum badum, quand on s’est connu, quand on s’est reconnu, pourquoi se perdre de vue? et quand on s’est retrouvé, quand on s’est réchauffé, pourquoi se séparer?… Do you know why, writer? You don’t and I don’t, either, how could you know, when you don’t know anything about Tristano, but you know what? — I feel it here, right here, the same urgency from that day — right here, where I’m being eaten away by gangrene, yes, right here in the groin, the same desire I felt back then … do you think that’s crazy? You must think that’s crazy, but it’s not — right here — the same desire I felt back then, just the same, though as for the rest, there’s nothing left, that’s all been extinguished along with my dead flesh, but the same desire’s still there … the desire’s remained while the flesh is gone, you couldn’t possibly understand, how could you understand, you, what do you know, you, about someone else’s body, about my body?