Necropolis (51 page)

I thought of Ferenck Oslovski, trapped deep in a well. That was how it had been in the hall, although now we were about to leave, and, of course, we did not have the slightest idea of what awaited us in the lobby and the other floors. Outside, a war was raging, and it had finally reached us, in spite of all our words and theories about words. Even language had its limits. The barricade of language. Our refuge was as exposed as the rest of the city and our luxurious bedrooms might even now be in flames. I thought of my notes, but saw that I had them in the notebook and felt relieved. The check from Eve Studios was in my billfold. The rest might as well blow up.

With the return of the light, things became clear. Nobody had died, fortunately, but many were wounded. The most serious was a Norwegian poet, Sven Tellegar, who had suffered a heart attack; he was already under observation in the hotel's infirmary. Others had been hit, there were bruises and a few broken bones, but nothing really serious.

Rashid and I went out together and found out that three mortars had fallen in a cluster and hit floors nine and ten. A team of firefighters were at work in the left wing. I thought of Sabina Vedovelli's elegant suite, now reduced to rubble. I ought to take an interest in her fate, we had a contract and I would hate to have to give it back.

The management asked us to go down to the gym, like the previous night, but I decided to slip away. Rashid went out onto the street, saying that he was going with his family to Tira, his Arab town. The moment had come, and he knew how to get out. We hugged. I told him that I would go to see him before I went back to Rome, and he thanked me, but we both knew it was impossible.

On my way back to the coffee shop, I found Jessica in one of the wide corridors on the first floor. She was standing there looking at a tapestry on the wall, as calmly as if she were in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The tapestry depicted the destruction of Jerusalem as described in the prophecies of Jeremiah. The city in flames, gray creatures escaping from the smoke and destruction, an old man looking on with sorrow. I greeted her and she looked at me gravely; she had been crying, but I considered it impertinent to ask her the reason. There were reasons to spare. I'm surprised to see you here, I said, and she replied: I came to look for somebody who's already gone and could have said goodbye. Walter de la Salle? I ventured to ask. No, she said, he died many years ago, in the ashes of his house. You don't need to keep looking for him, that's the truth.

Then I asked her: was the person you were hoping to meet the guest in Room 1209? She shot me an angry look and just when I thought she was going to either burst into tears or hit me she said, yes, he was a kindred soul, a friend pure and simple, somebody who experienced what happened at the Ministry from a distance and decided to write a book about it; I met him in Miami, or rather, he came looking for me. He was the one who investigated and finally tracked down José, who had changed his name and had been invisible for years. I don't know how he tracked him down to this conference, but he decided to come and see him, and talk to him; as I was nearby, he suggested we meet here. He registered in the hotel under a false name, he didn't want to attract attention. His name is Mario Zambrano, although he signs his work Mario Simonides, he's a writer and journalist of Latin origin. It's a pity you never met him, he's a lot like you.

And don't you think he's coming back? I said. No, said Jessica. Mario is like José: always with his jacket on and a knapsack over his shoulder, ready to disappear, I know he won't come back. He spoke to José after his talk, told him I was here and wanted to see him. That day, I had to go straight back to Tel Aviv, but Mario told him I would come back when he wanted; José asked me to leave him a message to confirm that, and that was what I did. Then he killed himself.

Why did he kill himself? I asked. Jessica looked at her nails, scratched her forearms hard, and said, I'll tell you what I think: he killed himself because he didn't want to show his face, he wasn't capable of looking me in the eyes after what he had done, all the lies he had told; he killed himself out of cowardice. We're all of us cowards. Even Mario. All those who leave are cowards.

The ground shook and there was another violent explosion. Pieces of stucco fell from the ceiling. Jessica sought protection in my arms. A cascade of earth and rubble rained all around us. From outside came the clear sound of a siren. So I asked her, what do you mean when you say José hurt you? Jessica did not look at me, but clung tighter to me. Again she was crying. She took two steps back and looked around, as if trying to find a way out, so I said, I'm sorry, Jessica, I don't have a right to ask you these questions.

A smaller explosion shook a column, and as it fell it shattered. We had to either get out of there or take shelter in the basement.

Then Jessica said in a low voice, almost in my ear: José raped me on three occasions, I want you to know. I've never told anyone, but I think we're going to die here. He did it three times, three long and painful times, you know what that means for a woman? I took her hand and said, I can imagine, Jessica, now let's go, nobody's going to die today.

Wait, she said, wait a moment. Things weren't so simple. He raped me on three occasions, but there were other times when I consented, I was young, I felt terribly jealous, I loved and hated him at the same time. Those years are over and José is dead, Walter is also dead, and I'm dead too, anyway, that's all over; I've survived a world that doesn't exist anymore and has no place in this one; nothing of what we were then can be understood by anyone today, nobody believes in what we believed in; the things that were important to us provoke laughter or curiosity, do you understand? We're dead, we're all dead.

Two more explosions blew out the large windows of the terrace and a splinter lodged itself in my forearm. We ran to the door and found several hotel employees there. Among them was Momo, who said, come with me, sir, I can get you out of here, there's an airfield just outside the city and a Hercules plane to evacuate you, but we have to go now. I asked him to stay with Jessica and went down to the basement.

When I got there, I looked around at the various groups, but could not see Egiswanda. At the far end, on a bench, was Marta. I rushed to her and said, where were you? are you O.K.? She said yes, indifferently. She was worried about her laptop and wanted to go up to my room. I told her that was absurd, her newspaper would give her another one when she get back, but she said, I'm not going back, I've decided to stay, I was thinking of using your room until the end of the conference, if you don't mind, it's in your name, right? I looked her up and down. Are you crazy? I'm not crazy, she said, nothing too serious will happen to this building and I already brought all my things, my best clothes, my most daring underwear, do you forgive me for not coming to hear you this morning?

Another explosion shook the building, so I grabbed her hands and said: let's look for Egiswanda and get out of here, Momo's waiting outside to take us to a plane we can leave on, but she said: I'm staying, please don't insist. Her attitude exasperated me and I said, where's the sense in staying? you'll be in grave danger in return for very little; as far as I know, you haven't written a single line so far, about the conference or anything else, so what reason do you have to stay, apart from Amos, who's married and has a life he has no intention of giving up? I don't understand.

Marta moved to the wall and said, obviously Amos is part of my decision, but he isn't all of it, don't you see? don't you understand? Egiswanda's story was a great revelation. It filled me with questions, things like: would I be capable of giving up everything for something I believed in or for something I wanted without thinking about the risks? have I ever believed in anything or anybody intensely enough to do that? You'll say that's simplistic, but these are the questions I'm asking myself right now and they seem important to me, and I think most people ask themselves these questions all the time, in every foot of this overpopulated planet there's somebody asking themselves things like that, that's the truth of life, and I tell you something: if in your books you dealt with this subject and imagined answers, you'd be more successful, you'd increase your loyal readership, you'd be translated into Icelandic and I'd be able to read you, anyway, to go back to what I was saying, I'm staying in the city, I decided last night, while I was trying to sleep. I realized that I'd never believed in anything seriously and that's why I never made a radical commitment, not even to journalism, which to be honest I couldn't care less about, like almost everything right now except the questions I'm asking myself, which I want to answer and which have to do with the fact of being more or less European and white and being born in that rich protectorate that's the north of the world, where everything's arranged so that nothing ever shocks you, and where life ought really to disgust us.

That's what many of us feel: disgust or shame or uncontrollable anger. When I heard Egiswanda, I felt ridiculous, poor, disgustingly poor in spirit. I felt an infinite sadness, having it all and at the same time having nothing. It's contradictory, isn't it? The things that stifle me today are the result of wars and destruction and learned books and terrible peace treaties; many people have died so that we, the grandchildren of the century, can have what is crushing us today, as if we were on the verge of falling into a deep sleep, an opium sleep. Coming to a place like this is a way of waking up completely, opening your eyes and, once they are wide open, you can't let them close; beyond the borders of our beautiful countries there is a terrifying outside world filled with life, a black sun that stretches over a number of continents, only revealing its beauty after the first impact. What you see on the surface is horrible and cruel, but slowly the beauty emerges; in our world, on the other hand, the surface is lovely and everything is bright and shiny, but with time what we see is the horror. I don't want to go back to that opium dream that's our paradise of the north, I'm staying here, with real people and real problems, where everyone has to go up on the trapeze without a net and the struggle for existence is real and not a metaphor; I've found life here, I've understood the value of that miraculous, fragile thing called life and that's why I've developed an overwhelming desire to live it, to exhaust it to the last drop, what a miracle. This I discovered thanks to Amos, with his pink fingers and sweet penis; the best way to live life to the full is to take it to the limits, putting your face in its deepest depths, its edges, its caverns and ruined palaces, only that way will we keep our bodies hot and our heads boiling with dreams, I'm staying here and I'm in love with Amos, I love him with all my heart and with my vagina, both throb for him, my chest is bursting, I'm wetting my panties, everything is happening because of him.

That's fine, Marta, I understand you, I said, you'll be part of that smaller stream of contrary immigrants, those who go from the north and its wealth to lose themselves in the tropics or the deserts or the jungles of the south, you see, that demonstrates that paradise isn't in any one place and everyone paints it with the color of his own needs, because you have to be aware of the fact that this boring, predictable, overprotected life you curse is the dream of millions of poor Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans; the dream of all those who see their children die of typhoid or malaria in the slums of Khartoum or Dar Es Salaam, the young people who fall asleep in their rickshaws in broad daylight because of malnutrition in New Delhi; the dream of those who grow up without schools or health and have to make do later on with picking up a rifle or a package of drugs in Burma or Liberia or Colombia; the dream of those who, because of poverty, lose their humanity and are capable of cutting throats, decapitating, lopping off arms and legs, castrating. You want their smiles and their dances and their freshness and their contagious optimism and they want your schools and libraries, your hospitals, your thirty-five-hour weeks and your paid vacations, your labor laws and your human rights, and of course they also want the abundance and the glitter. You want their soul and they want your money. The difference is that they can't choose and you can. You can have both worlds just by wanting them. They can't. Their world is a prison from which they can only escape by knocking down a wall or jumping into the sea or digging tunnels as if they were rodents; you just have to buy an airline ticket, you don't even need a visa. To get what you despise, they risk their lives, you know what the fundamental difference is? that the rich can choose to be poor if they want, or pretend to be poor, but never the opposite. I was silent for a second and then said, what's going to happen to your articles?

Marta gave a weary gesture and slapped the air. I'll carry on writing, she said, but differently. Not to satisfy that daily appetite for the latest news, but writing non-topical articles, things the newspaper can give more of a spread when it's less rushed, and I said, surprised, I didn't know you were involved with news, I thought you were already doing non-topical articles, and she replied, I know, don't remind me, I was going to do articles but they had to be connected with current events, do you understand? the proceedings of the conference, the debates, after all, that was what they sent me here for, but being here I realized there was something more important and that's why I want to write real human-interest articles, something like Oriana Fallaci, do you know her? yes, I said, and she continued: a bit like that, but the truth of something that's being lived through real people, which here means all those linked to the war and its victims, not the biographies or the literature of the conference, and I'm really sorry if saying that offends you, but I'm convinced that what's important is happening outside, on the streets and on the walls protecting the city and not in these conference halls; it would be idle to devote my time to literary topics when half a mile away the destiny of one or several cities is being played out. The night I met Bryndis, my newspaper's war correspondent, meant a lot to me. Hearing her tell her stories of brave men who leaped into the fray, the courage with which they went on the attack and fell under the crossfire of the tracer bullets, hearing those really profound adventures, I felt empty, without anything to give her in return, and I realized that what was happening in the conference was only words, nothing more.