Tristano Dies (4 page)

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?

… What day is it? No, I’m not dead yet, my eyes were closed but I’m not dead yet, you’ll have to be patient … Today I’m feeling clear-headed, my fever must be down, no more nightmares. Have I told you some of my nightmares? If I have, don’t throw anything away, everything remains in a life, especially a hero’s life, even nightmares … I’m wheezing a little, you hear it?, when I breathe, there’s a whistling in my throat, but don’t worry, today’s not the day, this thing’s going to take a while, you’ll just have to be patient, like me. What day is it? Let me know when it’s August tenth, don’t forget, but maybe the tenth’s already past. I’ve slept so much, I must have slept so much. But maybe not … sometimes years can go by in a single minute of sleep … Frau’s being stingy with the morphine, the bitch … or maybe she thinks the injections hurt, poor thing … At times, memories seem like gelatin, everything seems melded together, boneless,
melting, you see a face … stop, you say, got you, you silly girl, don’t you know me? – it’s me – can’t you tell? – it’s me, wait a second … she’s smiling at you … Ah, now you know me, you say, but she’s sneering at you, nah nah, cutie pie, and she winks … her eyelashes, so long, and that malicious smile of hers is just the same, but the mouth’s different, how strange, and her face, too, like warm wax molding itself over, into a different face now. And this one, what does he want? Ah, it’s Sirio, you recognize him, it’s Sirio, who died of ass cancer … but Sirio’s only there a second, now it’s Cary, that American commander who was with you in the mountains, you can see him so clearly, Tristano, too, you can see him like he’s someone else, when he was Commander Clark, deep down they were the same person, united by skin, twin brothers, they called him that because he looked like a movie star from back then, with that stray wisp of hair, shiny with brilliantine, on his forehead, the only thing missing was the pencil mustache. And on that day, that pale morning, at dawn, he’s waiting, hiding behind the boulder, he has his submachine gun aimed and ready, but he’s smiling like he’s got a joke for you … and you smile back; it’s strange ending up like this, after all this time, and he’s still there, in that same place, on that pale dawn. Maybe he never moved at all? Maybe. Men don’t move, they stay put, entranced in fixed moments, only they don’t realize this; we think that there’s a steady, evaporating flow, but no: somewhere out there is a fixed moment, a frozen gesture, as if everything’s under a spell, a photograph without a plate, without a negative. You have to know it to see it, but I’m telling you, it’s there.

… So anyway, here’s how it went: he saw her from a distance in the meadow, she was outside the farmhouse, turned away from him, and he set down the telescope he was carrying – he hadn’t brought a weapon into the mountains. It was a miracle. She was wearing boots, a pair of knee-length leather shorts, and had a submachine gun over her shoulder, the gun barrel poking into her loose dark hair. He started trembling. From surprise, emotion, something I can’t describe, a flame bursting in his chest, temples pounding. Daphne! he called. She didn’t turn around. She was talking with someone, looked like a soldier in a Savoy uniform. Daphne! he called again and started running. She heard, turned around, gripping her gun. She stared at him, surprised, intense blue eyes slightly scornful, maybe because she was a little nearsighted. My name is Marilyn, she said. What do you want? She couldn’t have been more than twenty, but she spoke like someone accustomed to being in charge. I’m new, he stammered, I was in Greece. I work with the allies’ contacts, she said. I’m American. You can call me Captain – Captain Mary. Rosamunda suits you better, he said. Cut it out, she said. Who’s Rosamunda? A piece by Schubert, he said.

Frau wanted to put the pendulum clock on the nightstand for me – at least then you’ll know the time, she says, just turn your head, and you’ll be less confused during the day – you’re
always asking the time. I told her the tick tock was annoying, but she just won’t quit. No one can hear it when it’s under that glass bell, she says, not even someone with tuberculosis. Someone with tuberculosis, no, but me, yes, I hear everything … I can hear a worm gnawing inside the wardrobe, it’s unbearable, like a voice in a cave … the wardrobe’s chestnut, worms like chestnut wood, and the more seasoned, the better, I know all about these worms … that’s exactly what I told her, I know all about these worms, Renate, go on, take a look at my leg … and I know all about these sounds, too, I’ve got a direct line to down below, I’m hooked in, I can hear the ants crawling on little hair feet. You’re getting too much morphine, she snaps – ants, nothing – this is your third injection today, but if the clock on the nightstand’s annoying, then you’ll just have to be patient: now that you have someone here listening to you all day long, you can ask him what time it is – I’m too busy. Too busy … what she’s so busy with is a mystery, Agostino’s wife does the housework, we get our supplies delivered … what she’s so busy with is giving orders to anyone in reach. Does she order you around, too? Anyway, if I’m disoriented during the day, it’s better at night, there’s a plane – I don’t know if you’ve heard it yet – maybe not – you must be asleep at midnight, and it’s pretty high up, it sounds so far away, it’s the midnight plane, that’s what I call it … it’s punctual, maybe just slightly late at times, not much, it strikes midnight better than that stupid clock that doesn’t chime anymore, that just goes tick tock … you can see it from your bedroom window, but you have to wait for it: if you hear it, it’s already passed over, you’ll see it,
two small blue parallel lights … that plane’s been passing over for at least ten years now, I first noticed it the same evening we came back to this house, we were exhausted when we got here, you know, we’d set out that August afternoon from a small square in Plaka where Daphne as a joke had started floating overhead by an orange tree, while I begged her not to make me go alone, and so we set off on our journey … that night I couldn’t sleep, which happens when you’re too tired, I was at the window, you know how it is, a cigarette … That plane comes from the South and heads west, and when it’s overhead, just over the house, it turns for the coast … and then he’s over the sea … I can see him, he’s over Sardinia, a traveler who probably sees the lights below from his small window and asks himself who’s living in those lights, who’s down there, in that house, that village … it’s impossible to know, just like I don’t know who this traveler is who’s asking himself this, and yet we’re both imagining this, he and I, and not knowing who we are, we’ve thought the same thing … and there he is, over Spain … maybe he’ll even pass over Pancuervo, and in Pancuervo there’ll be someone awake at midnight, staring up at that plane … and finally, over Portugal … and then it’s the ocean, oh, it’s true, there’s nothing else for it, dear boy, you have to cross the Atlantic … and all at once you’re in America, because you can reach America quickly by plane. America … My father always dreamed of going to America, my grandfather would tell me this, that my father thought he could continue his research there, in America, he could become a world-famous biologist … America … The America my father dreamed of must have been
so beautiful! He knew everything about the plains, about the Seminole Indians, Benjamin Franklin, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Whitman, the Empire State Building, the music … my grandfather told me about this, too, how no one here appreciated that music, they thought it was awful, this negro music … idiots … but my father had a phonograph, and he had records shipped directly from America … it was my grandfather who taught me to love that music, after my father died, by that time, I’d lost interest in my grandfather’s Garibaldi sword, and so he had to invent a new Sunday-morning game: you’d tiptoe into my father’s study, as if he were in there, eye glued to his microscope and couldn’t be disturbed, and then my grandfather would put on a record of someone playing the trumpet, and he’d grow very animated, twirl his white mustache to the beat, listen to him, he’d say, listen to him blow that horn, how alive it is, breath is life, kid, in the beginning was the word, and the priests, I don’t know who they think they are, but the word is breath, kid, it’s only breathing … life, you’ve got to love life and always enjoy it – remember that – the fascists are the ones who enjoy death … Writer, if you check in the library, next to the table under the window, you’ll find my grandfather’s telescope and my father’s microscope … How strange, think about it, my father studied lives up close with a microscope, my grandfather searched for other distant lives with his telescope, and both of them used lenses. But you discover life with the naked eye, not from a distance, not too close, just at eye level … My father loved New York so much, and he died before he got there … I wanted to see New York,
too, but I never did, it never worked out. Have you been there, to New York? – what am I saying – in your world, who hasn’t been to New York … You know, I’d really love to take that plane I was telling you about, one of these nights, maybe so, maybe so … Sorry, what was I saying? – I’m all over the place – maybe I was sleeping, you start talking nonsense when you’re nodding off, maybe we’ll pick this up later, it seems late now … You think I could have a smoke, just two puffs, and maybe Frau wouldn’t notice? At least open the shutters – it’s so damned hot.

Word is, you’ve never wanted to go on pippopippi. I’m glad, good for you, it’s always so full of windbags who are on there just to show off how much they know, what everybody likes this year, if that government official’s a good dresser or bad, if it would be better to vote a little this way or that, what’s going to happen with that hole in the ozone, or what if the world were square, you never know … who knows how many times you were invited on, especially after that prize you won in the States for your novel, that’s typical: they won’t even look at you, but win something in the States, and you’re a star, and there’s no escaping pippopippi … in your novel, you really make Tristano out to be a hero, but he’s afraid, too, and this I liked, heroes are afraid, the simpletons might not know that, but he overcomes his fear … there’s another twist, though – and here you’ve done something really clever – because maybe he’s managed to overcome his fear because his fear is overpowering?… 
in short, the hero overcomes fear because fear overcomes him. You didn’t quite get it right, but the idea’s intriguing … You’re a complicated guy – no one writes a book like that and lets pippopippi get the better of him … you’re also something of a senator – excuse me for that – what I mean is, you have this severe manner about you that you’ve done a good job of cultivating; when I imagined you, it was always in a white toga, like some Roman senator, a bit like Seneca, if I may, also considering your writing style, but maybe Seneca wasn’t a senator, I’m not sure … But listen, isn’t not going on pippopippi like going on, anyway? Sorry to be tricky here, but this way, everyone’s talking about your refusing to go on pippopippi, you’re on everybody’s lips, so in the end, not going on is like you went on … because pippopippi’s horrific, my dear writer, go on, don’t go on, either way, you’re fucked – that ever occur to you? I heard what they said about you on that pippopippi show Frau likes to call Tube Flush. I’m extremely informed about that thing over there even if I don’t watch it, Frau keeps me posted. Last month, when I was first bedridden, she shows up at the door and says, young sir, tonight on Tube Flush they talked about that writer you were reading yesterday. Get to the point, Renate, I say. Well, today’s program was, Having the Courage to Change Your Mind, and the host introduces his guests and says in his syrupy voice, we also invited a famous author on who wrote a prize-winning novel about courage, but unfortunately he declined our invitation, we can only hope he wasn’t too frightened to be on our program, oh famous writer … we’re waiting for you … see how nice we
are? – let’s be brave now … Okay, Renate, I get it, and – ? Well, aren’t you the one who said you needed someone to come listen to you and that he had to be a writer? But before I could answer, she shut the door again …