I came. It’s true, he said, Mavri, my love, the wheat’s been threshed and the sheaves are yellowing in the fields, but it’s never too late to revive the stalks. Saying this, he lifted his shroud, she was very close now and with his head bowed, he whispered, do you see? – my leg’s being devoured by gangrene, the flesh is rotten and the worm is in the fruit; it’s so bad, the worm is in the fruit. He was naked, with just a kerchief around his neck like the reapers wear in the field. Tristano, she said, I can still see your cock, so you’re not completely rotten yet, maybe there’s still a little time. Daphne, he said, how notarial our life is, I’m here in
articulo mortis
. Well, I like you all the same, she said, even if your legs are full of maggots: your trunk is healthy, and that is where your heart is beating. Then they lay down, and the countryside around them turned into a hot, wide-open plain; over the hills the orange light of the setting sun sent the shadow of the Ionic temple all the way down to Daphne’s belly. You know, Daphne, he said, I forgot about backlighting, about the candle I always kept lit in a house on the shore, and one night you walked by in the frame of the window as though you were walking on air, that’s the most important memory of my whole life, and I was about to forget it, do you remember that house we once lived in, the empty rooms, the piano on the ground floor, the sound of the surf, the smell of algae that I called the smell of aldae because the woman who came to clean for us was named Alda? Shedidn’t answer, her breath came rushing in his ear, like panting, here I am, she breathed like she did at certain moments, here I am, Tristano, hold me tight, and just then the beacon light came on from down the coast, the plain was dark by then, but luckily the beacon light was on, and there was nothing to be afraid of.
… Do you know that poem where a mother dressed in black is crying over the body of her son killed in the square? Or did I already ask you? Frau read it to me the other day … you left one morning in May, it goes, and now the fountain is dry, I wish you water forever … and then it goes on to say that she unties her white hair and covers that withered flower of a face … half past midnight, the hours go by quickly, even if it isn’t half past midnight, that’s what I’m guessing, Frau turned on the lamp at nine, I’ve been here, not moving, not talking, and who would I talk to? – I’m alone in this house now … did you notice how nicely that poem works for me?… seems like it was written just for me, like the writer knew … but it’s not true that I don’t have anyone now, I can talk to you, even if all you do is listen, that’s something, that’s plenty … Thank you.
Writer, you see how I go back and forth in time, I wander, can’t tell now from then, can’t separate the two, which brings Papee to mind – but who was Papee? – did I ever meet him? Maybe he was a character in some novel I read once, a nice boywho fought for his country’s freedom, Burundi, or somewhere like that, and the memory sweeps everything along with it, into the same water, but you have an advantage: I’m teaching you that a clock’s time doesn’t run at the same pace as a lifetime, and any time you’ll have to discuss this, you can say you learned it from an old man about to croak who went back and forth in time as he pleased, and there will be those who think this is a trick of some kind, because they don’t care if they understand, they’ll think it’s all a trick, and that memory … There are so few memories remaining to us, writer: Caesar’s commentaries, Augustine’s confessions, certain
de profundis
, like Molly’s, a
de profundis
of the womb, though a man wrote it, and mine too is a
de profundis
… you know, writer, I’d really like to have a womb, to be a woman now, a beautiful, ripe young woman, the sap circulating in my body,
articulo mortis
. Well, I like you all the same, she said, even if your legs are full of maggots: your trunk is healthy, and that is where your heart is beating. Then they lay down, and the countryside around them turned into a hot, wide-open plain; over the hills the orange light of the setting sun sent the shadow of the Ionic temple all the way down to Daphne’s belly. You know, Daphne, he said, I forgot about backlighting, about the candle I always kept lit in a house on the shore, and one night you walked by in the frame of the window as though you were walking on air, that’s the most important memory of my whole life, and I was about to forget it, do you remember that house we once lived in, the empty rooms, the piano on the ground floor, the sound of the surf, the smell of algae that I called the smell of aldae because the woman who came to clean for us was named Alda? Shedidn’t answer, her breath came rushing in his ear, like panting, here I am, she breathed like she did at certain moments, here I am, Tristano, hold me tight, and just then the beacon light came on from down the coast, the plain was dark by then, but luckily the beacon light was on, and there was nothing to be afraid of.
… Do you know that poem where a mother dressed in black is crying over the body of her son killed in the square? Or did I already ask you? Frau read it to me the other day … you left one morning in May, it goes, and now the fountain is dry, I wish you water forever … and then it goes on to say that she unties her white hair and covers that withered flower of a face … half past midnight, the hours go by quickly, even if it isn’t half past midnight, that’s what I’m guessing, Frau turned on the lamp at nine, I’ve been here, not moving, not talking, and who would I talk to? – I’m alone in this house now … did you notice how nicely that poem works for me?… seems like it was written just for me, like the writer knew … but it’s not true that I don’t have anyone now, I can talk to you, even if all you do is listen, that’s something, that’s plenty … Thank you.
Writer, you see how I go back and forth in time, I wander, can’t tell now from then, can’t separate the two, which brings Papee to mind – but who was Papee? – did I ever meet him? Maybe he was a character in some novel I read once, a nice boywho fought for his country’s freedom, Burundi, or somewhere like that, and the memory sweeps everything along with it, into the same water, but you have an advantage: I’m teaching you that a clock’s time doesn’t run at the same pace as a lifetime, and any time you’ll have to discuss this, you can say you learned it from an old man about to croak who went back and forth in time as he pleased, and there will be those who think this is a trick of some kind, because they don’t care if they understand, they’ll think it’s all a trick, and that memory … There are so few memories remaining to us, writer: Caesar’s commentaries, Augustine’s confessions, certain
de profundis
, like Molly’s, a
de profundis
of the womb, though a man wrote it, and mine too is a
de profundis
… you know, writer, I’d really like to have a womb, to be a woman now, a beautiful, ripe young woman, the sap circulating in my body,
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