CHAPTER 20. The Voyage of the Argonauts
When I celebrated my sixteenth birthday, I had already been attending the Brera for some years. I got up every morning at half past five, went racing along the lakeside without drawing breath and, keeping an ear cocked for the train from Luino as it appeared and disappeared in and out of the tunnels, I took part in a daily competition to see which of us would reach the station first. I lost the race only once, because of a mêlée at the finishing line: it was pitch black and I did not notice a gas pipe placed across the road.
I often jumped onto the train when it was already moving: my travelling companions would cheer lustily, and if I managed to get a foot on the running board, they would grab hold of me and pull me into the carriage.
The train normally had five or six coaches. The second-class one was divided into eight-person compartments, while the rest of the compartments were third class, that is, they consisted of the one open space. The young people preferred this one since it allowed us to mix together in a squash of males and females, students, young office-workers and a few factory-hands. They all got on in small groups at various stations until the whole train was crowded.
With a few friends from the Valtravaglia, I took upon myself the role of story-teller, and there were others who sang to the accompaniment of guitars or accordions. At Caldè, a complete brass band would often get on: the two who played the flute and the slide-trombone were studying at the Conservatorio. The upshot was that our coach rejoiced in the nickname of the caravan de ciuch, the drunkards’ caravan.
Every so often I would desert that pandemonium and take refuge in another carriage to get on with some study, but I was not always successful. My companions would come looking for me, and often prevailed on me to tell them at least a couple of tales. At that time, my repertoire was somewhat limited, so to avoid repeating myself, I was obliged to invent more and more new adventures. I cast in a grotesque, ironical light famous historical enterprises, like the story of Garibaldi and the Thousand, when the boat remained moored at Quarto because three members of the expedition were missing. If we do not reach the full complement, we can’t depart, was the nervous comment of General Giuseppe Garibaldi, because we can’t really call it The Expedition of the Nine Hundred and Ninety-Seven. They decide to seize the first people who come along: two drunks, one called Nino Bixio and the other Santorre di Santarosa, and finally a man who had just escaped from the prison in Genoa.
It was in the same random way that there, in the third-class coach, other impossible tales, all pulled inside out, concerning Christopher Columbus, Ulysses and other epic heroes were conceived.
The Odyssey, in particular, became for me an inexhaustible storehouse of satirical, comic motifs. There was the dilemma of Ulysses, desperate to put to sea and get back home, and Poseidon on the look-out for him, peeping out from underwater in the belly of a whale. Poor aquatic pachyderm, forced to live open-mouthed, continually rocked by vomiting fits!
Right on cue, a storm rises and Ulysses is tossed onto another shore. There he is in the land of the Phaeacians, then in the arms of Nausicaa. When he gets on his way again, Poseidon pounds the calm sea with his hands, causing the waves to rise higher than the peak of Musadino. The ship breaks apart and this time the hero is thrown ashore on Aeaea, this time into the arms of Circe. He allows himself to be overwhelmed by passion and to get up to all manner of escapades with the greedy enchantress. His companions, meantime, transformed into filthy pigs, are bored and find their only enjoyment in watching Ulysses make a fool of himself with all his tawdry cavortings with that sow of a witch, Circe.
But it’s clear that Ulysses had never had the slightest intention of returning home. He was more than happy with his round of non-stop affairs. The idea of going back to stony Ithaca, to a wife who spent every moment of her time weaving cloth, and to a flee-ridden dog that was always between his feet did not attract him one little bit.
The truth of it was that it was he who went in search of storms to hold him back, so much so that before setting off from a coast, he would go out of his way to make sure that the god of the sea was wide awake and in a bad temper with him. Indeed, when he realises that Poseidon is getting fed up with persecuting him, what does he do? He deliberately lands on the island of the Cyclops and upsets Polyphemus, who just happens to be Poseidon’s son, gets him drunk and sticks a flaming stake into his one eye. What a swine he was, this Ulysses! You could have wagered that the boy’s father, god of the depths, was bound to unleash every giant wave he could. But whichever way you look at it, is it conceivable that a skilled master seaman like Ulysses would have taken ten years to get away from the coasts of Sicily?
Ah yes, because, look at it this way, that was the island he was always manoeuvring around. He sailed close to every cliff, went up every inlet thereabouts and perhaps touched Tunisia, but only briefly.
When he returned to Ithaca it was only by accident. He was convinced he was on Zacynthus! ‘Damnation, here I am back home!’ To avoid being recognised, he dressed up as a tramp, but the mongrel went and recognised him, so he gave him a such a kick that he killed him. ‘Papa, Papa!’ exclaimed Telemachus, all sure of himself. Only Ulysses could dispatch a dog with one kick like that. ‘Yes, it’s me, but not a word to your mother!’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t trust her, she’s got those suitors pressing her to get her into bed with them.’
‘But Papa, she hasn’t done it with any of them.’
‘Well, you never can tell. Can you swear on the Bible?’
‘Please, Papa, don’t bring politics into it.’
No sooner said than done. Ulysses bends his bow and skewers all those bastards of suitors. Only then does his wife recognise him. ‘Welcome home, my husband.’ Hugs and kisses. Groans and languid sighs.
In no time it’s dawn.
‘Very sorry, but I’ve got to go!’
‘Already? Did you only come for a change of underwear?’
‘I’m coming too, father.’
‘OK, but get a move on, because the ship is ready and waiting, and the wind is in the right direction. Bye, bye, my wife. Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon. In about twenty years.’
End of story.
* * *
As is obvious, I am only giving an outline of those stories I performed on the train journey to Milan. Every time I did them, I put in fresh twists, or improvised new vocal or mime acts. Often I was obliged to climb up on the bench in the centre of the carriage so that everyone could follow me. In short, the carriage of the Luino-Gallarate-Milan (Porta Garibaldi station) express was for years my stage, with stalls invariably sold-out and appreciative!
The spectators were not only young men and women, but also often included more mature, less regular travellers. Some, after a while, went away annoyed or displeased over certain lines they considered inappropriate, but for the most part the casual listeners who came along were unexpectedly enthusiastic. Among them was one singular, middle-aged gentleman who at times exploded in raucous, infectious laughter. The gentleman was Professor Civolla, historian and anthropologist of the University of Milan, to whom I referred earlier. One evening, returning home on my own later than usual, I found him alone in a compartment. He invited me to sit beside him and started firing questions at me. He knew I was studying at the Brera, and that I had had the finest fabulatori of the Valtravaglia as masters (apart from anything else, he himself lived in Porto), but he wondered what sources I had been drawing on for some of the grotesque motifs I had adopted to turn the original form of the situations I narrated upside down.