‘No, thank you, not at the moment.’
‘As I was saying, I was born in Berlin, but our father was Italian and my dream is to end my days in our villa in Todi. In boarding school in Austria, my love for Italy was strengthened, as it were, and today I consider Italian to be my mother tongue. Of course, all Germans adore Italy, but for me it’s different. As soon as I cross the border and my gaze falls on our land, I am reassured by the treasures of art and culture still concealed or protected — can we say protected? — beneath the olive trees and rolling hills of Umbria and Tuscany. An assurance that grips me with a different force than Goethe’s over-used verses. This is what led me to study archaeology. Of course, my sister will not have had occasion to speak to you about my studies and my choices. It’s not in her nature. When I was little more than a boy I had to subject her to a real interrogation to find out who her friends at the university were. I knew there were many of them, all intelligent, but that’s all I knew, and this distressed me. Unfortunately as a child I was very jealous. I’m not ashamed to say that to you who have housed and protected our Joyce … I must confess that I once followed her.’
‘You shouldn’t be ashamed; all boys are jealous.’
‘Do you have children?’
‘Yes.’
‘Allow me to thank you for what you’ve done for my sister. Perhaps this gratitude is why, as soon as I saw you, I had the impression that I had always known you.’
‘I too had that impression.’
‘Well then, as old acquaintances, may I invite you to have lunch with me, or are you in a hurry?’
‘I’m not in any hurry.’
‘I’m thrilled! Do you prefer the dining room or the terrace?’
‘The terrace. As you aptly observed, the silence of these walls and the broad sweep of these windows is hypnotizing…’
As we move outdoors, the dark intensity of Timur’s eyes abruptly turns into a deep, almost violet blue: the arrogant, piercing blue of the lakes of the north.
‘How did we get to talking about Garda? Oh, yes! The sea, the yearning for it! The German people conceal a deep yearning under their apparent rigidity. In boarding school I learned to know them and to recognize the great longing that imbues their stupendous poetry. At times, being of Mediterranean origin, I seemed to detect the source of that longing in the absence of the sea: the sea as freedom, youth, the possibility of adventure. For us, accustomed to touching it, gazing at it, this yearning, even when forced to spend long periods in the northern forests, is never so absolute, so ferocious, so — how shall I put it? — so desperate, that’s the word! Just a few more days of this bliss and I must go back to Berlin. I long to be in Berlin even though I know that a small part of this yearning awaits me. I will lap it up ever so slowly while waiting to return.’
‘You’ll come back here?’
‘Oh, no! They only summoned me to get the excavations started. A younger colleague of mine will follow through. Without false modesty, I can say that they considered me wasted on an operation like this.’
‘A younger colleague? But you yourself are so young!’
‘The strength of the Third Reich lies in its youth.’
‘Of course.’
‘I see you knew about the excavations. I gather it was my sister who told you.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I hope she also gave you the letter … But I see from your confusion that she didn’t. Forgive me, Princess: taking advantage of a person’s kindness to involve her in intimate family matters is insufferably rude. I was hoping that Joyce would have had the good grace to spare us this unpleasant situation. She didn’t tell you if she intends to write?’
‘She didn’t tell me anything.’
The pristine blue of his eyes darkens like the surface of a lake when a storm approaches. I’m not fond of lakes: their fury, contained in such a restricted space, disturbs me. I want to return to the sea. Tuzzu never spoke about lakes, deep pits stirred by perpetually writhing black snakes …
‘Your expression has changed, Princess, and your sadness seems like a reproach. Forgive me! But it’s simply incivility on Joyce’s part — believe me — and if it weren’t for my mother I would never have come to add my rudeness to that of my sister … Since she made up her mind to act that way, I am at least obliged to explain my behaviour to you.
‘After my mother discovered her daughter’s place of asylum — and it wasn’t easy, the poor old woman! — she urged me several times to come and look for Joyce in person, to ask her why she wasn’t answering her letters. It’s painful for me — the emotionalism of certain situations is painful and having to speak about them even more so — but I must respond to your questioning look. Well, when Signorina Joland committed suicide and Joyce disappeared, my mother had a stroke that left her paralysed from the waist down. If it weren’t for that, she would have gone herself. She’s not a woman who depends on anyone, not even a son, as evidenced by the fact that in all these years she’s only asked me to come and look for Joyce twice, this being the third time. Oh, not to force her to return home, no. You don’t know my mother, and it’s my duty to present her in a true light. It wasn’t a selfish need for her daughter; she has never once asked for an hour of our freedom. This is what angers me. Why not reply to her letters? Why? Over time, because of her forced immobility, my mother has become almost obsessed with thoughts of Joyce. Recently she began to suspect that Joyce was dead, and that we were lying to her out of pity. It’s unbearable, terribly unbearable to watch the sad disintegration of that strong, beautiful woman. And so, having been called to Sicily, I couldn’t refuse yet again to satisfy her curiosity, even though for me it meant a hopeless sacrifice. I knew that Joyce wouldn’t see me. She told me in no uncertain terms that for her I was dead. At the time, that sentence was almost a liberation from her continual rejections of my affection. Trying to understand the reason for her rejection has haunted me for a long time. Maybe because my birth meant that I had replaced Renan, who had died? Or maybe it was an instinctive dislike, which can occur even between siblings? But I soon resigned myself to not having a sister. And for a boy in boarding school, it’s sad to lose the sweet image of a sister who at least exists, even though she doesn’t write or come to visit …
‘Well, enough crying about our family! I’ve told you everything. One is more prone to melancholy after a delicious lunch like this, seated before — may I say so, Princess? — the most beautiful, luminous eyes I’ve ever seen. Your gaze contains the immense spaces of this vast sky of ours.’
Trained by Joyce’s example, my emotions must have learned to remain impassive, since they don’t flinch at that unexpected smile, or at the earlier disclosures, or the meticulous scars: systematic brutality marching imperturbably under the sun in the Cineluce newsreels.
‘The sun has reached our table, Princess. Shall we move inside for coffee? You will have coffee, I hope? I confess that lunch and dinner for me, when I’m in Italy, are merely a prelude to our incomparable coffee. Or would you prefer that we stay here and have them open the umbrella?’
Joyce’s smile, quick to be switched on and off, lingers a bit longer among those scars, following the waiter in a white jacket. With a few deft strokes he creates a circle of green shade around us.