Naturally it’s a possibility that I rule out.
Every so often he’s silent, and I, too, as we sit across from each other. For a long time. I assume he attributes to this a certain therapeutic power. He must imagine that I, in that silence, am making some pathway into myself. Actually I think about my book. I’ve noticed that, more than in the past, I like letting it glide off the main road, roll down unexpected slopes. Naturally I never lose sight of it, but, whereas working on other stories I prohibited any evasion of this type, because my intention was to construct perfect clocks, and the closer I could get them to an absolute purity the more satisfied I was, now I like to let what I write sag in the current, with an apparent effect of drifting that the Doctor, certainly, in his wise ignorance, wouldn’t hesitate to connect to the uncontrolled collapse of my personal life, by means of a deduction whose boundless stupidity would be painful for me to listen to. I could never explain to him that it’s an exquisitely technical matter, or at most aesthetic, very clear to anyone who mindfully practices my trade. It’s a question of mastering a movement similar to that of the tides: if you know them well you can happily let the boat run aground and go barefoot along the beach picking up mollusks or otherwise invisible creatures. You just have to know enough not to be surprised by the return of the tide, to get back on board and simply let the sea gently raise the keel, carrying it out to sea again. With the same ease, I, having lingered to collect all those verses of Baretti’s and other mollusks of that type, feel the return, for example, of an old man and a girl, and I see them become an old man standing stiffly in front of a row of herbs, with a young Bride facing him, while she tries to understand what is so grave about simply knocking on the Mother’s door. I distinctly feel the water raising the keel of my book and I see everything setting sail again in the voice of the old man, who says
I don’t think, signorina, that you have available all the information necessary to be able to judge the most suitable way of approaching the Mother.
You don’t?
I don’t.
Then I’ll follow your advice. I’ll ask for a meeting, and I’ll ask during breakfast. Would that be right?
Better, said Modesto. And if you trust me, he added, don’t stint on prudence, since you are to deal with her.
I’ll be absolutely respectful, I promise you.
Respect I would take for granted, if you will allow me: what I suggest is a certain prudence.
In what sense?
She is a remarkable woman in every aspect.
I know.
Modesto lowered his gaze and what he said he said under his breath, with a suddenly melancholy intonation.
No, you don’t know.
Then he bent over the row of herbs again.
Don’t you find that the mint grows very gracefully? he asked with sudden cheer, and that meant that the conversation was over.
So, the next day, the young Bride approached the Mother during breakfast and asked her discreetly if she would not mind receiving her in her salon that afternoon, to exchange a few words, in private.
But of course, sweetheart, she said. Come when you like. At exactly seven, say.
Then she added something about English jams.
Then, from the Island, a walnut writing desk arrived, followed, in order, one item a day, by thirteen volumes of an encyclopedia in German, twenty-seven meters of Egyptian cotton, a recipe book with no illustrations, two typewriters (one big, one small), a volume of Japanese prints, two more toothed wheels completely identical to the ones delivered days before, eight hundred kilograms of fodder, the heraldic coat of arms of a Slav family, three cases of Scotch whiskey, a rather mysterious piece of equipment later revealed to be a golf club, letters of credence from a London bank, a hunting dog, and an Indian carpet. It was time ticking, in its way, and the Family got so used to it that if, because of abominable breakdowns in the shipping service, an entire day passed without a delivery, everyone suffered from a just perceptible disorientation, almost as if the noontime bells had failed to ring. By degrees they became accustomed to calling each day by the name of the object — usually ludicrous — that had arrived on that day. The first to understand the usefulness of such a method was, it goes without saying, the Uncle, when, during a particularly jolly breakfast, someone wondered how long it had been since a drop of rain had fallen in that cursed countryside, and he, observing in his sleep that no one was able to articulate a plausible response, turned on his sofa and, with his customary authority, said that the last rain, which, moreover, had been disappointing, had taken place on the day of the Two Rams. Then he fell asleep again.
So now we can say it was the day of the Indian Carpet when, not preceded by the usual telegram, and hence causing some bewilderment in the happy community gathered around the breakfasts table, Comandini appeared, out of nowhere, with the air of having something urgent to communicate.
What happened, did you win at poker, Comandini? the Father asked good-humoredly.
If only.
And they closed themselves in the study.
Where, during those nights I’ve already alluded to, I saw them countless times, and arranged them like pieces on a chessboard, playing with them all the possible games, just to divert my sleepless thoughts, which otherwise would lead me to arrange on a similar chessboard the pieces of my present life, something I would rather avoid. In the end I knew every detail about them, as they sat there, each in his own chair, the Father’s red, Comandini’s black, because of those sleepless nights — I should say, rather, sleepless mornings, although that doesn’t accurately define the fatal hesitation that dawn, too, inflicts on the sleepless, like a ruinous, and sadistic, delay. So I know every word spoken and every gesture made, in that encounter, though I wouldn’t dream of recording it all here, since, as everyone knows, my job consists precisely in seeing all the details and choosing a few, like a mapmaker, who otherwise might as well photograph the world, something which may be useful but has nothing to do with the act of narrating. Which is, instead, choosing. So I willingly throw away every other thing I know in order to save the movement with which Comandini settled himself better on the chair and, shifting his weight from one buttock to the other and, leaning very slightly forward, said something that he was afraid to say, and that in fact he said not in his usual way, that is, with torrential and brilliant eloquence, but in the short space of a very few words.
He said that the Son had disappeared.
In what sense? asked the Father. He had not yet dismantled the smile left on his face by the trivial small talk with which they had started off.
We aren’t able to find out where he is, Comandini clarified.
It’s impossible, the Father decided, as the smile vanished.
Comandini didn’t move.
That wasn’t what I asked you, the Father said then, and Comandini knew the exact meaning of the words, because he remembered very well when, three years earlier, sitting in that same chair, like a pawn in F2, he had heard the Father give some polite orders whose essence was: let’s be sure to keep on eye on the Son, with some discretion, during this English sojourn, and possibly offer him, invisibly, appropriate occasions for deducing by himself the pointlessness of a marriage so without prospects, or sound motives, or, ultimately, good sense. He had added that a bond with an English family, especially one in the textile sector, was to be hoped for. Comandini had not discussed it then, but had tried to understand how far he could go in diverting the Son’s destiny. He had in mind different degrees of violence, in the act that was to change a life, in fact two. The Father had then shaken his head, as if to get rid of a temptation. Oh, no more than a steady escort, he had explained. I would find it gracious enough to preserve a minimal chance for the young Bride, he had explained. And those were the last words he had uttered on the subject. In which, for three years, he had almost lost interest.