But the things keep arriving here, he objected, thinking of the rams and all the rest.
He has a series of agents, Comandini explained, scattered around England. I tried to investigate, but they don’t know much about it, either. They have the orders for shipping, that’s all. They’ve never seen the Son, they don’t know who he is. He paid in advance and gave very precise, almost maniacal orders.
Yes, it’s like him.
But it’s not like him to disappear in this way.
The Father remained silent. He was a man who, if only for medical reasons, couldn’t allow himself to indulge in anxiety: moreover, he believed firmly in an objective tendency of things to settle themselves. Yet at that moment he felt a slippage of the soul that he had seldom known, something like the opening of a clearing somewhere in the thick forest of his tranquility. He got up from the chair, and for a moment stood waiting for things to resettle themselves inside him by mechanical means, as usually happened in the case of certain discomforts he felt, especially after lunch. All he got from it was an urge to fart, which he controlled. Whereas he did not lose the sensation that he could now focus better, and review the absurd idea that the Son was disappearing not in England but somewhere inside of him, that where there had been the solid mass of a sojourn there was now the void of a silence. It didn’t seem illogical, because, even though the style of the times provided for a vague, distant, and restrained role for fathers, it hadn’t been that way for him, with that Son, whom he had wanted, against all logic, and who, for reasons whose every nuance he knew, was the origin of his sole ambition. So it seemed to him reasonable to register that in the disappearance of that youth something of himself was also disappearing: he could perceive it like a tiny hemorrhage, and mysteriously he knew that, neglected, it would expand without respite.
When was he last seen? he asked.
Eight days ago. He was in Newport, buying a cutter.
What’s that?
A small sailboat.
I imagine that we’ll see it unloaded in front of the gate one of these days.
It’s possible.
Modesto won’t be too enthusiastic.
Yet there might be another possibility, Comandini ventured.
What?
He might have taken it out on the ocean.
Him?
Why not? If one hypothesizes a certain wish to disappear…
He hates the sea.
Yes, but…
A certain wish to disappear?
The desire to become unfindable.
But why in the world?
I have no idea.
I beg your pardon?
I have no idea.
The Father felt a crack opening up somewhere inside him — another one. The idea that Comandini had no idea about something struck him without warning, since to that basically modest but marvelously pragmatic man he owed the conviction that every question had an answer, maybe inexact, but real, and sufficient to scatter any possibility of dangerous bewilderment. So he looked up at Comandini, astonished. He saw in his face an unfamiliar expression, and then he heard a creaking in his delicate heart, he smelled a sweetish odor that he recognized, and knew absolutely that at that moment he had begun to die.
Find him, he said.
I’m trying, sir. Besides, it’s also possible that we’ll see him arrive safe and sound at the door, one of these days, maybe married to an Englishwoman with milky skin and splendid legs, you know, the creator has given them incredible legs, since he couldn’t dream up for them anything decent in the way of tits.
The usual Comandini had returned. The Father was grateful.
Do me a favor, never use that word again, he said.
Tits?
No. “Disappear.” I don’t like it. It doesn’t exist.
I happen to use it often in regard to my savings.
Yes, I understand, but applied to humans it disorients me, humans don’t disappear, at worst they die.
That’s not the case with your son, I’m sure.
Good.
I feel I can promise you, said Comandini, with a slight hesitation.
The Father smiled at him, with infinite gratitude. Then he was seized by an inexplicable curiosity.
Comandini, do you understand why you always lose at poker? he asked.
I have some hypotheses.
Such as?
The most heartbreaking was suggested by a Turk I saw lose an island in Marrakesh.
An island?
A Greek island, I think, it had been in his family for centuries.
You’re telling me you can bet an island at the poker table?
It was blackjack, in that case. Anyway, yes. You can even bet an island, if you have the necessary courage and the necessary poetry. He did. We returned to the hotel together. It was almost morning, I had also lost quite a bit, but you wouldn’t have said so — we were walking like princes, and without even saying it to each other we felt very handsome, and eternal. The extraordinary elegance of a man who has lost, said the Turk.
The Father smiled.
So you lose as a matter of elegance? he asked.
I told you, it’s only one hypothesis.
There are others?
Many. You want the most reliable?
I’d like that.
I lose because I play badly.
This time the Father laughed.
Then he decided that he would die slowly, carefully, and not in vain.
At seven on the dot the Mother was waiting for her, doing what she usually did at that hour, that is to say refining her own splendor: she confronted the night only in absolute beauté—she would never allow death to surprise her in a state that might disappoint whoever happened to discover her ready for the worms.
So the young Bride found her sitting at the mirror, and saw her as she never had before, wearing only a light tunic, her hair loose over her shoulders, falling to her hips. A very young girl, almost a child, was brushing it: the strokes all descended at exactly the same speed, each time burnishing a gilded brown highlight.
The Mother turned slightly, just enough to bestow a look.
Ah, she said, so it’s today, I had a suspicion that today was yesterday, it happens to me quite often, not to mention those times when I’m sure it’s tomorrow. Sit down, sweetheart, you wanted to talk to me? Ah, her, the child, her name is Dolores, I want to underline the fact that she’s been a deaf-mute since birth, the sisters of Good Counsel dug her up for me, God rest their souls, now you’ll understand why I have a devotion to them that at times must seem excessive.
She must have had a suspicion that her reasoning might not be completely comprehensible. She conceded a rapid explanation.
Well, never have your hair combed by someone who has the power of speech, that’s obvious. Why don’t you sit down?
The young Bride didn’t sit down, because she hadn’t imagined anything like this and for the moment she had no other ideas except to get out of the room and start again from the beginning. She held her book under her arm: it had seemed to her a way of getting straight to the problem. But the Mother didn’t even seem to have seen it. It was odd, because in that house a human with a book in hand should have leaped to the eye at least as readily as an old woman who showed up at the evening rosary with a crossbow under her arm. In the young Bride’s mind the plan was to enter that room with Don Quixote in plain sight, and, in the span of time that the Mother’s presumed surprise would give her, utter the following sentence: It can’t hurt anyone, it’s wonderful, and I wouldn’t want to stay in this house without telling someone that I read it every day. Can I say that to you?