… Some nights, sometimes, he’d stare at the lights on the plains and think of the past, of those days when people were playing with the future of his country, up in the mountains … everyone against the Nazi-Fascists, that was clear, but the future was something else again. By now, I’m very much aware that as far as the future’s concerned, there are many, could be many, like the color spectrum, slight gradations of color, almost nothing, a shade of blue will bring you to indigo, then violet, but blue’s one thing and violet another, almost nothing, but try living in one shade, you’ll see how intense it can be … During that time, though, he saw the world as binary; you know, we tend to be binary by nature, and we let ourselves be convinced, we’re such idiots: black and white, hot and cold, male and female. In short: this or that. But why do we always have to think of life as this or that, did you ever ask yourself why, writer? I think you have, and that might be why I called you here. But back then, he saw the future as divided in two, because he thought history was divided in two — the idiot — he didn’t understand that we make history, that we build it with our own two hands, it’s our own invention, and we could build another, if we just wanted to, if we just convinced ourselves that history, her story, is this or that, if we only had the strength to tell her, you’re nothing, madam history, don’t be so arrogant, you’re just my hypothesis, and if you don’t mind, madam, I’m going to invent you now as I see fit. But to say this, you have to be old and useless, practically a corpse like me, before you understand that she was an illusion, a ghost, and you can’t make her anymore, she’s already been made. History’s like love, a kind of music, and you’re the musician, and while you play her, you’re extremely capable, an interpreter who blows full blast on his toy trumpet or scrapes his bow ecstatically across the strings … magnificent, a perfect execution, applause. But you don’t know the score. And you only understand this later, much later, after the music’s already disappeared … So for him, there were only two possible futures. The first he knew all too well because he knew the country that had invented it, though you couldn’t say this in Italy, a future composed of ashen days, steered by a political system that considered people not as individuals but as cogs in a superior machine, small teeth in small, insignificant wheels grinding for the great wheel, for a classless society where we’d all be equal, with equal thoughts, equal efforts, equal joys, equal destinies. You want a little happiness, what you’ve got coming to you, comrade? — do you have a party membership card? — a ration card for collective happiness? — very good, how many in your family? — four, let’s see now … let’s see now … four, you, your female comrade and two children, good, good, comrade, good, good — and your wife’s card? — good, good — and your children’s? — good, good — everything seems in order, comrade, you have the right to four shares of happiness: sign here and I’ll stamp your paper, you’re a good comrade, and the great comrade who accompanies us all in the pursuit of happiness loves good comrades like you and wants you to have the necessary amount of happiness, just the right amount of happiness for the just world we’re building, a just world for a just society built by just comrades just like you, dear comrade, that’s what the great comrade said in his last speech, you must have heard it, a speech directed at good comrades like you working for a just society who deserve their just share of happiness, so what more do you want, comrade? — you’ve already been stamped by the political system, everything’s in order, regulated, go back to your laborious home, tell your domestic comrades that the great comrade sends his fraternal salute, now, how ’bout you stop breaking my balls? — ah, yes, you fought in the mountains, you killed a squad of fascists all by yourself — you’re a real hero, comrade — but if I’m not mistaken, you already got your medal for that — and you also lost two fingers — they got jammed in the submachine gun — no, don’t bother showing me your hand — it’s right here on this piece of paper — this piece of paper, comrade, is more important than your hand — well, you didn’t lose your balls, dear comrade — sorry to be so familiar, but we’re both comrades here, brave comrades like you don’t lose their balls, I know, I know, there were two gladiators in the arena, one was strong, mighty, ferocious, but the other was fearless, and he had this tiny, wicked smile that made him look like an American actor, some gladiators are strong but stupid, comrade — they puff out their chest, strut around, and wind up losing their balls, because they’re stupid, but you, comrade, you’re brave and you’re sharp — you’re especially sharp — but don’t try and be too sharp now, comrade, because we know everything about you — we know you went to live in a picture-postcard city — isn’t that a bit aesthete? — we know you have a good wife, but that she’s not enough for you; comrade, you say you love freedom and justice, but isn’t that a touch middle-class? — sorry to be blunt — but you seem a bit bourgeois; you know, libertarian ideology was revolutionary at first, but if you practice it in secret, that’s just bourgeois, and above all, we believe in the family — the family is the revolutionary center of the revolutionary society — comrade, I don’t want you to disturb the great comrade, because he’s watching over us, he only sleeps two hours a night, because he has to take care of us all; in his feverish, sleepless nights, from his window overlooking the vast piazza where he assembled the military review dedicated to veterans like you who saved the country, well, comrade, he’s watching you from that window, and he knows what you did on the dawn of that day that was crucial for our country, that you took out an entire enemy squad, he knows it better than you do, comrade, but excuse me, comrade, how many hours of sleep do you get a night? — seven hours? — seven hours is a lot, comrade, a whole night’s sleep — he sleeps one, two hours at the most — you don’t want to disturb the great comrade — comrade, seven hours of sleep is a good amount — we found out you write poetry, and this makes us happy, but watch the intimism, we know about the intimist poets, they create the past — watch out — you don’t want to drink too much past, comrade, it might go to your head, and now, back to your busy little home where your lady comrade’s waiting for you, go in peace, comrade, and don’t pester us again …
… and then it goes … I saw other riddles like bloomed flowers in an empty place, empty gowns laying claim to bodies turned to air, and I saw a girl’s heart forgotten in a cage, lion feces, the circus gone away, and time a fortress built of stone and stupor, and on the fortress walls a blind dove perched, but how do you decipher what heroes won’t tell, how do you defeat the sea if you’re free to sail but not to build a boat?… That long, annoying poem of Frau’s came back to me, but you don’t give a damn. I do, though: I’d like March sprinkles, but it’s August instead, she says, and there’s nothing you can do. And she’s right …
… I’m tired but I haven’t finished, let me rest a bit, but don’t go — stay — keep your ears open, it’s important, because there’s another future beyond the one I’ve told you, and Tristano had to choose. And in this other future there was, simply, freedom. Which is no small thing. Here’s what it looked like, up in the mountains, okay?… there were woods and a forked path and Tristano was standing in the middle of those woods, gun pointed, but he had only one gun sight, his gun fired in only one direction, it obeyed the laws of ballistics, and there’s no guesswork to ballistics, because it depends on geometry, and there’s not much you can do about geometry, my dear writer: if an angle’s acute it’s acute and if it’s obtuse it’s obtuse, and you don’t want to fuss with angle apertures, it was truly a fork in the path, Tristano was at a crossroads, and this divided problem really came down to his rifle sight: point and pull the trigger one way, you stay in a classless society that suffocates you as a person, point and pull the trigger the other way, and the world keeps turning like always, with those who thrive and those who don’t, but hey, you’re on the side of freedom … it’s a matter of killing one or the other, and Tristano has to choose. And you know what he chose, because you know what freedom is, you’re a liberal intellectual, and you hold to your ideals, and this is why you were inspired by that interview a sneaky journalist got from Tristano, a few words, and they inspired your little book — sorry, that just slipped out — not little — short — of course it’s stupid measuring novels in meters, as if quantity counts for something, truth is, your eighty pages are worth more than bricks sold by the kilogram, it’s almost like you were right there at Tristano’s side, up in the mountains, right there that day — even better — you’re pointing the gun, you choose the direction, aim, fire. Bang. You picked democracy. Bravo. You made the same choice as Tristano, that’s why you’ve managed to get inside his head so well — such mimetic powers — you really seem to be Tristano, in my opinion you are Tristano, I don’t know why I’m telling you about him, you are Tristano, in your story, you wrote exactly what he did, you’re the one who suffered what he was going through, suffered through it in first person, because you’re a gifted writer, that’s why I called you, in those few pages you were Tristano, a perfect Tristano, an exemplary Tristano, an indisputable Tristano that he never managed to be his entire life … How funny, in so few pages, you managed to be what a real person never was in his entire life, that’s also why your novel won a prize — it should — the truth should be prized, because the truth is concrete, like that wire-haired poet said, and the truth’s even more concrete when it’s black on white, that, yes, that’s true, you write the truth and sign it, and like Tristano, you understood the freedom you went looking for and finally found, because freedom’s something to hold dear, that’s for sure, and you wrote it down in black and white, and those are your words, the word is sacred, and so it must be free, but you know, my friend, there’s one detail you didn’t think of, and you’ll need to write this detail down, because I called you to my bedside just for that, and you came to my bedside just for that, because you’re curious and wanted to write Tristano’s real life, and I’d like to tell you this detail … Now then, someday, if one of those creatures you sit and watch on TV in your living room, one of those creatures that’s all skin and bones with a belly like a drum and eyes full of flies, if this creature steps right out of the television, materializes right in front of you, you know what you should tell him to really earn that prize you won? You don’t know, do you? I’ll tell you what you need to say. You need to say, speak, friend, speak — you’re a free man, your word is sacred — no one can destroy your word — and this is true freedom, this is why we’ve always fought, all of us who love freedom, so you can speak, so you can express your free opinion — speak — my civilization will allow it, you’re here to speak, you have to speak, open your mouth, brush away the flies and speak, don’t give me that stupid look, do me a favor, forget that you’re malnourished for the moment, forget your dumb diseases, please — speak — forget you only have one kidney for a second, it’s common knowledge, organ trafficking … plus, what’s one kidney compared to freedom of speech, don’t waste this opportunity … your country’s hit rock-bottom, it’s an inferno, but a fiscal paradise for us … it’s a problem, I know … you’re being pillaged by our industries, your raw materials carried away … another problem the free world has to deal with … the free world backs a dictator who’s slaughtered thousands of citizens — better — it’s the free world who put that dictator in power, in place of the democratically elected president … a few of us, myself included, don’t entirely agree on this point, and that’s why I invite you to speak, speak, that’s why you came into this world, to speak, the word is sacred, you’re free to speak, you can trust us, I’m not just anybody: I’m a writer, and writers are very much aware of the meaning of free speech, you’re free to speak with me, this person talking to you has chosen freedom, has defended freedom, stop being catatonic — speak — it’s the opportunity of a lifetime, take advantage now — you might not get another chance — don’t think that they’re going to invite you to the broadcast transmission where the true meaning of freedom will be announced, you won’t get an invitation, but here we are, face to face, in my living room, I’ll consider reporting what you said, at least one word, and if you don’t know how to say this word in your own language, because maybe this word doesn’t exist in your own language, then say it in English so the whole world will understand; in English, the word is freedom, say it with me — free-dom — got it?… Tell him this, writer. Now do me a favor, go to bed, I want to sleep now, too, I’m tired, I’m glad Frau gave you a room with a view, those towers are beautiful, framed by the window, they’re ancient, did you see how they float in the morning heat, they’re almost trying to pull away from the ground, to touch the sky, they’re ambitious towers, they were built in the Middle Ages, think of that — the Middle Ages — the Middle Ages means being in the middle of something, and what do you think they were in the middle of, what came before or what we are now, is there something in the middle between one thing and another? It’s night out, I can tell, because I can sense the light and then the stages of the light … stages of the dark, I mean … that’s what I know … Do you know the stages of the dark?