erbarme Dich, mein Gott from the St. Matthew Passion, have pity, Lord, or some other tearful thing, and his companion would sing the evangelist’s words, Matthew dead of a sword in the back in Ethiopia, as he was praying, his arms raised to heaven, facing the altar, Matthew whom Sashka paints leaning over his writing desk or in front of his tax gatherer’s scales, Matthew whom Caravaggio in love with decapitation represents in the process of counting his money, I am nearing Rome, I am nearing Rome the eternal light, what am I going to do, Yvan old pal what are we going to do in Rome visit the churches look for an unlikely redemption in the images of the martyrs, get drunk, chase the whores on Via Salaria, a stone’s throw from the catacombs, the little suitcase discreetly handcuffed is still above my seat, what does it contain really, what did I put in it, all those dead, all those intersecting fates, the whole world, a fetus in a jar of formaldehyde, the essence of tragedy, the energy of revenge, erbarme Dich, mein Gott, mother, cry for your missing son, mother, cry for your son who is gone, my parents, my grandparents, my countries, my victims, the sordid photos of Harmen Gerbens concentration-camp pornographer, the terrified faces of Dutch resistants whom he made pose in Westerbork, the black dust of Cairo, the light of Alexandria the unforgettable, everything is closing, everything is closing as the train emerges from the tunnel to rush into the suburbs, slowly, now, slowly step by step I’m almost there, the railroad is rolling corpses like the impetuous Scamander, the elegant woman in front of me has taken out the Corriere della Sera from her bag, the young Italian businessman grandson of Agnelli apparently spent the night in the company of several transsexuals and took a mixture of cocaine and opium, brave little man, he’s out of danger according to the evening paper, Turin must be radiating joy, Agnelli the grandfather historic head of Fiat had driven a tank of the same brand in North Africa in 1942, what irony, he could test the quality of his materiel himself, did he sing “Lili Marleen” as he drove like Vlaho, i znaj da čekam te, I’m tired, I’m so tired, if I close my eyes now I’ll wake up in Rome that’s for sure once there I’ll take the briefcase and my bag not forgetting the book by Rafael Kahla Marwan’s body and Intissar’s sorrow, I’ll wait for a taxi at Termini or I’ll go on foot by the deserted Via Nazionale the countless tie stores closed like my eyelids, three drummer boys on the way back from war, three drummer boys, I sang this song to my sister to put her to sleep, I loved singing her songs when she was little I wasn’t much bigger myself but I felt as if I were a giant in comparison, Leda sucked her thumb in her crib I stroked her cheek through the bars, king’s daughter, give me your heart, king’s daughter, and rat and tat, ratatatat, that’s very far away all that’s very far, Leda is in the fog, unreachable, incomprehensible, Catholic housewife with whom I share only genes and silent reproaches, my family is very far away now, my mother the weeping widow, my father in the flesh-eating coffin, in Ivry, from him I’ve kept memories of electric trains and photographs of torture, in silence, a great figure a Napoleon at Saint Helena poisoned by his own memory, pursued by the hundreds of thousands of souls of his Old Guard he sent to Hades, if you aren’t good Old Boney will carry you away they said to English toddlers to frighten them, my mother used the same tactics, watch out, I’ll tell your father everything, and the threat of informing was enough to make us swallow anything even lamb brain, why, my old man was neither violent nor tyrannical, just silent, I don’t remember him ever lifting a finger against me, ever, he never even threatened me, never one word louder than another: mothers attach us to them as much as they can, we think we look like them, we think we have their perfection their art their beauty their goodness then we see that’s a lie, we’re men, a portrait of the silent father, a copy, a moving statue, so we don’t know where we’re sent to, where we’re going, on invisible tracks, why we’re moving away so surely from mother and sister, a magnet is drawing us toward an abominable world of shouts in the night, Ghassan the Lebanese told me his father locked him up in a very narrow closet, complete darkness, he didn’t have room to sit down he stayed standing up paralyzed with fear without even daring to knock on the door, he cried in silence until someone came to free him an hour or two later: he feared this punishment so much that he was extraordinarily docile and obedient but despite everything they sent him from time to time to this storeroom to teach him how to live, to teach him injustice and the desire for revenge, so he’d be inhabited by a silent hatred, an energy in this world of suffering, Ghassan laughed as he told this story, as soon as he was of age to carry a rifle he enlisted in the nearest militia, he wanted his father to be proud of him, proud of him and a little frightened by the power of the gun, so he’d understand that it was his turn to be able to send him into the closet with a movement of the muzzle, revenge turns only rarely against fathers, it is expressed elsewhere, against strangers enemies traitors prisoners leftists Muslims Ghassan remembered mostly the smell of the cubbyhole, smell of Lysol cleaning fluids and rags, smell of a pharmacy an embalmer actually, or a taxidermist, he remembered it immediately when he was in the dark, he said, in complete darkness he instantly rediscovered the smell of the closet, Ghassan the warrior — Venice was once and for all plunged into the beyond, we were floating there in a long coma, an endless darkness, before the salutary kick in the balls I almost passed into it, one dark moonless night a broomcloset night or a night of the tomb drunk as a Chetnik with a crab-filled beard drunk as never before what came over me instead of crossing over to the Ghetto as I came out of the bar I went in the opposite direction, to the north, I arrived at the Square of the Two Moors, in front of the bas-relief of the little camel, stumbling I bounce against the walls I have a rifle in my hand my cap on my head bent double like in the war I go forward I come out onto the quay I see the tall brick façade of the Madonna dell’Orto what the hell am I doing here I live on the other side all of a sudden I have a flash of inspiration I have come to die I have come in front of this church to put an end to it it’s the middle of the night what idiocy I make a u-turn what could I have been thinking I missed the bridge, I missed the bridge and I ended up in the canal, aquatic silence, desperate movements of my arms, my legs, my clothes inflate like a trap my shoes get heavier the taste of water in my mouth no air, no air my feet in the black mud I’m going to die, that’s what you wanted well it’s a success, you’re going to croak, I suck in air on the surface I’m freezing my lungs are tiny my arms are abandoning me everything is heavy, the Scamander is going to carry me away, everything is heavy I’m sleepy and I’ve had enough I’m going to sink the river has won I let myself sink to the depths, I have the precise memory of letting myself go into the darkness, of stopping struggling, what happened then, Saint Christopher came down from his pedestal, the good giant of Chaldea put the child he was carrying on his shoulder down to come to my aid, he held out his immense hand, he dragged me out of the water, half unconscious, I don’t remember a thing, I woke up soaking sitting against the church door my shoes muddy my mouth full of salt my cap still glued to my skull bells were ringing in my head and my eyes were burning, with a fine bronchitis as my only viaticum for the new life