On the third bookshelf on the right there were the Russian classics. On the second, you could find anything. Foreign classics. All of them. Then there was the first shelf, the highest. That was my favourite. Italian classics. The best. Calvino. Pavese. Svevo. Levi.
One day the old man in the library told me that you could see it. My condition. You could see it. .
There I was, next to the bookcase with the classics. That’s exactly what it says, that old label, yellowed by time, or maybe by the thoughts of people just as yellowed. It says Classics .
That time the old man of adventure stories stood up and came over to me. .
It seemed strange to see him for once in the middle of the classics, without his Robinson Crusoe and his sails and seas and islands and hidden treasures. It seemed out of place, right there between Chekhov and Hemingway. .
That day he came up to me and in his slow way, a bit shakily, said, “You can see that you are sad”. .
Chekhov laughed, I believe. Hemingway took a swallow of mohito and coughed. .
I simply raised my eyes. .
“Pardon?” .
“You can see” he kept on. .
There was a delicate murmur, almost like concern, in his way of speaking. .
I was holding Svevo in my hands, that time. Zeno let out a loud guffaw, so noisy that I instinctively closed the book. .
“From the way you turn the pages” the old man went on. .
I looked at Zeno. He wasn’t there, of course: I’d just shut him up between the pages, in my tight, angry and slightly sweaty hands. .
Once again, I raised my eyes. The old man smiled. .
What I wouldn’t give to stay on a cloud… I think Vasco said that once.
Alone on a cloud. I looked at the old man. .
I thought there really wasn’t much difference between staying alone on a cloud or on the planet. This bloody planet. Hemingway went on coughing. He was on his second mohito: after the third he would write his best novels. Backstage rumours, legendary whispers. I liked believing in them. .
Alone on a cloud, like Vasco. Or with Hemingway drunk in the library. There’s not much difference, I thought. .
Sometimes when he’d left popped into my mind. .
His shoulders moving away – beautiful, beautiful his shoulders, what a shame always to see them going away, those shoulders. I’d thought I would die. .
Then I hadn’t died, no. I don’t know which was better – cloud or library, Vasco or Hemingway, labouring to breathe in life or enjoying the blithe emptiness of death – I don’t know. .
But I was alive, no doubt about it. .
The old man was still there. He stuck a hand in his pocket. He hadn’t stopped looking at me. .
The old man of adventure stories. Zeno shut in my hands. His shoulders as they move away. Hemingway drunk. His shoulders. Vasco on a cloud. His shoulders. They’re moving away. He’s leaving. The old man with a hand in his pocket. His shoulders. Adventure stories. His shoulders. He’s going away. He’s leaving. .
Incredible, terrible, agonizing, the pain of feeling alone, abandoned, cheated, screwed, thrown into the gutter. It hurts to kill. .
Stop laughing Zeno, damn it! .
And you there, standing in the middle of the road, blinded by the moon or perhaps by tears, unmoving, incredulous, confused and lost in the dark of the night, simply there, alone. .
And from that moment my only thought is to learn to breathe. Alone. Without him. A light breath, slow, unhurried. Two. Three. Incredible, you can do it: you’re breathing. .
I must have had an idiotic expression. I was sweating. .
I thought how hot it was in the library, blast. I lifted my hair off my face distractedly. The old man was still there. He took his hand out of his pocket. It was closed. .
He offered it to me. .
I looked at him, confused. I let the book go with one hand – Zeno began breathing again, but he wasn’t laughing any more, no – and I reached out towards the old man. .
He gave me a white shell. He put it in the palm of my hand. Only in that instant did I notice that he was no longer smiling. .
“In emptiness there is the sound of forgiveness. Solitude is a gift.” .
He coughed, then smiled again, very slightly. .
“If you put it up to your ear, you can hear the sea.” .
That’s how he said it, in a whisper. .
His book was still there, open on the table. For a second, but maybe it was only an impression, I thought I could smell the sea and hear the sound of the hidden treasure and the pirates’ voices. .
Still the old man was looking at me. .
Heartbeat, breathlessness, endless remembering. .
The rhythm of suffering has begun. Every evening, at dusk, heart pangs – until night. Pavese whispered the pain of loneliness. .
Heart pangs – until night.
The old man smiled and went away. .
As he disappeared behind the door, I lifted the shell to my ear. .
From there on, forever, I listened to the sea. .
trans. by Brenda Porster