Out in the street again, we headed for Pilade's, in my car. Belbo was silent. We didn't talk all the way there. But at the bar, the spell had to be broken.
"I hope I haven't delivered you into the hands of a lunatic," I said.
"No," Belbo said. "The man is keen, subtle. It's just that he lives in a world different from ours." Then he added grimly: "Or almost."
49
The Traditio Templi postulates, independently, the tradition of a templar knighthood, a spiritual knighthood of initiates...
¡XHenry Corbin, Temple et contemplation, Paris, Flammarion, 1980
"I believe I've got your Agile figured out, Casaubon," Diotal-levi said, having ordered a sparkling white wine from Pilade, making all of us fear for his moral health. "He's a scholar, curious about the secret sciences, suspicious of dilettantes, of those who learn by ear. Yet, as we ourselves learned today, by our eavesdropping, he may scorn them but he listens to them, he may criticize them but he doesn't dissociate himself from them."
"Signer or Count or Margrave Aglie, or whatever the hell he is, said something very revealing today," Belbo added. "He used the expression ¡¥spiritual knighthood.' He feels joined to them by a bond of spiritual knighthood. I think I understand him."
"Joined, in what sense?" we asked.
Belbo was now on his third martini (whiskey in the evening, he claimed, because it was calming and induced reverie; martinis in the afternoon, because they stimulated and fortified). He began talking about his childhood in ***, as he had already done once with me.
"It was between 1943 and 1945, that is, the period of transition from Fascism to democracy and then to the dictatorship of the Salo republic, with the partisan war going on in the mountains. At the beginning of this story I was eleven, and staying in my uncle Carlo's house. My family normally lived in the city, but in 1943 the air raids were increasing and my mother had decided to evacuate.
"Uncle Carlo and Aunt Caterina lived in ***. Uncle Carlo came from a farming family and had inherited the *** house, with some land, which was cultivated by a tenant farmer named Adeline Canepa. The tenant planted, harvested the grain, made the wine, and gave half of everything to the owner. A tense situation, obviously: the tenant considered himself exploited, and so did the owner, who received only half the produce of his land.
The landowners hated the tenants and the tenants hated the landowners. But in Uncle Carlo's case they lived side by side.
"In 1914 Uncle Carlo had enlisted in the Alpine troops. A bluff Piedmontese, all duty and Fatherland, he became a lieutenant, then a captain. One day, in a battle on the Carso, he found himself beside an idiot soldier who let a grenade explode in his hands¡Xwhy else call them hand grenades? Uncle Carlo was about to be thrown into a common grave when an orderly realized he was still alive. They took him to a field hospital, removed the eye that was hanging out of its socket, cut off one arm, and, according to Aunt Caterina, they also put a metal plate in his head, because he had lost some of his skull. In other words, a masterpiece of surgery on the one hand and a hero on the other. Silver medal, cavalier of the Crown of Italy, and after the war a good steady job in public administration. Uncle Carlo ended up head of the tax office in ***, where, after inheriting the family property, he went to live in the ancestral home with Adeline Canepa and family.
"As head of the tax office, Uncle Carlo was a local bigwig, and as a mutilated veteran and cavalier of the Crown of Italy, he was naturally on the side of the government, which happened to be the Fascist dictatorship. Was Uncle Carlo a Fascist?
"In those days, Fascism had given veterans status, had rewarded them with decorations and promotions; so let's say Uncle Carlo was moderately Fascist. Fascist enough to earn the hatred of Adeline Canepa, who was ardently anti-Fascist, for obvious reasons. Canepa had to go to Uncle Carlo every year to make his income declaration. He would arrive in the office with a bold expression of complicity, having tried to corrupt Aunt Caterina with a few dozen eggs. And he would find himself up against Uncle Carlo, who, being a hero, was not only incorruptible, but also knew better than anyone how much Canepa had stolen from him in the course of the year, and who wouldn't forgive him one cent. Adeline Canepa, considering himself a victim of the dictatorship, began spreading slanderous rumors about Uncle Carlo. One lived on the ground floor, the other on the floor above; they met every morning and night, but no longer exchanged greetings. Communication was maintained through Aunt Caterina and, after our arrival, through my mother¡Xto whom Adeline Canepa expressed much sympathy and understanding, since she was the sister-in-law of a monster. My uncle, in his gray double-breasted suit and bowler, would come home every evening at six with his copy of La Stampa still to be read. He walked erect, like an Alpine soldier, his gray eye on the peak to be stormed. He passed by Adelino Canepa, who at that hour was enjoying the cool air on a bench in the garden, and it was as if my uncle did not see him. Then he would encounter Si-gnora Canepa at the downstairs door and ceremoniously doff his hat. And so it went, every evening, year after year."
It was eight o'clock; Lorenza wasn't coming, as she had promised. Belbo was on his fifth martini.
"Then came 1943. One morning Uncle Carlo came into our room, waked me with a kiss, and said, ¡¥My boy, you want to hear the biggest news of the year? They've kicked out Mussolini.' I never figured out whether or not Uncle Carlo suffered over it. He was a citizen of total integrity and a servant of the state. If he did suffer, he said nothing about it, and he went on running the tax office for the Badoglio government. Then came September 8, and the area in which we lived fell under the control of the Fascists' Social Republic, and Uncle Carlo again adjusted. He collected taxes for the Social Republic.
"Adeline Canepa, meanwhile, boasted of his contacts with the partisan groups forming in the mountains, and he promised vengeance, the making of examples. We kids didn't yet know who the partisans were. There were great tales about them, but so far nobody had seen them. There was talk about a Badoglian leader known as Mongo¡Xa nickname, naturally, as was the custom then; many said he had taken it from Flash Gordon. Mongo was a former Carabinieri sergeant major who had lost a leg in the first fighting against the Fascists and the SS and now commanded all the brigades in the hills around ***.
"And then came the disaster: one day the partisans showed up in town. They had descended from the hills, they were running wild in the streets, still without uniforms, just blue kerchiefs, and firing rounds into the air to make their presence known. The news spread; all the people locked themselves in their houses. It wasn't yet clear what sort of men these partisans were. Aunt Caterina was only mildly concerned: after all, those partisans were friends of Adeline Canepa, or at least Adelino Canepa claimed to be a friend of theirs, so they wouldn't do anything bad to Uncle, would they? They would. We were informed that around eleven o'clock a squad of partisans with automatic rifles aimed had entered the tax office, arrested Uncle Carlo, and carried him off, destination unknown. Aunt Caterina lay down on her bed, and whitish foam began to dribble from her lips. She declared that Uncle Carlo would be killed. A blow with a rifle butt would-be enough: with the metal plate in his head, he would die on the spot.
"Drawn by my aunt's moans, Adelino Canepa arrived with his wife and children. My aunt cried that he was a Judas, that he had reported Uncle to the partisans because Uncle collected taxes for the Social Republic. Adelino Canepa swore by everything sacred that this was not true, but obviously he felt responsible, because he had talked too much in town. My aunt sent him away. Adelino Canepa wept, appealed to my mother, reminded her of all the times he had sold her a rabbit or a chicken at a ridiculously low price, but my mother maintained a dignified silence, Aunt Caterina continued to dribble whitish foam, I cried. Finally, after two hours of agony, we heard shouts, and Uncle Carlo appeared on a bicycle, steering it with his one arm and looking as if he were returning from a picnic. Seeing a disturbance in the garden, he asked what had happened. Uncle hated dramas, like everyone in our parts. He we
nt upstairs, approached the bed of pain of Aunt Caterina, who was still kicking her scrawny legs, and inquired why she was so agitated."
"What had happened?"
"What had happened was this. Mongo's partisans, probably hearing some of Adelino Canepa's mutterings, had identified Uncle Carlo as one of the local representatives of the regime, so they arrested him to teach the whole town a lesson. He was taken outside the town in a truck and found himself before Mongo. Mongo, his war medals shining, stood with a gun in his right hand and his left holding a crutch. Uncle Carlo¡Xbut I really don't think he was being clever; I think it was instinct, or the ritual of chivalry¡Xsnapped to attention, introduced himself: Major Carlo Covasso, Alpine Division, disabled veteran, silver medal. And Mongo also snapped to attention and introduced himself: Sergeant Major Rebaudengo, Royal Carabineers, commander of the Badoglian brigade Bettino Ricasoli, bronze medal. ¡¥Where?' Uncle Carlo asked. And Mongo, impressed, said: ¡¥Pordoi, Major, hill 327."By God,' said Uncle Carlo, ¡¥I was at hill 328, third regiment, Sasso di Stria!' The battle of the solstice? Battle of the solstice it was. And the cannon on Five-Finger Mountain? Dammit to hell, do I remember! And the bayonet attack on Saint Crispin's Eve? Yessir! That sort of thing. Then, the one without an arm, the other without a leg, on the same impulse they took a step forward and embraced. Mongo said then, ¡¥You see, Cavalier, it's this way, Major: we were informed that you collect taxes for the Fascist government that toadies to the invaders."You see, Commander,' Uncle Carlo said, ¡¥it's this way: I have a family and receive a salary from the government, and the government is what it is; I didn't choose it, and what would you have done in my place?"My dear Major,' Mongo replied, ¡¥in your place, I'd have done what you did, but try at least to collect the taxes slowly; take your time.' Til see what I can do,' Uncle Carlo said. ¡¥I have nothing against you men; you, too, are sons of Italy and valiant fighters.' They understood each other, because they both thought of Fatherland with a capital F. Mongo ordered his men to give the major a' bicycle, and Uncle Carlo went home. Adelino Canepa didn't show his face for several months.
"There, I don't know if this qualifies as spiritual knighthood, but I'm certain there are bonds that endure above factions and parties."
50
For I am the first and the last. I am the honored and the hated. I am the saint and the prostitute.
¡XFragment of Nag Hammadi 6, 2
Lorenza Pellegrini entered. Belbo looked up at the ceiling and ordered a final martini. There was tension in the air, and I got up to leave, but Lorenza stopped me. "No. All of you come with me. Tonight's the opening of Riccardo's show; he's inaugurating a new style! He's great! You know him, Jacopo."
I knew who Riccardo was; he was always hanging around Pilade's. But at that moment I didn't understand why Belbo's eyes were fixed so intensely on the ceiling. Having read the files, I realize now that Riccardo was the man with the scar, the man with whom Belbo had lacked the courage to start a fight.
The gallery wasn't far from Pilade's, Lorenza insisted. They had organized a real party¡Xor, rather, an orgy. Diotallevi became nervous at this and immediately said he had to go home. I hesitated, but it was obvious Lorenza wanted me along, and this, too, made Belbo suffer, since he saw the possibility of a tete-a-tete slipping farther and farther away. But I couldn't refuse; so we set out.
I didn't care that much for Riccardo. In the early sixties he turned out very boring paintings, small canvases in blacks and grays, very geometric, slightly optical, the sort of stuff that made your eyes swim. They bore titles like Composition 15, Parallax 17, Euclid X. But in 1968 he started showing in squats, he changed his palette; now there were only violent blacks and whites, no grays, the strokes were bolder, and the titles were like Ce n'est qu'un debut, Molotov, A Hundred Flowers. When I got back to Milan, I saw a show of his in a club where Dr. Wagner was worshiped. Riccardo had eliminated black, was working in white only, the contrasts provided by the texture and relief of the paint on porous Fabriano paper, so that the pictures¡Xas he explained¡Xwould reveal different figures in different lightings. Their titles were In Praise of Ambiguity, A/Travers, fa, Berggasse, and Denegation 15.
That evening, as soon as we entered the new gallery, I saw that Riccardo's poetics had undergone a profound change. The show was entitled Megale Apophasis. Riccardo had turned figurative with a dazzling palette. He played with quotations, and, since I don't believe he knew how to draw, I guess he worked by projecting onto the canvas the slide of a famous painting. His choices hovered between the turn-of-the-century pompiers and the early-twentieth-century Symbolists. Over the projected image he worked with a pointillist technique, using infinitesimal gradations of color, covering the whole spectrum dot by dot, so that he always began from a blindingly bright nucleus and ended at absolute black, or vice versa, depending on the mystical or cosmological concept he wanted to express. There were mountains that shot rays of light, which were broken up into a fine powder of pale spheres, and there were concentric skies with hints of angels with transparent wings, something like the Paradise of Dore". The titles were Beatrix, Mystica Rosa, Dante Gabriels 33, Fedeli d'Amore, Atanor, Homunculus 666. This is the source of Lorenza's passion for homunculi, I said to myself. The largest picture was entitled Sophia, and it showed a rain of black angels, which faded at the ground and created a white creature caressed by great livid hands, the creature a copy of the one you see held up against the sky in Guernica. The juxtaposition was dubious, and, seen close up, the execution proved crude, but at a distance of two or three meters the effect was quite lyrical.
"I'm a realist of the old school," Belbo whispered to me. "I understand only Mondrian. What does a nongeometric picture say?"
"He was geometric before," I said.
"That wasn't geometry, that was bathroom tiles."
Meanwhile, Lorenza rushed to embrace Riccardo. He and Belbo exchanged a nod of greeting. There was a crowd; the gallery was trying to look like a New York loft, all white, with heating or water pipes exposed on the ceiling. God knows what it had cost them to backdate the place like that. In one corner, a sound system was deafening those present with Asian music¡X sitar music, if I recall rightly, the kind where you can't pick out a tune. Everybody walked absently past the pictures to crowd around the tables at the end and grab paper cups. We had arrived well into the evening: the air was thick with smoke, some girls from time to time hinted at dance movements in the center of the room, but everybody was still busy conversing, busy consuming the plentiful buffet. I sat on a sofa, and at my feet lay a great glass bowl half-filled with fruit salad. I was about to take a little, because I hadn't had any supper, but then I saw in it a footprint, which had crushed the little cubes of fruit in the center, reducing them to a homogeneous pave. This was not that surprising, because the floor was now spattered in many places with white wine, and some of the guests were already staggering.
Belbo had captured a paper cup and was proceeding lazily, without any apparent goal, occasionally slapping someone on the shoulder. He was trying to find Lorenza.
But few people remained motionless; the crowd was intent on a kind of circular movement, like bees hunting for a hidden flower. Though I wasn't looking for anything myself, I stood up and moved, shifted in response to the impulses transmitted to me by the group, and not far from me I saw Lorenza. She was wandering, miming the impassioned recognition of this man, of that: head high, eyes deliberately myopic-wide, back straight, breasts steady, and her steps haphazard, like a giraffe's.
At a certain point the human flow trapped me in a corner behind a table, where Lorenza and Belbo had their backs to me, having finally met, perhaps by chance, and they were also trapped. I don't know if they were aware of my presence, but the noise was so great that nobody could hear what others were saying at any distance. Lorenza and Belbo therefore considered themselves isolated, and I was forced to hear their conversation.
"Well," Belbo said, "where did you meet your Aglie?"
"My Agl
ie? Yours, too, from what I saw. You can know Simon, but I can't. Fine.''
"Why do you call him Simon? Why does he call you Sophia?"
"Oh, it's a game. I met him at a friend's place¡Xall right? And I find him fascinating. He kisses my hand as if I were a princess. He could be my father."
"He could be the father of your son, if you aren't careful."
It sounded like me, in Bahia, talking to Amparo. Lorenza was right. Aglie knew how to kiss the hand of a young lady unfamiliar with that ritual.
"Why Simon and Sophia?" Belbo insisted. "Is his name Simon? ¡¥¡¥
"It's a wonderful story. Did you know that our universe is the result of an error and that it's partly my fault? Sophia was the female part of God, because God then was more female than male; it was you men who later put a beard on him and started calling him He. I was his good half. Simon says I tried to create the world without asking permission¡XI, the Sophia, who is also called¡Xwait a minute¡Xthe Ennoia. But my male part didn't want to create; maybe he lacked the courage or was impotent. So instead of uniting with him, I decided to make the world by myself. I couldn't resist; it was through an excess of love. Which is true; I adore this whole mixed-up universe. And that's why I'm the soul of this world, according to Simon."
"How nice! Does he give that line to all the girls?"
"No, stupid, just to me, because he understands me better than you do. He doesn't try to create me in his image. He understands I have to be allowed to live my life in my own way. And that's what Sophia did; she flung herself into making the world. She came up against primordial matter, which was disgusting, probably because it didn't use a deodorant. And then, I think, she accidentally created the Demi¡Xhow do you say it?"
"You mean the Demiurge?"
"That's him, yes. Or maybe it wasn't Sophia who made this Demiurge; maybe he was already around and she egged him on: Get moving, silly, make the world, and then we'll have real fun. The Demiurge must have been a real screwup, because he didn't know how to make the world properly. In fact, he shouldn't even have tried it, because matter is bad, and he wasn't authorized to touch the stuff. Anyway, he made this awful mess, and Sophia was caught inside. Prisoner of the world."
Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum Page 31