The Nocturnal Library

by Ermanno Cavazzoni

  “I went on dates with her more dead than alive, because of this unrelenting insomnia; the bags under my eyes were red and blue, and swollen with ink like a squid. She didn’t seem to mind: she said I looked like an actor, that I had the grim stare of a thicket of thorns and my bulging eyes were beaming a hypnotic ray. So on meeting up, we would immediately embrace – she had an expansive personality – and I would take advantage of this to have my first lovely little nap standing up with my head on her shoulder while she indulged in her customary effusions. This decongested my nerves and even my eyes calmed down a bit and became less swollen. Then, wrapped around each other, we went for a walk in the park; she would tell me all about her day and the innumerable things that would result from it and, except for my legs which had the job of maintaining forward motion, my body became drowsy just like when you listen to a lullaby and experienc the overdue delight of the gradual but irreversible approach of blessed slumber.

  So we would abruptly collapse on an isolated bench, and under a moon whose light filtered through the foliage, we would cling to each other and I would let myself go completely: I slept unrestrainedly with my head across her chest and cushioned in her forearms. In fact her breasts were formed in such a manner that it seemed to me that they had a substratum of plush stuffing sustained by excellent and, I would say, first-class springs, as though they had been designed anatomically to responds to requirements of deep sleep in particular and relaxation in general. Their conformation was well suited to the articulation of the neck, so that the head was lifted just enough to avoid stressing or twisting the vertebrae, thus lessening the danger of stiffness. And we all know that poor-quality sleep is highly detrimental to one’s bone structure and one’s health.

  “These were certainly beautiful moments, even though I was not in any condition to assess them. While I slept, my expression was one of rapture and devotion, and it really did seem that I was purring, while in fact my nose and my now relaxed pharynx were quivering involuntarily. So there you have it: I was on those occasions most authentically myself; there was no pretence and she was my perfect complementary substratum. She talked and talked, being of a communicative disposition; I never understood what she was actually saying, but my wonderful sleep was the equivalent of a yes, an unconditional agreement on every question and all questions that might arise in the future, and I expressed this all-embracing consent through the weight of my head which made my presence felt. When, however, her chatter took on the tone of a direct question and my neuro-vegetative apparatus detected this, I would then utter the suitable words of reply and I believe I did so without moving. I would say, ‘Yes, Emilia (she was called Emilia), yes, Emilia, so very much and for always.’ Or I would use suitable adjectives and adverbs in accordance with a simplified grammar governed by my spinal marrow which, in order to defend my slumbers, took personal responsibility for these conversations and ingeniously managed to prolong them as far as it was humanly possible. For example, I used to hear myself calling out her name during a few moments of vague consciousness, like a lovesick sleepwalker: ‘Emilia, Emilia, Emilia…’ I would also say, ‘yes, yes, yes…’ but to what I do not know, and yet she felt she was understood, which for her was a source of untold gratification. It was a breathy and whimpering ‘yes’ that did not involve my higher faculties, nor did it necessarily imply wakefulness. All this was down to the spinal marrow, which kept our exchanges going and even operated my facial expressions with contractions full of love and understanding without in any way disturbing the sleeper’s repose; indeed, that marrow stood watch over it.

  “But after a while, this was no longer enough for her.

  She wasn’t even happy with the interjections, ‘oh, ah, eh’ which emanated from my mouth, and all the respiratory vocalisations that were supposed to signify the temperature of my sentimental ardour. You see, this Emilia was a youthful spirit and this kind of conversation could only raise her expectations, so that by dint of repetition she eventually became rather prickly: ‘You don’t love me any more. You don’t love me like you used to. Natale, tell me you’re still crazy about me!’ Natale, that’s my name, and I started to awake on hearing my surname reverberating in my ear, because these questions of loving and not loving were too complicated for the poor vegetative soul. So I would then sigh meaningfully and my embrace would tighten two or even three times so that some notion or other would be sparked off and appear clear and distinct.

  And what next? Well, I would be off once more with my deepest slumbers. Now let’s be clear about this: I was not being selfish; I did this out of a survival instinct, and I did it for us, for her, and for our life together. But once a hour or two had passed with her incessant talking, I would suddenly hear her berating me, pulling my hair and knocking on my head as she might a door, and saying: ‘… who are you thinking about? You’ve got another woman!

  I’m sure you’re thinking about her. Who is she?’ And I would come to, and say a few reassuring words so that she wouldn’t change her position, which was comfortable and perfectly shaped to hold my head and body – in a manner that you could never expect of a bed. But once she was on her high horse, there was no getting her off it, although it has to be said that these disturbances and impediments gave a potency, or shall we say a heightened and more passionate intensity, to those brief moments of sleep between one interrogation and another. To mollify her, I intuitively pointed to the sky or the moon, if it was out, with the air of a dreamy lover expressed by the arch of my eyebrows, and then return instantaneously to my blissful sleep. But by this stage, she was complaining unrelentingly:

  ‘Why don’t you say something? What are you thinking about?’ and she shook me. I was unconsciously dischargeing replies: ‘… our tiny, tiny star up there, way up there, can’t you see it…’ But she was not inclined to listen. She shook her shoulder and her chest, so that my head tumbled off it, and she came out with some words to indicate her annoyance with the sky, the moon and the bench; she did this loudly and in a tone of voice that completely woke me up. Then again, it would have woken anyone and everyone – not just me, but even the hard of hearing.

  “So there I was once more, sleepless in the middle of the night, when all the living creatures of this world – humans and animals – enjoy their well-earned rest, each in the place Almighty God has allocated to them: the ox in its stable, the sheep in its fold, the dog in its kennel, and so on in accordance with what is appropriate and sacrosanct for peace of mind and allows all living beings to close their eyes in bliss. Everyone but me, and I would feel my eyelids swell and stiffen like a sausage skin; my eyes became confused by magnetic luminescence, and on the northern corner of my cornea I saw an aurora borealis emerge in all its brilliance and then die back. It was insomnia, my insomnia, an insomnia that never relented. I sought my only remedy, I tried to lay her out and remove the lumps caused by her discontent. I pointed to the moon; “Look at how she looks down on us serenely!” I said as I levelled her out, put her on a slant and tucked up the protuberances of her chest. ‘Emilia,’ I would say, ‘Emilia, you know that I love you!’ But no, there was simply no means to placate her; I had no idea how to lay myself down – straight, on my side, face up or face down. I begged her, ‘Emilia, hug me, get yourself comfortable, hold me on your breast forever.’ But instead of encountering that wonderful pillow, all I found was some huffs followed by intricate questions: why didn’t I take her here, why didn’t I take her there, why didn’t we go dancing, why didn’t we go on trips?

  “‘Yes, everything you say, Emilia,’ I would reassure her, ‘we will do it all,’ but then she wanted to have dates and places. Were we going to the seaside or the mountains? In train or by car? These were such exacting questions that we needed to be well rested before we could possibly decide, I told her, while in that particular moment I did not feel that I was up to it; I would have made a false step, I would have got it all wrong. However, I could think about it, and to do so, I needed silence and time. All she had to
do was relax and stretch herself out, and I would concentrate on these matters and assess all the pros and cons. To avoid any unnecessary distractions, I would close my eyes. A waste of breath! She just went on: ‘Where? When? The date? On our own or with friends?’ There was nothing for it, we had to turn it into an argument. So I would say, ‘Come off it, Emilia, you’re never satisfied!’ This was followed by her tears, the poor dear, during which she finally started to soften and become more accommodating, and I would zealously get down to the business of positioning her for maximum comfort – in other words, slightly on a slant and a little concave, so that I could wrap her around me if it got a little cold and damp towards dawn. At last she set off on her long and uninterrupted reply: about who we were, about what I meant to her and the way she felt in my company, about how easy she was to please, and about many, many other things that I could no longer hear, because from her very first words I suddenly felt released and could fall asleep happily like the lord of the manor laid out on cushions and covered with warm blankets. Yes, I really loved her in those moments, although I could not have been aware of it. It is true that her oration did occasionally require her to shake me, slap my face, cover me with kisses or spray from her nose, all of which I was vaguely conscious of. And sometimes I would feel my mouth closing as a minor adjustment to my position caused me to sigh. ‘Be quiet, and listen to me for once,’ she would say while I continued to indulge my blissful slumber. When the sun came up, everything became clear and there were no more disagreements. She was sweetness itself – kind and understanding. I would yawn as I stirred and felt myself well rested. ‘You’re tired, poor dear,’ she would say, and I would leave her at the door. She would be tired and her voice hoarse, but I would be buoyed up and ready to get on with my day.”

  While this Natale was speaking, the slug had climbed up almost as far as his shoulder, and his book was teeming with midges.

  “Then she left me without me even noticing; who knows what direction her constant chatter took that night. We were once again at our bench and everything was proceeding as usual. Maybe it was even better. I fell asleep as I was walking towards her, and I just fell into her arms as though I were dreaming, and after that I didn’t hear another thing, such was my joy. I could not say what we were talking about, nor what happened between us: perhaps she reached the point of an irremediable disagreement as she chatted to herself, perhaps I raved in my sleep and emitted noises similar to discourteous replies, perhaps my face irrationally took on ill-mannered expressions or she thought that I said no and was against her. Who could possibly know? I found myself awake and alone, lying on my back on the bench, and she never wanted to see me again. I desperately sought her out and asked her for an explanation, because I thought that I would at least get some sleep while we were sorting things out. But it was all to no avail. I tried lying down outside her door, but as there was peace, silence and no interference from anybody else, I just lay there with my eyes open to keep watch over my sleep that never came, under the cover of an inanimate doormat and my monumental tiredness. I began to wander around the cafés, and I could only drowse or sleep for a bit if I could find someone to have a conversation with. Staring ahead and propping up my head with the palm of my hand, I occasionally uttered a few words about sport or politics to encourage my companion to carry on talking to me. But political sleep was not a pleasant one, as my head kept dropping suddenly, and sometimes I would follow it, so we would end up on the floor next to the bar, while the insomnia would fiercely go on the attack again. I would never again sleep with such rapture as I did on top of Emilia. That’s why I miss her. I have spent my nights in cafés in search of someone to replace her, but without success.

  “At the time, I was working as a teacher, but as you can imagine, I suffered from such oppressive tiredness in the school that teaching was an eternal nightmare. After vainly tossing and turning under the sheets through the night, exasperation would drive me from my bed long before dawn. I would try to wash my face, but while putting soap on it, my head would fall on the tap, and sleep was making me sway so wildly that my centre of gravity would go beyond the critical point and I would topple. Then I would find myself standing with my cheek squashed against the wall or buttressed by my knees against the bidet and still swaying dangerously, or perhaps with my forehead against the mirror, so that when my legs suddenly gave way, I would be restored to my incurable insomnia whether I liked it or not.

  “Thus in the midst of these alternations, it came to half past seven; I would run to the bus stop, and if the bus came late, there was the danger that I would start to sleep there, with the consequences we can all imagine: I could collapse on top of someone who would get very angry, I could squash a child in my fall or knock over an old person, or I could have simply tumbled under the wheels of the bus. In any case, I used my strength of character to resist, and generally I succeeded by walking and jumping incessantly. I only lost consciousness in those brief moments of stasis when the motory nerves were not engaged. On one dramatic occasion, I got on the bus only to find that I couldn’t sit down because I would have gone on to the end of the line, or perhaps the depot when the bus had run the line for the last time that day. But I couldn’t stand holding the grasps either. Such was my sleepiness that I slept wrapped by the pressing crowd, as though they were all mattresses, duvets and pillows, and I was carried by the wave of people without any awareness of this on my part. Inasmuch as I was lucid, I attempted to position myself so that I would be pinched or trapped by the automatic doors, which acted as a kind of alarm clock recalling me to my duties when they shut upon a knee, a foot, my neck or my chest. I shouted as they woke me at each bus stop, and the people were rather disturbed to see my suffering, particularly because of my puffy eyes red with insomnia and my crumbling face. This was the only method that provided a reasonable chance of getting to the school, even though it meant arriving crumpled and beaten. But that was where the veritable pitched battle commenced and was fought hard against the terrifying obsession with sleep. Those who have not experienced it can have no idea.

  “To tell the truth, I believe that I have never been entirely awake, and if I have, never for more than four or five minutes. Of course, I fought valiantly to keep my eyelids open and the weighty cranium held high, which was of the utmost importance when teaching. I would say such things as, “Somebody read from the reading on such-and-such page,” and just the act of saying spread like a sleeping pill through my brain; I would lift my eyes to the ceiling as though I were about to listen and reflect, but in reality I was in that instant entering that total absence of mind that resembles sleep but is actually insomnia.

  However, I always maintained a thoughtful demeanour that was appropriate to the dignity of my office. Indeed I would define my behaviour as pedagogically orthodox, because it did inspire a degree of submissiveness. The class would look at me dumbly and await the thorough process of my thoughts. They hung from my lips so firmly that one after the other they were all mesmerised: first to go was class leader, then the more conscientious pupils fell asleep, followed by the mediocrities and finally those whose results were poor. So gradually the entire form was slumbering in unison, including the dolts, the donkeys and the generally distracted, unresponsive and stupid, who, galvanised by the others, also dutifully started to yawn. Then you could hear one thud after another as they started dropping on their desks: some hit their foreheads on the tops while others hunched over an exercise book or used a pen to prop up their heads. All were snoring gently with great perseverance and application. I did not actually witness any of this; I merely inferred it.

  “Just to mention one of the absurdities, there was this janitor who was in the habit of eavesdropping from behind the door so that he could report back to the headmaster if there was any insubordination, singing or public vilification of the teacher’s person in the class. Yet all he could hear was an exemplary silence, which led him to believe that I was adopting some new experimental method that invol
ved not an iron glove but some inner self-discipline.

  Indeed he declared that in three hours of listening at the keyhole, he had only heard an occasional and intermittent humming sound, which must have been of flies. Nor could it be said that time was lost in chatter, empty words, scolding or threats. And when he saw through the keyhole that one schoolboy was continuously bent over his desk, the janitor became convinced that there must have been some continuous and exacting written exercise taking place in that class. He was so delighted that after several hours of careful observation he collapsed against the door as though under the effect of a tranquilliser. That is where they found him, cluttering the exit like a sack of turnips or potatoes. Thus I gained a reputation for being a severe and modern schoolmaster.

  “My health benefited slightly from this ability of the mind to absent itself, but the resulting repose was neither profound nor sufficient, because as soon as the class had achieved unanimity in its slumber and I too could have stretched my legs and turned on my side with my coat stuffed between my head and the back of the chair – or, in other words, when the classroom turned into a kind of dormitory – I was once again struck down by insomnia at its most virulent. Then I would rise to my feet like a phantom and wander unsteadily between the desks, occasionally waking one of the children to have them read a passage so that I could doze off once more. So I never got any real sleep in the class, and while I worked as a teacher, I continually suffered from an oppressive tiredness.

  “One day, things got so bad that I fell unconscious on the floor: the pupils who were still awake kindly placed me in my chair, and for five whole minutes I slept there like a dead man in paradise. As can well be imagined, no sooner had they made me comfortable with a folder acting as a cushion under my head and some newspapers as blankets, removed my shoes and lowered the blinds to darken the room, I unfortunately succumbed to the following thought: