The Nocturnal Library

by Ermanno Cavazzoni

  Earplugs must be used in all parts of the print works in order to seal them off from the external environment and prevent noise and foreign bodies from permeating an employee’s auricle to the detriment of his or her long-term health, as well as ensuring no outward movement of any by-product…

  “Then a printer worker came along – a younger man – and he too had his little finger inside his ear already hard at that obscene exercise. Then a third worker and fourth turned up, and on seeing the others those who were not already engaged in this business soon had their fingers fiddling away in one or other of their earholes as an act of solidarity or sedition and with such vigour and surly arrogance that the owner leapt out and started to scream that he had found them out and caught them red-handed.

  ‘Doing what exactly?’ said the ringleader. By way of reply the owner grabbed him by the little finger and thrust it in the air; he summoned everyone in a loud voice, even from the offices and including the foremen and the time-andmotion experts. ‘This is earwax,’ he shouted, ‘and no one can tell me that it isn’t.’ And he wanted everyone to look at a kind of yellow polenta under the man’s nails and, all the office staff agreed, it was something repellent and you wouldn’t want to go near it. Well, with cynicism and insolence worthy of a gaolbird, this leading print worker and all the others around argued that it was indeed polenta, and that polenta is certainly not extruded from one’s ears. But it so happens that we all end up with a little under our nails, particularly when we’re poor and have to tighten our belts, while other don’t even know what polenta is: under their nails you’d only find fragments of capon and roast veal. ‘Show us your nails,’ they shouted at the owner, and he replied, ‘This is not polenta, my friends!

  I too know what hunger is, whatever you think. I know all about it.’ ‘But now you only dine on chicken,’ they shouted from all sides. ‘Not at all, but I do know all about ears, and I caught you in flagrante, as we shall see,’ and he wouldn’t release the ringleader’s little finger. Indeed there was a scuffle. ‘Bring in a chemist,’ shouted the owner, hoping to use science to prove the entire shop stewards’ committee wrong. There followed an endless exchange of insults: ‘But you too were cleaning out your ear.’ ‘Give me a break! A chemist, call in a chemist!’ “A clerk stepped forward: ‘I’m not a chemist, but I have some expertise, because as a child I was very keen on experiments.’ The owner showed him the leading print worker’s finger and long yellow nail: ‘Are you capable of telling me precisely what is the chemical composition of this substance? And clearing up whether what we have here is wax or polenta?’ The clerk thought for a moment, while everyone stood with a sceptical expression and their arms crossed, and then said, ‘Well really, it’s not that difficult: at a pressure of 0.76 bar, wax liquefies at a temperature of 66 degrees centigrade; if placed close to a flame, wax will liquefy, whereas polenta will carbonise.’ He should not have said that; in a flash the owner had pulled out his lighter and was attempting to burn the print worker’s finger. There was a universal roar of indignation:

  ‘This is an attack on the workers’ movement!’ ‘It’s proof, scientific proof!’ exclaimed the owner, and once more he tried to burn the finger. ‘Where are we? In the Middle Ages?

  This is barbaric,’ and it would all have ended up in violent brawl if the counterfeit chemist had not imposed his will with a screechy voice, ‘One moment, gentlemen, just a moment!’ Everyone stopped and was willing to listen. ‘I suggest we take a sample; some of this substance should be placed over a flame.’ This appeared to meet with general consent, but when the owner gave the order to proceed with taking the sample, there was a widespread reaction of disgust, and amongst the office workers an obstinate refusal, ‘This is not one of our duties; this is an outrage, an abuse of power.’ ‘Let’s have a volunteer,’ the owner shouted, still holding on to that notorious finger. A little print worker stepped forward, pushed by the others, ‘I’ll do it,’ he exclaimed, ‘my name is Zante Padovani.’ Everyone applauded. The boss was suspicious, but in the absence of anyone better, he agreed. A little fire was started with some rags bathed in diesel, but just as they were preparing to take the sample, the owner caught sight of Padovani attempting to remove the remains of his last meal of polenta from his teeth with his own nail; unquestionably this was for the purpose of tampering with the evidence.

  With a sudden movement, the owner grabbed hold of his little finger too, and held it tightly with his left hand, shouting, ‘You swindlers, I saw what you’re up to!’ He tried to drag them both towards the fire so that he could put the indicted fingers over it to have them cooked. At this moment there was a unanimous and righteous trade-union protestation against this unprincipled persecution of a supposed plague-spreader and the end of civilisation as they knew it. The commotion was indescribable; the owner lost control of the two culprits because he unintentionally stepped on the flames, and instead of setting fire to their fingers, he lit the bottom of his trousers which smouldered, creating a great deal of smoke and a great deal of panic.

  The sequel was a blur of running hither and thither and a furious trade in defamatory aspersions: ‘warmonger’, ‘swindlers’, inquisitor’, ‘enemies of culture and the nation’, ‘profiteer’, ‘bunglers’, ‘parasite’!

  “Then the print run came to an end and the machines automatically closed down. A printed sheet was removed and everyone crowded round to have a look. And the owner gave out a cry, ‘Dandruff! Who is responsible?’ It was at the time of the great social conflicts, dear fellow; I was in the midst of it all, and every day or even twice every day, the same old stuff was repeated off pat. The truth is that printed paper is a trap for all kinds of filth, even pus, scurf and secretions.”

  Chapter G

  We had walked as far as the other end of the hall, and I could hear t hree o’clock being chimed out very clearly.

  “That’s enough, please!” I told Accetto; I could have cried, I wanted so much for him to stop talking. He had been so taken with his own story that he had gone much further than he thought and found himself quite outside his usual stamping ground. Who knows where that itinerary would have led, because he had already resumed his diatribe against exocrine glands and the habit of reading too close to the page. I was quite willing to admit that he might be right, but I could not dwell on such matters. “These are important questions, I do not deny it, but I cannot discuss them now because my head is not big enough for them, and they leave no space for anything else; tomorrow I have an exam and I know less and less about my subject.” I had pulled out my reading list, but it seemed to have grown smaller and more faded just lying in my pocket.

  “Oh well, if that’s it,” said Accetto indicating a door a little way off and hidden behind two columns, “then there is the reference room. In there books are catalogued by argument – at your disposal.” He consulted his attendants in a whisper and then said, “I leave you in the capable hands of my assistants, Fischietti and Santoro; they will assist you and give you suggestions, should it prove necessary.”

  “Don’t disturb yourselves, please,” I said, “just give me instructions and I’ll look up the books myself.” I was a little frightened of those two mischief-makers; I might have fallen asleep and prey to their attentions. But there was nothing for it.

  Initially they stayed close to me and examined my feet with interest. Then they lifted the flaps of my brown smoking jacket and held on to it laughing, as though it were a train and they my pageboys, but they behaved more like my drivers or carters. This went on for some time, and I said, “Enough!” and they said, “Yes sir, Mister Jerome.”

  That’s what they called me, as if it were an epithet, but actually it is my name, as recorded on my birth certificate.

  “Yes sir,” they said, “we’re here to follow orders,” and they pulled back on the flaps as though they were reins and obsessively urged me on. “Ever onwards, sir, ever onwards,” but we made little headway even though I tried as hard as I could and started to swe
at from the effort.

  Then they started to shake my jacket because, in their opinion, it was full of hairs, insects and dust. Santoro was beating it with an egg whisk and saying, “Excuse me sir, you take no notice.” In actual fact, they were producing a great cloud of dust and insects were flying of it, which they tried to kill by clapping their hands and hitting the air with the egg whisk and a small potato-peeler. This was not, of course, any help, and did not assist me in revising for my exam. “You have bumfluff, Mr Jerome,” said Fischietti, “would you like us to depilate you?” “Enough!” I said again, “leave me in peace.” He was playing with a lighter, which he was continually lighting and putting out. He wanted me to look at it while he held it steady in his hand. “I know how it works, thanks,” I said, “so don’t go to any trouble.”

  He wanted me to look at where the gas came out, “Look in there,” and I said, “That’s an old joke and not very funny.”

  But he persisted so much – and his companion Santoro was asking, “Shall I hold him still by the hair?” – that in the end I looked and Fischietti immediately released a high flame that burnt my eyelashes and other hairs with a powerful smell of singeing. They both sniggered and wanted to apply alcohol, but fortunately for me they were distracted.

  Having only travelled a few metres over a very long period of time, I finally got to the reference room, which I entered in a sweat as the door had proved incredibly stiff.

  It wouldn’t move on its hinges, and in my efforts to shove it, a piece of plaster fell on my head.

  There was a woman barely visible up on a walkway where she was sorting out some books. There was just one person at a very long table, and just by the door behind shelves running into the room and under a label in large lettering, “Philosophy”, were two attendants, one squatting and the other kneeling, both playing cards but with tiny travel playing cards that looked like postage stamps. They studied the cards for a long time before playing them by throwing them on a small makeshift table. I watched them for a while, so as not to interrupt them. They were talking quietly about Accetto; I caught a few sentences, although I would have preferred to have concentrated on my exam.

  “Did you hear about Accetto?” said one of them, the taller of the two. “He’s got a son who was taking celery.”

  “Taking celery?” I heard the other man say.

  “Celery!”

  “But celery’s not a drug.”

  “Have you ever tried it?”

  “Of course! I often eat celery in my salad.”

  “That doesn’t mean a thing,” continued the first man.

  “His son was drugging himself with celery and no one could understand how he was doing it.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, it’s impossible.”

  “Me too, but you should see the state of him: just skin and bone, and his complexion is bright yellow.”

  “Didn’t they take him to the doctor?”

  “Yes, but doctors won’t do anything but run some tests.

  Do you think they’re the kind of people who believe in celery?”

  “No, no, of course not. You can be sure of that. But in my opinion, no one believes in celery.”

  “That’s just it, exactly as you say. No one believes in it.

  But in the meantime what are they going to do? You can’t just let the poor lad go to ruin.”

  “Well, take him off celery!”

  “Aha! Yes, you too, so it’s true? Do you agree that young people are in the greatest danger?”

  “What do you want me to say? I’m not a doctor.”

  “And that’s your good fortune. The things these doctors say! All words, and in the meantime this poor boy is getting worse and becoming increasingly withdrawn. I always ask him when he comes here with this father: Is it celery? You can tell me; I promise that it will be our secret. But naturally he denies it all. And I ask him again, Is it celery?

  If you have this weight on your mind, then just offload it on to me. No one will know anything about it. I tell him that because it’s a cure, this need to confide in someone else.

  His father never talks to him – he is that kind of man – and our children grow up in the midst of things today, with this weight on their mind that they need to unburden.”

  “But who says it’s celery that’s causing him harm?”

  “Saying it? Well, no one’s actually saying it. We all like a quiet life. He denies it, because he’s stubborn like his father. But you should see him – he doesn’t look well!”

  While I was listening to these exasperating inanities, Fischietti came along and flicked an elastic band at the ear of the one squatting down, who was mightily offended and leapt up ready for a boxing match. He raised his arms to the correct pose, but I interrupted, “Just a moment! First give me at least one book.” I had seen that the other man had also stood up and wanted justice: to grab hold of Fischietti and return the elastic band by the same method.

  Fischietti was hiding behind me and continuing to provoke them by waving a straightened finger. At the same time he was pushing me so that I would fall on top of them and crush them, or alternatively so they would see me as their real adversary. “No, no,” I said, “everybody stop. I don’t have time for this at the moment. For God’s sake, I just want this particular book, which is here.” And I mentioned the twentieth century, as I showed the card. Everyone ran around me to take a look. Santoro also wanted to smell it.

  One of the attendants took out a magnifying glass and examined it for some time as he turned it over in his hand, even though Fischietti was trying to put his finger in the man’s eye and set light to him and the piece of paper.

  Santoro told him off and as his did so, buffoonishly impersonated Accetto, and put the flame out with his saliva. I was worried about the card and held it tightly.

  Eventually the attendant stood up straight and looking at the others rather than at me said, stressing each syllable, “The Philosophy of the Twentieth Century. Abridged Version. Do you want it?” I wasted no time in saying that I did; it seemed something clear and reasonably plausible. I felt sure that he had chosen a title at random, and I also noted that the magnifying glass was not a magnifying glass but one of those salad spoons made of transparent plastic.

  Indeed he was now using it to drive off Santoro and Fischietti who sought refuge under a chair.

  At this stage, the one who had supposedly carried out the task of decipherment and was also the taller and thinner one, picked up a stool with steps and climbed up to a shelf, further than was necessary because he had to bend down with his head against the ceiling. He looked along the shelf for another eternity pretending to look and leaf through some pages, and then said, “The book is not here; do you want the nearest one?”

  “What do you mean?” I said, “does it seem like the same thing?”

  “Listen, for me books are all of equal worth; it is not for me to judge whether someone asks for one or another. I am asking you this just in case you want it, to make it easier for you, so as not to make things difficult for you. But if you’re going to get offended, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to come down and the book can stay exactly where it is.”

  The shorter attendant, seated on the first step, said that I shouldn’t be apportioning blame to anyone. “Here there is carelessness,” he continued in an amenable tone, “a devil-may-care attitude that you would find hard to credit. It is very unusual for a book to be found; indeed, you might say that in practice they are never found. But if you want my advice, given that I have considerable experience of this place, take the book next to it. You’ve got to believe me!

  Even if it is not exactly the one you requested, you should realise that perhaps someone else was looking for this one we’re offering and they couldn’t find it; and perhaps tomorrow this actually will be the one you are looking for.

  I’m telling that you will look for it in vain and you’ll regret the arrogance you’re displaying at the moment.”

&n
bsp; “But I wanted the abridged version that you referred me to.”

  “Yes, of course. Indeed we have no objections, but have you considered that someone else, perhaps only yesterday, might have had the abridged version you’re on about in his very hand, and out of mere superciliousness rejected it. Do you want to make the same mistake?”

  The man at the top of the steps repeated for my benefit, “I’m coming down; he doesn’t want the next book? Is he sure? Is he rejecting it?”