The two attendants kept whizzing around for some time, and repeatedly passed between the other two who were playing cards, thus creating even greater dust and disorder, and whipping up so much wind that I could barely keep control of my papers. One of them slipped my fingers and flew up into the air, and while I ran after it, the some other papers also escaped. At that moment Fischietti went by, shouting to Santoro: “Come on! Faster, much faster,” so that all the paper disappeared in a vortex.
Lacking both brakes and a bearing to follow, they shot off into a corridor to a flurry of terrified chickens, and you could hear the clanking of metal and the rumbling of agitated voices from the ladders. And finally there was silence.
I found myself with the arbitrator Pantani behind me.
He was increasingly indignant about the two attendants’ behaviour and a rip they had made in his trousers. “There should be proper professional courses for attendants,” he said, “and also a degree of natural inclination and a more sensitive approach.” He looked at Rasorio with enormous respect and stroked his head.
“You’re right, of course,” I said, but I would have preferred to have been left in peace, alone with a book and in the hope of finding something.
Unfortunately he had categorised me in his mind as someone to unburden his woes onto. “You’ll have seen what’s going on! But we’re impotent and besides it is easier said than done: we don’t have the money for refurbishment; we don’t have money for anything: not for pest control, not for re-cataloguing, not for reorganisation, not for the inventory; not even for dusting, sweeping and repairing doors, windows, shelving, glass cabinets, plaster and flooring, which is full of cracks. The lighting and ventilation systems are also in need of work. The fact is,” he said, “that this library is not acknowledged by the civil service, and its staff are all here on secondment. When someone is unhappy with their position and their superiors are unhappy with him, because he is irascible or acerbic, they send them here. There is no career for them here.
They are left waiting, as though on sick leave, and in a way they disappear from the world of the living. As they are always working nights, they sleep by day and are gradually forgotten – by their old colleagues, ex-girlfriends and all their friends of the past, who discover one fine day with surprise and regret that the dear friend they had lost sight of years ago has in fact died.
“Having said that, we must remember that there are between a hundred and five hundred thousand volumes in here, and perhaps more, perhaps three times that figure.
But many of them have been lost, because they are not in their right place. They are buried amongst the others, and the catalogue is pretty much useless.
“It is always a matter of funding: the attendants are badly paid, cynical and do as little as possible. So who can expect them to put back every book scrupulously in its proper place? They put it in the first gap they see. Each one should therefore have a guardian, who follows them, checks on their work and draws up a report to certify the completion of correct shelving of a book. But this would mean doubling the number of staff. To everyone their personal guardian. There is then the question who is going to check whether the guardian is conscientious or slipshod? This is an old question. We have tried it on our more unreliable and unruly employees, but, would you believe it, the result was only scheming of the most invidious kind. I see it all the time on my travels. I had three of these guardians on trial and they were in hiding, one here and one over there in the corridors. They were meant to be taking notes without attracting attention. But one of these three, when he caught a woman making a mistake, would leap out like Silenus and immediately attempt to have sex with her. Given that he was powerfully built, he inspired awe and caused difficulties for the woman, who defend herself with the book which fell apart after three or four blows. The guardian, a certain Tiraboschi, who we unsuccessfully tried to have sacked to rid ourselves of that race, completely lost his temper at the sight of this resistance he considered insubordination, and only renewed his demands for immediate sex. He had a goatee, bad teeth and the smell of the stable, so no woman would ever be interested. He, on the other hand, never changed his mind. Indeed, the more they fled or pelted his head, teeth and groin with books, or aimed at his side with sharp and pointed bindings, the more he lashed out and sought satisfaction, although in truth this was battle with a wide no-man’s-land and the bruises he suffered would cause him elation and gratification.
“After a bit, he didn’t even wait to catch somebody out; he would wait in hiding behind some bookshelf, old curtain or underneath a box, and anyone who passed by – were they men, women, young or old, or even old female inspectors – was stealthily followed through the jungle of books, and then at the opportune moment he leapt on them from behind and writhed about like a poor ravenous madman. It was not at all clear what kind of sexual relations he was seeking, or indeed what he understood by the term sexual relations. He made a great deal of noise, rhythmically stamped his feet and wanted to kiss the victim – all manner of confused behaviour patterns like a chicken trying to resist an attempt to pull its neck. In the end, no one wanted to venture into the storerooms, where the danger from the animals on the loose was compounded by the presence of this Tiraboschi. Accetto was sent with a stick to teach him a lesson, because it was said that Tiraboschi’s nature had become goat-like and he was now living like a wild animal amongst the books with all manner of mischief in his head. You could hear him galloping along the corridors in an erethistic state and calling out loudly. He appeared at the gallop in public, ran across the tables kicking as he went, and threw himself on the Greek teacher to copulate with her or something similar.”
“The Greek teacher,” I said, “I’ve heard of her.”
“Yes, the Greek teacher,” continued Pantani. “As you can imagine, it was bedlam. Everyone was wary and disturbed by seeing this deranged being appear from the library’s recesses and pitilessly and incomprehensibly torment the first old frump who comes along. Even after he had been driven off and pursued with curses, no one could return to their studies, still less concentrate on them. The teacher, red with emotion and shame, and unmindful of her Greek, smoothed out her tartan skirt and kept checking the door from which Tiraboschi had come out and to which he had returned in his retreat.
“So the system of introducing guardians was not a great success, because even the second one was not much better. He had the appearance of a grass snake and was called Bisolfo. His corruption took a different form: he demanded money. Not a large sum, but in return for keeping quiet, closing an eye on careless work. He wanted to be paid at least one fernet, an aromatic spirit of which he was particularly fond, and there were those who paid up, principally to get him out of the way along with his bad breath that smelt of cheap alcohol and vinegar. In the event of non-payment of the supposed debt, he attempted to tie up the unlucky victim and hide her away until the ransom was paid. He would drive her down a hole in the floor with his bad breath or steal one of her shoes with a piece of rope, which would be held against payment. He once captured an inexpert attendant and put her in a sack.
The ransom he demanded was a pittance, but he still had to lower his price and finally agreed to a few small coins. In vain he kept the poor soul in that sack all night with Tiraboschi, who scented something and saw the jute material moving, while he was prowling the area menacingly and adopting various poses.
“It has to be said that the third one, known as Mr.
Guastalamenti, was a more sophisticated little character.
He got it into his head that he should check up on the other two, but given the turn of events, he ended up demanding a percentage from one and the right to witness the other’s sexual manifestations. Indeed, he induced some of the girls with misleading advice to make mistakes in order to have more scenes to enjoy; just as the trap was set, he would withdraw and out jumped Tiraboschi with an asinine laugh, in no mood for argument but only for punishment, or rather for the imprudent act t
hat his poor mind has classified as sexual intercourse. Just imagine! In the specific case of the attendant held in the jute sack, the third guardian – this Mr Guastalamenti – untied it to enjoy the scene. The terrified young lady made her escape so quickly that Tiraboschi, now at the height of his desire, furious with his ears now straight and pointed, made up for this by hurling himself on his colleague Bisolfo, beating him, inserting his head between some books, and mocking him by removing his trousers that tinkled with coins. To the scandal and dismay of everyone, he then threw those trousers on the head of a professor of ancient music right in the middle of the reading room. This was expressly prohibited by one of the regulations. You can imagine how this reflected on the library and what deleterious effects it had upon our studies!
“So this is what I’m trying to say: a library attendant should have a faith; it doesn’t matter which, as long as it is inculcated in him from birth and becomes second nature.
He has to be driven by a higher sense of justice in putting a book back in its right place, because when he is alone in the darkness of a corridor and no one is around, only a disinterested love of creation can guide him to make every one of his acts a spontaneous sacrifice, a joy and a desire to do good. This is what my emotions tell me all the time.
But in here they are all cynics and scoundrels, who think of nothing but fornicating, stealing and touching each other up. Perhaps good example would be enough, even from a distance, but not threats.”
Here I interrupted him with a whole lot of excuses, because he would have droned on all night, whether I was there or not. Seeing that Iris was not far off, I took out the examination card and called her over. She said that you couldn’t read a thing and needed a microscope. I said disconsolately, “But my exam is tomorrow morning.” Then Pantani, suddenly adopting the gravitas of a mayor or even deputy mayor in a plenary session, tore it from my hand and, holding it far away from his eyes as you would expect of a presbyopic person, he read it or pretended to read it, and solemnly nodded. Iris was laughing behind his back and making eloquent signs not to take any notice of him.
Pantani seemed very confident however, and was muttering a series of foreign names as though he were reading them.
“Wait a minute,” Iris unexpectedly said, “what we need here is Mrs Bucato; she knows about exams and teaches Greek.” All that came to my mind was the orang-utan and Natale’s misfortunes, always supposing they really happened as Fischietti described them, and I would have preferred Iris’s private assistance; in fact I would have prized it. But she just said, “I’m off to get her,” and disappeared. Pantani took a birthday-cake candle out of his pocket, lit it and, using this light, he very pompously ran along the books on a nearby shelf, as though he knew just what I wanted. “There’s no need to go to all that trouble,” I said, but he replied, “For heaven’s sake, no trouble at all! When I can be of some assistance…” but the way he held his head and curved his eyebrows gave me the impression he could not see a thing and was feeling his way. Was it all just to make him seem important in my eyes? “Here it is!” he exclaimed. “What is it?” I asked him timidly. “Read this, it will do you no harm.” It was a large, very ostentatious box. With grand, ceremonious gestures he placed it on the table on the corridor side and pointed to the high-backed chair that went with it. It was all buffoonery. “I’ll leave you here to your work,” he said, “I have a few things to do.” Off he went sheltering the candle’s flame with his hand. I opened the box and, as I suspected, “it was all a joke.” There were cigarette butts, ash and a scanty pile of papers carelessly torn from some poor book. Instead of making progress, I thought, things just keep getting worse. While waiting for Iris, I read the title with a sense of unspeakable weariness: “Retrogrades”.
Well, how about that for a coincidence, I said to myself.
Retrogrades
As with all things concerning humanity, this business of going forwards is just an institution. There are some people affected by the phenomenon of walking backwards: they are retrogrades.
How do you become a retrograde? We don’t know this scientifically, because there are very few cases and they are all very different. For instance, during processions organised for sundry and recondite reasons, whether trade-union, some strange cult or a wedding, there is usually something that impedes the regular forward movement. Vociferous arguments can be heard, as can expressions in dialect, and someone says, “But this person is going backwards rather than forwards!” Here is an example: a participant, subject to a sudden inspiration and perhaps oblivious of the setting and his companions in the procession, stops dead still with a question mark imprinted on his face. The others all around him, who don’t have any punctuation on their faces, either go round him or into him, with a little altercation between the stationary him and their inertial forward movement. The next thing that happens to him is that the ideas that previously sat firmly and solidly in his head start to go backwards, and consequently he too takes a step backwards, because his intuition tells him that the place inhabited by his ideas is the most appropriate place for him to be as well. However these backward ideas keep pulling him backwards, and he continues to take steps in the opposite direction to the flow, with the consequent chaos of feet and bad tempers and accusations of not being in tune with the procession, as can well be imagined.
At this stage, the person in question starts to run blindly like a crab against the flow, because he is anxious about himself and his own thoughts, and creates clashes and intolerant reactions with shouts of “ow” and “fucking this, fucking that, who do you think you are? Where do you think you are?” Eventually he gets to the end of the procession and there’s no one left – just a few bicycles, sweet papers and an unmarked police car. Breathless and happy he is reunited with his own thoughts which had stopped under the branch of a tree, where they buzzed and swarmed.
We can only infer from this that retrogrades are not born retrogrades, just as we now know that people are not born progrades: we become progrades because of our upbringing, given that this habit of going forwards has become well established and carved in stone amongst us Indo-Europeans, as well as the Hamitic and Semitic peoples. Retrogradation has been completely expunged from the civilised mind, except here and there, possibly in geographically remote regions during states of ecstasy or somnambulism usually induced by the consumption of spirituous liquids.
When questioned, retrogrades say that it is the other people who are going backwards and that the concepts of backwards and forwards are entirely subjective. They say that we westerners are dogmatic and blinkered, and only see what is a few metres from our noses, an area that we pompously define as “ahead”. But the nose, in their opinion, is just a kind of tail which contains an orifice that should be kept closed in the interests of us all.
It is axiomatic that retrogrades can be found in taverns, cafés and streets particularly after dark. For example, it is eight o’clock in the evening, and Mr X is in a café, where he has spent the entire day. He gets up reluctantly and all he has in his brain is a comprehensive “Oh shit!” then he sits back down and gets up as though an idea was entering and leaving his head continually. People can see him looking at his watch and emptying his glass. The owner of the café has already lowered the shutter halfway down the main entrance, and says, “Goodbye then, Mr Artom.” Mr Artom, always supposing that is his name, has just thought very emphatically about his mother-in-law, his wife and his five children who all await him at home, and fully aware of his situation replies, “Goodbye.” Instead of going towards the door, however, he enters a broom cupboard back first. There is no one around except the owner, who pulls him out with considerable difficulty because his legs are kicking the ground like a wild animal and gaining leverage in the midst of the brooms and buckets of sawdust. From there the owner pushes the recalcitrant customer towards the door with a friendly arm.
He lowers his head to pass under the shutter and as soon as he is outside on the pavement, he faul
tlessly turns his head in the direction of home, namely to the left. He then aims for the doorway which is just ten metres away, and in his imagination starts quite peacefully to walk forwards, only he is not; he is going backwards. Now you might say that this is due to the slight downward slope behind him, but actually he is the one who in that very moment is inclined to walk in this fashion – initially rather cautiously but then in an increasingly relaxed manner. There is no one on the street, and in no time he is at the bottom of the slope, and crosses the junction backwards. The front door of his home is receding further into the distance and getting smaller as it does so, rather like driving a car and looking at something in the rear-view mirror. He can also see the bar owner who is waving his arms and shouting, but he is now travelling very fast. There is a gate in the wall, and he turns into it perfectly. Exactly how he manages this is not at all clear, because he is practically running backwards and cannot see a thing. There he crosses the garden miraculously avoiding bushes, fountains and worse. This is a distance of two hundred metres over a lawn, and he is moving with the smoothness of a twenty-year-old, while in fact he is seventy-four. Then there is a steeper downward slope towards a stream and he goes down still at his uncommon retrograde speed. We cannot know what Mr Artom is thinking in these final moments – whether he is experiencing some form of exhilaration or nullification, or whether he feels something calling out to him. The fact is, however, that at the end of the lawn he strikes his occipital bone against the branch of a pine tree, not powerfully, but clearly enough for him, because he dies.
One of the observations made about this incident was the following: on his way to the café in the morning, Mr Artom would often expose his head to the sun, which caused it to overheat, and so when he entered the café it was already inflamed to some degree. These sudden changes in ambient conditions inevitably affect the psychological personality and lessen the taboo on retrogradation.
The Nocturnal Library Page 12