The Nocturnal Library

by Ermanno Cavazzoni

  “Occasionally I find a partially completed and badly battered invention at the tip, like a broken and disassembled motor; indeed something that is no longer recognisable as a motor. I take it to him, and Perbeni is immediately enthusiastic; no one knows what this is, what invention this could possibly be, and so he studies it night after night with an unflagging passion. He disassembles it, reassembles it and runs some tests on it in accordance with his own whims. Occasionally he ventures into the unknown and improvises some kind of fuel, which either explodes or remains inert and silent; or perhaps by some miraculous happenchance it actually starts to work. When he invented the internal combustion engine, no one could have known that that piece of rusty cast iron could have started running. It was a single-cylinder engine with valves at the top. I found it without any wheels or fuel tank; it could have been a radiator or a gas ring. But our director examined it so carefully, in terms of both theoretical and applied science, and worked on it so hard with his hammer and file, that eventually it started up. Of course he had to turn the carefully positioned crank again and again and again, but he got there in the end. It was a four-stroke engine; full of pride and contentment, he would run it at top speed, which created a tremendous din because we hadn’t invented a silencer. The walls and tables vibrated, and everyone came running to see, and he kept the throttle wide open to demonstrate, he said, the theoretical power it was capable of. The noise and exhaust gas immediately gave me a headache, and when it was discovered that another, a German, had already invented an internal combustion engine quite some time ago – Rasorio said in 1885 – he took it out on me because my lying in bed showed that I was a pessimist and gave in too easily. But I’m not interested in these matters: who was the first to invent something, and whether there has been deceit and false pretences in books and encyclopaedias. I am not interested in proper nouns and progress.”

  While he was talking I realised that there was a little door.

  “And in there?”

  “In there we have a storeroom.”

  I went over clambering amongst and getting entangled in the scrap iron.

  “Don’t open it, for Christ’s sake!” he said leaping to his feet.

  But I had already turned the handle and opened it. A whole lot of stuff poured out, an avalanche of odds and ends no different from those in the first room, but here in an incredible variety. Fortunately the door was small and low and it soon became obstructed. “It is the director’s private collection. He is very protective of it; he says it is a complete universal museum from A to Z.”

  Some letters had also fallen out: I saw an “A” of oxidised copper, which possibly came from an inscription on a marble. Then I saw an abacus for the very first time; it had been broken in two. I picked it up and dusted it, and there was a terracotta abbot at my feet – the height of a little finger, without a nose and tied with a piece of string to an abbey used as an ashtray. We tried to push back into the storeroom the snarl-up of brake linings, ballcocks, bathtaps, bearings, binnacles, binoculars, blades, blinkers (vehicle indicators), blow torches and bolts of all descriptions, just to mention a few things that fell out together.

  “The director will be angry,” said Feltpad.

  We pushed the door to shut it and almost succeeded in going all the way. Then Feltpad tied it up with rope to the wall.

  Naturally this had to be the moment in which the director came in: he let out a scream, as though I had desecrated an altar, “But what are you doing? Now you are spying on my desk?” There was a piece of squared paper on the table with some scribbles and numbers, and half covered with screws, clock hands, washers and a shiny and well-kept barometer. Perhaps it was the current invention. I hadn’t even seen it. “You’re not here to steal something off me, are you?” he asked.

  “No, of course not; I was looking for directions. The library is so large,” you could tell that he was already irritated by the direction of my argument, “and everything is in such a mess.”

  He became very agitated, “The management is not responsible! Let me immediately make that clear.”

  “I know, I know, I wasn’t saying that. I was not trying to attribute blame.”

  “But you should be. Let’s be absolutely clear,” he said in a lower voice as he drew me out of the office. “Do you want to know the truth? Then here it is! I’m not afraid of telling you this or even saying it in public. A library could go on forever on its own accord and without need of anything beyond its own resources. It doesn’t even need a director.

  But hanging around here somewhere is a prankster, a mindless joker, and I know who he is. Do you want to know his name? Vincenzo Gallo.

  “He is an employee I recruited for the conservation department simply because I felt sorry for him, and he turned out to be malicious beyond all description. He is the one who changes the positions of the books, removes the pressmarks, and deliberately replaces pages and covers.

  He does it out of revenge, and he hides who knows where in these cellars. What can I do? I would have to read the entire library before I could put it right, but have him arrested first. Even if I had the time, do you think that possible? Do you think that reasonable? Think about what he gets up to: he glues pages together or cuts them into little squares so when you open them you just get confetti; he erases every second heading or word with acid or cuttlefish ink, which look like mould stains; in place of a book he often leaves a card with a puzzle on it, because he delights in these inanities – riddles and anagrams that send you off to another shelf in another room, and so on in an exasperating circle that makes you curse the inventors of libraries, books and the alphabet. After this wild goose chase, you perhaps end up with just a cover with nothing in it, or simply straw or white polystyrene or glass wool.

  Now wait, listen.”

  He was getting warmed up, and pulled at my sleeve to make sure that I paid attention. I did, and was becoming a little bewildered.

  “Listen to what he gets up to. He puts little jokes with spring mechanisms in the books so that they jump in the air in front of the reader who opens a page. Hardly very amusing! And what does it mean? He makes ones that look like grasshoppers from bits of paper; or like frogs or puppets with berets and their tongues sticking out, which whistle as they leap, so that the public can no longer take books and libraries seriously. If it just happened very sporadically, one might be inclined to laugh. I would be the first to do it, because laughter is an integral of being a human being, is it not? The occasional joke is always very welcome, and I myself did a few in my youth. We used to put sugar in the salt pot; you should have seen how we laughed in my family. And then there was salt in the sugar bowl: it was a hoot, good fun amongst friends, it really was.

  But his are ridiculous pranks that never change and go on and on and on: he puts sneezing powder in some books, itching powder in others, so readers scratch themselves and their respiratory tracts become congested, causing them to lose their concentration. They think they might have fleas, and those who are allergic turn red and get covered with thousands of very unsightly spots. They practically skin themselves alive as they furiously scratch themselves. Readers, as you know, are percentagewise very sensitive and unsettled souls. He also uses pepper, paprika, sulphur dioxide, which produce sores on the hands, the tongue and the conjunctivae. He applies powders or gelatines of his own invention so that when a book is opened you can smell faeces or putrefaction which send everyone running off in search of fresh air, while someone else is probably accused of having broken wind on the quiet. You must know that readers are easily offended and how they never admit to a moment of weakness on this point, be it only very occasional or even unique in an otherwise eminent career. Thus there are tiresome squabbles between the different tables during the ensuing attempts to identify the culprit and even between tables that are very distant. And they exchange such biting and veracious insults on each other’s excessive sedentariness, the lack of reciprocal esteem and the trade that the other would have
been best advised to follow, that the whole tenor of the library is negatively affected, so that even the person who was sitting in the remotest dark corner immersed in careful study of some book runs over, because the foul smell is poisoning the air over there too.

  Incompatibilities hitherto dormant suddenly come to the surface. For instance, they all take it out on a single individual, who in reality is just another victim and fellow sufferer of that book’s nauseous smell. ‘You smell like a sewer,’ the other professors and colleagues shout at him.

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ he replies. They send an emissary to check it out, and he arrives at his diagnosis when he is still a metre away: ‘Here there’s something persistent and all-pervasive.’ ‘It’s the book,’ he says. ‘Shame on you!’ the other join in; ‘you’ve mistaken study for stomach disorders. There are more appropriate places, you know – places where you should be locked up for good.’ But it can happen – and it has happened – that other books are sprinkled with a powder which, in my opinion, is a laxative, a powder with powerful purgative effect, once more for the sake of a prank. So it ends up that amongst those who have made the unfair accusations, there is one person who has the foible of wetting his fingers before turning the pages. First of all his mouth turns black; this is a sign I have learnt to recognise. Then what follows can only be defined as a despicable crime. The accuser turns pale, and everyone looks at him. He struggles in vain against himself, and would prefer to die than offer up such a miserable spectacle, but inevitably the spasms and convulsions bring him to his knees on the floor, and there follows a release that creates both confusion and consternation in the whole room and all the adjacent ones. This of course amounts to self-incrimination in relation to the other crime he did not commit. Once the initial moments of dismay have passed and the criminal and his crime have been removed from the scene, the party that has been unjustly accused is readmitted to the academic community with a few faint apologies, although there remains a suspicion of his collusion and covert collaboration with the principal culprit. So in conclusion, there is no peace, and the books that should provide it have become instruments for removing it: they induce anger, shame, slander and gossip, and faint-heartedness. But this is not all. Although I cannot be absolutely certain of this, I do have sufficient evidence to assert that something impalpable and volatile is being spread on the books, which can suddenly remove all sexual restraint. When it is inhaled, it produces the venereal concupiscence and carnal pleasure that are so inimical to learning and academic endeavour. Here it is dark, and there are very few staff. Let me tell you that I have seen books on logic, mathematics and calculus interpreted as romantic novels and read and reread with watery eyes and those cretinous smiles born of ugly thoughts. This is the most insidious of his pranks, because no one is willing to admit it, but you cannot fail to notice certain forms of behaviour, a lot of toing and froing, even amongst people who are getting on a bit, with many years of teaching behind them… Some faces, looking downwards, betray some persistent ideas, perverse misinterpretations and frenzied imaginations applied to all the surrounding people: women, men, objects, attendants – so much so that it would be best to call the police and have them do a roundup to prevent the resulting scandal, extreme consequences and the improper and unnatural use of books.

  “I’ll tell you this: the lavatories are full and you should see the shameful behaviour! A great crowd of them there in a queue and knocking on the doors. ‘Come on! How long is this going to take?’ they shout at the first to get in. After a while this person comes out goggle-eyed; he is perhaps the head of faculty, an academic or an ageing researcher. He holds the book under his jacket to avoid making a fool of himself, but his face displays a pervert’s moronic grin. You must understand that in this way our library stock is gradually ruined: there are bite marks and other signs of violence, because these venereal substances that emanate from the books overheat the academics’ heads, and they are not accustomed to it, they have no experience and they mistakenly let their passions rip on the inanimate things that come to hand. I have seen three of them shut themselves up in a cubicle with a footstool. Now you tell me what could be less seductive and titillating than a footstool! And then there are the pens, ink pots and notebooks, which they are always sniffing and sticking in their mouths. They unscrew light bulbs and carry them away while they are still burning hot. When two people sitting close to each other suddenly experience erotic desires, they argue over a pencil rubber or look at each other’s books with the concealed covetousness of an adulterer. Then one of them puts out his hand and touches the paper; the other screams that the first academic should be ashamed of himself. His speech adopts a moralistic tone, but as he inhales more of this gaseous aphrodisiac, he fondles the cover and puts his fingers under the spine.

  Being inexpert and not content with the effect, he spies on his neighbour to see what he does. Sometimes they actually exchange books, which is absolutely forbidden in the library, because everyone must keep the book they chose, for which they take sole and rightful responsibility in accordance with the law.

  “But this is not all. This Vincenzo Gallo puts whistles that produce birdcalls in draughty cracks, and when the wind blows, it makes a sound that resembles a flock of dangerous and hungry birds. He also has these special little trumpets which, when the wind blows, sound like the charge of a herd of enraged elephants. I don’t know what he does with the keyholes – whether he uses ordinary wax or sealing wax – but they hiss like snakes, and he smears some kind of corrosive substance on the door hinges so that even a slight movement produces a horrible squeaking sound like that of a pack of hyenas. All this just to discredit me and my library, terrorise the readers and those who make sacrifices, and stir up the staff against the management.”

  Chapter S

  “So there isn’t anything there?” I said to the director, “there are no predatory and poisonous animals, no cobras, no hyenas, no horses, no ants and no birds?”

  “Who told you this rubbish?”

  “Professor Rasorio; he told me this on his word of honour. But I also heard them when I was over there on my own – I heard all those animals screaming.”

  “Never believe what Rasorio tells you. He belongs to the mafia; I am now certain of it. He tries to terrorise ordinary people. He even tries it with me. He wants to close my mouth for good. He follows orders and obeys the encyclopaedia and his bosses. He doesn’t see what is really going on.”

  “So it is all just pranks? Even the books?”

  “All pranks! All the work of Vincenzo Gallo! It is his vendetta against me. I am a practical man; I like facts and not words, but they reported to me that he – who would have thought it? – claimed that he was just fading away in the office and every night he faded a little more. But these are just the same old excuses to avoid working. I know these devil-may-care types when I see them. I have long experience, but when I hear such illogical claptrap as ‘fading away’, I get very nervous. Then he was saying that if nobody looked at him, he was capable of becoming transparent.

  ‘I can do that too, when no one’s looking at me,’ I had him informed through the official channels, ‘in fact, everyone can do it.’ In any case, they saw very little of him at the office – indeed, hardly at all. I didn’t want him to give a bad example to the other and above all I didn’t want him to make a fool of me. He said he had been a conjurer and knew many tricks. He might perhaps have done it in the provinces, before I took him on out of the kindness of my heart. Everybody in here knows this story and many believe it. He uses this to his advantage.

  He persisted so much in his claim that he was fading, that he became convinced of it himself: he actually believed that he had in some ways become invisible, but I can assure you that he was not. Reality was very different: he was fat, he was obese. I wanted him to retract his idea. Do you think an employee should be allowed to hold such an idea, when he is supposed to be accountable for his actions to the management and the public? It is also a
matter of propriety?

  “I started to speak to him. ‘Sit down,’ I said. ‘Now let’s see; you say that you are transparent, and yet you are a temporary, category-four worker recruited in accordance with Law 480. How can these two things be reconciled?’ “‘How can they be reconciled? Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s what I keep wondering.’ “‘Besides here you are in front of me,’ I said, ‘and I can see you very clearly. And you’ve put on a lot of weight recently; I can see it with my own eyes, but if you want, I can show it to you on the scales. So, how come a transparent person can get fat, and I can see it?’ “‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it is strange that you see me as fat and actually I do to some extent feel fat. I don’t deny it; it is strange. I’ll have to think about this one, and I’ll give you my reply tomorrow.’ “The following day I went to see him in his little room on the second floor, after the anatomical theatre and the Rare Books Collection and the Unclassified Books Collection, because otherwise he would have failed to turn up, having his own entrance at the back, which only he knew about.

  “‘Right! Have you thought about it?’ I said.

  “‘Yes, you are too close when you look at me.’ “‘But what is that supposed to mean? Why? Are transparent things no longer transparent if seen up close?’ “‘You want to have an argument,’ he said, ‘which I don’t like.’ “‘What argument is that? You’re the one who says you’re transparent. I say you aren’t!’ “‘That’s up to you; I don’t care. I’m not forcing you to believe.’ “Who can blame me if I got a little heated at this stage?

  ‘This is not an opinion,’ I shouted, ‘it’s a fact. I’ll show you you’re not transparent: here you are seated and fat. Take a look at yourself, you must weigh a hundred kilos. You seem puffed up, even your face. You look like a stuffed pig.