“As a training exercise, he would allow himself to be taken to prison. And to escape he exploited the smallest imperfections in the security system, using his mimetic, acrobatic and contortionistic arts. First of all, locks had no secrets for him. He could open them with the nail of his little finger, which was long, slightly hooked and had seven kinds of notches. Or he would have recourse to the fillings in his teeth, which were in fact very delicate instruments: scalpels, small screwdrivers, picklocks and tiny band saws.
His starting point was the theoretical principle that everything can be dismantled and any place you go into you can get out of. Or he would slip through the inspection hole or seep through the wall or floor in some inexplicable manner, as though his body was not made of flesh or he could dematerialise. In actual fact, he was just using artifice and deception, or in other words, his natural inclination and his training.
“This reputation for being a great escapologist did have its drawbacks. When he was walking down a street, a queue of people would form behind him, and they wanted perhaps to shut him up hermetically in a barrel or a milk churn or a tank made of reinforced concrete. He accepted with good grace, but said that this was not much of a challenge for him; he wanted the barrel to be put underwater and the churn hung from a rope, and as for the tank, he insisted that he should be handcuffed before he went in. On other occasions, they would pay him a thousand compliments and invite him home for lunch or dinner, and then without warning they would lock him up in the icebox or on some pretext they would push him into a wardrobe or safe and immediately turn the key in the door or using another pretext place him in a suitcase or under a large bell jar together with stuffed birds, mosses, leaves and dried twigs. He unfailingly found the weak point and succeeded in freeing himself, but without leaving any visible signs of forcing the locks or breaking his way out. It is undeniable that in the long term these attentions and infatuations started to weary him. While he was peacefully dining at a restaurant, they would tie him to a chair, put a noose round his neck, and wrap him up in gauze like a mummy. Once the chair had a device that, when triggered, trapped his hands and feet in metal clasps. He never had any difficulty in freeing himself; he darted out like an eel and opened padlocks with a toenail and rapidly loosened the screws holding down a chair or opened the way out as one might open a door. Usually waiters, cooks and customers would applaud heartily and the restaurant owner would have a plaque engraved, ‘Here Vincenzo Gallo freed himself from a garrotte’, ‘Here Vincenzo Gallo escaped from an ancient Chinese torture chair’ or ‘Here Vincenzo Gallo unfastened fifty-two knots and opened twenty-seven locks’. But the excessive frequency of these encounters became a source of annoyance. They bundled him up like a sausage and threw him in a well full of knives and water; while he was out walking, four dog-catchers snared him and laughing and joking attached leather fetters for horses to his feet; they locked him in a cage and in a coffin which they then buried. They invited him to smell the roast in the oven, and then pushed him inside and shut the oven door, while turning up the heat as far as it would go. They could hear him singing. Five minutes went by, then ten and then half an hour. Someone was worried and opened it up.
There was a bundle and it was black, carbonised and smoking. Screams of consternation and the lady of the house fainted. They ran to the bathroom to get the smelling salts, but the bathroom was locked. Who could be in there? They knocked. They knocked again. They smashed in the door. There was Vincenzo Gallo under the shower, who said laughingly, ‘You must excuse me, but I was a bit sweaty. I took the liberty…’ How he did it remained a secret.”
“This is never going to end,” I thought, rousing myself from some kind of hypnosis. I wriggled around in my chair as though some demon was tormenting me. I rustled the pages of the book to show my agitation, I nodded my head over the writing and pretended to be driving away some flies, but Iris, undeterred, carried on talking and combing her hair.
“That was his childhood. Then one day it happened that a dove – by some strange chance, perhaps because it was migrating and could not stop or perhaps to satisfy a mad and inexplicable predilection – laid two eggs in one of his pockets. He was very surprised, but also a little pleased with himself. He put the eggs under his armpit and after a little time two little doves were born. This gave rise to his intimacy with birds and other animals. As they grew these fledglings became very fond of one of his shirt pockets, even though it was a little cramped. They looked on it as their home, their childhood nest. In the morning they flew away and all day long they went in search of grain and drink and to develop their relationships with other pigeons, as was only natural, but half an hour before the sun went down they returned home. They knew how to find Vincenzo Gallo wherever he was, because of the unfailing sense of direction peculiar to all doves, but especially carrier ones.
They slipped under his jacket and into his shirt pocket, where they flattened themselves out like pieces of paper and passed the night in blissful contentment. It has to be said that you could no longer notice the very slight bulge: the jacket lay perfectly smooth on his front and his back, and his perfectly white and starched shirt didn’t have and had never had a crease, bagginess or any other unsightly defect.
“Then came the arrival of this rabbit, which would become a distinguished figure in many theatres in the years to come. It was a white rabbit with white and orange eyes. When Vincenzo Gallo and the rabbit met each other, there was a natural attraction between the two. They were two lonely beings in this world; Vincenzo Gallo was an orphan and the rabbit was fearful and newly born.
Moreover Vincenzo Gallo had a smell of earth and the woods which had a magnetic power over animals. Vincenzo Gallo bent down slightly and the rabbit stood up on its hind legs and sniffed. He stretched out his arm by only a fraction, and the rabbit, responding to a sudden inspiration, was up the inside of his sleeve with just two leaps. In the early period, the rabbit lived at his elbow. It went out to eat and stretch its legs. To ask permission it made a scratching sound. Vincenzo Gallo would then lower his sleeve and it came out like an arrow, and resembled a hare, because it was young and happy. It dug holes in the ground, ate grass and roots, and gnawed just about everything here and there. This was what Vincenzo Gallo wanted: the animals were to be unrestricted and autonomous, free to come and go, and to have their own life outside. They were in any case self-sufficient when it came to their primary needs. He loved to feel them on top of him and safe at home, but also to know that they were off flying or running in the midst of life’s diversity. Then the rabbit ceased to feel so at ease: either the sleeve was no longer suitable or it was going through that intermediate age before adulthood, which is full of aspirations and discontent.
It probably felt miserable and lacked many comforts.
One day after having run about and grazed in the meadow – but clearly not enough – it returned full of cravings to his sleeve. Vincenzo Gallo was not interested in this psychological malaise. He happily provided accommodation, but didn’t want to go beyond that. The rabbit set off to explore: it climbed up over his shoulder, crossed his back and his chest, and then looked out from the buttons of his shirt. It climbed up once more, stuck its head out of his open collar and an irrational impulse drove it up on top of his head.
Here some birds which were nesting there took fright and started to squawk. There were also some snails, fleas and a cuckoo, and all of them were irritated by this invasion and the disagreeable bulk of this rabbit. Then its eyes fell on a top hat on a table, upside down and uninhabited, and in no time it had jumped into the hat and turned it into its apartment. The hat was spacious. It lay concealed inside, and when Vincenzo Gallo travelled, he carried it on his head. The rabbit could position itself propped up against the sides of the hat and just above the top of his head. It would then fall asleep between the felt and the lining as though on a silk hammock. The white rabbit was happy with this respectable accommodation, which in the living quarters constituted by Vincenzo
Gallo took on the role of a tower or belfry, far from the irritatingly close confines of communal life below.
“By now – and this is the nub of the matter – Vincenzo Gallo was home to an enormous number of animal species, particularly those with the powers of flight, simply because he did not know how to say no to silent requests and unauthorised settlements. When evening came, all these birds would circle dizzily in the air around his head, and gradually one by one they would go to their nesting place: they slipped under the collar of his shirt, up his sleeves and into his pockets. The minuscule birds of Patagonia lived in the turn-ups of his trousers, but many birds made their nests in his hair, using woollen threads and loose hairs. A chicken scampered on seeing dusk falling over Vincenzo Gallo and leapt with a flap of its wings onto his knee which acted as a perch. It then entered his trousers through an open pocket and took up its position just above the crotch. It occupied very little space because it only gave the impression of being large, created by its enormous quantity of feathers. At more or less the same time the bats and nocturnal birds of prey were on their way out. Actually there was only one bird of prey, an owl which lived between the padding and the lining of the right-hand side of his tailcoat. There was a hollow there that suited it very nicely.
It was dark and protective when it returned just before the first light of dawn.
“Three fleas lived in the middle of his hair. They were very clean and rather earnest, and came from an equestrian circus. They knew how to do an act consisting of leaps and vaults on a miniature trapeze, which were simply but always perfectly executed. Apart from that, they lived in a small encampment at the foot of a specific hair, and they were no bother to anyone. Vincenzo Gallo had great respect for them, and they were enormously grateful to Vincenzo Gallo. He had taken them away from the circus and out of the control of a vicious and exploitative tamer and horsebreaker, a man called Ferguson, who never tired of swearing and forcing them to do what they didn’t want to do. He made them leap through rings of fire, which did not suit their temperament, and the tamer was dirty, sweaty and of bad blood, and their lives lacked hygiene, security and satisfaction. They were slaves at that time, by day and by night, always working, emaciated and skeletal. Their mood was always dark and pessimistic. They slept in a pigsty – the only way to describe the dark, filthy and fetid area close to the tamer’s earlobe, from which wafted the insalubrious stink of seborrhoea.
“At this point, one can comfortably assert that Vincenzo Gallo had become by fate or by nature an accomplished conjurer and illusionist. He had no art, in the ponderous sense of the word, but everything was going in accordance with his intimate nature.
“The show that he put on at the theatre in response to unanimous demand, was distinguished by clarity and simplicity, and was slightly autobiographical. The curtain came up on an empty stage, and for a moment it remained empty and silent. If there was some impatient joker in the audience, he was quickly told to be quiet by the many who kept coming back to see it again and again. Then an attendant came in wearing a blue circus uniform, with frogging, epaulettes, borders and gold buttons. He held a very small aluminium briefcase in his hand – very small but visibly heavy. He placed it flat on a stool in the middle of the stage, and then went back behind the scenes. Then the briefcase came alive and started to vibrate. It rocked from one side to the other, and a lock came undone, and then the other. The lid flew open and something black unrolled out of it. It took no time to go from its deflated state to its full volume. It was Vincenzo Gallo in top hat and tailcoat. He finished adjusting his collar, bowed and made a grand gesture to greet the audience. The applause never failed to be very warm and extremely welcoming.
Then he started his act, which he always did absolutely on his own, by which I mean no other human beings came to assist him.
“He immediately started to pull out all sorts of things from his pockets, and likewise from his mouth, his ears and his teeth. He pulled out pencils, penholders, nibs, rubbers, paper clips, pins, drawing pins, compasses – whole or in parts – biro caps, ink cartridges, dampers, felt pads, pincers, and stamps. It was not however the mundane and rather scholastic nature of the objects that was so striking, but their scarcely believable quantity that steadily built up into great piles that started slipping from the stage into the stalls. Then came elastic bands, pieces of string, ribbons, strips of adhesive paper that stuck to just about everything, and kilometres of cord that appeared to come out of one ear, and as he pulled and pulled, it just kept coming, like a spider spinning its web. Eventually you could see an enormous sticky tangle that cluttered the stage and the proscenium. The astonished audience was almost fearful that this pile would grow like a disorderly ball of wool until it exploded or exploded the theatre. At this stage it was a kind of thriller – an almost anguished one – and the more fainthearted members of the audience started to mutter: That’s enough! Think of an amorphous lump of things rolling around an abandoned stationery shop. There was something about it that was both portentous and comical, which unnerved you and made you laugh. Vincenzo Gallo’s talent consisted in exactly that: a kind of incomprehensible turmoil. Then, just like snow, this great vorticose knot started to loosen and disentangle itself; a top hat appeared and then so did he, extricating himself with one easy movement. He took off his hat by way of greeting and the sparrows flew out: there was early morning light and they chirruped as they flew. The audience were happy and the spotlights shone as though spring had replaced winter and the weather had brightened up. Out came the doves in pairs, then the turtle doves, blackbirds, chaffinches, carrion crows, hummingbirds, hoopoes, woodpeckers, and they came out of his collar, revers, lining and who knows where else. He resembled a tree swept by the wind, a poplar shaken and enlivened by having more birds than leaves. It was the wildest and most unheard-of thing that every happened in a theatre; it was a kind of wonderment. Every now and then a huge peacock leapt on his head and flared out its feathers as in its courtship display. The audience was enraptured. Then chickens started wandering about, as did ducks, ducklings and an enormous goose distinguished by its intelligent behaviour. He would open his jacket slightly and out flew a kingfisher; then raise his tails and there would be a flight of swallows. This part of the act was always considered impossible, because swallows never obey anyone. And then we had the rabbit which jumped with a somersault and appeared to laugh. Members of the public who came equipped with opera glasses could see the fleas on his nose and whiskers, doing their acrobatic manoeuvres while the rabbit acted, as it were, as their circus ring. When the lights slowly started to fade and it felt like dusk, to the unanimous screams of the ladies, the bats came out accompanied by a splendid owl, which flew over the stalls in silence and landed on the velvet parapet of one of the boxes.
“By the time the show was nearly over, the theatre was swarming with birds: they sat on the chandeliers, stuccoes and parapets of the upper and lower-tier boxes, and flew in vast numbers under the ceiling painted sky-blue with clouds. They chirped and sang together like an orchestra, while the audience gave a standing ovation. The rabbit, which had almost become a little actor, stood straightbacked beside its boss, and with its ears performed an action that from a distance resembled a bow. The fleas jumped from one ear to the other as though possessed and drunk with success. There was never any need for Vincenzo Gallo to whistle, call out or clap his hands; the animals, even if distracted or playful, never took their eyes off him. As soon as he looked as if he were about to turn and go back towards the briefcase, they all plunged headlong towards him like a reverse whirlwind, as though he were sucking them back down. They disappeared under his jacket, waistcoat or hat, and each to its allocated place.
Given the crush and the lack of entrances, there might have been some momentary altercation and some bully pecking with its beak. One or two might have shone with metallic light, as a nib or penknife might do; one or two might have appeared to be made of felt, sponge or blotting paper in the instant they came to la
nd, but it was only a moment of misapprehension. Within a few seconds, he was standing alone on the stage just about to leave, and there was complete silence: everyone was standing entranced by the sight of that great flurry of activity. Then came a second thunderous applause: Vincenzo Gallo stopped and turned in each direction, while the public shouted frenziedly and threw flowers and confetti. Vincenzo Gallo smoothed his jacket with an elegant gesture, removed a stray feather from his nose and adjusted his cuffs; he was as smooth and elegant as an eel while he made the appropriate bows to the audience. Like a pianist after his recital, he looked meagre and alone, and everyone felt a little uncertain about the reality of that zoological garden they had just witnessed. In that final moment, he himself seemed to be a suit without anyone inside, and that serene and clean-shaven face of his looked like a bladder held up in the air. This just shows how he had the conjurer’s art in his blood. He turned and put first one foot and then the other inside the briefcase; he bent down with his back towards the audience, shrank and miraculously went back inside like a deflating bag. That was him and his illusions.
He closed the lid from the inside. Next you heard two clicks of the locks, and then perfect silence. The attendant came back in and picked up the briefcase with two fingers. There was more applause and shouts of encore, but Vincenzo Gallo would not reappear, and the curtain came down. The whole show was unbelievable, and no one ever worked out how he did those tricks. Some people said that the briefcase contained secret mechanisms and inside it was incredibly spacious, like a furnished room. Others claimed that the animals were not alive, but merely reflections from a kaleidoscope. Even the stationery, they said, was merely tissue-paper and dry ice. Still others suggested that Vincenzo Gallo was actually the attendant, and the tailcoat was empty and concealed a hole in the floor. There was even the odd person who said it was all spiritism and Vincenzo Gallo was a spirit raised from the dead or, at the opposite extreme, that it was all just a 3-D cinema production. To which others replied, how come maddeningly material bird droppings kept falling on the spectators?”
The Nocturnal Library Page 20