by Adri
"But your hair does bring luck," said the woman.
"What are you talking about?"
"Look, you haven't come to these mountains, to these particular caves, just by chance; there's a certain . . . energy here."
"A certain energy! All I wanted to do was find the Salesians but instead I ended up here; and if there's energy, that's nothing to me . . . Your sight's not very good, but from here you can see the whole town. Can you see anything down there? Can you see how beautiful Cingoli is from here?" I asked the woman, who was already starting to get on my nerves.
"I can see just a little . . . I'm used to seeing everything out of focus."
She went up to Spinoza's Ethics, picked it up, and asked whether I read the Bible. I said yes, that at one time I had done the catechism, many years ago. I always used to read the Bible before going to sleep. Then she told me she'd had severe migraines for the last two years, they stopped her from sleeping and made her sick.
"Every day, this terrible pain," she said.
"I'm sorry," I said (a total mess, poor woman).
They opened up a bag they had brought with them and produced a whole lot of things: all kinds of biscuits, drinks, fruit and some nuts, enough to last a whole week.
"Thanks, but there's no need. Why are you bringing all this?"
"Water quenches a flaming fire, and alms atone for sins. He who does a kindness is remembered afterward; when he falls, he finds a support. Sirach," said the woman.
"That's very kind, thank you."
I stood up from the trunk where we were sitting and put away the things they had brought. Then we all ate an apple pie the woman with dark glasses had made. The children had nothing more to ask and kept to themselves, gazing out into the woods. The dog was still there, with its snout resting on the woman's shoe, neither barking nor wagging its tail. A nice dog, it lay there silently with its eyes half closed. I had no idea why it was called Edison and I didn't want to ask.
"What do you do here all day?" she asked again (you could see she was curious).
"Nothing, I stay in the cave; I sit hunched in a corner, silent, I don't bother anyone and no one bothers me, I feel I'm doing the right thing, and then—you know what—I like living hidden."
"You like being alone?"
"Yes, I do; I had a few strange dreams at first, I was scared something might come here at night; but then I got used to the noises and that was the end of it."
At last, just before leaving, she explained the reason for her visit. She wanted me to let her stroke my combover, since the boy was convinced that her migraines, and therefore her insomnia and her sickness, would vanish forever if she stroked my combover.
"So you've made this great trek up here to touch my hair? Strange. But go ahead—just so long as you don't mess it up."
Very carefully she rested the palm of her hand on my head and then let it slide down, and then, with an almost choreographic gesture, she touched her forehead. I thought it strange that she actually believed my combover could cure her migraines. But now she had achieved her goal. She seemed more relaxed; otherwise it was for fate to sort things out.
"Let's hope for the best," I said.
10
Enough, I don't do miracles!
One day I was stretched out on a patch of grass and dry leaves. I was looking up at the branches swaying in the breeze, listening to the birds flitting from one place to another, and for a moment all my worries disappeared: my wife (and those awful tunes she used to listen to), my mother-in-law (the books she used to take and never returned), Cosino, the Toldinis. Even my colleagues had vanished, as well as my neighbors, the owner of the take-away shop, even my combover, my hair, the mirror, the creams, everything had gone silent and I was there, stretched out on the grass. Then from a glimmer which I now saw through closed eyes, the Argentinian appeared to me, with all his hair and sideburns, wearing his usual jacket. He came closer and closer to me, or to that eye inside my head that was watching him. He was walking softly, casually, along a long corridor. Then he stopped and began telling me things. He was talking as though stammering, in a language I couldn't understand, and then I thought he might be talking Guaraní, seeing that it was a tongue he knew. And yet, though I didn't understand all the words, I could grasp some of what he was saying. In effect, he was telling me that his thesis on the Sermones y exemplos en lengua guaraní by cacique Nicolás Yupaguay was pretty well ready for presentation, that he'd read all the books I had suggested and been working hard over the past few days to finish it. Then all of a sudden he changed languages—which I could understand perfectly since it was Italian—and said: "I'm sorry, what I did was stupid, but I just want to say it wasn't me but someone who ordered me, who told me, from within: 'Stand up now,' it said, 'Go to the desk and ruffle the professor's hair, come on, now, move' . . . that's what happened," said the Argentinian inside my head, and I saw him straightening his jacket, as he always did, with a shrug of his shoulders.
The Argentinian was still in the middle of his explanation when I felt myself being shaken by a little man of indefinable age with sun-parched skin and short grizzled hair.
"Excuse me, but what are you doing lying there in the middle of a pile of leaves? It's enough to give anyone a fright," said the man.
I got up and had a good look at him. He had a shriveled face and ugly, round, protruding ears.
"We're very sorry, really, we thought something had happened," said the woman with the migraines; she was standing behind the man, peering at me through her bottle-glass lenses.
"Of course, of course," I said, getting up from the ground, "I'm fine, I was just dozing on the grass, that's all."
"You gave us a fright," she continued.
"I'm sorry."
"I just wanted to say that meeting you has been a miracle—I've had no headaches for four days, not even a tiny one," she said. "And today I've come with my husband, who suffers day and night with his slipped disc . . . he's had a terrible job getting up here . . . I wonder whether you'd kindly let him touch your combover . . . he's suffering a lot and the doctors don't want to operate yet . . . he's sometimes bent double in pain, I can assure you."
"But I'm no kind of healer, and anyway I've got to wash my hair . . . I don't feel very good when my hair's like this."
"Please let him try, it doesn't matter if your hair's dirty, that's no problem—let him touch it like I did, then we'll leave you in peace."
"Alright, alright, if that's what he wants, just get on with it; but I've no time for these superstitions of yours."
As her husband approached me, she attempted to explain that it was better for him to rest his whole palm and then let it slide slowly toward the forehead. "And then with the same hand you must touch the place where it hurts, understand?" she told her husband.
The man did as his wife had instructed. Having rested his hand on my head, he put it behind his neck and began to massage his spine. The woman enjoyed the sight of her husband doing this. Perhaps she was praying as well, I don't know, but she was saying something. I watched him and thought how odd people were up there in the mountains. "Perhaps it might even do him good," I said to myself. Despite his sticking-out ears, he didn't look like someone who was superstitious, and yet, once he had finished massaging himself, he began to feel better.
"Look, look, Giuseppina," he said to the woman with the migraines who was staring at him in disbelief. "I can already walk better, it's incredible."
They had brought me several pots of honey, others of jam, and some homemade biscuits. I left them inside the cave, then took the shampoo, towel, and a bucket.
"And now," I said, "if you don't mind, I've got to go."
"I'm astounded," continued the man. "I don't know how to thank you, it's miraculous."
"You can thank me by going back home. I'll say goodbye, I have things to do."
I headed off toward the stream that flowed down the mountainside and into the woods, then washed my hair and combed it well. I wonde
red aimlessly through the woods, losing myself in the undergrowth. When I got back, a couple of hours later, there were five people in the cave, once again in the company of Giuseppina, who was sitting there waiting for me.
"But what's going on? This is a cave, not a hospital? Enough, I don't do miracles! It's becoming a joke!"
"These are my friends," said Giuseppina. "If you'd allow them to touch you . . . it will also do them good."
"I understand, but I've just washed my hair, I can't. Go away, leave me alone."
"My friends came to join me while I was on my way back—word has spread down there in the town."
"But you're mad. Your migraines have gone but it's sent you off your head . . . What do you think I am, some sort of puppet? How can you imagine anything so crazy? Your friends can go to a doctor if they want a cure, or let them touch someone else."
"Just think, you can help them without doing a thing, all you have to do is let them touch your head. You see him?" she said, pointing to a boy who was beginning to lose his hair and with a skew eye that was pointing up to the top of a tree, "He has kidney stones; the woman across there has acute pancreatitis with pains in her abdomen, whereas that man has a lymphoma . . ." and one by one she listed the ailments of the people who had climbed the mountain to be cured by me, and I looked at that mass of sick people who had closed in until I was more or less surrounded (I felt a certain disgust at the sight of them, all suffering and exhausted after the climb).
"I'm sorry for them," I said to Giuseppina. I could feel all eyes on me, but I didn't dare to look at them, so powerful was their effect.
At that point the boy who suffered with kidney stones came up and shoved me so hard that I almost fell over. I could see such hatred in the one eye that pointed toward me; the other gazed up, minding its own business. Then, instead of running off into the wood, I made the mistake of taking refuge in the cave.
"You can't let us go off like this," shouted the boy once again, following me into the cave. The others came in behind him. This time I had no escape. I had fallen into my own trap. I could see I was in trouble if I didn't do as they asked. Now I had no choice. I sat down in a corner and lowered my head.
"Do what you want," I said. "Just get on with it and leave me alone."
I closed my eyes, then heard Giuseppina's voice explaining what each of them had to do, and finally lots of hands touching me ("I hope they all drop dead," I thought). I opened my eyes only when they had gone. They left lots of gifts: more pots of honey, more jams, a tray of lasagna, sausages, et cetera. I tidied my hair in front of the mirror. I felt unclean again, more than before, with all those hands, one after the other. I couldn't bear having my hair like that, so I took the shampoo, towel, and bucket, and went back to the stream to wash it again. The water flowed fast between my feet, and I could see myself in the reflection, stooping down to fill the bucket. The fish swimming downstream passed within the reflection without noticing. Back in the cave, I combed my hair once more in front of the mirror and arranged it properly. Then I took a stroll in the woods and gathered a few twigs—a good armful that would last me the next day. I stacked the wood in the cave I had chosen as a storeroom, and when I returned to the middle cave, I found a middle-aged woman with long hair across her face and her makeup smudged with tears.
"What's going on? Who are you?" I asked. "Someone else with this obsession about my combover?"
She made no answer and cried so that her lips quivered like a child, giving out an occasional sob. It wasn't a cry of pain—that kind you recognize immediately.
"Look," I continued unabashed (I can't bear people whimpering), "if you're one of those women who've always got to feel good, then don't come talking to me . . . eat a lobster au gratin or go for a foot massage . . . I hate people who always want to feel good, and I also hate people who cry like that, so just tell me what you're here for . . . otherwise you can go back where you came . . . I've had quite enough today."
The woman dried her tears and tidied her hair as best she could: "I've come because my husband left me a month ago and today I found out his new girlfriend is four months pregnant. You understand my situation?"
"I understand and I'm very sorry. What can I say? That's life, you take it as it comes, there's no point getting screwed up about these things."
"Two years of marriage . . . We had decided to wait before having a child and now, instead, just like that . . ."
"I understand, but what's all this got to do with me?"
"A dear friend said you might be able to help, at least to help me get over what has happened; all I can do is cry," she said, then blew her nose like a trumpet into her handkerchief.
"I don't know how I can help you. If you want to touch my combover, just go ahead. I've just washed my hair a second time, so rinse your hands first."
So she took the bottle of water and cleaned them as I had told her. Once she had dried them, I lowered my head without saying a word and she stroked me. She put her hand straight onto her heart and then massaged all of her left breast, her lips, and finally her eyes. She remained like that, massaging herself, for quite some time. Then she thanked me.
"Are you feeling better?" I asked, seeing that she had stopped crying.
"Birth death, birth death, birth death . . . no one can get off this carousel," she said, "not even my husband and his lover; so let's hope they have a fine baby, no? What do you think?"
"Of course. Let's hope so."
"And then, you know what, those two are good for each other. I'm ten years older than him, and at a certain age you begin to see the difference."
"So you're more relaxed now?"
"Yes, of course," said the woman, tidying one side of her hair again.
I pulled out the tray of lasagna which the other sick people had left me and sat down and ate a part of it while I looked down over the roofs of the town. Then I drank some wine—three or four glasses, just enough to sort myself out.
"So I'll say goodbye," she said, waving her hand, as she set off from the cave.
"OK, goodbye," I replied without getting up from the tree trunk where I was sitting.
11
A red roebuck with twigs on its head
In the space of two days my cave had been transformed into a place of pilgrimage. Cripples, drunks, children about to take exams, people who had lost their jobs or couldn't sleep at night, those with itches, with prostate trouble, with toothache, who were depressed, hysterical, hypochondriac, couples on the point of separation, women who were pregnant, bulimic, or anorexic, everyone hoping I would bring them luck. They came from Cingoli but also from further afield—from Filottrano, Treia, and even from Macerata. I asked for nothing in return, neither offerings nor anything else—all I wanted was for them to get on and touch me and never come back. The crowd of people gave me a certain feeling of disgust. Privately I wished them more pain than they had carried up with them, but sadly it seemed my combover was producing results—otherwise this great scurrying up and down the mountain was difficult to explain. Several times I wondered why it was only my combover that had such beneficial effects, and not others. Perhaps all I had to do, I thought, was search them out and try an experiment; but then, I thought, no one with a combover would ever allow a stranger to touch his hair, not even to find out whether it brought luck. I suggested this to Giuseppina, who had become the organizer of these comings and goings.
"I'm well aware," I said, "that we men with combovers are a sort of dying race and that no one has a combover anymore, and so I understand the difficulty in finding someone like me who combs his hair like mine, but it would be a good idea to try. Perhaps other people's combovers might bring luck—all you have to do is try."
Nothing. Giuseppina barely replied. She was convinced that only my combover could perform miracles on people. I began thinking that sooner or later I'd have to make a quick escape from that cave. After all, if I disappeared, what difference would it make? The world would carry on revolving just the sam
e, the sick would go back to their doctors (and rightly so), the depressives to their antidepressants, the cripples to their crutches, and so forth. In the world's day-to-day bustle, any interest in a missing person with a combover wouldn't last long. Meanwhile I was there, sitting in the cave, eyes closed, while strangers kept putting their hands on my head (great fat builders' hands, small children's hands, decrepit old people's hands, fat sweaty hands . . . I even felt the paw of a dog on one occasion). I had no wish to look these wretches in the face and preferred to stay there, head down. I didn't want to catch their eye. With each touch I felt a hollow in my stomach and heard the voice of Giuseppina, who gave instructions to the sick and infirm. She asked them not to talk to me, and every so often she repeated the same old thing to me, with tiny variations:
"It's been a godsend finding you up here!"
"How fortunate to have you among us."
"Blessed be the man who has brought comfort in our lives."
Much as I considered her an irritating and intrusive woman, it would be unfair not to recognize her merits, which included her boundless altruism toward the sick and infirm. She admitted everyone into the presence of my combover, and for several days I remained there head down, at her mercy. She decided on my rest breaks, at lunchtime, in the afternoon and so forth. I had no alternative. I had no say in the matter—the priority was them, the sick and infirm. And if I refused, or raised any objection, like the time when I felt the paw of a dog on my head and said I wanted nothing to do with animals, I was immediately scolded or given a lecture. I have never concealed my dislike for the human race—a dislike I have cultivated not only by reading certain history books and certain philosophical and theosophical theories but also through sleeping in the same room as my brother. If the sick and infirm were to fall over a cliff, for example, I certainly wouldn't be too worried about a few broken bones. They could therefore keep their illnesses and infirmities to themselves. Am I being selfish? Yes I am, I admit it. On feeling their mucky hands, I worried about my hair, not about healing them. I still haven't gotten over the insult of being brought into this world, so I'm hardly capable of getting excited over some wretch who is healed by touching my head. God forbid! I have never felt any sensation—let us say—of serenity or joy, except perhaps when stroking Cosino or occasionally when I'm combing myself in the mirror. And yet I'm a man who accepts sadness and is quite comfortable about it. I distrust happy people. In order to safeguard my solitude, I began hurting everyone, starting with Cosino, whom I had always loved, despite having abandoned him to the hands of my wife. I had also abandoned Teresa, with all her shortcomings and idiosyncrasies. I'm human, there's nothing I can do about that. So why should I have to care about the sick and infirm who come through the woods to find me? My combover was created for another purpose, and I couldn't allow it to become a healing instrument for a band of lepers.