Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto

by Gianni Rodari

  The Japanese photographers, who are particularly systematic, have occupied the two highest points of the region, specifically:

  —the Alpe Quaggione (3,773 feet above sea level);

  —the summit of the Mottarone (4,892 feet above the same).

  The Japanese, however, complain that from both those points, you can only see the lake from north to south, while there is no equally elevated and panoramic point from which to see the entire lake from south to north, unless you rule out the previously mentioned tower of Buccione, which is occupied by the forces of Mexican television.

  One English journalist has pitched his tent in the woods above Ameno and from there, every morning, he enjoys the magnificent spectacle of Mount Rosa emerging from the clouds into the light of day, while all the other mountains are still enveloped in a delicate blue haze, and then summoning them all, one after the other, to take their places in the landscape, until they finally fill in all the space under the sky.

  The journalist described the spectacle in an enthusiastic article that his editor in chief promptly tossed into the trash, immediately dictating a super-urgent telegram: “Forget about the landscape, our readers don’t want to know about Mount Rosa, they want to know what Baron Lamberto is doing.”

  So the journalist wrote—for his own eyes only—a poem that begins with these lines:

  O Shepherd, o Mount Rosa,

  Your flock of mountains

  Is bleating this morning …

  Then he realized that the bleating was coming not from the Alps, but from a path just below his campsite, along which an old woman was leading her nanny goat to pasture. He also remembered that the poem had already been written by another poet. And that poet wasn’t talking about Mount Rosa, but the Eiffel Tower in Paris. And he wasn’t talking about mountains, but bridges. A dreadful welter of confusion.

  That does nothing to prevent the diligent British reporter from riding his motorcycle down to Orta every morning to do his job. He usually arrives in time for the ferryman Duilio’s press conference.

  “What did you buy this time?”

  “Twelve chickens, seven rabbits, pasta, rice, five kinds of cheeses, sixty-five pounds of fruit, coffee, sugar, and salt.

  “How much salt?”

  “Two packets of fine table salt and two of coarse salt.”

  When Duilio climbs into the boat to transport the provisions to the island, he is greeted with a burst of applause and the photographers shout at him:

  “Look over here, Duilio! Smile! Hold that bunch of bananas a little higher.”

  The photographers address everyone by their first name.

  When he gets back from the island, Duilio is followed by a procession of boats crowded with journalists, who shout questions and jot down notes:

  “What did the bandits say?”

  “Did you see the baron?”

  “Did you see Signor Guglielmo?”

  “Have you ever been in the army?”

  “How old were you when you got married?”

  “How many children do you have?”

  “How many liters of wine do you drink a day?”

  And so on, every imaginable kind of question. But the journalists, unlike the photographers, always address him respectfully.

  Little boys swim behind the boat, tagging along on both the way over and the way back, delighted to be chased away by both policemen and local constables.

  Street vendors show up selling balloons, peanuts, nougat, and toasted almonds. There’s even one vendor selling pictures of the Colosseum, for no apparent reason. And people buy them. There’s always someone who will buy anything, whatever the weather.

  The bars, the cafés, and the shops stay open all night long, because people can’t find a place to sleep and so they stay out wandering the streets and loitering idly till all hours, or camping out wherever they can, drinking beer and munching on sandwiches. At night, people come in from Gozzano, Borgomanero, Omegna, and Gravellone: they can’t come during the day because they have to work. These commuters manage to find out everything all the same: how many chickens Duilio bought, how many liters of wine he drank. On Saturday and Sunday, visitors from Milan and Turin and industrialists from Busto Arsizio show up in vehicles and conveyances of every kind.

  Sometimes when Duilio sets off for the island, his wife is there to wave goodbye tearfully, as if he were going off to war.

  “Don’t go, Charon,” (even she addresses him, fondly, by that nickname) “they’ll hurt you, what do you have to do with it, what do you care about Baron Lamberto, think of your children, they could become orphans.”

  “But they’re all grown up and married, with families of their own!”

  “Think of your grandchildren.”

  “See for yourself how my grandchildren are worrying.”

  Three or four of his grandchildren are among the motley crew of kids diving into the lake and shouting on the wharf. The journalists ask them questions and they’re interviewed on television.

  “Who do you like better, Zorro or Spiderman?”

  “Are you better at cybernetics or structural anthropology?”

  “How much is three times eight makes twenty-four?”

  In short, it’s a non-stop cinematic spectacle. The shopkeepers and merchants all tip their hats to the mayor, as if it was all his idea. The local bank has opened three new teller windows.

  There is always something to talk about: now a lawyer from Milan is organizing a tournament of night-time soccer matches, now a street vendor selling corkscrews is offering public demonstrations of the unequaled quality of those utensils that are so useful if you have a bottle to uncork. Then there are harpsichord concerts and percussion instrument concerts, performances by choral groups, even sack races. The local farmers remind the television reporters: “See if you can put in a good word for our wines, Gattinara, Ghemme, Sizzano, Fara … You think mineral water can hold a candle to our Spanna?”

  On the third day, an air-conditioned tour bus pulls up. By special concession of the town constable, who is impressed with the bus’s passengers, the driver is given permission to park in the town square, which is theoretically a pedestrians-only area. The license plate is marked “MI,” which stands for Milan. Twenty-four gentlemen step out, dressed in charcoal-grey suits. They are followed by twenty-four more gentlemen, a little younger, dressed in navy blue suits. Forty-eight white shirts and forty-eight ties all together create a wonderful impression. And who on earth might they be? These are the twenty-four managing directors of the banks owned by Baron Lamberto, each with his own personal secretary to take notes, run to the nearest phone, and carry the briefcase filled with bank documents.

  The crowd holds its collective breath. Who has ever seen twenty-four managing bank directors all in one place? In the flesh, their shoes polished and gleaming, many wearing eyeglasses, and all of them wearing stern expressions.

  “Make way, make way,” say the personal secretaries.

  With great effort a path is carved out through the mob, and along this path, in Indian file, the twenty-four gentlemen, followed by the other twenty-four gentlemen, make their way down to stand in a line along the lakeshore, within sight of the island. And then, all together, forty-eight hats are tipped, in a sign of respect. They put their hats back on their heads. They stand there, motionless, watching.

  The press and the rest of the mass media all lunge at the group, shouting questions in at least twenty languages, but they only obtain answers from one of the twenty-four secretaries, who has been selected as the spokesman. And all he will say is:

  “No comment.”

  After a few minutes, the twenty-four bankers and their personal secretaries climb up to the town hall, to the office of the mayor, who delivers to them a message from Baron Lamberto, conveyed secretly from the island by Duilio. The message reads:

  My Dear Sirs,

  I thank you for taking so much trouble on my behalf. I hope this finds you in good health. My own health
is outstanding. Two hours a day in the gym are not enough to make me perspire. I would like to request your help in obtaining the proper equipment to allow me to lift weights, the only form of exercise available to me in my present circumstances. I wish you a very pleasant stay on the pleasant shores of Lake Orta.

  Yours affectionately,

  Lamberto.

  Under the signature, the bandit chief has added, in block print, all capitals:

  PS: IN EXCHANGE FOR OUR PRISONER BARON LAMBERTO WE DEMAND THE DELIVERY OF TWENTY-FOUR MILLION DOLLARS, ONE MILLION FOR EACH OF HIS BANKS. WE DO NOT ACCEPT CHECKS, TRAVELER’S CHECKS, LETTERS OF CREDIT, OR TELEPHONE TOKENS.

  The twenty-four managing directors look each other in the eye and their twenty-four secretaries do the same. They don’t know whether they should be more indignant about the demand for twenty-four million dollars or sorrowful about the request for weight-lifting equipment. Faint coughs express embarrassment. Throat-clearing expresses dubious uncertainty. One of the secretaries whispers into the ear of his neighbor: “The baron must have lost his wits from the fright, poor fellow.”

  “Will there be a reply?” asks the mayor.

  “No reply,” respond the managing directors. They get to their feet as one man, bid the mayor good day, walk down to the town square, climb back onto their tour bus, followed by their twenty-four shadows and their twenty-four personal secretaries. The driver quickly conveys them to Miasino, where their secretaries have rented for them a seventeenth-century villa, with eighteenth-century frescoes, nineteenth-century paintings, and twentieth-century electrical appliances.

  Here they spend the night, warm and dry in spite of the sudden furious thunderstorm that soaks the unfortunate campers perched here and there in the vast landscape, lashed by sinister flashes of lightning. One of them, however, spends a sleepless night for other reasons. He is the youngest of the twenty-four secretaries. With a rental car, he hurries to Milan to procure the weight-lifting equipment requested by the baron. The twenty-four managing directors have discussed the delicate question at length over dinner. In the end, with twenty-four votes in favor and none opposed, they have decided to obey blindly their superior’s incomprehensible orders.

  “He must have his reasons.”

  “Perhaps he’s preparing a trap of some kind. We cannot stand in his way.”

  The next morning, as Duilio is preparing to set off for the island with his cargo of provisions and sundries, the secretary hurries back just in time to deliver the exercise equipment, purchased at a price equivalent to its weight in gold in a 24-hour gymnasium in the Lombard capital.

  “What’s in those packages?” ask the policemen in charge of inspecting the cargo.

  “Athletic equipment, officer.”

  “Rather than pistols, cannons, or atomic bombs? Open up, let’s have a look.”

  Under the curious eyes of a thousand onlookers the twine is cut, the wrapping paper unwrapped, and iron disks and metal bars come into view. A sergeant, who was an Italian national weightlifting champion, officially verifies that these are regulation weights.

  “Who are they for?”

  “For His Lordship the baron, officer. He intends to train in this field of athletic endeavor.”

  “How old is His Lordship the baron?” the warrant officer asks.

  “Ninety-four, officer.”

  The warrant officer seems doubtful. He finally mutters something about it “never being too late” and puts his official stamp on the suspicious merchandise.

  Orta and the surrounding countryside now have an excellent topic of discussion for the rest of the morning. As the news spreads by word of mouth, of course, it undergoes the occasional transformation. At noon, in Stresa, on the other side of the mountain, a waiter in a hotel tells his chef that Baron Lamberto will be competing in the upcoming Olympic games; his event will be the hammer throw. At 2:30 that afternoon in Laveno, on the Lombard shore of Lake Maggiore, an ice cream vendor tells a German customer that the baron has secretly broken the world record for pole vaulting.

  “Ja, ja,” says the German, licking his gelato.

  THE TWENTY-FOUR BANK DIRECTORS AND their secretaries are meeting in a plenary session in the Palazzotto della Comunità della Riviera, and it is from there that they conduct their negotiations with the bandits. It’s a handsome aristocratic building from the sixteenth century that, as the guidebooks tell us, “is supported by four corner pillars, bracketing a line of stout granite columns.” In other words, on the ground floor there is a portico where people can find shelter from the rain for a comfortable conversation, while upstairs there is a large hall that is reached by an outside staircase; this is an especially useful feature, because it allows the populace to watch the procession of officials going upstairs for a meeting or emerging after a meeting and, now and again, the waiters from the café bringing orders of aperitifs or, depending on the time of day, digestifs. Now there are forty-eight orders at a time: nice business. The mayor, in order to keep everyone happy, places orders with first one bar and later with another. Payable on delivery. The twenty-four bank directors take turns paying and the television reporters are able to broadcast live images of checks from, variously, the Lamberto Bank of Hong Kong, the Banque Lamberto of Monte Carlo, or the Banco Lamberto of Montevideo.

  The hardest work falls to Duilio, who is constantly on call to ferry the messages back and forth across the lake. The bandits have issued an ultimatum: “Unless we receive the ransom money in forty-eight hours, we will begin sending Baron Lamberto back to you, piece by piece: first an ear, then a finger, and so on, until we have completely picked the subject apart.”

  The bankers reply that Baron Lamberto must give the order himself, in writing, otherwise they are not authorized to make any payment, be it in lire or peanuts.

  The bandit chief brings this to Lamberto’s attention and asks him to provide him with a handwritten document.

  “Immediately,” answers the baron. And he sits down and writes the following, in English, on a sheet of paper: “My Dear Sirs, what do you say to a joyride on a ferris wheel? I herewith invite you to join me at the Prater Park in Vienna this coming Christmas.”

  “Why did he write in English?” asks the bandit chief, who never studied languages.

  “With my bank directors I always speak English. It’s a matter of decorum.”

  “Here I see the name of Vienna, what does that have to do with it?”

  “I gave them orders to draw the money from the Lamberto Bank of Vienna, because of all my banks it happens to be the one with the most plentiful supply of Italian banknotes in small bills.”

  The twenty-four managing directors discuss the wording and content of the message at considerable length.

  “This is unquestionably the baron’s handwriting.”

  “True, but the style is not his.”

  “My colleague has a point: I don’t recall the baron ever using the word ‘ferris wheel.’ ”

  “And the use of ‘joyride’ instead of just ‘ride’ hardly fits in with his personality, devoid of frivolity and ill-suited to fun.”

  “This text,” points out another of the directors, “also contains digressions and asides that are out of keeping with the baron’s lucid and focused intelligence. In fact, when one refers to the Prater Park in Vienna, one normally calls it the Große Rad, or the Great Wheel, not just a ferris wheel.”

  “Ferris wheel is something you might say, at the very most, about the Fair of Crusinallo.”

  The board votes unanimously to reject the message, demanding one in German instead.

  “Why in German?” the bandit chief asks the baron, as he shows him the board’s request.

  “Evidently, the director of my bank in Vienna, since he is the one who will actually have to withdraw the money, wants to be certain that he has understood correctly.”

  “Go ahead, write.”

  “And the pen?”

  “It’s right there.”

  “No, excuse me,
that’s the pen I used to write the last message. I’ve never used the same pen to write more than one document. Anselmo, bring me a new pen.”

  Anselmo obeys, and the baron writes, in German.

  “My Dear Sirs, with this order I hereby order that all employees of my banks who do not know how to dance the tango be forthwith and summarily fired, without notice. Signed, Lamberto.”

  “What does the tango have to do with this?” asks the chief of the 24-L, pointing out the only word in the message that he can read.

  “It’s a code word for ‘million.’ You don’t expect me to talk about money openly, do you? What if this note were to fall into the hands of some spy?”

  “Very reasonable,” says the chief, in an understanding tone.

  The message is delivered to the proper recipients. The twenty-four directors read it aloud and the topic is opened to debate.

  “The same situation: the handwriting is certainly that of Baron Lamberto. The signature is his as well. I can prove it.”

  As he speaks, the director shows the room a picture postcard that the baron mailed him the year before from Miami, Florida. The postcard is handed from one director to the next. Everyone inspects it and compares the signature with the one in the message.

  “And yet, the style reveals a very different personality from the one we know.”

  “Exactly. The baron dislikes the tango.”

  “It may be that he dislikes it now, at age ninety-four, but liked it very much in his youth.”

  “I would rule that out. His Lordship, in human memory, has only ever liked profitable balance sheets, fat checkbooks, and gold ingots.”

  The members of the assembly burst into applause. Even the twenty-four secretaries stop taking notes for a moment and clap their hands.

  The board decides unanimously that the message is unsatisfactory and that they now need some piece of unequivocal evidence that Baron Lamberto is still alive. The bandits must now send them a documentably recent photograph of him.