by Viola Victor
7 - The scarecrow
Needless to bore you with the same scenario every time, I’d become monotonous; night, tower, Martina with a bag of meringues. It’s incredible to think that they are just sugar and little more. It must be that little to make the difference. Like clouds.
"You can’t eat clouds, silly! Although, knowing you, I wouldn’t be surprised if you tried."
"One night I dreamed of it."
"And how were they?"
"Very good. I was on top of the tower, high above. Clouds surrounded it. There was one right at arm length. It really was as white as a meringue. So I pushed one hand inside, just to see what would happen, and I found out that clouds are so white because they are made of soft sugar. And full of ice inside. So I pulled out of the cloud long strips of sweet ice, sugar ice, caramel ice. How wonderful it would be if clouds were so close that you could eat them."
"You're so naive. You can’t eat clouds, everybody knows. And then, inside there’s rain, and it’s clear it’s not a sweet. Do you really need to have everything explained?"
"Meringues are better, then."
"In this bag I have other things to arrange in your house. Maybe it's time for me to see it. Not that I expect something, but I hope at least you're not one of those messy guys who leave everything scattered around. Like my brother, for instance. Except for that, don’t worry. I expect something bad and sagging enough. It is unlikely that you can show me something worse than my expectations."
And was she willing to come and live in a place like that? With me, what’s more. The son of the banker almost started to intrigue me.
I stood up to lead the way, but she did not move. She stood, frozen, looking at the bag on the floor beside her. What was wrong this time? Oh, right.
"I'll take it, don’t worry. Even if it doesn’t seem too heavy."
"It's not a matter of weight. A gentleman..."
"Okay, okay, I'll take the bag, regardless of the weight. Follow me and watch your steps". I lit the last stub of the candle I had with me and handed it to her: I already knew every step by heart, I didn’t need it. It’s the darkest place ever, remember? I could not live here if I hadn’t learned to do without light, adapting my movements to the dark and the breath. The breath of the tower: the clock. Its regular breath and its hourly cough. But Martina still needed light.
We went down two flights of stairs and I opened the creaking door of my tower-house. Martina held her breath, so did I. The clock didn’t. I tried to understand how much it met her meagre expectations. So did her. The clock, I don’t know. I guess it was minding its own business, as usual. The only time the clock talked to me I had the feeling that it would never do that again. And so it was, because I left.
But now we are still in the tower, there's Martina with her disappointment at hand saying "I thought worse."
It’s not quite so bleak, even though it feels more like a loft than a real house. I walked her through the entrance to the room with the fireplace and the table, then to the living room. Even the room above the kitchen ("more stairs!") was slightly above her expectations. The rest were empty rooms.
"But where will I stay?"
I had not really thought about that. I started scratching my new haircut, hoping that an idea would come out of it.
Nothing.
"There is a couch in the living room. I guess I'll have to find another bed."
"No you don’t. I run away from home and you happen to go and buy a new bed. Are you having a guest, Mr. Warden of the Tower?" she mocked. "Cleverness is not one of your best qualities, uh? We mustn’t draw attention, in any way."
"Then how do we do?"
"For example, you could offer to sleep on the couch and leave the comforts to your guest."
"But I’m too tall for the couch. My feet stick out, I cannot sleep there. Well, actually it depends on how long you're going to stay."
"Not long, I would say," she sighed mournfully, looking around. "But I’m not leaving before tidying this place up a bit. That's what's missing. A woman's touch. Clearly there is no woman in this house. Did you ever think about getting married?" Shrugging is the only way to fully express my feelings about this. "What do I know, a farmer would be fine. Or a maid, even better. She would know without a doubt how to manage the house, and she would be within your reach."
"I don’t have a good effect on women. By now I am resigned."
"Haven’t you ever had a girlfriend?"
"Yes, once I had one. Even if I don’t know whether to really call her a girlfriend. It was when I was a kid and worked at the circus. It was the owner of the circus who took me off the road. You know, they needed a clown, but in the end it turned out that I wasn’t really inclined. However I stayed with them for a while. I took care of various chores and sometimes they let me do my act, even though it never met the slightest success. When I left, she said I should be about eighteen, but nobody will ever know because I don’t know when I was born. With foundlings it’s like that, a bit at random. She, I mean the trapeze artist. I really loved when she hovered in the air. She looked like a real angel, I dreamed of her every night. I dreamed that while hovering in the air she changed, and when she came down from up there she was my mom. Of course I don’t know how my mother looked like, but I recognized her instantly, I didn’t need anything else. Dreams are like that. But she, the trapeze artist, was the owner of the circus. She never bothered to even look at me. Only when she rose up to the sky for her number, she looked at me. I don’t know why. Then, once in the air, she forgot about me. And I dreamed her like this: from the moment she took her eyes off me to look up."
"Definitely she can’t be defined as a girlfriend."
"But I didn’t mean her. It was the wife of the tamer. She was a very charming girl. She had a certain determination, at least, although she was very young, maybe younger than me. She and her husband didn’t go along well. The previous one had been mauled by a lion the day after the wedding, so she married his replacement, but he didn’t trust to enter the cage with her and they were always arguing. One night she slipped into my tent and stayed until morning. It was nice, she smelled good. But I don’t know what it meant, either for her or for me."
"And then?" she asked grimly.
"And then one day she no longer came to me. It seems she decided to start sneaking in the tent of the tightrope walker. Like that, you know? Out of the blue."
"And you didn’t care?"
"No, I didn’t care. I only cared about the woman who hovered in the air."
"Is that all?"
"Yes, that's all. Then, when I arrived in this town, I tried to leave the tower, but I didn’t manage very well."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that at the beginning, and you probably were not even born, I went out every Sunday. I went to church, like everyone else. I put on my best suit, an elegant hat and went to church. Not that I cared about the sermon of the priest and all these things, but I was among other people. Back then I thought it would do me good, but I was wrong."
"In fact I've never seen you at the church, and I go there every Sunday."
Martina, at mass, did an impression. With a turquoise dress and flowers in her hair. The banker's son looked her down in an obscene manner, that made her shudder. As for me, she would find me ridiculous.
How do I know? Because if you take me away from the top of the tower in the middle of the night I am ridiculous. Haven’t you realized it yet? Martina had. Martina would look down at me and laugh. She would elbow her friend to show her the attraction of the day. I mean me, helpless, without the night and the tower to delete the halo of ridicule surrounding me. Helpless in my velvet jacket with elbow patches, my curls raising a worn hat. No charm, no beauty, no mercy. Go back where you came from.
"I'm sorry. They were bad. I wouldn’t have behaved that way."
Oh yes, you would.
"That's all. I'm used to it. You can be fine even alone. The fact is that everywhere I go I always seem out of place. S
tranger, with a different look in the eyes, inappropriate clothes, the wrong thing always said at the wrong time. It's fate, that's what I am. And it’s remarked by the fact that I couldn’t even be a clown. People find me ridiculous, not funny."
"There must be some girl good for you. Even though I suspect that your problem is just a little shyness. Did you talk to the trapeze artist? Did she know that you dreamed of her? I find it very romantic."
"No, of course she didn’t know. At first even I hoped there was a girl for me. Now I no longer believe it. Maybe, if I could never get off the tower. But it is so long that I don’t think about it. When I worked in the circus I won a ring at cards. Apparently it was precious or something like that. I promised myself – now I see how significant where my unfounded weaknesses – that I would give it to my great love. The trapeze artist, I mean. But I never found the courage. I think I exchanged a few words with her during those years. Who knows, if I had declared my love..."
"And what happened to the ring?"
"I don’t know," I admitted, almost surprised.
"You have meringue crumbs everywhere! Clean yourself, you look like a savage! And don’t try to change the subject. I want to know where that ring is."
"I don’t know, I told you. I have no clue."
"Come on, make an effort! I won’t leave you alone until you tell me. Come on, come on, come on!"
I found that she wasn’t joking. The clock struck the hour. Then half an hour. Meanwhile: come on, come on, come on, come on, etc. Come on, tell me, etc. Think about it, etc. And so on. For very, very long.
The last time I saw the ring, it was in my jacket pocket. The purple velvet jacket, the one with the funny patches on the elbows.
"And what happened?"
I don’t remember. I don’t have it anymore, anyway. I used it for something. What for?
Come on, come on, come on, tell me. Come on, come on, come on, come on, think about it. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on!
But of course! For the scarecrow! It was saved from the fire only because my straw friend needed a suit, even though it's ridiculous. What would he care? The field behind the tower was entrusted to the guardian. And each field has its respectable scarecrow. The ring might still be there if no one has robbed that man of straw. I am sure that if that happened, it would have left them, and then farewell to the ring. What a wimp, my friend scarecrow, to get ripped off like that. Blame him, not my fault.
"But why is it so important, anyway? Do you want to sell it? Do you need money for the escape?"
"I just want it. Why do you care? You don’t want it anymore, right?"
"Right."
"Let's go."
When you put something in her head, there was no way to change her mind.
Wheat ears are tall. Taller than Martina, who must firmly hold my hand for me to guide her in this dark, unknown forest. I cultivated the field myself, I know the way and its only inhabitant, a man of straw. The advantage is that it never moves from there: you always know where to find it. This little certainty comforts me at times, because of its unexpected reliability. A lot of air passes through his lint body, so much that anyone would get sick. But it’s nothing to it. It's always there and shows no sign of resignation, nor it wants to leave.
Has it taken care of his pockets, that Martina wants to loot? I hope it doesn’t mind. The moon is beautiful from here, but less than from the tower. I don’t know, it loses something in the descent.
"No," it says, "it’s you who lose something, and you want to blame me."
May it be right?
I wonder how can there be poets without a tower. Perhaps there is someone who can imagine how it is to be up there. Perhaps my flaw is that I have no imagination.
"It must be so," she confirmed.
Even the smell of the wheat is a poem. I'd like to be able to write one about this night, but the smell of the wheat does not let me: it will not let me take his place. It stealthily infiltrated the folds of my clothes and Martina’s hair. It slips between her little hands that are reading the wheat poem without her noticing.
Martina's hands are happy: they hold a ring that is now hers.
"Founders keepers. If it were for you it would still be forgotten in the midst of a field. You're lucky that it wasn’t stolen. You must take better care of valuable things, it’s not good this way."
Martina leaves my protests behind, abandoning them between the wheat ears, and I have to chase her or she will get lost and certainly blame me. So I leave the protests where they are, I don’t have time to collect them.
The edge of the field slows down her eagerness for stairs; she will not go back up there again. The scarecrow, on the other hand, makes me sleepy.
The last thing I remember is pedantic recommendations. The subject: instructions to store her things in order, after taking them out of the bag she left in front of the fireplace.
I climb the stairs alone, tired. Before I go to bed I can finish the meringues: those left are still on the kitchen table. Maybe I'll dream again about clouds full of sugary ice. You never know.
While falling asleep I think: what will Martina dream?
But there's a thought that makes me uneasy.
That’s what it is: I forgot again to walk her home.