Catastrophe

by Dino Buzzati

  Then Count Mortimer announced that he would continue alone. The light of an irreversible decision shone in his eyes. He organized a packet of food and a bottle of water and strode out of the farm toward the rocky terrace from which, according to the peasant, one could see the towers and steeples of San Piero clearly! For a few moments no one stirred; then two of them moved to follow him: the secretary, Vasco Detui, and Dr. Attesi. They hoped to arrive at their destination before nightfall.

  Their feet aching, the three trudged on painfully in silence over the great stretch of parched stony ground beneath a merciless sun. After two hours they arrived at the summit of the terrace of rock; but they were still unable to see San Piero for the land was covered with a thick haze.

  They walked one behind the other, following the indications of a small compass that Mortimer had attached to his watch chain. They crossed the terrace and continued over dry ground and stony ridges; the sun beat down as fiercely as ever.

  In vain they peered ahead in the hopes of seeing the outline of a bell tower loom through the haze. They had obviously been walking around in circles or had been overoptimistic in their calculation of the speed at which they walked; in either case it couldn’t be far now.

  It was almost sunset when they came across an old man riding toward them on a donkey. He was coming from his nearby farm—he explained—and was going to Passo Terne to make some purchases.

  “Is it very far to San Piero?” inquired Mortimer.

  “San Piero?” replied the old man as though he hadn’t understood.

  “Good Lord, San Piero, the town nearby—surely you’ve heard of it?”

  “San Piero,” repeated the old man as though he were talking to himself. “Well, sir, now you come to mention it, the name isn’t unfamiliar to me. Yes, I seem to remember my father often talking about a town over there,” (he pointed to the horizon) “a big town called something of the sort. San Piero, or San Dedro perhaps. But I never really believed him.”

  The little old man with the donkey disappeared behind them. The three sat down on the rocks. No one dared to be the first to speak; and so night fell.

  Finally Mortimer spoke through the darkness: “My friends, you have suffered enough on my behalf. As soon as it’s light you must set off on the way back; I’ll go on. I’ll be late, of course, but I don’t want the people of San Piero to have waited for me in vain. They’ve made such tremendous sacrifices to receive me, poor folk.”

  Later, Detui and Attesi reported how the wind swept away the haze from the plain but there was still no sign of San Piero. Ignoring their prayers, Mortimer decided to continue his inaugural journey alone, over the blank and empty desert.

  They saw him walk slowly but firmly over the dry stones until he vanished from view. But two or three times they imagined they saw a sudden flash of light: the sun glittering on the buttons of the uniform of a distinguished man.

  The Scala Scare

  FOR THE FIRST PERFORMANCE IN ITALY OF PIERRE Grossgemuth’s Massacre of the Innocents (entitled La Strage degli Innocenti), Maestro Claudio Cottes had no hesitation about putting on white tie and tails. True, it was already well on in May, when the purists reckon that the Scala season has reached its downward phase; by then the public mostly consists of tourists, who are generally offered safe operas without complicated staging, automatically selected from the traditional repertoire; it matters little if the conductors are not the best known, and if the singers are routine Scala performers who rouse no particular curiosity. At this time of year the elite take liberties which would be regarded as scandalous during the most sacred months of the Scala season: it is almost a sign of good breeding for the women to wear simple afternoon dresses instead of full evening regalia, and for the men to come in blue or dark gray suits with colored ties, as if they were making a social call on a neighboring family. Some regular subscription-holders carry their snobbery to the point of not turning up, without ceding their place to anyone else, so that the seat is left empty (and so much the better if it comes to be noticed by their acquaintances).

  But this particular evening was a gala occasion. La Strage degli Innocenti constituted an event in itself, because of the discussions it had provoked over a large part of Europe after its production in Paris, some five months earlier. The Alsatian composer Grossgemuth described the opera as a “popular oratorio in twelve scenes, for chorus and soloists,” and it was said that he had changed direction once again, and late in life was using bolder and more disconcerting language than ever before. As a leading figure of the present day, he had announced that at long last he was “restoring opera to the forgotten regions of truth, and recalling it from an icy exile, where alchemists had been keeping it alive on heavy drugs.” His supporters claimed that he had broken free of the immediate past in order to make a return (but what a return) to the glorious traditions of the nineteenth century—and some of them even found connections with Greek tragedy.

  But the chief interest of the opera lay in its political repercussions. Although he had lived near Grenoble for many years, Pierre Grossgemuth was obviously of German stock, and had a Prussian look about him, which had been softened by age and the practice of his art. During the occupation, his behavior had not been beyond reproach. He had been unable to refuse when the Germans had invited him to conduct a charity concert, though previously he was said to have sympathized with the other side, and to have been extremely generous in assisting the maquis of the district. He had done everything in his power to avoid taking an obvious stand, and had stayed closeted in his rich villa. During the critical months before the liberation, even the familiar, disquieting sound of the piano ceased to be heard from outside. But Grossgemuth was a great artist, and his moment of crisis would have been forgotten had he not written and performed the Massacre of the Innocents. The oratorio was based on the biblical episode, and set to a libretto by a young French poet, Philippe Lasalle. The obvious interpretation was that it was an allegory of Nazi massacres, Hitler being identified with Herod’s grim figure. But critics on the extreme left had accused Grossgemuth, under cover of such a deceptively obvious allegory, of covertly alluding to the victors’ purges, to summary vendettas in countless villages, culminating in the Nuremberg executions. Some went still farther, and considered the Massacre of the Innocents a kind of prophetic allusion to a future revolution and the slaughter it would bring in its train; a condemnation of it in advance, and a warning to those who had power to suppress it in time: a libel, in fact, that was almost medieval in flavor.

  As might be imagined, Grossgemuth had denied these insinuations in a few, dry words: the Massacre of the Innocents could be thought of as a testimony of Christian faith, but nothing more. But battle had raged at the Parisian premiere, and the newspapers had argued about it for weeks in a heated and venomous way.

  Curiosity also ran high about the musical difficulties of performance, the sets—said to be fantastic—and choreography by the famous Johan Monclar, who had come especially from Brussels. Grossgemuth had been in Milan for a week with his wife and secretary, so as to attend rehearsals: and he would of course attend the performance. All this gave the performance a tone of exception. It was the most important soirée of the entire season. It had attracted to Milan the most important Italian critics and composers, and a small fervent group of Grossgemuth’s disciples had come from Paris. The Chief of Police had reinforced the police guard in case of demonstrations.

  Some officials and many police officers originally detailed for Scala duties were instead busy elsewhere. A different and much more worrying threat had suddenly declared itself in the late afternoon. Various signs and symptoms made it clear that an attack might take place, perhaps that very night, by members of the Morzi gang. The chiefs of that vast movement had never made a mystery of the fact that their ultimate aim was the overthrow of established order and institution of the “new justice.” There had already been symptomatic disturbances in preceding months. The Morzi were at present boycotting th
e law on internal migration, about to be approved by Parliament. This pretext might well serve for a full-scale attack.

  Small groups of determined, provocative characters had been noticeable all day long in the streets and squares of the town center. They had no badges, flags or banners; they were not in formation or attempting to form processions. But it was only too simple to guess what they were. There would of course be nothing strange in harmless and inoffensive demonstrations of this sort continuing at intervals for years. And on this occasion too the forces of law and order left them undisturbed. But Police Headquarters were in possession of confidential information which led them to expect a full-scale attempt to gain power during the next few hours. Rome had at once been informed, police and carabinieri had been ordered to stand by, not to mention certain army divisions. But there was nothing to prevent its being a false alarm. It had happened before. Spreading rumors of this kind was one of the Morzi’s favorite pastimes.

  As happens on such occasions, a vague and unspoken sense of danger had filtered through the city. There was no concrete justification for it, not even any very specific rumors; nobody knew anything for certain, yet there was considerable tension in the air. When they left their offices that evening, many people went home in a hurry, gazing anxiously down the streets and expecting to see a huge black mass advancing from a distance to block their path. It was not the first time the town’s tranquility had been menaced; many people had begun to get used to it. That was yet another reason why most of them went their way as if this were an evening like all the others. Several people commented on an interesting phenomenon: although a presentiment of trouble had begun creeping through the city, not a soul said anything about it. The usual evening conversations took place, but in a different tone of voice, full of secret allusions; people casually wished each other goodbye and made appointments for the next day, for none of them wanted to talk openly about a subject which in one form or other was uppermost in everybody’s mind. It was as if talking about it could break the spell, and bring bad luck; just as on warships it is taboo to refer even jokingly to torpedoes or collisions.

  Nobody could have been less aware of what was going on than Maestro Claudio Cottes. He was a sincere and in some ways stupid man, and nothing existed for him outside music. He was Romanian by birth (though few were aware of it), and as a very young man had settled in Italy during the golden years at the beginning of the century, when his prodigious precocity as a virtuoso pianist had quickly given him fame. Even after the public’s fanaticism had died down, he still remained a magnificent pianist, of the delicate rather than the powerful type, who every so often visited the most important European cities on concert tours, at the invitation of well-known music societies. This went on until about 1940. His fondest memories were his oft-repeated successes in the Scala’s symphony concerts. In the meantime he had obtained Italian citizenship, married a Milanese girl and been appointed professor of advanced piano studies at the Conservatorio, a post he filled with great probity. By this time he felt he was Milanese, and in fact very few of those around him could speak better dialect than he.

  Although he had retired—by now he only acted as honorary examiner for some Conservatorio examinations—music was still the sole reason of Cottes’ existence; he only met musicians and music lovers, never missed a concert and followed with trepidation the budding career of his twenty-two-year-old son, Arduino, who was a very promising composer. “Trepidation,” because Arduino was an extremely reserved boy, chary of opening his heart and almost excessively sensitive. Since the death of his wife, the older Cottes found himself embarrassed and helpless where Arduino was concerned. He did not understand him. He did not know what sort of life he led. He realized that even on musical matters, his advice went unheeded.

  Cottes had never been an outstandingly handsome man. Now, at sixty-seven, he was fine-looking in the way that is described as decorative. A slight resemblance to Beethoven had grown more marked with the years; he may have been pleased about this, for he took great care of his long white fluffy hair, which gave him a most “artistic” halo. A good-natured Beethoven, with nothing of tragedy about him; he was sociable, quick to smile and eager to find good almost everywhere; “almost,” because where pianists were concerned he could seldom resist turning up his nose. It was his only weakness and nobody minded it at all. “Well, maestro?” his friends would ask him during the intermissions. “Seems all right to me. But what would Beethoven say?” he would answer; or else: “Why? You didn’t really hear him, did you? Didn’t you go to sleep?” and similar old-style pleasantries, whether the performer were Backhaus, Cortot or Gieseking.

  His cheery good nature—he was in no way put out at finding himself excluded by age from active artistic life—made him universally liked, and ensured him privileged treatment at the Scala. Pianists never take part in the opera season, and Cottes’ presence on difficult evenings made sure of one small nucleus of optimism. Whatever happened, he would be sure to applaud; and it could be safely assumed that the example of a once-celebrated concert pianist would induce many to moderate their dislike, convince the undecided and persuade the lukewarm to show their approval more openly. Not to mention his distinguished Scala appearance, and his past merits as a pianist. Hence his name appeared in the secret, jealously guarded list of “permanent and nonpaying subscribers.” With unfailing regularity on the morning of every prima, an envelope containing a ticket for a stall seat would arrive in his mailbox outside the porter’s lodge at Via della Passione 7. If the prima promised a poor box office, then it would contain two, one for him and the other for his son. But Arduino was not interested; he preferred to make his own arrangements with his friends, and go to dress rehearsals, for which there was no need to dress.

  That was the way it happened for the Strage degli Innocenti. Cottes Junior had heard the dress rehearsal the day before. He had even discussed it with his father at lunchtime, in his usual vague terms. He had talked about some “interesting solutions of sound texture,” “deeply worked polyphony,” “vocal writing which was more deductive than inductive” (this last phrase uttered with scorn) and so forth. His ingenuous father had been unable to fathom whether or not the work was good, let alone whether his son had liked or disliked it. He did not push the point. He was used to the mysterious jargon of the young; sometimes, when confronted with it, he stopped short, intimidated.

  Now he was alone in the house. The daily woman had already gone. Arduino was out to dinner, and the piano, thank Heaven, was silent. “Thank Heaven” was unspoken, deep in the heart of the older artist; he would never have had the courage to confess it. While his son was composing, Claudio Cottes suffered violent inner commotion. With almost physical longing he would wait moment by moment for those apparently incomprehensible chords to yield up something which resembled music. He knew that this was a weakness of old-fashioned listening, that it was impossible to turn the clock back. He told himself that whatever gave pleasure had to be avoided as a sign of impotent decrepitude and nostalgia. He knew that the supreme duty of the new art was to give its listeners pain, and that in this lay the proof of its vitality. But he could not react differently. He would listen in the room close by, knotting his fingers together so hard that the joints cracked, as if by such an effort he could help to “liberate” his son. But his son was not liberated; the laborious notes piled up in greater confusion, the chords sounded still more hostile, the whole thing was left suspended in air or dashed to the ground in a series of most obstinate clashes. God preserve him. The father’s hands would disentangle themselves with disappointment, and tremble slightly as they set about lighting a cigarette.

  Cottes was on his own, and filled with a sense of well-being: a mild breeze came in through the open windows. It was half-past eight, but the sun was still shining. The telephone rang while he was getting dressed. “Is Maestro Cottes there?” said an unknown voice. “Yes, speaking,” he answered. “Maestro Arduino Cottes?” “No, this is his father
, Claudio.” The line was interrupted at the other end. He went back to his bedroom and the phone rang again. “But is Arduino there or not?” said the same voice again, almost rudely. “No, el gh’è non,” answered his father in dialect, trying to equal the other’s bluntness. “So much the worse for him,” said the other and put down the receiver. What a way of behaving, thought Cottes, and who could it have been? Whatever sort of friends was Arduino mixing with now? And what was the meaning of “so much the worse for him”? The telephone call left him nonplussed. Luckily it only lasted a second.

  Cottes took a look in the wardrobe mirror at his dress suit, which was wide and loose in the old style, right for his age yet at the same time very easygoing. He wore a black waistcoat so as not to conform slavishly to the usual fashion; it was a little point of vanity, and seemingly inspired by the legendary Joachim. Like a waiter, in fact, but was even a blind man likely to take Claudio Cottes for a waiter? Although it was warm, he put on a light overcoat to avoid the curious glances of passersby, picked up his small opera glasses and left the house, with a feeling close to happiness.

  It was a lovely evening in early summer, when even Milan manages to act the romantic city: the streets were quiet and half-empty, a scent of limes came up from the gardens, a crescent moon was high in the sky. Cottes set off down Via Conservatorio thinking about the brilliant evening ahead of him, of the friends he would meet, the friendly arguments, the beautiful women, the inevitable champagne at the reception announced for after the performance in the opera-house foyer. He went a slightly longer way around, which meant he could avoid looking at the detestable covered canals.

  At this point he met a strange sight. On the pavement was a young man with long curly hair, singing a Neapolitan song into a microphone held an inch or two from his mouth. The microphone was connected by a wire to a case containing a battery, amplifier and loudspeaker, and the voice emerged from it with insulting arrogance, so that it echoed around the houses. His singing sounded like a wild outburst of fury, and although the well-known words were those of a love song, the young man made them sound like a threat. Around him clustered seven or eight small boys with doped expressions, and that was all. On both sides of the road the windows were closed and the shutters up, as if nobody wanted to listen. Were all those apartments empty? Or were their inhabitants shut inside, pretending not to be there, afraid of something? As Claudio Cottes went by, the singer made no move but sang even more loudly, so that the loudspeaker began to vibrate: it was a peremptory invitation to put money in the saucer on top of the case. Cottes was disturbed, without knowing why; he quickened his steps and went straight on. For several yards he felt the gaze of those two vindictive eyes fixed on his back.