Another typical effect of the period of social bliss that you experience when you’re young is this: if you play an instrument (especially the guitar), suddenly everyone’s talking about you as if you’re really good. And when they see you pluck and strum, like at a party, everyone sits around you and listens to you play in the most reverential silence, as if you were executing remarkable feats of virtuosity, even though the hardest thing you’ve done has been to play a diminished chord (and even then it took you a full minute to switch from the chord you played before). And there’s always some guy who asks if you’d be willing to give him lessons, even though you’re totally unqualified to give anyone else lessons, seeing as you’ve never taken any yourself, having only ever played by ear, and you modestly decline the request, while at the same time letting him think that you could if you wanted to.
In these periods of unjustified overestimation of one’s musical talents, it’s absolutely necessary to maintain your self-control, because if you let the flattery go to your head, before you know it you’re starting to think you’re actually that good, and that the stuff you play really is complicated, but it just doesn’t feel that complicated to you because it comes to you so naturally. It’s a kind of induced autosuggestion that you have to learn to guard against if you have any respect for music and especially for the instrument you’ve chosen to play, because somebody who plays a musical instrument always knows, and I mean always, it’s practically impossible for someone not to know, whether the stuff he plays is worth something or just a sham, maybe a well-devised sham, but a sham nonetheless. Because after all the real musicians are always there to remind you who they are and who you are, so if you’re a guitarist and you like Clapton, for instance, you’d never, never ever, dream of thinking that there’s not really all that much difference between you and him (which is the typical self-evaluation of the mediocre): though that’s something you might actually fool yourself into believing during those periods of social bliss with reality doing a grind and shimmy; in the same exact way in which you, since by now you’re rocking around town with Renata Falci, kissing her in public and so on and so forth, at a certain point you start to suspect you might actually be good-looking and that the reason that you didn’t notice you were good-looking before was only because you’re a modest young man, without a hint of vanity (but deep down thinking that between you and James Dean there’s not really all that much difference), and the very fact that you go along with that suspicion and start to talk in an undertone and put on all sorts of idiot poses, like you start to believe that you have beautiful eyes because this one girl told you you did (and after all, that line about having beautiful eyes is something that girls say all the time, even to guys whose eyes are totally unremarkable), so when you find yourself talking with some girl you immediately lower your eyelids to half-mast, and you think you’re bewitching her with your bedroom eyes, and you bring your face closer and closer to hers as if she were literally incapable of keeping from kissing you, even if you just met her, and you’re so confident of your allure that you don’t even realize that you’re coming dangerously close to crossing the line into molestation, in addition to looking ridiculous, and you wonder which side of your face is your good side, and you convince yourself that it must be your left side, so every time you talk to a girl you try to position yourself so that that’s the side she sees, and it’s a problem if, let’s say, you’re sitting on a bench and she’s sitting on your right, because if you want to show her what you think is your good side you have to twist your torso around into an unnatural position, like something out of yoga, and after a while she’s bound to start thinking you don’t really like her at all, and wondering what you even brought her to that bench to do anyway (because, it goes without saying, benches are notoriously compromising locations for girls) if rather than giving her a kiss you just keep contorting yourself as if being close to her was something you found repugnant.
In short, even if I’m no longer young, and I haven’t picked up a guitar in a long time, and I wouldn’t dream of sitting on a bench in a secluded spot in the park alone with a girl at the age of forty-four, still, that’s the sort of period I’m experiencing right now. And, in case you’re interested in knowing, I’m not even all that sure I’m enjoying it.
Imagine that your phone keeps ringing all day. That in nine cases out of ten a voice you’ve never heard before says your name, followed by a question mark. And when you answer yes, the voice introduces itself with a name followed immediately by the name of a newspaper or magazine or television network. With the result that you promptly memorize the name of the newspaper or magazine or network, and you automatically forget the person’s name.
And imagine that this person then asks if you would be willing to give them an interview about what happened at the supermarket. That you play a little hard-to-get but deep down you’re flattered to be asked. That the journalist realizes it and starts to work you. And that he asks you first one question, then another. And he starts pounding away at his computer keyboard while you answer. And you find the sound of his fingers on the keys gratifying.
And you don’t speak the way you normally do at all, but instead think carefully about what you say, taking care with how you use verbs, adverbs, and all the rest. And you come up with some good metaphors too, of the sort that you’d never have thought of if there hadn’t been someone on the other end of the phone willing to take you so seriously.
Imagine, in other words, talking as if your words really mattered. As if your version of events and the opinions that you express had a worth that was acknowledged from the very start. To such a degree that every so often the journalist asks if you wouldn’t mind talking a little more slowly, because he’s having trouble keeping up with you.
Then imagine that you go into a café to have breakfast and suddenly you have the impression that someone not far away is talking about you, and they’re not even bothering to whisper. That you turn around to look in that direction and in fact there’s a group of four people, two of whom are sort of halfway pretending not to look at you while the other two just can’t take their eyes off you, even though they seem very embarrassed to be openly displaying so much interest in a person they’ve never met.
Imagine that you feel terribly ill at ease. That you stir your coffee around with the little espresso spoon fifteen times in a row. That you look down at the croissant on the plate on the table in front of you and think: “Oh well.” That you realize that they’ve ruined your breakfast, since it’s impossible to do something like eating breakfast while strangers are staring at you, but that you nevertheless go through the motions, since there’s no other way to hide your embarrassment.
Imagine that after a little while one of the four takes the initiative to come over and tell you that they recognize you. That he, and his friends, want to shake your hand, since they absolutely couldn’t stand the idea of not doing so. That one by one they take turns telling you that they sincerely admired the way you handled that tragic situation. That they treat you like the star of a hit movie. That they ask what if feels like to be in that kind of a situation. That they want to know if Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo has come out of his coma.
Imagine that at that point the other people in the café all look at each other as if to say: “Is that really him?” That they all come over, and a crowd starts to form. That this goes on for a while. That then you have to talk with them all. That then the barista insists that your coffee and croissant are on the house.
That once you finally manage to get out of the café you get this inexplainable lump in your throat. That you feel the compelling need to hear the voice of the woman you love, as if that’s a way of remembering who you really are.
And so you automatically reach into your breast pocket, and only then do you remember that from one day to the next your woman left you without even explaining very clearly why. And your hand just lingers there, without grabbing the cel
l phone or pulling it out, as if it were waiting for you to tell it what to do.
And then you think that you really can’t stand these emotional tics that get stuck in the past and pay no attention whatsoever to the way things change, because after all, when reality rejects them and ships them back to you like expired food, how awful that is.
AN INTENSIVE PROFESSIONAL REFRESHER COURSE
Mulder and Scully’s reinforcements arrived a while ago, and from outside you can hear the confused sounds of cars and the voices of people talking over each other, repeatedly telling the spectators to “stay back” because “there’s nothing to see here.”
They seem to be tremendously busy out there, even though the monitors keep feeding us the same images, more or less, and the sensation that I’m starting to feel as I realize that I’m now inextricably a cast member of this reality show of sorts with a condemned man awaiting execution is embarrassingly familiar: could it be, I ask myself, that we’ve run through the entire bank of narrative canons available?
At a certain point I think I hear a helicopter coming closer but I couldn’t be sure: that too might be just another one of the imagination’s ready-made dishes.
Every so often a siren wails, I wonder why they turn it on, by now the building must be surrounded and I can’t imagine there’s still any need to warn anyone at this point. Maybe it’s a way of continuing to attract rubberneckers so the cops can tell them to stay back because there’s nothing to see here.
The carabinieri have cordoned off the space in front of the supermarket with their squad cars, but the hyenas have refused to give up their positions and continue to watch over the scene of the so-called trial, although they have been forced to move back, maintaining a safe distance roughly equivalent to that between the audience and the stage at a rock concert. Ever since Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo revealed Matrix’s identity and announced the reason he’d taken him hostage they’d gathered in a silence that seemed suspiciously like the rumblings of imminent revolt. In all likelihood a faction is being formed to root for the wrong side, and I believe that Mulder and Scully also foresee this same outcome because they look increasingly on edge, and for that matter this would not be the first time that police and carabinieri were attacked by the very people they’re supposed to protect.
Not long ago RAI TV also showed up, in the person of a formerly hot female journalist, her hair carefully tousled and unkempt, and as soon as she stepped out of the news truck she immediately interviewed Mulder, who told her nothing more than the bare necessities, summarizing facts of which she was certainly already aware, only to beg off, saying: “Now please let us do our job,” after which she attempted to talk to Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo in, as they say, real time, but he caught her off guard and explained to her that all he was willing to give her was permission to place her video cameras facing in the direction of the monitors and to broadcast live, otherwise she and her entire news crew could leave. After all, the video up to that point had already been saved to the computer, and that’s not all: a local television station that she’d probably never even heard of but which nevertheless existed (because, he was quick to add, local TV stations do exist)—and unless he’d been misinformed, that local station was also carried on a satellite network—was already broadcasting it from the beginning (“Yes, but the reporting was done by Mary Stracqualurso!” I was tempted to say to him), so it was pointless for her to act as if she were getting a scoop, in fact she’d be well advised to get rid of her whole snooty attitude that she was the national journalist who was going to show up and immediately monopolize the news, given the fact that she’d arrived second, and in these cases there’s no way of inverting the addenda.
Now I’m not especially fond of the journalist in question, but frankly I didn’t see any reason to treat her in that manner, especially given the very real likelihood that that idiot Mary Stracqua might think that Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo was taking her side and defending the TV station for which she, so to speak, worked; but that was obviously just my problem.
Clearly Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo was nursing some sort of age-old dislike for this woman: one of those dislikes that you just can’t wait to express (that kind of thing happens sometimes with television personalities).
To keep from seeming mortified, the formerly hot female journalist put on a formal smile (one of the best ways to defend yourself against embarrassing situations is to pretend you find them amusing), but there was no mistaking the fact that she was really upset about it. There was a look on her face like the one you see on the faces of politicians during the opening sequence of the talk show Ballarò when, by regulation, they are obliged to take the wisecracks of Maurizio Crozza, who even calls them by their first names before busting their chops, one by one, methodically, and in order to seem likable they let loose with those bloodcurdling belly laughs, the kind that make it perfectly clear that what they’d really like to do is get to their feet and curse the moderator’s nearest and dearest deceased relatives.
And so what the poor RAI television journalist tried to do next was retreat to live commentary, but she almost instantly realized that this was a tactical misstep, because when you’re dealing with reality television all comments are like lipstick on a pig, since as a format it’s practically self-sufficient (the highest degree of usefulness that moderators of reality shows can attain is when they announce the nominations or introduce the live feed with the father and the mother of the idiot who’s on that week and the idiot, from the private booth—that sort of cubbyhole from which the contestants communicate with the studio, with red moquette on the walls like in a bordello—starts whimpering and whining about how he loves and misses them, and his parents, even stupider than him, reply that they’re so proud to have a son like him).
Matrix seems exhausted: or, more precisely, disjointed. The fact that he can’t move his arms or legs has made him restless, so that he keeps changing position: sitting, squatting, kneeling, on his side, standing.
In spite of everything, he maintains an obstinate combativeness in his eyes and jaws that in a way I even find admirable, and he concentrates as much as he can on his effort to keep from looking Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo in the eye. Denying him his gaze is the sole offensive weapon remaining to him.
I review events and reflect.
There are only the three of us left in here (Matteo the deli counterman just a short while ago obtained permission to leave). Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo has captured his man and exhibited him before the video cameras exactly as he had planned. He’s told his tragic story and delivered it into the public realm. He introduced himself with his first and last name, and then he introduced his prey, also with first and last name. He has attracted the attention of the mass media and compelled law enforcement to intervene. He has succeeded in having the building isolated and surrounded. In mobilizing a daunting array of men, vehicles, and infrastructure. Outside, the usual little knot of pro-mob-boss demonstrators are probably getting ready to make themselves heard, just to throw the sense of solidarity among the crowd back into a minor state of crisis. The video footage that has been stored in the supermarket’s central computer and broadcast on television up to this moment alone is destined to become the subject of studies, arguments, and especially media jackals for a long, long time from here on. Even if Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo stopped right here, limiting himself to taking this man hostage without going any further, he’d still go down in history. At this point, whether or not he shoots his prisoner is a fairly secondary matter. He’s already become an icon of a civil society that has nothing left to lose and is now desperately counterattacking, and he’s probably well aware of it (even if this was not his goal). Before long, Mulder has told us, Assistant District Attorney Carlo Alberto Garavaglia will arrive; for years he has been investigating the criminal activities of Gabriele Caldiero (alias Matrix), and he wishes to have a frank and open discussion (that is exactly what Mulder sa
id, verbatim) with Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo, in the hopes of dissuading him from taking this all the way, I presume. With regard to which Engineer Romolo Sesti Orfeo merely observed: “I have nothing to say to Dottor Garavaglia, except that today I will do the job he failed to do.”
His plan, in other words, putting aside whatever finale may be awaiting us, has worked out perfectly.
And I, now that we’re about to get to the (so to speak) good part, have had my fill of the whole thing. Because I’m suddenly filled with an oppressive feeling of self-pity, and I can’t stand being here a minute longer.
If you think that self-pity is an inappropriate emotion in this sort of situation, you’re quite wrong. I’ve spent my whole life getting sucked into things that mean nothing to me, spending time in places I want to leave.
How many times have I found myself in similar situations? Sure, without armed engineers, okay, but perfectly identical in essence. Situations in which I could feel someone stitching a role onto me that was not mine, appropriating my life, my desires, and who I thought I wanted to be. I’m all too familiar with that malaise, that wondering, “What on earth am I doing here?” and staying even when all I want to do is go, or, even better, never to have been there in the first place. If I have one regret, it’s that I’ve accepted instead of walking away, that I’ve said yes to keep from disappointing the expectations of those who have placed their faith in me; and the years have gone by, turning me into that domesticated version of myself that I know I am now.
My Mother-in-Law Drinks Page 18