The Colonial Conquest: The Confines of the Shadow Volume I

by Alessandro Spina

  Like Joseph Roth, another inveterate chronicler of a crumbled empire, Spina had from a young age set himself to resurrecting his lost world on paper, thus ensuring its survival in our collective consciousness. While historical novels habitually focus on the rise and fall of specific castes, very few of them – Roth’s The Radetzky March, published in 1932, being a notable example – ever capture the confused excitement that makes the very earth those characters tread tremble with unregulated passions. As Chateaubriand put it: ‘In a society which is dissolving and reforming, the struggle of two geniuses, the clash between past and future, and the mixture of old customs and new, form a transitory amalgam which does not leave a moment for boredom.’ It is exactly these fleeting junctures in time and custom that infuse Spina’s sophisticated prose with such an unbridled sense of adventure. Besides being the ‘right’ person for such a job, Spina also found himself in the right place at the right time: a Christian Arab born at the apogee of colonial power, who then combined his Western education with his intimate knowledge of Libyan and Middle Eastern traditions and history to produce the only multi-generational epic about the European experience in North Africa. Yet despite winning such diverse admirers as Claudio Magris (his closest confrère), Giorgio Bassani and Roberto Calasso, Spina occasionally professed surprise at the utter indifference prompted by his work, or rather his subject. Toward the end of his Diary, he recalls a run-in with the poet Vittorio Sereni at a theatrical premiere in the early 1980s, and being introduced to Sereni’s wife as follows: ‘Darling, this is Alessandro Spina, who is trying to make Italians feel guilty about their colonial crimes, all to no avail of course.’ Not that he hadn’t been warned: when Spina had sought Moravia’s advice about his project in 1960, Moravia had counselled him against it, saying that no one in Italy would be interested due to their sheer ignorance of the country’s colonial past. Twenty-first-century readers might do well to heed Solzhenitsyn’s warning that ‘a people which no longer remembers has lost its history and its soul.’

  This essay was originally published by The Nation as ‘Spina’s Shadow’ in their August 18–25, 2014 edition.

  1 All quotes from Alessandro Spina, Diario di lavoro. Alle origini de ‘I confini dell’ombra’ (Morcelliana, 2010), translated by André Naffis-Sahely.

  Author’s Note

  This sequence of novels and short stories takes as its subject the Italian experience in Cyrenaica. The Young Maronite (1971) discusses the 1911 war prompted by Giolitti, The Marriage of Omar (1973) narrates the ensuing truce and the attempt by the two peoples to strike a compromise before the rise of Fascism. The Nocturnal Visitor (1979) chronicles the end of the twenty-year Libyan resistance; Officers’ Tales (1967) focuses on the triumph of colonialism – albeit this having been achieved when the end of Italian hegemony was already in sight and the Second World War appeared inevitable – and The Psychological Comedy (1992), which ends with Italy’s retreat from Libya and the fleeing of settlers. Entry into Babylon (1976) concentrates on Libyan independence in 1951, Cairo Nights (1986) illustrates the early years of the Sanussi Monarchy and the looming spectre of Pan-Arab nationalism, while The Shore of the Lesser Life (1997) examines the profound social and political changes that occurred when large oil and gas deposits were discovered in the mid 1960s. Each text can be read independently or as part of the sequence. Either mode of reading will produce different – but equally legitimate – impressions.2

  2 The dates indicate the original publication dates of each of the novels.

  1912

  THE YOUNG MARONITE

  BOOK I

  CHAPTER 1

  November 1912

  I

  The young Maronite had lied. Only a quarter of the cargo belonged to him, and the rest was owned by Rabagian the Armenian, his business partner. He was only entitled to half the profits, once the shipping costs from Alexandria to the Cyrenaican coast had been deducted. Hajji Semereth eyed the young man closely: he suspected he was lying, but instead of decreasing, his benevolence towards him grew. That Christian owned very little, perhaps even nothing, yet he was so sure of himself that he wasn’t afraid of lying. Lies were promissory notes he would eventually settle on time. He pretended to take the young man’s words at face value. Cowardly obeisance to reality is the rot that eats away at the mediocre. That young man was ambitious, and lying was simply a form of risk-taking. Hajji Semereth decided to take him under his wing.

  He asked to be shown the merchandise, and despite noticing its inferior quality he praised it, because he knew he would be able to sell it. The war had paralysed commerce and depleted all stockpiles. Hajji Semereth said he was prepared to purchase part of the cargo, but he wanted a discount. Trade at the market was slow that day and that first deal might expedite the sale of the rest. Hajji Semereth paid in cash.

  The young Maronite accepted Hajji Semereth’s offer, thinking that Hajji Semereth might prove useful to him in that city where he’d only just landed: the young Maronite was looking for a patron, and Hajji Semereth seemed kindly disposed to him.

  ‘We have ourselves a deal,’ the merchant said, ‘I’ll take a quarter of the stock.’

  The young Maronite looked at him. He trustingly put his hand into Hajji Semereth’s enormous palm and said, ‘Deal.’

  Hajji Semereth invited the young man up to the stern deck to have some tea. The young man didn’t seem impatient; it looked as though he trusted that giant faith had been put in his path.

  ‘I’ve brought so much stuff with me!’ Hajji Semereth exclaimed, as he climbed the rope ladder to the deck ahead of the boy, ‘Cloths, copper, medicine, sugar, oil, tea.’

  Then the giant who towered above Émile leaned his hand on the latter’s shoulder and cheerfully added: ‘And a new friend!’

  II

  Hajji Semereth told Émile where he could find a warehouse for his goods not far from the market, and sent a boy to accompany him. They had come ashore that morning. The young man thanked his new friend and promised to meet him later that afternoon. Hajji Semereth told him he could keep the servant with him until that evening.

  Émile looked for an inn, but the small town didn’t seem to offer anything suitable. He regretted not having taken up the merchant’s offer to lodge with him, but he didn’t want to be in the man’s debt. There was something larger than life about that man, not only his height but his corpulence. His intentions were generous, but Émile’s desires didn’t correspond with those intentions. Hajji Semereth’s heavy cloak, which hung down to his feet, made him look even more imposing.

  The young man decided to sleep in the warehouse he had rented. It was spacious enough, and dry. A window on the roof lined with thick, strong bars allowed a little air to waft in.

  The servant that Hajji Semereth had given him proved most useful. He procured Émile a bed and some pitchers of water. He also helped him open two cases, whose contents he checked: perhaps his first customers might show up as soon as tomorrow. He was itching to be put to the test.

  The boy was well acquainted with the market. The Maronite listened to his chatter and translated his words into prices: that servant was as valuable as a spy. They worked solidly for the next four hours.

  While he was arranging the merchandise, Abdelkarim learned about the goods and seemed to be etching everything the foreign merchant was saying into his memory, as though he were his employee. This was an effort that bore no correlation to the humble assignment Hajji Semereth had entrusted him with, which was to help his young friend for the day. The Maronite was surprised by this, and grew wary. First, on the deck of the ship that had brought him to that African port, the giant in the dark cloak had bestowed his patronage on him, and now the giant’s tiny servant seemed utterly devoted to him. Too many favours can be deliberately misleading.

  Exhausted, Émile stretched out on the bed. Abdelkarim immediately stopped working and cosied up by the latter’s feet, as though that was exactly what he’d been waiting for. Without being asked, he told the
young Maronite all about Hajji Semereth’s sombre past.

  CHAPTER 2

  I

  Colonel Romanino walked down the corridor. Once he’d reached the far end, he stopped and turned around. The corridor was more than four metres wide and extremely long: it looked like a road. All the doors that looked onto it were black. Standing behind the only window, the Colonel’s face was enshrouded in darkness.

  ‘Who were the owners of this villa? It’s difficult to think of heirs, it already belongs to the creditors. It’s a wreck, even though there’s hardly a brick out of place.’

  Signora Ferrara left the group and headed over to the Colonel.

  ‘My dear Colonel, you’re so unworldly. Heirs are far more persevering than creditors and blindly tear everything apart – they’re driven by a sort of passion. Creditors, on the other hand, are only interested in turning a profit.’

  ‘You’re wrong: the villa had clearly fallen into ruin before that. Did you notice how the halls down there were decorated? They’re in keeping with styles that only went out of fashion a few years ago. The villa has all the hallmarks of wealth’s violent vulgarity. The same hand that erected this edifice also caused its destruction. The owners left their creditors nothing but a carcass. Death has delicate hands, and handles objects reverently.’

  ‘What a clever reply! My dear Colonel … While the motherland enjoys her gilded age as though it had robbed Africa of its light, here you are making up dangerous stories. You remind me of those suicidal men who stake their lives … on a game of roulette. Might the ingenuity with which you weave spiders’ webs of intrigue and craft arabesques out of logic be a way to conceal your criticisms of the times we live in, of our patriotic and aesthetic excitement? After all, isn’t criticism the mask that betrayal usually wears?’

  ‘But I still haven’t understood who wants to buy the villa,’ Signora Passa said.

  ‘A captain, a friend of Romanino’s. He went missing in Africa, who knows where. Maybe nostalgia has led him here and made him want a villa in our beloved Lombardo-Veneto. At the same time our government is opening up new horizons for us in Africa, and Italy is taking its first steps as a ‘great power,’ the captain wants to buy a villa here: he risks his life in our colonies, but my place – he says – is here, and this is where I must return if I wish to survive. Gross insubordination! If our own officers forsake the colony they’ve given their lives for, this presages a rift that won’t lead to anything good.’

  ‘The Colonel is right,’ Miss Cella said. While Signora Ferrara continued talking to the Colonel, Miss Cella detached herself from the group, and having walked down the corridor attentively, as though following someone’s tracks, was now standing at its far end.

  ‘There’s only one card left to play in this game. The present owners are merely custodians who wish to rid themselves of it as soon as possible. The villa’s a hot potato.’

  ‘Come in.’

  Standing still in front of a door, the Colonel was inviting his friends to enter.

  A gargantuan wardrobe took up the entirety of the scene. They had evidently tried to drag it out of the house, but the plan had failed. How had they got it inside in the first place? Miss Cella gave the wardrobe a conceited knock. Strictly utilitarian, Signora Passa opened its doors and then shut them; Engineer Restivo palpated the back of the wardrobe, unbothered by the layer of dust that glued itself to his palm. Nevertheless, nobody seemed capable of discerning the secret of how to dismantle it. The wardrobe had grown in that house as though it had sprouted out of the earth like a tree.

  ‘The villa’s frontispiece is in the Louis Philippe style. It reminds me of how Franz Liszt once described a ball: only down there can one truly understand how that dance can contain such pride, tenderness and allure …’

  ‘It’s this new addition that doesn’t quite fit,’ Colonel Romanino said, ‘as though they’d been bitten by the frenzy of bloating everything out of proportion, for the lack of anything better to do. The bourgeoisie made it to the end of the Risorgimento panting and heaving. Now it has no benevolent objectives, and so it has made one up. We don’t need the colony: it’s yet another symptom of that same frenzy for bloating everything out of proportion for the lack of anything better to do. We’ve lost all sense of scale, just like the builders who worked on the villa after the Louis Philippe frontispiece, which you praised all too rightly.

  ‘Are you done? Romanino, your confession is quite touching. These vulgar, hollow walls have a hypnotic power to them. I too made a connection between our motherland’s destiny and the parable of this villa, and I also thought it was a sinister omen. When you said that the same hands which built this house were responsible for tearing it down, I too thought about who governs us and how patriotism seems to have taken a wrong turn. The obsession with ‘making it big’ that infected the bankrupted owners of this house seems identical to the one ruling this country. But is it right to let ourselves get frightened by omens such as these, which are only illusions, the relics of our superstitions? The younger generations have their needs, and we have granted them this colonial war in the same way that one might overlook an amorous escapade, so as to avoid anything worse. After all, don’t we tolerate those infamous bordellos right here in our country to keep society – which is set on being so morally demanding – in equilibrium? Well then, going to war in Africa is like turning an entire continent into a bordello and offering her up to our young men, so they may vent the entire spectrum of their human, heroic, sadistic and aesthetic emotions.’

  II

  (AT THE THEATRE CLUB. SOME MEMBERS ARE IN FANCY DRESS; OTHERS ARE IN CONVENTIONAL EVENING ATTIRE, A PECULIAR CHOICE CONSIDERING IT’S MARDI GRAS)

  FERRARA: I’m keen to meet that captain who went missing in Africa and entrusted us with finding him a villa here, and to carry out God knows what sort of inspection. It makes me think of the day when I’ll have to hand over the keys to his house: to a man whose past is so similar to ours, but who has been to mysterious places where he’s made new acquaintances or been dramatically deprived of certainties so familiar to us.

  PASSA: I can’t understand how prattling on like this can give you any pleasure.

  FERRARA: Not prattling, but formalities – so as to send Romanino back to Africa with a lighter heart. The memory of the day we set foot on the Libyan coasts fills him with dread, but he feels like a stranger here, as though in that long descent to that Underworld he too, like Captain Martello, had been subjected to unbearable apparitions that now make his sweet Lombardy as incoherent and random as a nightmare. In other words, he sees things that neither you nor I can see, he dreams of a reality that torments him.

  ROMANINO: You’re afraid – or you’re pretending to be afraid – of individual logic and experience. But our last hopes rest precisely on the individual. This is the moment to love Salvation more than the Motherland, to think of ourselves as Christians before Romans, as we once did.

  PASSA: But what did you see down there? The Africa I know from the newspapers seems so picturesque.

  ROMANINO: So long as journalists and vested interests exist, the truth will always remain on the other side of the sea. Truth is a domesticated animal, it can’t survive outside a safe enclosure. The Expeditionary Force had the misfortune to come face to face with a people who took advantage of our arrival to live their defining hour: they were able to discover exactly who they were by encountering a completely different worldview to their own. But the other’s truth imperils our own, which thought of itself as universal and tasked with the duty of establishing a new world order, meaning, thus, that it must sweep away everything in sight.

  FERRARA: (SARCASTICALLY) Do you mean to say – perish the thought! – that journalists are deceiving us when they glorify our officers’ heroism and their civilising mission even though most officers are illiterate? That the government is lying when it says that ‘fertile horizons’ are being opened up in Africa? That even priests misled us when they sprinkled our warships wit
h holy water before they left our ports – and that even our secular luminaries and humanitarian organisations lied to us when they said the natives in those lands were good-natured souls who were just waiting for our gunships to leave Naples and free them?

  (CHANGING HER TONE)

  I shuddered when I read an account by a French journalist that a certain Rémond published in Illustration about some skirmish or other at the gates of Benghazi, where a young lieutenant was killed. When one of the others saw the lieutenant’s beautiful face in the dust, he leapt off his horse and bent to kiss it. A highly disquieting and inconvenient gesture. How can anyone make sense of that war? I’m still reeling from that item of news – which our own newspapers wisely censored – and yet you speak to me of that mysterious captain’s worries, who wants to pursue a re-examination of those events to rescue what truths he can out of that past, as though anything other than chaos could come of it. The Civil Code is crystal clear on the issue of inheritance: it explicitly forbids any estate to be broken up where said division would dishonour said estate. That also applies to the past: both we (and the people we don’t like) are the heirs of a single, indivisible past.