Requiem by Antonio Tabucchi
ANTONIO TABUCCHI
REQUIEM
A HALLUCINATION
TRANSLATED FROM THE PORTUGUESE
BY MARGARET JULL COSTA
A NEW DIRECTIONS BOOK
Contents
Note
The Characters Encountered in this Book
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
A Note on Recipes in this Book
Other Titles
Copyright
NOTE
THIS STORY, which takes place on a Sunday in July in a hot, deserted Lisbon, is the Requiem that the character I refer to as “I” was called on to perform in this book. Were someone to ask me why I wrote this story in Portuguese, I would answer simply that a story like this could only be written in Portuguese; it’s as simple as that. But there is something else that needs explaining. Strictly speaking, a Requiem should be written in Latin, at least that’s what tradition prescribes. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’d be up to it in Latin. I realised though that I couldn’t write a Requiem in my own language and that I required a different language, one that was for me a place of affection and reflection.
Besides being a “sonata”, this Requiem is also a dream, during which my character will meet both the living and the dead on equal terms: people, things and places that were, perhaps, in need of a prayer, a prayer that my character can only express in his own way, through a novel. But this book is, above all, a homage to a country I adopted and which, in turn, adopted me, to a people who liked me as much as I liked them.
Should anyone remark that this Requiem was not performed with due solemnity, I cannot but agree. But the fact is that I chose to play my music not on an organ, which is an instrument proper to cathedrals, but on a mouth-organ that you can carry about in your pocket, or on a barrel-organ that you can wheel through the streets. Like Carlos Drummond de Andrade, I’ve always had a fondness for street music and I agree with him when he says: “I have no desire to be friends with Handel, I’ve never heard the dawn chorus of the archangels. I’m happy with the noises that drift up from the street, which bear no message and are lost, just as we are lost.”
A.T.
THE CHARACTERS
ENCOUNTERED IN THIS BOOK
The Young Junky
The Lame Lottery-Ticket Seller
The Taxi Driver
The Waiter at the Brasileira
The Old Gypsy Woman
The Cemetery Keeper
Tadeus
Senhor Casimiro
Senhor Casimiro’s Wife
The Porter at the Pensão Isadora
Isadora
Viriata
My Father as a Young Man
The Barman at the Museum of Ancient Art
The Copyist
The Ticket Collector
The Lighthousekeeper’s Wife
The Manager of the Casa do Alentejo
Isabel
The Seller of Stories
Mariazinha
My Guest
The Accordionist
REQUIEM
I
I THOUGHT: the guy isn’t going to turn up. And then I thought: I can’t call him a “guy,” he’s a great poet, perhaps the greatest poet of the twentieth century, he died years ago, I should treat him with respect or, at least, with deference. Meanwhile, however, I was beginning to get fed up. The Late July sun was blazing down and I thought: Here I am on holiday, I was having a really nice time at my friends’ house in the country in Azeitão, so why did I agree to this meeting here on the quayside?, it’s utterly absurd. And, at my feet, I glimpsed the silhouette of my shadow and that seemed absurd to me too, incongruous, senseless; it was a brief shadow, crushed by the midday sun, and it was then that I remembered: He said twelve o’clock, but perhaps he meant twelve o’clock at night, because that’s when ghosts appear, at midnight. I got up and walked along the quayside. The traffic along the avenue had almost stopped, only a few cars passed now, some with sunshades on their roof-racks, people going to the beaches at Caparica, it was after all a sweltering hot day. I thought: What am I doing here in Lisbon on the last Sunday in July?, and I started walking faster in order to reach Santos as quickly as possible, it might be a little cooler in the small park there.” The park was deserted, apart from the man at the newspaper stand. I went over to him and the man smiled. Have you read the news?, he asked cheerily, Benfica won. I shook my head, no, I hadn’t seen the news yet, and the man said: it was an evening game in Spain, a benefit match. I bought the sports paper, A Bola, and chose a bench to sit down on. I was reading about the shot that had given Benfica the winning goal against Real Madrid, when I heard someone say: Good afternoon, and I looked up. Good afternoon, repeated the unshaven youth standing in front of me, I need your help. Help? For what?, I asked. Food, he said, I haven’t eaten for two days. He was a young man in his twenties, wearing jeans and a shirt, and was timidly holding out his hand to me, as if asking for alms. He was blond and had bags under his eyes. You mean you haven’t had a fix for two days, I said instinctively, and the young man replied: it comes to the same thing, drugs are food too, at least for me they are. In theory, I’m in favour of all drugs, I said, soft and hard, but only in theory, in practice I’m against them, I’m afraid I’m one of those bourgeois intellectuals full of prejudices and I don’t think it’s right that you should take drugs in a public park, that you should make such a distressing spectacle of your body, I’m sorry, but it’s against my principles, I might be able to accept you taking drugs in the privacy of your own home, as people used to do, in the company of intelligent and cultivated friends, listening to Mozart or Erik Satie. By the way, I added, do you like Erik Satie? The Young Junky looked at me in surprise. Is he a friend of yours? he asked. No, I said, he’s a French composer, he was part of the avant-garde movement, a great composer from the age of surrealism, if one can speak of surrealism as belonging to an age, he wrote mostly for the piano, a deeply neurotic man I believe, like you and me perhaps, I’d like to have known him but we were born into different ages. Just two hundred escudos, said the Young Junky, two hundred escudos is all I need, I’ve got the rest of the money, Camarão will be along in half an hour, he’s the dealer, I need another fix, I’m getting withdrawal symptoms. The Young Junky took a handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose loudly. He had tears in his eyes. You’re not being fair, he said, I could have been aggressive, I could have threatened you, I could have played the hardened addict, but no, I was friendly, pleasant, we even chatted about music, and you still won’t give me two hundred escudos, it’s incredible. He blew his nose again and went on: Besides, the one hundred escudo notes are cool, they’ve got a picture of Fernando Pessoa on them, and now let me ask you a question, do you like Pessoa? Very much, I replied, I could even tell you a good story about him, but it’s not worth it, I feel a bit strange, I’ve just come from the Cais de Alcântara, but there was no one there, and I intend going back there at midnight, do you understand? No, I don’t, said the Young Junky, but it doesn’t matter, and thanks. He slipped the two hundred escudos I was holding out to him into his pocket, then blew his nose again. Right, he said, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and look for Camarão now, I’m sorry, I really enjoyed talking to you, have a nice day, goodbye.
I leaned back on the bench and closed my eyes. It was horribly hot, I didn’t feel like reading A Bola any more, maybe it was hunger, but I couldn’t really be bothered to get up and go off in search of a restaurant, I preferred to stay there, in the shade, barely breathing.
It’s the big draw tomorrow, said a voice, wouldn’t you like to buy a lottery ticket? I opened my eyes. The voice belonged to a small
The Lame Lottery-Ticket Seller stretched out his legs and leaned back on the bench. And now, if you’ll forgive me, he said, I’m going to read for a bit, I devote a few hours every day to reading. He took a book out of his pocket. It was a magazine, Esprit, and he said: I’m reading an article about the soul by a French philosopher, it’s odd to read things about the soul again, for a long time it’s hardly been spoken of at all, at least not since the 1940s, now it seems that the soul is back in fashion, people are rediscovering it, I’m not a Catholic but I believe in the soul in the vital, collective sense, perhaps even in a Spinozist sense, do you believe in the soul? It’s one of the few things I do believe in, I said, at least at this moment, in this garden where we’re sitting and talking, it’s my soul that was the cause of all this, I mean, I’m not sure if it’s my soul exactly, perhaps it’s my Unconscious, because it was my Unconscious that brought me here. Hold on, said the Lame Lottery-Ticket Seller, the Unconscious, what does that mean?, the Unconscious is something found in the Viennese bourgeoisie at the turn of the century, we’re in Portugal here and you yourself are Italian, we belong to the South, to the Graeco-Roman civilisation, we have nothing to do with Central Europe, no, we have soul. That’s true, I said, I do have a soul, you’re right, but I have an Unconscious too, I mean, now I do, you see, the Unconscious is something you catch, it’s like a disease, I just happened to catch the virus of the Unconscious.
The Lame Lottery-Ticket Seller regarded me with an air of despondency. Look, he said, do you want to do a swap? I’ll lend you my Esprit and you lend me A Bola. But I thought you were interested in the soul, I objected. I was, he said resignedly, but my subscription runs out after this issue and I’m beginning to grow into my role now, I’m turning into the Lame Lottery-Ticket Seller, I’m more interested in the goal Benfica scored. All right, I said, in that case, I’d like to buy a lottery ticket, have you got a number that ends in a nine?, you see, nine is my month, I was born in September, and I’d like to buy a lottery ticket that includes that number. I do indeed, sir, said the Lame Lottery-Ticket Seller, when were you born exactly?, because I was born in September too. I was born at the time of the Autumn Equinox, I said, when the moon is mad and the ocean swells. A most fortunate moment to be born, said the Lame Lottery-Ticket Seller, you’re in for some good luck. I certainly need it, I replied, paying him for the ticket, but not on the lottery, I need it for today, today is a very strange day for me, I’m dreaming but what I dream seems to me to be real, and I have to meet certain people who exist only in my memory. Today is the last Sunday in July, said the Lame Lottery-Ticket Seller, the city is deserted, it must be forty degrees in the shade, I should think it’s the best day there is for meeting people who only exist in memories, your soul, I mean, your Unconscious is going to be kept very busy on a day like today, I wish you a good afternoon and good luck.
II
I’M TERRIBLY SORRY, said the Taxi Driver, but I don’t know where Rua das Pedras Negras is, could you give me some directions? He smiled a smile full of white teeth and went on: I’m from São Tomé, you see, I’ve only been working in Lisbon for a month and I don’t know the streets yet, in my own country I was an engineer but nothing needs engineering there, so here I am working as a taxi driver and I don’t even know the streets, I mean I know the city really well, I never get lost, it’s just that I don’t know the names of the streets. Oh, I said, it’s a street I know from twenty-five years back and I can’t remember how to get there either, though I know it’s near the castle. Let’s head in that direction then, said the Taxi Driver, smiling, and we set off.
Only then did I realise that I was sweating profusely. My shirt was drenched and it clung to my chest and back. I took off my jacket, but even then I went on sweating. Look, I said, perhaps you can help me, my shirt’s sopping wet, I need to buy a new one, can you suggest where I might go? The Taxi Driver braked and turned to me. Do you feel ill?, he asked, a worried expression on his face. No, I replied, I don’t know, I mean I don’t think so, it must be the heat, the heat and some sort of anxiety attack, sometimes anxiety can make you sweat, anyway I need a clean shirt to put on. The man lit a cigarette and thought for a moment. Today’s Sunday, he said, the shops are all shut. I tried to wind down the window on my side, but the handle was broken. This fact only increased my anxiety, I could feel the sweat pouring from my head and a few drops fell onto my knees. The Taxi Driver was looking at me with real concern now. Then he said, I know, I’ve got a great idea, I’ll give you my shirt, if you don’t mind wearing it that is. You can’t do that, I said, you can’t drive around naked from the waist up. I’ve got a T-shirt on underneath, he replied, I can just wear that. But there must be somewhere in the whole of Lisbon where I can buy a shirt, I said, perhaps a shopping centre, a market, I don’t know. Carcavelos! exclaimed the Taxi Driver triumphantly, there must be a Sunday market in Carcavelos, that’s where I live, my wife goes shopping there every Sunday, or is it Thursday? I don’t know, I said, I’m not sure that’s a very good idea, there’s a beach at Carcavelos and today’s Sunday, it’ll be packed, it could be dreadful, can’t you think of anywhere here in Lisbon? The man struck his forehead with the palm of his hand. The gypsies! he exclaimed, I’d forgotten about the gypsies! He smiled his broad, candid