obbedienza cieca
It’s the swan’s singing that finally makes me look up from the notebook (it follows Macumba like a memory). The boy is kneeling in his life vest in the stern, Svensson is steering the boat with one hand. Lua only comes into view when Macumba has already almost arrived at the dock, he’s lying stretched out on the bench, the blanket under his head and another under his body. When Tuuli emerges from the house, the two of them have disembarked and the boy runs to her from the dock, the yellow fishing rod in his hands. Lua is lying on the bench as if in a deep sleep. Svensson puts the light blue bucket down on the dock and rolls up his shirtsleeves. He reaches into the bucket, suddenly there’s spraying and wriggling. Samy jumps up and hides behind Tuuli’s legs. When Svensson extracts his arms, he’s holding a fish in his outstretched arms, Tuuli claps her hands and hugs Samy. Svensson holds the animal in the air by its tail and pats Samy on the shoulder. Kiki! he calls. Mandelkern! And Tuuli, too, turns toward the house, she waves and points to the fish. Manteli, she calls, filetto di persico! Svensson rocks the motionless fish in his arms like a baby. For a brief moment the three of them are a family coming home (father, mother, child, and dog). But then Svensson jumps back onto the boat to Lua, the three-legged, the miserable, the faithful dog (obbedienza cieca, the waitress in the Bar del Porto called his faithfulness). I close the notebook and climb down the rickety outside staircase (I will stay one more night).
The Story of Leo and the Notmuch
Lua is lying in his spot again, he’s lying on the blanket in the grass as if he were asleep. Svensson and Kiki on one side, Tuuli and I on the other, we lifted the dog’s body, the blue blanket between us a jumping-sheet. Tuuli is smoking absently and watching the dog breathe, but even from up close the rising and sinking can only be surmised (she doesn’t touch me). Why does Lua have to die? asks the boy, and begins to cry just as suddenly as he broke out in cheers a short while ago. Svensson just barely manages to deter the little doctor from another examination with the chair-leg stethoscope, he puts him promptly on his shoulders (Svensson fears the diagnosis). Tuuli carries the bucket with the fish into the house. There’s still a lot to do, says Kiki, at eight it will be time (it looks like a good-bye, it looks like tears). Svensson takes a stroll around the property with the boy on his shoulders, I follow them. We feed the hen, we pick a few tomatoes and some sage, we look for eggs in the footwell of the Fiat. Svensson asks the boy whether he knows the story of Leo and Fips and the Notmuch. Yes, says the boy, do you want to read to me? All right, says Svensson, all right. Is Manteli coming too? Of course he’s coming, says Svensson, slapping me on the shoulder. After all, that story is the reason you’re here, right? He slams the doors of the Fiat (to protect against the fox). We walk through the high grass and the flowers and leaves toward the house. The women will have gutted the fish already, I think, they’ll still want to spare the boy (everything is passing away: the dog, the fish, the oleander).
Elisabeth and I
In my head this image remains: on a Monday morning in May Elisabeth and I are standing in the hallway of the Bismarckstrasse apartment when the telephone rings (the early stripes of sunlight on the floor). We’re about to set off for work, I’m standing next to her with my shoulder bag and a sack of empty bottles. She says her name, then doesn’t say anything for a long time, finally she says thank you and hangs up (the soft and incomprehensible voice from the receiver). She leans her head on my neck and closes her eyes, everything’s all right, she says, that was the gynecologist’s office. Elisabeth and I in the white frame of the mirror (for a few seconds the possibility of a family). We have to go now, Mandelkern, she then says, or else we’ll be late, or else I’ll have to reprimand you.
So why a children’s book?
As I follow Svensson and the boy on his shoulders into the large room on the ground floor, into the smell of sage and mint, of garlic and onions, of tomato sauce with red wine and capers, I notice my hunger and my thirst. Kiki is standing in the entrance to the kitchen, she’s wearing an apron, holding the crying Bella. When I ask if I can help, Kiki hands me the girl (don’t worry, says Kiki, she’s tired anyway). She disappears into the kitchen and comes back with two glasses of wine, one for Svensson, one for me. So there will be drinking again today. Svensson kisses his daughter on the nose (in doing so, he comes closer to me than ever before). Bella reaches for my ear, then she leans her head on my shoulder, she has her mother’s hair (children are heavier than I thought). Start! shouts Samy, start! We raise our glasses. The Story of Leo and the Notmuch, Svensson starts with the boy on his shoulders, begins like this.
The Story of Leo and the Notmuch
SVENSSON: Our Leo is a cheeky little boy, just like you, / and best of alclass="underline" …
SAMY:…his friend Fips is with him too.
SVENSSON: Fips and Leo are the best / friends in the whole town, / Fips and Leo are so funny…
SAMY:…
SVENSSON:…that…
SAMY:…there are always laughs when they’re around.
SVENSSON: Exactly. This here is Leo and this here is Fips, with the yellow hair, you see? The two of them are the best of friends.
SAMY: Yeah. Keep going.
SVENSSON: Okay. What comes next?
SAMY: Fips and Leo do all sorts of things…
SVENSSON:…no one here has ever seen before…
SAMY:…and the fat neighbor Wuth gets scared…
Leo and Fips
We carry the children from picture to picture. I follow Svensson and bounce my knees up and down slightly to soothe the girl, but she’s already asleep at the first picture (down by the water the dog sees death coming). Svensson and Samy take turns, both of them can recite the text. Leo and Fips are two boys in colorful T-shirts and shorts, Fips with yellow hair, Leo with brown. The pictures are hanging in front of us on the wall (a picture of the two of them in a lion costume, they scare a man with a watch chain and hat, the fat neighbor Wuth; Svensson and Samy in chorus: “…when they jump out as a lion with a mighty roar”). Fips and Leo play pranks, they drive the control-obsessed landlady crazy and free the chickens of the sinister butcher Mussolini, they steal and take revenge like Robin Hood, they turn the world into a fun and exciting place. Kiki’s pictures are colorful and friendly and full of little details (Samy points and points and points). Svensson and I make our way around the large dining room as we drink wine, we climb the steps toward the kitchen, we rock the children to the beat of our footsteps. The boy cheers and pulls at Svensson’s hair, the author seems surprised (I’m amazed by how much text the boy retains).