Is Lua in there?
he asks. Yes, Svensson answers, and suddenly reaches again into Blaumeiser’s well-traveled suitcase. He holds out the stack of paper Astroland to me. At one corner the paper is soaked, the water has already gotten into the suitcase. Can you hold this for a moment? he asks. Svensson is speaking with a calm voice, but his eyes are tearing. Astroland, he says, wiping his face with the back of his hand. Have you ever been to New York, Mandelkern? Yes, I say after a brief hesitation, I know the city (I could say that I know his story, that I’ve been with his characters in Seraverde, in Oulu and Coney Island). I’ve been there, I should have played Shoot the Freak, but only the can toss booth was open. Svensson laughs. I take the aborted manuscript from his hand, the words and sentences with which he has invented the past ten years of his life, I hold Svensson’s story in one hand and my notebooks in the other (Macumba is rocking on Blaumeiser’s grave). Svensson now smiles with tears in his eyes at Samy, and I understand that we aren’t going to bring Lua to Porlezza: Svensson is not going to leave anything to the veterinarian as he promised Kiki, Lua will not be buried in a field behind Porlezza, he will not be cremated. Svensson abruptly closes the suitcase over Lua. I think of the photocopied pages in his manuscript, the stolen pages in the research folders. Svensson now stares into my face and spits into the water. I wonder for a brief moment whether I would make it to the shore swimming, but Svensson takes Astroland from my hand, again opens the suitcase a crack and shakes his head. He puts his story in with Lua, snaps the suitcase shut once and for all, and locks it. Okay, Svensson says with a smile, okay then. He grabs the heavy suitcase and heaves it first onto the bench, then onto the railing. Svensson pauses one, maybe two seconds, then he lets go. Macumba sways. The boy seems surprised as the suitcase hits the water’s surface with a thud and floats. Rocking, the black dog’s coffin slowly recedes from Svensson’s boat, leans slightly to one side and sinks so suddenly and swiftly that the dark shadow in the green water is only briefly visible. The stones pull Lua down, the oleander flowers sink with the black dog, the manuscript disappears at the deepest point in the lake. We’re alone with the mountains and the water, the swan swims around the boat at an appropriate distance and Svensson finally wipes away Samy’s tears (a few air bubbles still tell of Lua’s life).
August 10, 2005
(Ceresio, 2,092 Words)
“Imbarcadero” is written on the sign above me (I’m leaving). Svensson and the boy drop me and my plastic bag off in Osteno. We’re heading on to Porlezza now, says Svensson, to buy chickens. Right, Samy? Yes. The boy has stopped crying. We’re buying two chickens, he repeats, and then we’re going to catch fish! One fish or a hundred! I sit down on a bench on the quay and watch the two of them as they leave the port of Osteno (children’s tears don’t last long). I see the bright orange of the life vest and Svensson’s white disappear, behind me a garbage truck and the hiss of its hydraulics. I’m again sitting on a bench under lindens and adding what there is to add. The garbage is getting picked up today, the black plastic bags of the Via San Rocco. Lua is dead, Astroland is buried. I’ve saved what I wanted to (what I consider decisive). In my pocket my ring and Tuuli’s hairpin. We didn’t say another word about my article (take care, Mandelkern).
Ceresio
At 13:20 my ship leaves. The bald captain greets me, I buy a ticket (18.60 Swiss francs for the way back). Besides me there are no passengers on board. Ceresio casts off and crosses the lake with a softly humming motor, the pleasure boats are still lying at anchor, even pedal boats. I sit down at a scratched-up wooden table on the foredeck in the sun and search the lake for Macumba. Nothing. Svensson’s house is lying in shadow as we pass the steep slopes of Monte Cecchi, it’s scarcely distinguishable from the woods and the cliffs (Tuuli will be able to see the ship). I remember things, as I’ve learned from Svensson: the dock, the desk, the pigeon droppings, the pictures, the sycamore, Santuario di Nostra Signora della Caravina.
San Mamete 13:28
In the middle of the lake the hoarse horn. We’re approaching San Mamete, the old plastic seats are shining in the sun and blinding me (life preservers and turned-off strings of lights). The captain throttles the motor and announces the old village, then he steers the ferry to the pier in back of Hotel Stella D’Italia (the bill in my bag). No one disembarks. The hotel guests on the terrace raise wine glasses to us, a few tourists board, two Americans, a senior hiking group, thermal shirts and blouses, the pale colors and empty mineral water cases in back of the houses (the inhabited side of the world is waiting for me). I turn back and can no longer make out Svensson’s house. Ceresio passes the point where we just laid Lua to rest, as if nothing happened (on larger ships you don’t feel the waves). Svensson sank his past, Kiki knows his secrets, Felix was scattered here (Samy is wearing a bright orange life vest). I wonder what death does to those who remain. Some want to forget, others inhabit the ruins. I think of Elisabeth’s scar and her bloody-bitten lips as she told me about the child’s death, about his gravestone and her husband (the fine cut on my lip has healed). Elisabeth and Tuuli are not similar, not their appearance, not their pragmatism, not their breasts, not their lips (golden pins for Tuuli’s hair, Elisabeth’s red, maybe copper). Elisabeth doesn’t want to forget, she doesn’t want to conceal anything, she doesn’t want to consist of only memory. The hotel guests take photos of the few tourists, the few tourists take photos of the hotel guests. I’ve started the return journey into my life. I wonder what Elisabeth will say about all this.