‘Moral lessons?’
‘No. They teach us that human beings learn and absorb ideas and concepts through narrative, through stories, not through lessons or theoretical speeches. This is what any of the great religious texts teach us. They’re all tales about characters who must confront life and overcome obstacles, figures setting off on a journey of spiritual enrichment through exploits and revelations. All holy books are, above all, great stories whose plots deal with the basic aspects of human nature, setting them within a particular moral context and a particular framework of supernatural dogmas. I was content for you to spend a dismal week reading theses, speeches, opinions and comments so that you could discover for yourself that there is nothing to learn from them, because they’re nothing more than exercises in good or bad faith – usually unsuccessful – by people who are trying, in turn, to understand. The professorial conversations are over. From now on I’ll ask you to start reading the stories of the Brothers Grimm, the tragedies of Aeschylus, the Ramayana or the Celtic legends. Please yourself. I want you to analyse how these texts work, I want you to distil their essence and find out why they provoke an emotional reaction. I want you to learn the grammar, not the moral. And I want you to bring me something of your own in two or three weeks’ time, the beginning of a story. I want you to make me believe.’
‘I thought we were professionals and couldn’t commit the sin of believing in anything.’
Corelli smiled, baring his teeth.
‘One can only convert a sinner, never a saint.’
13
The days passed. Accustomed as I was to years of living alone and to that state of methodical and undervalued anarchy common to bachelors, the continued presence of a woman in the house, even though she was an unruly adolescent with a volatile temper, was beginning to play havoc with my daily routine. I believed in controlled disorder; Isabella didn’t. I believed that objects find their own place in the chaos of a household; Isabella didn’t. I believed in solitude and silence; Isabella didn’t. In just a couple of days I discovered that I was no longer able to find anything in my own home. If I was looking for a paperknife, or a glass, or a pair of shoes, I had to ask Isabella where providence had kindly inspired her to hide them.
‘I don’t hide anything. I put things in their place. Which is different.’
Not a day went by when I didn’t feel the urge to strangle her half a dozen times. When I took refuge in my study, searching for peace and quiet in which to think, Isabella would appear after a few minutes, a smile on her face, bringing me a cup of tea or some biscuits. She would wander around the study, look out of the window, tidy everything I had on my desk and then she would ask me what I was doing there, so quiet and mysterious. I discovered that seventeen-year-old girls have such huge verbal energy that their brain drives them to expend it every twenty seconds. On the third day I decided I had to find her a boyfriend – if possible a deaf one.
‘Isabella, how is it that a girl as attractive as you has no suitors?’
‘Who says I don’t?’
‘Isn’t there any boy you like?’
‘Boys my age are boring. They have nothing to say and half of them seem like complete idiots.’
I was going to say that they didn’t improve with age but didn’t want to spoil her illusions.
‘So what age do you like them?’
‘Old. Like you.’
‘Do I seem old to you?’
‘Well, you’re not exactly a spring chicken.’
It was preferable to think she was pulling my leg than to accept the punch below the belt that hurt my vanity. I decided to respond with a few drops of sarcasm.
‘The good news is that young girls like old men, and the bad news is that old men, especially decrepit, slobbering old men, like young girls.’
‘I know. I wasn’t born yesterday.’
Isabella observed me. She was scheming and smiled with a hint of malice.
‘Do you like young girls too?’
The answer was on my lips before she had asked the question. I adopted a masterful, impartial tone, like a professor of geography.
‘I liked them when I was your age. Now I generally like girls of my own age.’
‘At your age they’re no longer girls; they’re young women or, to be precise, ladies.’
‘End of argument. Have you nothing to do downstairs?’
‘No.’
‘Then start writing. You’re not here to wash the dishes and hide my things. You’re here because you said you wanted to learn to write and I’m the only idiot you know who can help you.’
‘There’s no need to get angry. It’s just that I lack inspiration.’
‘Inspiration comes when you stick your elbows on the table, your bottom on the chair and you start sweating. Choose a theme, an idea, and squeeze your brain until it hurts. That’s called inspiration.’
‘I have a topic.’
‘Hallelujah.’
‘I’m going to write about you.’
A long silence as we exchanged glances, like opponents across a game board.
‘Why?’
‘Because I find you interesting. And strange.’
‘And old.’
‘And touchy. Almost like a boy of my age.’
Despite myself I was beginning to get used to Isabella’s company, to her jibes and to the light she had brought into that house. If things continued this way, my worst fears were going to come true and we’d end up being friends.
‘What about you? Have you found a subject with all those whopping great tomes you’re consulting?’
I decided that the less I told Isabella about my commission, the better.
‘I’m still at the research stage.’
‘Research? And how does that work?’
‘Basically, you read thousands of pages to learn what you need to know and to get to the heart of a subject, to its emotional truth, and then you shed all that knowledge and start again at square one.’
Isabella sighed.
‘What is emotional truth?’
‘It’s sincerity within fiction.’
‘So, does one have to be an honest, good person to write fiction?’
‘No. One has to be skilled. Emotional truth is not a moral quality, it’s a technique.’
‘You sound like a scientist,’ protested Isabella.
‘Literature, at least good literature, is science tempered with the blood of art. Like architecture or music.’
‘I thought it was something that sprang from the artist, just like that, all of a sudden.’
‘The only things that spring all of a sudden are unwanted body hair and warts.’
Isabella considered these revelations without much enthusiasm.
‘You’re saying all this to discourage me and make me go home.’
‘I should be so lucky!’
‘You’re the worst teacher in the world.’
‘It’s the student who makes the teacher, not the other way round.’
‘It’s impossible to argue with you because you know all the rhetorical tricks. It’s not fair.’
‘Nothing is fair. The most one can hope is for things to be logical. Justice is a rare illness in a world that is otherwise a picture of health.’
‘Amen. Is that what happens as you grow older? Do people stop believing in things, as you have?’
‘No. Most people, as they grow old, continue to believe in nonsense, usually even greater nonsense. I swim against the tide because I like to annoy.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know! Well, when I’m older I’ll go on believing in things,’ Isabella threatened.
‘Good luck.’
‘And what’s more, I believe in you.’
She didn’t look away as I fixed my eyes on hers.