(1991) Pinocchio in Venice (16 page)

    With this sobering reminder of mortality, the entire company of the Great Puppet Show Punk Rock Band, weeping and laughing all at the same time, crowded around him once more, kissing him and smacking heads and embracing him in their crunching hugs, even Captain Spavento, who swore eternal fealty to his brother Pinocchio, adding that if eternity were not enough, he would personally take Time by the throat and squeeze a whole new set of tenses out of the cowardly
stronzo.
They pressed him, peeking in his pants, for tales of his travels and transformations, and told him of their own troubles, the banning of the band by the Little Man gang, now running the city and cynically calling themselves "socialists," and the terrible persecution of their brothers and sisters that has followed. The Dottore, he learned, was not the only victim: the lovers Ortensia, Florindo, Lindoro, and Lavinia had been dismembered by the authorities and used for the making of grocers' crates, clothespins, and bird cages, though their heads were rumored to have been stolen by the mask-maker Mangiafoco, bastard descendant of the old fire-eating puppet master. The troupe's instruments had been smashed, their spare parts, props, and costumes confiscated. And poor Frittellino had been burned at the stake, the stake being his own master Tartaglia, or what was left of him: a few bent sticks, blue-rimmed spectacles, and a fading stutter. But Pulcinella did some backflips and headstands to show he was as spry as ever, Corallina tossed her skirts up to display her freshly varnished walnut behind, and Brighella reminded them all that "Hey, Father Goldoni was made to eat shit in this town, why should we expect truffles?"

    By now, a fair-sized crowd had gathered at this end of the snowy campo, drawn by the novelty of vegepunk rock, university students mostly by the look of them (he gazed out as upon a lecture hall, suffering a momentary twinge of longing and bittersweet regret, or maybe it was only a heart attack, who knew what he'd lose next, but if she was out there, he couldn't see her), dressed in blue jeans and thick sweaters, heavy boots and seamen's caps, and growing impatient in the biting cold.
"We want the music! We want the music!"
they chanted, stamping their feet, and the puppets, conscious as always about how they were "coming down the strings," as they liked to put it, snatched up their instruments and began improvising an original number with the old professor himself, in his new role as deputy Dottore, at the keyboard. Though he seemed to recognize the melody he was pounding out, the words, barked in the Venetian dialect, were new to him, something about the world being half for sale, half to be pawned, and all to be laughed at, maybe they were making it up as they went along. The crowd seemed to love it, hooting and whistling and singing along:
"Lčzi, scrivi e tiente a mente, chi no sgrifa no ga gnente!"
they whooped, jumping up and down.
"Read, write, and never doubt it: If you don't steal it, you'll do without it!"
It was fun in a hypnotic and irresponsible sort of way, it was like drunkenness, like jumping, over and over, through a ring at the circus, and the old traveler, in spite of himself (for it was also somehow frightening, even his unwonted delight frightened him), found himself, eagerly, without thinking, wishing it could just go on like this: "Now that we're all together, let's stay together!" he cried, meaning it with all his heart, though they probably couldn't hear him, they were making a terrible racket - or, rather,
somebody
was: the Burattini, he saw now, had dropped their instruments and were staring grimly out upon the campo, he was hammering away all by himself, his hollow unaccompanied notes resoundingly challenged now by what seemed to be a great confluence of marching brass bands, arriving simultaneously from all directions like prancing caravans, beating out tattoos and blowing clamorous fanfares, joining in, as he mistakenly thought at the moment, in the fun.

    "Vaffan -?!"

    "Ahi!
la pula!"

    "The questurini!"

"It's a bust!"

    "La madama!"

    "And they've brought in the civil guards!"

    "Those fist-fuckers!"

    "And not only -!"

    "Look over
there!"

    "The public security police! The carabinieri!"

    "The highway cops!"

    "And who's that greasy little dog's cock under the toyshop awning, the one with the whipsaw directing everything -?"

"L'Omino!"

    "We're fucked -!"

    "I hear motor boats!"

    "The maritime patrol!"

"Look!
Even the sanitation cops! The border guards!"

    "Lido always gives us a warning! Where is he today?"

    "The ecclesiastical police!"

    "The vaporetto inspectors!"

    "They've pulled out every prick in the province!"

    "And they're all
armed!"

    In they paraded, hundreds and hundreds of them, long winding ribbons of vivid color, banded and braided, caped and cockaded, some in lance caps, others in shakos, tricornes, berets and busbies, their weapons gleaming, their shiny boots - notched, bossed, spurred, tufted, waxed, or gaitered - cracking snappily like ricocheting gunshots against the paving stones of the narrow passageways leading into the crowded campo. The Dottore-designate was still thumping away dutifully at the keyboard, grinning out half blindly on this resplendent spectacle, when Arlecchino grabbed his wrist.

    "The show's over, my friend! We're hitting the road!"

    "What -?! But I -!"

    "It's too late!" Pantalone cried. "They've encircled the campo!"

    "They've blocked all the exits!"

    "What'll we
do -?!"

    "The pompieri!
They're building fires!"

    "Listen! Helicopters!"

    "Tear gas!"

"Come on!"
Arlecchino rasped, and suddenly, like the metaphorical shoveled shit, he was out of his seat and flying into the turbulent crowds.

"Help!!"

"Run!"

"ASSASSINI!"

    And now he has lost Arlecchino, he's alone in a mad crush of terrorized rock fans and puppets, trampling each other in their desperate search for an exit, it's worse than registration day back at the university. Helpless and confused and crippled with illness, the old professor is getting dragged along by the throngs, swept back and forth in waves as they flee from one police charge or another. There are bludgeonings, screams, the grind of buzz saws, howled insults, the exploding of tear gas canisters. Fires have been built, manned by the fire brigade, and, horribly, in one of them, he sees the pretty face of Flaminia melting. One moment he is jammed up against a flaking wall by a teeming mass, the next he finds himself sprawling, alone, as though he were suddenly the center from which all have fled, by the battered marble base of an ancient wellhead. Towering above him are two tall carabinieri, thin as nails, with cocked hats, drawn rifles, and flowing black capes, lined with blood red velvet.

    "Is this one?"

    "Hard to tell. Old bum, looks like."

    "Let's throw him on, see if he burns."

    "Oh, please!" he blubbers with what life he has left. "I'm
not
one of them! Can't you see? Sob! It's all a terrible mistake! I don't even know
how
to play a piano!"

    "A likely story."

    "A bad tool in any case. I say, throw him on the fire."

"No! Please! Have mercy on an old man!"
he bawls as they reach down for him. "I'm
afraid
of fire -!"

    "Si, signori Cavalieri! Have
pity!"
someone cries nearby.

    "Cavalieri -?! There are no cavalieri here, fool!"

    "Signori
Commendatori,
then!" Through his tears the professor can see that it is Pulcinella in his loose white shift and sugarloaf hat. He seems to have popped out from under the iron lid of the well. "Have mercy on the old gentleman, Commendatori!"

    "Commendatori -! Are you making fun of us, you turd?"

"Your Excellencies!"
Pulcinella bows deeply, his rear in the air, his beaked nose at his toes. From this exaggeratedly abject position he winks soberly at the downed scholar and, while clucking like a chicken to mask his whisper, urges sotto voce:
"Run, Pinocchio! Run!"

    "Aha! I recognize you!" cries one of the carabinieri, grabbing the puppet by the scruff and hauling him to his feet. "You're one of those terrorist musicians!"

    "Off to the fire with you, pricknose!"

    "Wait -!" gasps the professor, rising, with difficulty, to his knees.

    "Yes, wait!" echoes Pulcinella from under his raised beak. "My shoes!"

    "What -?"

    "The laces! I'll never burn with loose laces, gentlemen, I'll piss right through them and put the fire out!" he exclaims and, freeing his arms, stoops as though to tie them. The carabinieri reach down to collar him again, and he grabs an ankle of each to throw them down and run away: an old
lazzo
from the Commedia days. Only this time it doesn't work. Pulcinella grunts and strains, but he cannot raise either foot so much as a hair's breadth off the paving stones. "Made a frittata out of that one, I guess," he shrugs, as they lift him by his hump, his long arms dangling limply at his sides, "but that's how it goes in show business, Your Excellencies, no point in crying over spent milk, as they say, what's done has a head, so farewell, dear public! Your faithful servant Pulcinella is off to get his heart coddled and his buns toasted!"

    "Stop! You can't do that -!" the old professor protests, but before he can even unlock his old knees and clamber to his feet, another policeman, dressed like a Cuirassier of the Guard in a steel helmet with brass ornaments and a black horsehair plume, a double-breasted blue tunic with silver buttons and red piping, the red cuffs and standing collar embroidered in silver wire, a sky blue sash with sky blue tassels hanging from the hip, silver epaulettes with silver bullion fringes, white breeches, and black jackboots, and carrying a rifle with a fixed bayonet, arrives and claims jurisdiction over the prisoner, asserting the divine right of kings.

    "Kings? What kings? We have no kings, you fool!"

    "The divine right of fools, then!" rejoins the Cuirassier and lays hold of Pulcinella to drag him away. "He who takes, has!" he laughs, a dry roguish laugh that can belong only to the band's lead guitar Brighella. "Possession, as the belly said to the nose, masters, is nine tenths of the law!"

    "That still leaves
one
tenth!" the carabinieri reply, snatching at the slippered feet just disappearing into the roiling mob, whereupon a terrible tug-of-war begins with Pulcinella's body, Brighella at the head end, the carabinieri at the feet, Pulcinella whooping and yelping pathetically, sounding more like a chicken now than ever. Suddenly, the legs snap off at the groin, there's a frightful howl, the carabinieri tumble backwards into the crowd, tangled up in their capes, and the puppets vanish.

    The professor knows he should do the same, but he is rooted to the spot. The crowds have shrunk back, he is suddenly all alone at the wellhead, center stage, the carabinieri, in a crimson rage, scrambling to their feet again, their sharp teeth bared, Pulcinella's sundered legs gripped in their fists like clubs -!

"Pinocchio!
At
last!"

"Arlecchino -!
But you
shouldn't
have come
back!
They're
setting fire -!"

    "Tell me about it
later,
my friend! We have to split before these shits do the splitting for us!
Come on -!
"

15. A GONDOLA RIDE

    Once, many years ago, in one of his less genteel embodiments, he had been sold for a few farthings to a bungling rustic who wanted to make a drum for the village band out of his hide. The lout tied a rope to a hind leg and a stone to his neck and kicked him into the water, then sat back with a pipe waiting for him to drown. Instead, a shoal of fish came along and ate him right out of his predicament. It was a strange sensation. Dragged down by the stone and donkey weight, he had sunk to the bottom, feeling all the while as though his body wanted to rise from within. Then, suddenly, there was this thrilling pain, a delicious nibbling away at his entire being, he has never felt anything quite like it before or since, not even what the starlets did with him in Hollywood came close, though he always had hopes, and his body, his new one, as though trying to express its exhilaration, popped like a seed from its old encrustations and floated exuberantly to the surface.

    This time it is different. There is, as before, that same eery feeling of wanting to rise from inside even while the outer body, weighted down with coat and suit and flesh and shoes, steadily sinks, but this time there are no fish, nothing living at all so far as he can see, which isn't far, it's like trying to peer through cold bean soup down here in this quagmire of twigs and wattle upon which, improbably, an empire arose, nothing but curdled garbage, thin twists of opaque plastic, children's ruined copybooks and old sanitary napkins, lottery stubs, the occasional drowned cat, and otherwise just shapeless streamers of coagulated muck that wind around his limbs and grease his face as though to smear away that expression of joy and surprise painted there only a moment before by the unexpected sight of that which he has been, with such awesome consequences, seeking. Ah, with what fugitive, mad, passionate hopes did he go clattering ludicrously down that fatal underpass, his preposterous movements inspired by the demon whose peculiar pleasure it is to trample human reason and dignity underfoot, even when so finely nurtured and honed as his own, his giddy mind in abject travail, his senses so focused on the object of his quest that only now, deep in the fallen Queen's murky bowels and sinking fast, can he hear the cries he could not hear then.

    That he has been able to complete this humiliating fall, out of the frying pan and into the pot, so to speak, is thanks only to Arlecchino, who came to his rescue back in the campo, popping theatrically out of the turbulent crowd, felt hat pulled down over his pinpoint eyes as though he were trying to hide inside it, just as the two carabinieri struggled to their feet and, wielding Pulcinella's broken-off legs like truncheons, turned, enraged, on the transfixed professor. "Hey, looking for you, old man," his brave friend laughed, "has been like trying to find a pearl in a hailstorm! Quick! Hop on my back!
A cavalluccio!"

"Hop -?!
I can't even -!"

    Whereupon Arlecchino backed into him, reached down, and grabbed him behind the knees, and they were off, galloping clumsily over the icy stone flagging, the tall thin carabinieri in hot pursuit. "Hold it! Stop those two! They're dangerous criminals!"

    He could feel bits and pieces flaking off as they jounced along, escape was costing him dearly, he knew, but Arlecchino was quick and cunning, leaping benches and wellheads, dodging in and out of the crowds, he had a thousand tricks, and it was working, they seemed to be losing their two pursuers, the pounding of their boots fading, their angry shouts gradually getting swallowed up in the larger uproar of the smoke-filled campo. He tried to tell Arlecchino as they galloped along how grateful he was and how much he loved him, and also about poor Corallina and Pulcinella and Flaminia and all the rest, but all he could do was wheeze and snort, his head bobbing loosely, his chest slapping Arlecchino's wooden back, popping the wind from his antique lungs. "Oh dehea-hea-hea-hear Har-Har-Harle -!"

    And then, through his tears, like a miracle, he saw it: a flash of blue!
That
blue!
"Stop! STO-HOP -!"

    "What - what is it?" Arlecchino panted, staggering to a halt. The puppet's knees seemed to buckle and he set the professor down for a moment.

    "I thought I saw -!"

    "Whew, this used to
be - gasp!
- easier, old friend! I must be drying out!"

    "Yes!
Down there!"
They were at the mouth of a dark passage through the middle of a building, the Sotoportego de l'Uva, he saw from the smudged sign above it, the Underpass of the Grape, and, at the far end of it, there she was, just drifting by as though in an angelic vision, her blond hair glistening with melted snowflakes, a fat pink bubble quivering between her puckered lips, and, jutting out from her unzipped plastic windbreaker, clad in soft blue angora and bouncing gently, those wondrous appendages which, for one magical moment that he desperately longed to reenact, had thawed him out this morning to the very tips of his being.
"Bluebell! Miss -! WAIT -!"

    "Pinocchio! Where are you going -?! Come
back!
We're not out of the woods yet, friend! We have to -
yow!!"

    "Hah!
Got
you, you impertinent little punk!"

"Pinocchio! Help me -!"

    "Hey, look at the dummy's outfit! We've nailed the one the boss wanted!"

    "You're screwed now, knobhead!"

    "Ho ho! We're going to burn your wormy ass!"

"Pinocchio! Help!"
Arlecchino was crying.
"Salvami dalla morte! I DON'T WANT TO DIE -!"

    But, lost in his mad trance, he was already halfway down the passageway, all this was far behind him, he was moving as he had not moved since he first staggered out of San Sebastiano, only now there was hope, real hope. This movement was not exactly running, nor even walking, it was more like some kind of goofy unhinged dance, the sort his drug-addled students used to dance a generation ago, his pelvis flying every which way and his arms and head moving more than his feet did. He caromed off the narrow walls, blackened with soot and wet moss, clattered into stacks of empty fruit crates, slapped through garbage, bounced off downpipes and stairwells, but he did make progress, slowly picking up forward momentum, his eyes fixed, no matter which direction the rest of him was momentarily aimed, on the opening at the far end, though she could no longer be seen there.
"Miss! Please! It's Professor Pinenut! That bath -! I've changed my mind -!"

    It turned out, however, there was no little street running alongside the canal at the other end of the underpass as one might have assumed, just watersteps leading down into the cold coffee-colored water below. Luckily, he saw this in time to start backpedaling, call it that. Unluckily, the steps were covered with ice and snow and there was an evil green slime below that, and so, for a moment, after an experience not unlike that, he supposed with a fleeting but bitter irony, of being pitched from a slick shovel, the venerable scholar and aesthete, former rock star, and erstwhile
cavalier servente
found himself hovering in midair, still backpedaling frantically, those partial misgivings he had felt since returning to this city now become a sore distress, a positive misery, his most cherished convictions vanished like the pavement beneath his feet, his dreams of truth, virtue, perfection, and a hot bath now just derisive memories. Alas, he thought, nothing blunts the edge of a noble, robust mind more quickly and more thoroughly than the sharp and bitter corrosion of knowledge. Then -
patatunfete!
- in he went.

    And so, as though arriving at the final destination on that ticket purchased so impulsively back in America, he has come at the end to the beginning, to the very foundations of this mysterious enterprise and of his own as well: back to the slimy ooze and the ancient bits of wood, driven deep, holding the whole apparition up. "La strada č pericolosa," a creature once warned him, long ago on that fateful Night of the Assassins. "It is dangerous out on the road! Turn back!" Yet, though it has been brought home to him, now as then, that the failure to take such advice is, in the world's judgment, a capital offense (even as he struggles upward against his heavy clothing, his toes forebodingly touch mud), and though it may be true, as he has so often been told, that those who, in an excess of passion, rush into things without precaution rush into their own destruction, a sensible person never embarking on an enterprise (all the advice taken through the years is now passing before his drowning eyes as though it were his life) until he can see his way clear to the end of it, what is one to do, he asks petulantly, his wind giving out, his heart beating wildly in his chest, with failing eyesight? Stay at home? Faint heart and all that, remember! Better faint than defunto, fool! When will you ever learn? But I
have
learned, he rages, arguing thus with himself while trying to claw his way to the surface, which is not far above him, but the sludge is too thick and he is too weak: even as he kicks at the mire below him, his feet sink into it. I have done nothing
but
learn! It's not
enough
to learn -! He is still managing to hold his breath, he was always good at this, the girls in Hollywood used to throw him in the pool and see how long they could hold him under, they said it made them wet between their legs just counting the bubbles, and he let them, associating it with the excitement he had felt as a drowning donkey, but now it's over, he's not the youth he was then, his ancient chest is beginning to spasm involuntarily, he can't hold it any longer
o babbo mio! o Fatina!
- and then, just when all seems lost, something hooks him under his collar and hauls him, snorting and choking and webbed in slime, halfway out of the water.

    "Have a good bath, signore?" rumbles a gravelly old voice above him.

"Help! Help -!"
he splutters, floundering about in thick icy water. From what he can see through the muck and tears, he appears to be dangling from the end of a pole held by a hulking figure wearing a straw gondolier's boater with the braid torn at the brim, tilted rakishly over a sinister red mask with hornlike brows.
"Save me!"

    "Hmm, I must think about that, signore. Why should I succor one who is running from the police? Save the hanged man and you'll be hanged by him, as they say -"

    "I am
not
running -
splut! glub!
- from anybody! I am a decent law-abiding citizen! It's all a -
gasp!
- mistake!"

    "So you say, signore! But why should one believe you?"

    "But you
must!
I am the most truthful person in the world -!"

    "Yes, yes, and you've got the nose of a titmouse, too! Ha ha!"

    "But can't you
see?
I am an American -
glurp!
- professor! A professor
emeritus!
Everyone knows me! I am a -
blub!
- good man!
Un gran signore!"

    "Oh I can
see
the great man you are through the holes in your clothes, Eccellenza! Che spettacolo! Perhaps the little fish have been feeding on your 'poor festered amorettos' -?"

"Oh, shut up, you damned fool, and get me out of here!"
he cries and -
thplup!
- finds himself under water again, this time unfortunately with his mouth open.
"Please -!"
he gurgles when next brought to the surface.
"I'll pay!"

    "Ebbene, at your service, padrone!" replies the devilish oarsman with a bow, lifting the professor out of the canal at last and, as though landing a crab, depositing his sodden catch on the black leather cushions of his gondola. "One must not be too hasty, you can never tell a tree by its bark, as I always say, or a pocket by its pants. So will it be the grand tour, signor professore, or famous murders, masterpieces, and executions, or perhaps the
Venezia esotica
of the poets and their param -?"

    "No, no! I only want… I want…" What? He is dying. And soon. He knows that now. And what he wants, what he longs for, as he huddles there on the stiff black cushions, drenched through and trembling in the wintry wind, are his old down comforter, his snuggies, his hot water bottle. He wants a bed, a soft warm bed. "Did you see… go past… a young woman…?"

    "Ah! Una bambina -?"

    "Yes -"

    "Bella -?"

    "Yes, yes!"

    "Wearing a hat -!"

    "No…"

    "I mean, hair -"

    "Yes…"

    "Dark -"

    "Ah -"

    "But not too dark -?"

    "Well…"

    "You might almost say blond -"

    "Yes!"

    "Eh, how much money do you have, signore?"

    "I-I don't know…" He tries to reach into his soggy pockets for the few notes that Alidoro and Melampetta stuffed there, but his hands are frozen into inflexible claws.

    "Permesso!" the gondolier growls soothingly, and reaches in to help himself, pulling out a hairy handful of cheese, wet bread, a few soaked lire, and an ear. He cocks his head to peer at this collection through one of the eyeholes of his mask, the mask's expression of fiendish menace giving way at this angle to something more like red-faced bewilderment. "Is, eh, is this all there is?" he asks, sniffing the ear.