Planus (8 page)

Miracles.

I will add nothing more, except one word to say that, on our return from the
camposanto
where he had laid the mortal remain of his daughter to rest in the Ricordi family vault, the photographer went to the paddock on the Vomero, replaced the plan" that Pasquale had wrenched off, and sealed up the old door b hammering another board across it (one he had actually paid for), and stretching two or three coils of barbed wire over th entrance . . . and after that, none of us ever went back to Virgil' Tomb.

Nevertheless, here I was, almost by chance, in hiding, and, after a week, peace still eluded me; I tossed and turned, evoking in m insomnia the unforgettable past with its illusory, fallacious an, distorted vision, which is also miraculous since it is not only th memory which reawakens and begins to function automatically, but also the very eyes of childhood, eyes which open and, for the firs time, see everything in a harsh light which throws it all into relief and, when one possesses this unholy vision of one's own life, i truth, one no longer hopes for anything. Everything turns to ashes and sand and slips through one's fingers, unlike the mystics who possess God and are in turn possessed by Him.

It comes back to me how, a month after Elena's death, a frightful smell began to spread through the house. It was a smell of decaying flesh. The house was washed, soaped, scrubbed, scoured, disinfected but in vain; then workmen were sent for to take up the parquet flooring and hunt for dead rats, but there was none, and the horrible stench, far from abating, intensified to the point where, one fine da~ it led straight to Elena's bedroom, the unmistakable source of th pollution. They searched everywhere, tapping the walls, and at la found a concealed closet in a partition-wall which was filled from top to bottom with boxes and cartons, every kind of container Elena ha managed to lay hands on or filch from her sisters — hat-boxes, shoe boxes, biscuit-tins — filled with hundreds and thousands of snail carefully assorted and classified according to their size, shape an colour, which had died of hunger because of Elena's death. Nobody knew what this weird, abominably stinking collection meant, and my heart sick with joy and my soul poisoned at this discovery, kept the secret to myself. I breathed not a word. ...

My mother entrusted me to a tutor with whom I was to go camp ing in Sicily. My sister was about to be married. My brother was getting ready to leave for Basle, where he was to study Law. My father was talking about moving again. Exasperated, my mother announced that she was going to settle in the house in Florence, with Lily as her companion. The Ricordis had moved to another home, and so our large house was once more up for sale. There was already a notice on the gate and Ernest was looking for another position. Only the
Zia
would be left behind, under Benjamin's watchful eye. I do not know what became of old Maria, she had Ieft of her own accord, and we had lost touch with her.

For three months my tutor and I walked through Sicily, pushing Vert-de-Gris, a donkey who carried our tent and all our camping impedimenta, in front of us, and, when I came back from this trip a place was waiting for me at Dr Pluss's establishment, the Scuola Internazionale.

My tutor was an Englishman, and today, when I meet a day- dreamer, I remember this tall, indolent young man, with his freckles and mop of unruly hair, who, on the pretext of inculcating the first rudiments of Latin and Greek into me, indulged in long, mythological discussions of which, I fear, I understood very little. But Adrian Peake, Bachelor of Arts, and holder of a scholarship at the Academy, charged with the task of improving my mind whilst walking me through Sicily, was above all a past-master in the art of boozing. It was he who taught me to drink. Moreover, it is thanks to him that I know how to survive and take care of myself in the wilds of nature, and how to sleep out comfortably under the stars, no matter where I may be.

When I returned to Naples to attend the school of Dr Plugs, a Kraut, I was nine years old. For me it was a prison. But that is another story, as Kipling would say.

daily, especially on moonless nights and certain fatidical dates in the year, when the influence is strong and then, so it appears, there ■ is a veritable Witches' Sabbath.

'All the more reason for believing closely in the tradition, since I he business was known solely to the initiates. No one has yet published the diary of Kammerer, the Count's valet de chambre, which describes the experiments.'

'Nevertheless, you quote long extracts from it, Le Rouge.'

'Yes, indirectly . . .'

'I know, Le Rouge. But tell me, where do they keep the original of this diary, which is sub-titled "Account Book Kept by Joseph Kammerer, servant to his most gracious Lord, Monsieur le Comte de K. . ."?'

'Ah, you know about that, Cendrars?'

'Yes, Haliphas Levy quotes it in a private letter. It is a day-today book of expenses. Even the price of the jars in which the homunculi were imprisoned when they became unmanageable . . .!'

'My word, one can't hide anything from you. In any case, it's not in the Arsenal library!'

(The book was, in fact, there, and Le Rouge deliberately lied to me to put me off the scent. This is a form of avarice amongst scholars.)

'I'm not so sure, Le Rouge. I can tell you that there exists a copy of the account book, abridged, it is true, but contemporary and written in the beautiful calligraphy of the late eighteenth century on fine paper, in the library of the Chamber of Deputies, on the reserved list. You can ask for it in my name . . .!'

'It's of no importance, since the homunculi left no descendants.'

'That was not Pasquale's opinion.'

'Oh no, not again!' cried my friend Le Rouge. 'Really, you're becoming absurd, old man. . . .'

I give here a summary of this extraordinary history of the homunculi of Count Kueffstein, a Rosicrucian traveller, like so many others at the end of the eighteenth century who, in the wake of a Saint-Germain, a Mesmer or a Cagliostro, flourished in the salons, according to the literary tradition. I have no books to hand, not even Le Rouge's
The Mandragora,
but the whole business is clear in my mind, as I was involved in it on various occasions : just after the First World War, in Vienna, where I was making a film at (he Hofsburg, after the fall of the Hapsburgs, but the archives of the masonic lodge had been dispersed; in Prague, in 1923, where I vainly leafed through the minutes of the meetings of the Rosicruc- ians at the home of the descendants of the Comte de Thun, and, in Presbourg, with Professor Wilhelm Grosz, the famous criminologist, Dean of the Faculty of Law, who possessed what was probably the finest collection in Europe of esoteric works on witchcraft; nowhere could I find mention of Virgil or his tomb in this connection, but I nevertheless believe Pasquale's account to be exact, at least as to the geographic location of the place where this curious brood of homunculi were spawned and where, whatever Le Rouge might think to the contrary, their offspring proliferated.

Count Kueffstein was a rich nobleman and an ardent devotee of the occult who, like Paracelsus, the demiurge of the West, travelled through the countries of Europe seeking solutions to the great philosophical problems, and played host to all the alchemists, necromancers, cabalists and initiates with whom he indulged, not in parlour tricks but in laboratory research. He was a born scientist, and Joseph Kammerer has related in his account book some of his master's adventures and incredible experiments, including the most wonderful of all, that of the spontaneous or 'unwonted' generation, as he calls it, the artificial creation of the homunculi. '

In the course of a voyage in southern Italy, the Count met Fra Geloni, like himself a Rosicrucian and a disciple of Paracelsus, whose arcane secrets he claimed to have penetrated, and the two of them set to work to bring about a supernatural occurrence.

For five weeks they shut themselves up in a Carmelite monastery' in Calabria, working in shifts to keep constant watch over the» retorts in which the weirdest broth was macerating. After several, setbacks, horrific partial successes by way of the generation of nonviable abortions, the authentic cabalistic words were pronounced,:
ad hoc
formulae recited, amidst scenes of cauldron-boiling and diabolism which terrorized the valet, and, five weeks later, the little creatures came forth into the world. There were ten of them, a King, a Queen, an Architect, a Monk, a Nun, a Seraph, a Cavalier, a White Spirit, a Red Spirit and a Savage. The moment they appeared, one after the other, they were plunged into a vessel full of consecrated water, baptized and each given a name. They were? then transported, at dead of night, and hidden in a dung-heap, which Kammerer was instructed to water with a mysterious liquid, an elixir of life.

After a few days, when the incubation was judged to be sufficient the Count and the priest betook themselves to the bottom of the garden with great ceremony, very early in the morning, Geloni dressed in his sacerdotal robes, Kueffstein chanting psalms, and there, while Kammerer sprinkled incense over the dung-heap, th_, homunculi were unearthed and carried away to the laboratory.

They remained there a further three days, immersed in a bath of hot sand. This lapse of time was sufficient to bring them to full maturity as adults. The men had beards and the women were of a full-blown grace an

And Pasquale took off his Calabrian felt hat and made the sign of the cross.

We were sitting on the rickety steps of the porch. It was Sunday evening. Beppino was laughing up his sleeve as he harnessed the ass which was to carry me, as on every Sunday, from the Solfatara farm to our house. Beppino was my best, my only friend. He was laughing in anticipation because he knew that, once we were home and the donkey was tied up at the kitchen door, his father would linger to enjoy a glass of
grappa
and smoke a
rotolata,
a stalk of straw rolled up in a tobacco-leaf, and I would lead him to my room, not merely to show him my toys but to give him marbles, tops, lead soldiers, and a steam-engine I was very fond of, in exchange for which he would tell me tales about the neighbourhood and promise to persuade his father to allow me to accompany them on their rounds one day, for this had been my most burning desire for a long time, and we were making plans, promising ourselves a great deal of fun from this escapade. The ass was ready. Beppino came and sat beside me and nudged my elbow. He was impatient. Carminella was spinning her distaff. The hens were pecking around us. The earth smelled good. It had been hot all day long. Some pimentoes, threaded on a string, were drying in front of the open window of the living-room and all over the farm, the long stalks of sweet corn rustled in the evening breeze that blew off the sea. We could hear Caroline, the cow, trampling the fresh rushes in her stall. It was always the same on Sundays, Pasquale talked and talked, and I was never in a hurry to go home. I would have liked to stay there, but Beppino interrupted Pasquale: 'Father,' he said, 'it's getting late. The foreign lady will scold my friend, like she did last Sunday. Father, please be sensible. . . .'

These few weeks between the death of Elena, the discovery of the perished snails and my departure for Sicily with my new tutor were a period of interregnum for me, thanks to the upheaval caused by the removal from the house of Elena's family, the preparations for my sister's wedding, my brother's departure for Switzerland, the imminent departure of my father, and my mother's packing. Poor
Maman
locked up the trunks with death in her soul, while Miss Sharp poked her nose in where it was not wanted, giving a hand, discussing, advising, and upsetting everybody. I was left to myself, with my crushing burden of secret love, in the huge garden that was so empty now. In order not to succumb in my turn, and because I was very excited and curious about what Beppino had already told me of la Salita, I abandoned my old pastime of hunting for snails, and, despite Mother's absolute prohibition, hoisted myself up to the top of the old wall and crouched like an alley-cat among the thick tufts of ivy, and there I would stay for whole days together, observing with intense emotion everything that went on in the notorious alleyway, and the spectacle I saw unfold outside the walls intrigued me so much that I forgot mealtimes, in spite of the noon cannon and the bells for vespers and the evening angelus. Then Mother would scold me. Poor Mother, she was nervous, and on Sunday mornings was relieved to see me going off with Pasquale, who would fetch me, after his milk-round was done, to spend the day at the farm, and all day long Beppino and I would talk about the poor quarter of la Salita.

I had seen some kids playing with a rat, tormenting it, setting fire to it, hanging and drowning it (and I can still hear the shrill cries of the filthy rodent, who was obstinately determined to stay alive!); the grocer's wife had kicked her puny little husband out of doors, and she sat on the doorstep of the shop with her skirt tucked up, her bosom drooping, her bun untidy, one eye blacked, one fist on her hip, a broom in her hand, and her whole face distorted by the coarse words she was belching forth (Neapolitan oaths which are almost blasphemous, and which I have never forgotten — they still spring to my lips when I am angry!); the travelling fishmonger, a long, skinny man with a violent squint and three fingers missing on his right hand, plagued his little girl, an urchin of thirteen, loaded with two long baskets of wriggling sardines on her arm, and five, six or seven hampers on her head — the bottom one, full of squid, oozed fish-scales, blood, gelatinous glue and ink that trickled down her neck — by pricking her on the calves and rump, the old satyr, with the backbone of a tunny-fish, which he held between his remaining thumb and index finger; the donkey-drivers passed up and down the broad steps of the gradient, viciously beating their little asses, who were almost invisible under their huge loads; beggars passed by, and swarms of barefoot brats, snotty and sore-eyed, the girls suffering from alopecia and scratching themselves under their rags; and there were plenty of men with bugger-all to do except lean against the wall for a pee, handsome, cheerful fellows, scruffily dressed, but sporting colourful scarves at their necks and canary yellow shoes, narrow and pointed, with fancy uppers or pearl buttons and, as often as not, a smart new hat. There was an incessant to- and-fro of housewives, friars, slatterns and novice priests (thin, lean, skinny, fading away, pale, unshaven and wearing black robes so that one could not see through to the Holy Spirit gnawing at their breasts like a purulent pthysis), devout worshippers, and shrews who were not in the least tamed; and there came a china-mender with a pile of cracked dishes and bowls on her head, announcing her arrival in advance by blowing into a conch-shell and carrying her bulging belly ahead of her, for she was outrageously pregnant; I was always afraid she would fall down, but her kipper feet gripped the cobbles at each step and the woman hauled herself up from level to level of the long, stepped gradient, moving heavily like some monument that had come to life; however, this woman was not as grotesque as the man who mended cane chairs and sold baskets and articles made of esparto, for he moved along like a carnival float built up out of rush seats, folding stools, benches and tables for the garden, and a tangle of wooden chair-frames, with his feet thrust through the backs or the arm-rests, the man almost invisible beneath his load of raffia tied in bundles, rattan canes, garlands of brushes of all shapes and sizes, pretty baskets hanging off him in festoons, sun- blinds unrolled and flapping in the wind like flags, and, crowning the lot, a wicker cradle, as he advanced with little steps, banging into everybody and being continually jostled, and playing the trumpet to clear the way for his cluttered progress. Every other day a corpse would be taken up to the monastery of San-Martino in the midst of an eddying crowd, or a procession would come down from there with great public display, for it was once again a feast-day, and the
oremus
and the litanies mingled with the cries of the street- hawkers without being able to drown them, just as the flickering candles were outshone by the strong light of the sun, and only the two or three whores in the little painted houses in the alley were sensitive to this false note and this counterpoint; these women sat all day long at their windows, facing me, making eyes at the passers- by, noisily blowing their noses on lace handkerchiefs, flirting with their fans, crossing themselves, letting down their clattering sun- blinds, still squinting out through the accordeon-slats, their eyes eloquent in the half-darkness as they put out a hand to make a soliciting gesture with their fingers, which would have been obscene if it had not been automatic and professional, pulling their mosquito- nets, whose rings I heard clacking on the curtain-rods, disappearing into their bed-recesses; then I would see some fellow darting up the outside staircase, four steps at a time, and often the woman came out to meet him on the first-floor balcony, which hung on one side of the little house, between the courtyard and the garden, and I glimpsed a flowing, half-open neglige, patches of bare flesh, an arm or a leg caught in the tinsel curtain that fell behind them when the couple went into the bedroom, and I heard the sound of kisses, slaps, laughter, sighs, moans and often loud arguments, and then there were cries, blows, shouts for help and, once, a fellow appeared on the threshold, naked to the waist, with a knife in his hand (good heavens, if my mother had known!), leaped into the street below and ran away in his espadrilles, vanishing towards the bottom of the ramp; a
carabiniere
turned up and the crowd parted all around him, but the man in the bicorne hat seemed very perplexed as to what he should do, and whether or not he should go up to the first floor, so he stroked his long moustaches and wound them round his finger, while a canary warbled in its gilded cage, hooked on to the window of the prostitute who was bleeding to death; on other days, I learned songs and refrains that I still sing today! I envied this teeming mass of people in the busy street, their carefree gestures, their gaiety, the way they walked, and their open-air cooking (such good smells of frying, garlic, onion, tomatoes, herbs), and the displays of shellfish garnished with lemons, the ambulant wine- merchants with their bulging goatskins, the
acquaiola,
the coconut- seller, and all the ragamuffins of my own age, left to run wild, dirty, disobedient, quarrelsome gutter-snipes who seemed to me the happiest creatures on earth, always cocking a snook at the passers- by! I would have loved to jump down from the wall and join them.