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Authors: Antonio Tabucchi
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âCome on, come and look at the sea, donât play the crotchety old fogy, this is the best day of your life.â
The man got up a little unwillingly, letting himself be pulled. The girl put her arm round his waist, pushing him on. âItâs you who looks pregnant,â she said. âAbout six months, if you ask me.â She let out a ringing laugh and hopped like a little bird. They leaned on the wooden parapet. There were some agave plants in the small unkept piece of ground in front of the terrace and lots of wildflowers. The man took a cigarette from his pocket and slipped it between his lips. âOh God,â she said, ânot that unbearable stink again, itâll be the first thing Iâll cut out of our life.â
âYou just try,â he said with a sly look.
She held him tight against her, stroking his cheek with her head. âThis restaurant is delightful.â
The man patted his stomach. His expression was one of satisfaction and self-assurance. âYou have to know how to take life,â he answered.
The Archives of Macao
âListen, my good man, your father has cancer of the pharynx, I canât leave the conference to operate on him tomorrow, Iâve invited half of Italy, do you understand? And then, with what heâs got, a week isnât going to make much difference.â
âActually our doctor says the operation should be done immediately, because itâs a type of cancer that spreads extremely quickly.â
âOh really, immediately indeed? And what am I supposed to say to the people coming to the conference, that I have to operate tomorrow and the conference is being postponed? Listen, your father will do what everybody else does, wait until the conference is finished.â
âYou listen to me, Professor Piragine, I donât give a damn about your conference, I want my father to be operated on immediately, and any others too, if theyâre urgent.â
âI have no intention of discussing the schedule of my operating theatre with you. This is the University of Pisa and I am not just a doctor, I have well-defined teaching duties as well. Iâm not going to put up with you telling me what I have to do. I canât operate on your father until next week; if thatâs not good enough, have the patient discharged and find another hospital. It goes without saying that the responsibility will be yours. Goodbye.â
The voice of the hostess invited the passengers to buckle their safety belts and extinguish their cigarettes, the stopover would last about forty minutes for refuelling and cleaning. And as through the window one began to see the lights of Bombay and a little later the blue lights of the runway, just then â it must have been due to the slight bump as the plane touched down, sometimes these things do spark off associations of ideas â I found myselfon your scooter. You were driving with your arms out wide, because in those days the scooters used to have wide handlebars, and I was watching your scarf blowing in the wind. The fringe was tickling me and I wanted to scratch my nose but I was afraid of falling. It was 1956, Iâm sure of that, because you bought the scooter as a celebration the same day I turned thirteen. I tapped two fingers on your shoulder, to ask you to slow down, and you turned, smiling, and as you turned the scarf slipped from your neck, very slowly, as if every movement of objects in space had been put into slow motion, and I saw that beneath your scarf you had a horrible wound slicing across your throat from one side to the other, so wide and open I could see the muscle tissue, the blood vessels, the carotid artery, the pharynx, but you didnât know you had the wound and you smiled unaware, and in fact you didnât have it, it was me seeing it there, itâs strange how one sometimes finds oneself superimposing one memory over another, that was what I was doing. I was
âCome on, come and look at the sea, donât play the crotchety old fogy, this is the best day of your life.â
The man got up a little unwillingly, letting himself be pulled. The girl put her arm round his waist, pushing him on. âItâs you who looks pregnant,â she said. âAbout six months, if you ask me.â She let out a ringing laugh and hopped like a little bird. They leaned on the wooden parapet. There were some agave plants in the small unkept piece of ground in front of the terrace and lots of wildflowers. The man took a cigarette from his pocket and slipped it between his lips. âOh God,â she said, ânot that unbearable stink again, itâll be the first thing Iâll cut out of our life.â
âYou just try,â he said with a sly look.
She held him tight against her, stroking his cheek with her head. âThis restaurant is delightful.â
The man patted his stomach. His expression was one of satisfaction and self-assurance. âYou have to know how to take life,â he answered.
The Archives of Macao
âListen, my good man, your father has cancer of the pharynx, I canât leave the conference to operate on him tomorrow, Iâve invited half of Italy, do you understand? And then, with what heâs got, a week isnât going to make much difference.â
âActually our doctor says the operation should be done immediately, because itâs a type of cancer that spreads extremely quickly.â
âOh really, immediately indeed? And what am I supposed to say to the people coming to the conference, that I have to operate tomorrow and the conference is being postponed? Listen, your father will do what everybody else does, wait until the conference is finished.â
âYou listen to me, Professor Piragine, I donât give a damn about your conference, I want my father to be operated on immediately, and any others too, if theyâre urgent.â
âI have no intention of discussing the schedule of my operating theatre with you. This is the University of Pisa and I am not just a doctor, I have well-defined teaching duties as well. Iâm not going to put up with you telling me what I have to do. I canât operate on your father until next week; if thatâs not good enough, have the patient discharged and find another hospital. It goes without saying that the responsibility will be yours. Goodbye.â
The voice of the hostess invited the passengers to buckle their safety belts and extinguish their cigarettes, the stopover would last about forty minutes for refuelling and cleaning. And as through the window one began to see the lights of Bombay and a little later the blue lights of the runway, just then â it must have been due to the slight bump as the plane touched down, sometimes these things do spark off associations of ideas â I found myselfon your scooter. You were driving with your arms out wide, because in those days the scooters used to have wide handlebars, and I was watching your scarf blowing in the wind. The fringe was tickling me and I wanted to scratch my nose but I was afraid of falling. It was 1956, Iâm sure of that, because you bought the scooter as a celebration the same day I turned thirteen. I tapped two fingers on your shoulder, to ask you to slow down, and you turned, smiling, and as you turned the scarf slipped from your neck, very slowly, as if every movement of objects in space had been put into slow motion, and I saw that beneath your scarf you had a horrible wound slicing across your throat from one side to the other, so wide and open I could see the muscle tissue, the blood vessels, the carotid artery, the pharynx, but you didnât know you had the wound and you smiled unaware, and in fact you didnât have it, it was me seeing it there, itâs strange how one sometimes finds oneself superimposing one memory over another, that was what I was doing. I was
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