mysterious adventurer who disdained money and had galvanized the village, was my father’s father.... I felt a thrill of pride, as if I had discovered some sort of prestigious nobility. Or rather, something even better. Maddalena talked about aristocrats with childish admiration, but I scorned them. I placed the Dane much higher, saw him surrounded by a far greater fascination than mere nobility....
Although my father said almost nothing about his past, it became known in the village that the Dane had departed again almost as soon as he returned to Denmark. He had gone to sea once more and never come back. Elvira, my grandmother, had been a servant and a peasant to make ends meet, until she died in the shipwreck of a ferryboat crossing the Kattegat, and her son had returned to take possession of her house.
Maddalena must have known all these things. She had lived with my father for two years; how could she not know? And yet she stubbornly refused to tell me anything; when I questioned her she unleashed a barrage of angry words at me and went off, slamming the door behind her. “But of course all that stuff they told you is true,” she once admitted. “What the devil else do you want to know? It’s an obsession with you. You’re unhinged just like all the rest of your family!” she went on, red-faced and probably even angrier because she knew I had every right to know. I gave up on her, but the Dane returned ever more frequently to my thoughts. Perhaps he was still alive somewhere, and it wouldn’t therefore be impossible to find him. I imagined it would be a difficult undertaking but not out of the question, since I was always accompanied by the idea that destiny paid particular attention to events concerning me. I felt that the Dane’s shadow had reached me, spread over me, and held a mortgage on my fate. Maybe he had returned to Denmark after Elvira’s death....
In no way did I apply any moral judgment to his conduct. If he had abandoned my grandmother, I was sure there had been a good reason, and besides it could be that he had found it impossible to come back. I was proud that he had been rich and generous, and that right here in the village and in the house where I was born he had given splendid parties, probably the greatest ones this place had ever seen. To me it seemed their echoes could still be heard among the trees in the piazza and in the rooms of the house. The Dane really had been the way I always thought he was. And yet at the same time even for me he continued to be as cryptic as he had been forty years ago for the peasants of Ontàns.
I was all excited about my continuous discoveries. One day I decided to write a story about the Dane, but while I thought about it I lost all desire to talk about him and began instead to recount a dream I had had about my mother.
I had dreamed of an intensely green sea, with waves topped by spray but slow and silent, which seemed suited only to gently rock a ship, certainly not to endanger it. I was watching from a rocky reef as shiny and white as stream pebbles. Toward the west I saw a dark object no bigger than a cricket moving forward slowly, wavering back and forth.
I thought it was a rowboat far, far away but coming toward me, heading right for me. Only after a long time did I see that it was smaller than a ship but much larger than a rowboat. It had big portholes above, a keel painted violet, and it moved ahead slowly, sliding over the waves as though driven by the wind. It had no sails and therefore must have had a motor whose sound was totally absorbed by the sea. I saw the helm astern but no one was steering. No face appeared at any porthole. At first I thought the boat was empty, but then I realized this wasn’t possible because from inside came a muted song hardly audible because of the distance.
“O che bel castello, marco ‘ndiro ‘ndiro ‘ndello,
o che bel castello, marco ‘ndiro ‘ndiro ‘nda....”
The voice was my mother’s
Although my father said almost nothing about his past, it became known in the village that the Dane had departed again almost as soon as he returned to Denmark. He had gone to sea once more and never come back. Elvira, my grandmother, had been a servant and a peasant to make ends meet, until she died in the shipwreck of a ferryboat crossing the Kattegat, and her son had returned to take possession of her house.
Maddalena must have known all these things. She had lived with my father for two years; how could she not know? And yet she stubbornly refused to tell me anything; when I questioned her she unleashed a barrage of angry words at me and went off, slamming the door behind her. “But of course all that stuff they told you is true,” she once admitted. “What the devil else do you want to know? It’s an obsession with you. You’re unhinged just like all the rest of your family!” she went on, red-faced and probably even angrier because she knew I had every right to know. I gave up on her, but the Dane returned ever more frequently to my thoughts. Perhaps he was still alive somewhere, and it wouldn’t therefore be impossible to find him. I imagined it would be a difficult undertaking but not out of the question, since I was always accompanied by the idea that destiny paid particular attention to events concerning me. I felt that the Dane’s shadow had reached me, spread over me, and held a mortgage on my fate. Maybe he had returned to Denmark after Elvira’s death....
In no way did I apply any moral judgment to his conduct. If he had abandoned my grandmother, I was sure there had been a good reason, and besides it could be that he had found it impossible to come back. I was proud that he had been rich and generous, and that right here in the village and in the house where I was born he had given splendid parties, probably the greatest ones this place had ever seen. To me it seemed their echoes could still be heard among the trees in the piazza and in the rooms of the house. The Dane really had been the way I always thought he was. And yet at the same time even for me he continued to be as cryptic as he had been forty years ago for the peasants of Ontàns.
I was all excited about my continuous discoveries. One day I decided to write a story about the Dane, but while I thought about it I lost all desire to talk about him and began instead to recount a dream I had had about my mother.
I had dreamed of an intensely green sea, with waves topped by spray but slow and silent, which seemed suited only to gently rock a ship, certainly not to endanger it. I was watching from a rocky reef as shiny and white as stream pebbles. Toward the west I saw a dark object no bigger than a cricket moving forward slowly, wavering back and forth.
I thought it was a rowboat far, far away but coming toward me, heading right for me. Only after a long time did I see that it was smaller than a ship but much larger than a rowboat. It had big portholes above, a keel painted violet, and it moved ahead slowly, sliding over the waves as though driven by the wind. It had no sails and therefore must have had a motor whose sound was totally absorbed by the sea. I saw the helm astern but no one was steering. No face appeared at any porthole. At first I thought the boat was empty, but then I realized this wasn’t possible because from inside came a muted song hardly audible because of the distance.
“O che bel castello, marco ‘ndiro ‘ndiro ‘ndello,
o che bel castello, marco ‘ndiro ‘ndiro ‘nda....”
The voice was my mother’s
Similar Books
