We are a rather exclusive group of friends. We are men and women
tied by a bond that is serious and profound, yet old and rarely
renewed, a bond that consists in having lived through important
years together, and having lived them without too many weaknesses.
Since then, as often happens, our paths have diverged, some of us
have made compromises, some have wounded each other intentionally
or not, some have forgotten how to speak or lost their antennae.
Nevertheless, we enjoy getting together: we trust each other, we
respect one another, and whatever subject we may be discussing, we
realize with joy that despite everything we still speak the same
language (some call it a jargon), even though our opinions don’t
always coincide.
Our children show a precocious tendency to move away from us, but
they are bound among themselves by a friendship similar to ours,
and this seems to us strange and beautiful, because it happens
spontaneously, without our having meddled. Now they constitute a
group that in many aspects reproduces our group when we were their
age.
We profess to be open, universality, cosmopolitans; we feel like
this in our innermost beings, and we despise intensely all forms
of segregation due to wealth, caste or race.
And yet, in actuality, our group is so close that, even though it
is generally held in esteem by the “others,” over the course of
thirty years it has accepted only a few recruits. For reasons that
I find difficult to explain to myself, and of which in any case I
am not proud, it would seem unnatural to us to welcome someone who
lives north of Corso Regina Margherita or west of Corso Raconigi.
Now all of us who have married have seen our spouses accepted; in
general the endogamous couples, who are not few, seem to be
favored. Every now and then, someone makes an outside friend and
brings him along, but it is rare for this friend to become part of
the groups; most often, he’s invited once, twice, and treated
benevolently, but the next time he’s not there, and the evening is
devoted to studying, discussing, and classifying him.
There was a time when each of us would occasionally invite all the
others to visit.
When the children were born, some of us moved to the country,
others had their parents living in their home and did not want to
disturb them; so at present, there’s only Tina who has people in.
Tina likes to have people in, and so she does it well; she has
good wine and excellent stuff to eat, she’s lively and curious,
she always has new things to tell and she tells them gracefully,
she knows how to put people at their ease, she’s interested in
other people’s affairs and remembers them with precision, she
judges with severity but is fond of almost everyone. She is
suspected of entertaining relations with other groups, but she
(and only she) is willingly forgiven for this infidelity.
The bell rang and Alberto entered, late as usual. When Alberto
enters a house the light seems to grow brighter: everybody feels
in a better mood, and in better health too, because Alberto is one
of those doctors who can heal patients who are friends (and few
people in this world have as many friends as Alberto) he does not
accept payment, and therefore every Christmas he receives an
avalanche of presents.
That evening in fact he had just received a gift, but different
from the customary bottles of previous rare wines and the usual
useless accessories for his car: it was a curious present, one he
couldn’t wait to try out, and he had decided to inaugurate it with
us, because apparently it was a sort of parlor game.
Tina did not say no, but you could easily tell she wasn’t fond of
the idea; perhaps she felt her authority threatened, and feared
that the reins of the evening might slip from her hands.
But it is difficult to resist Alberto’s wishes, which are quite
numerous, unpredictable, amusing and compelling: when Alberto
wants something (and this happens every fifteen minutes), he
manages in an instant to get everyone else to want it, and so he
always moves at the head of a swarm of followers.
He takes them to eat snails at midnight, or to ski on the
Breithorn, or to see a risqué film, or to visit Greece in the
mid-August holidays, or to drink at his house while Miranda is
asleep, or to call on someone who isn’t at all expecting it but
welcomes him with open arms all the same, him and all his friends,
and the other men or women he has picked up on the way.
Alberto said that in the box there was an instrument called a
Psychophant and that confronted by a name like that there could be
no hesitation.
In the blind of an eye, a table was cleared, we all sat down
around it, and Alberto opened the box.
From it he extracted a broad, flat object formed by a rectangular
tray of transparent plastic that rested on a black enameled metal
base; this base projected approximately thirty centimeters beyond
one of those short sides of the tray, and on the projection was a
shallow mold in the shape of a left hand.
There was an electric wire with a plug; we inserted it in the
socket, and while the apparatus was warming up, Alberto read aloud
the instructions. They were very vague and written in abominable
Italian, but in substance they told us that the game, or pastime,
consisted in putting one’s left hand into the mold: on the tray
would then appear what the instructions clumsily defined as the
players’ “inner image.”
Tina laughed “It’s probably like those tiny cellophane fish they
used to sell before the war: you put them on the palm of your
hand, and depending on whether they rolled up or vibrated or fell
to the floor, they could tell your character. Or the same as doing
‘he loves me, he loves me not’ with a daisy.” Miranda said that if
this was the case she would take the veil rather than put her hand
in the mold. Others said other things, there were noisy exchanges.
I said that if you wanted to see cheap miracles, you might as well
go down to the fair on Piazza Vittoria; however, some people
competed for the first try, others designated this or that person
to do it, and this or that person refused with various excuses.
Little by little the victory went to the party who proposed to
send Alberto on reconnaissance. Alberto was delighted: he settled
in front of the apparatus, put his left hand in the mold, and
pressed a button with his right.
There was a sudden silence. At first a small, round, orange spot
like the yolk of an egg formed on the tray. Then it swelled,
stretched upward, and the upper extremity dilated, taking on the
appearance of the cap of a mushroom; spree dover its entire
surface there appeared many small polygonal spots, some emerald
green, some scarlet, some gray.
The mushroom grew rapidly, and when it was about a hand’s breadth
tall it became weakly luminous, as though inside it had a small
flame that pulsed rhythmically: it emitted an agreeable but
pungent odor similar to the scent of cinnamon.
Alberto removed his finger from the button, and at that the
pulsation stopped, and the luminescence slowly dimmed. We were
uncertain as to whether we could touch the object or not, Anna
said it was better not to do so, because it would certainly
dissolve right away—indeed, perhaps it didn’t even exist, was a
purely sensory illusion, like a dream, or a collective
hallucination.
There was nothing in the instructions about what one could or
should do with the images, but Henek wisely observed that it was a
certainly necessary to touch it, if only to clear the tray: it was
absurd to think that the apparatus could be used only once.
Alberto detached the mushroom from the tray, examined it
carefully, and declared himself satisfied; in fact, he said that
he had always felt orangeish, even as a child. We passed it
around: it had a firm and elastic consistency, it was tepid to the
touch. Giuliana said she wanted it; Alberto gladly let her have
it, saying that he had plenty of time to make more of them for
himself. Henek pointed out to him that they might turn out
differential, but Alberto said he didn't care.
Several people insisted that Antonio should try. By now Antonio is
only an honorary member of the group, because he’s been living far
away for many ears, and he was with us that evening only because
of a business trip: we were curious to see what he would cause to
grow on the tray, because Antonio is different from us, more
resolute, more interested in success and gain; these are virtues
that we obstinately deny possessing, as if they were shameful.
For a good minute nothing happened, and some were already
beginning to smirk, and Antonio was beginning to feel
uncomfortable.
Then we saw a small square metal bar push up on the tray: it grew
slowly and steadily, as though coming from below already perfectly
formed.
Soon another four appeared, arranged in the shape of a cross
around the first; four small bridges joined them to it; and then
one after another, more small bars appeared, all of them with the
same cross-pieces, some vertical and others horizontal, and in the
end on the tray there stood a small, graceful, shiny structure
that had a solid and symmetrical appearance. Antonio tapped it
with a pencil, and it rang out like a tuning fork, emitting a long
pure note that slowly faded away.
“I don’t agree,” Giovanna said.
Antonio smiled quietly. “Why?” he asked.
“Because you’re not like that. You’re not all straight corners,
you’re not made of steel, and you have a few cracked weldings.”
Giovanna is Antonio’s wife and she is very fond of him. We thought
that she shouldn’t have expressed all those reservations, but
Giovanna said that no one could know Antonio better than she, who
had lived with him for twenty years. We didn’t really listen to
her because Giovanna is one of those wives are in the habit of
denigrating their husbands in their presence and in public.
The Antonio-object seemed rooted to the tray, but a weak tug
detached it cleanly, and it wasn’t even as heavy as it looked.
Then it was Anna’s turn, who squirmed on her chair with impatience
and kept saying that she always wanted such an apparatus, and that
several times she had even see it in her dreams, but hers created
life-size symbols.
Anna placed her hand on the black slab. We were all watching the
tray, but you couldn’t see a thing on it. Suddenly, Tina said,
“Look, it’s up there!” In fact, at the height of about half a
meter above us we saw a purple-pink cloudlet of vapor, the size of
a fist.
Slowly, it unwound like a ball of yarn, and lengthened downward
emitting many transparent vertical ribbons. It continually changed
shape: it became oval like a rugby ball, although always
preserving its diaphanous and delicate appearance; then it divided
into rings set one on top of the other, from which shot out small
crepitating sparks, and finally it contracted, shrank to the size
of a nut, and disappeared with a sputter.
“Very beautiful, and accurate too,” Giuliana said.
“Yes,” said Giorgio, “but the trouble with this gadget is that one
never knows what to call its creations. They’re always hard to
define.”
Miranda said it was best that way: it would have been unpleasant
to find oneself represented by a soup ladle or a fife or a carrot.
Giorgio added that, come to think of it, it could not have been
otherwise: “These…these things, in short, have no name because
they are individuals, and there is no science, that is, no
classification of the individual. In them just as in us, existence
precedes essence.”
Everyone had liked the Anna-cloud, but not Anna herself, who had
actually been rather disappointed. “I don’t think I’m so
transparent. But perhaps it’s because I’m tired tonight and my
ideas are confused.”
Hugo caused the growth of a sphere of polished black wood, which
upon closer examination turned out to be made up of about twenty
pieces that fit into each other perfectly; Hugo took it apart and
was unable to put it together again. He wrapped it up in a small
parcel and said he would try again the next day, which was a
Sunday.
Claudio is shy, and he agreed to the test only after much
insistence.
At first—and nothing could yet be seen on the tray—there hung in
the air a familiar but unexpected smell: we had trouble defining
it there and then, but it was unquestionably a kitchen smell.
Immediately covered by a liquid that bubbled and smoked; from the
liquid emerged a flat beige polygon which beyond all reasonable
doubt was a large Milanese cutlet with a side dish of fried
potatoes.
There were surprised comments because Claudio is neither a gourmet
nor a voracious man; on the contrary, about him and his family we
always say that they lack a digestive system.
Claudio blushed, and looked this way and that, embarrassed.
“You’ve turned real red!” Miranda exclaimed, so that Claudio
turned almost purple; then, addressing us, she added, “what are
you talking about, symbols! It’s very clear that this thing here
has absolutely no manners, and intended to insult Claudio: to say
that somebody is a cutlet is an insult. these things are to be
taken literally! I knew that sooner or later it would show its
hand. Alberto, if I were you I would return it to the person who
gave it to you.”
In the meantime, Claudio had managed to recover enough breath to
speak, and he said that he had turned red not because he felt
insulted, but for another reason, so interesting that he almost
felt like telling us about it, even though it was a secret he had
never confessed to anyone before, not even to Simonetta.
He said that he had, not a vice really, or a perversion, but,
let’s say, a singularity. He said that ever since he was a young
boy, women, all of them, have always felt distant to him: he does
not feel their closeness and attraction, he does not perceive them
as creatures of flesh and blood, unless he has seen them at least
once in the act of eating. When this happens, he feels intense
tenderness for them, and almost always falls in love with them.
It was clear that the Psychophant had meant to allude to this: in
his opinion it was an extraordinary instrument.
“Did you fall in love with me that way too?” Adele asked,
seriously.
“Yes,” Claudio answered. “It happened the evening that we had
dinner at Pavorolo. We had fondue with truffles.”
Adele too was a surprise. As soon as she placed her finger on the
button, we heard a sharp “pop,” as when a cork pops out of a
bottle, and on the tray there appeared a tawny, shapeless, square,
vaguely conical mass made of a rough, friable material, dry to the
touch.
It was as large as the entire tray; actually it even protruded a
bit. In it were set three white-and-gray spheres: we immediately
realized that they were three eyes, but no one dared to say so, or
comment in any way because Adele has had an irregular, painful and
difficult existence.
Adele was dismayed. “That’s me?” she asked, and we noticed that
her eyes (I mean the real ones) had filled with tears. Henek tried
to come to her help.
“It’s impossible for an apparatus to tell you who you are, because
you aren’t any one thing. You and everyone, change from year to
year, from hour to hour. Anyways: who are you—what you think you
are, the one you’d like to be? Or the one others thing you are—and
which others? Everyone sees you differently, everyone gives his
personal version of you.”
Miranda said, “I don’t like this gismo, because it’s a kibitzer.
As for me, what counts is what one does, not what one is. One is
one’s actions, past and present: nothing else.”
I, however, like the device. It didn’t matter to me whether it
told the truth or it lied, but it created from nothing, invented:
found, like a poet.
I placed my hand on the plate and water without distrust. On the
tray appeared a small shiny grain, which grew to form a cylinder
the size of a thimble, it continued to grow, and soon it reached
the dimensions of a tin can, and then it became clear that it was
in fact a can and more precisely a can of varnish, lithographed on
the outside with lively paint colors; nevertheless it did seem to
contain paint because when shaken it rattled.
Everyone urged me to open it, and inside there were several things
that I lined up in front of me on the table: a needle, a seashell,
a malachite ring, various used tickets from streetcars, trains,
streamers and airplanes, a compass, a dead cricket, and a live
one, and a small ember, which however, died out almost
immediately.