THE SYNDROME OF THE SWALLOW
by GIORGIO LANZANI

LET’S START FROM THE END
What a burden, what a terrible burden it is for me to write about myself, about what has happened over the last years, the last months, the last days. I just cannot overcome the feeling of disgust, the nausea that I experience from having contact with the world, a world full of sordid people who live to kill you, who fill their emptiness with hate, their being with nothingness. People who when they find a being, that is a person who is someone because they have something to say on this earth, try to eliminate it or at least to move it out of the way, to continue carrying out their function of producer of nothing, so that the presence of this dangerous rival does not upset their diaphanous existence. This repulsion creates in me an obstacle that prevents me from writing - maybe I’m frightened that someone can still harm me if I, even if only with words, recall to memory stories that are now buried beneath a layer of shame.
Where do you start from? And can anyone really be interested in my improbable story? Should I tell it all, or leave out details that could place me in danger? Yet there is a beginning, at least I think there is... But let’s start from the end.

RESIDENZA ADRIATICA JESOLO LIDO
An ex hotel converted into a block of mini-apartments, by the seaside; this is where I live now, until my lease expires in April. Then? Then I might go to Rome, or perhaps I’ll head for the pretty hills around Treviso in the north-west. How did I end up here, in a residence, in winter, at the seaside? What I’m doing here exactly is difficult to explain in a few words. Because this situation is the result of a sequence of crazy mishaps and strokes of luck that have determined it, and so here I am and here I’ve started to write my story, the story of my life. Presumptuous? Perhaps. Actually I like writing, I’ve written four collections of poetry that I love. And I’m also getting over the disillusionment of my latest love. Just like the others. That’s right. Only that you start to get hard skin after the first bitter, hard setbacks, the sleepless nights and all the rest. You get used to it and you sleep it off. In fact I have to admit that lately I’m almost relieved when the other half doesn’t fall in love, so that there’s no falling out of it later and the suffering is associated with a fantastic world of happiness that has not been experienced and cannot be contradicted by cold facts. At these times I choose solitude from the world as a refuge against the pain that it causes; then I emerge from my isolation only when, following a process of inner purification and detachment from the sore point, my identity as the harmonious student of being allows me to relate to others with joy and happiness. The last time I saw them, I remember that we talked about the positive side of my life’s negative turns. Ex malo bonum. From pain to joy. The paths of providence. The cross-roads that lead to glory. You’re strong, Marta wrote to me. Sure, I’m strong... Marina said that I’m a rock. So here I am again, dejected, without even the strength to pick up the guitar and to strum a few rutilant notes or to turn on a monitor and quickly move my fingers over a keyboard that’s dead, that doesn’t know what to say, that smells burnt out. I lay in the mortuary of love, between cemeteries and the barbed wire of sadness, immersed in a fog of desolation.

FREDDEZZA
I think back over the past, the recent past, of my town from which I was chased away like a dog, town where I had only arrived a year beforehand, forced to leave from another town similar to that one. A town called Freddezza, near Piacenza, on the hills that take you from Mezzano Scotti to Bobbio. I arrived in July 1997, on the run from Termine Grosso, another town in the Val Trebbia that overlooks Travo and its valley of peerless beauty. I had taken a look in an estate agent’s windows in Bobbio, windows that face the square hosting the St. Colombano monastery, and I had noted the inviting prices, so I entered and collecting my courage, I explained my problem to the agent: that of finding an inexpensive house as soon as possible to escape from Travo, where relations with my neighbour had deteriorated alarmingly. He immediately answered, "Signor Lanzani, I might just have what you need! It’s an old country property, an unusual T-shaped house that has been sitting on the market and that the owner, an old man from Bobbio, is I think probably willing to sell for as little as 10 million lira." I thought that it was an opportunity to be grasped. Where else could I find a house for such a low price? In addition my resources had been almost completely dried up in the purchase and renovation of my previous home. I went to see the house two days later; it was sunny. The old owner was there waiting; as soon as he saw me, he reached down and grasped his family jewels, a propitiatory gesture of clear significance. The front door was closed by a piece of wire, the interior had to be completely redone, the roof had rotted, but it had a fireplace and there was sufficient room for me, a bed and my keyboard, and so we came to the 12^th July, the day of negotiations. The house was mine for little more than ten million, and the old man was satisfied. I couldn’t wait to leave Termine Grosso, I loaded the car and I was away. I arrived one rainy morning, and when I tried to get out of the car I realised that my car was skidding as it went up the steep, unmade road leading to the house. It was a municipal road, narrow and neglected for years, to the point that people used the private road passing by the hay shed of the farmer opposite. Since I couldn’t get out by that way either, I started breaking up some rubble, spreading the pieces over the mud to make some traction. First the farmer’s wife came, looking on without saying anything - then she went away after arguing with the owners of the property next to mine about the use of the road. After some time the farmer arrived gesticulating on his tractor, ordering me "Get that junk off my road now!". "I certainly will not!", I retorted, and thus commenced my adventure in Freddezza, in the house where I took refuge to escape the persecution of an obnoxious neighbour. I immediately set about the first works necessary to make the house, which had been closed since 1964, a bit less uncomfortable, by removing the pieces of rotted plaster and the cobwebs from the ceiling. This little town has a fountain where the women still go to do their washing, even though they all own washing machines and the other gadgets offered by modern society. For me it was the only water tap available, because there weren’t any at home, so I used it to fill some tanks for cooking and washing. It was during these moments that I happened to become acquainted and make friends with various people from the town. Throughout the summer I continued to knock down walls and fix the roof, to make the place liveable and also to begin playing music. This did not meet with the approval of the farmer opposite; it became increasingly clear that he was not pleased that someone had moved into the house, and that he was just waiting for the moment to take action. The second day I found that the front entrance door (as it were) had been kicked in... The farmer’s wife kept on passing back and forth in front of my house with the pretext of hanging out the clothes in the barn; each time she would wear a different coloured hat of various styles, which she probably thought granted her a certain elegance. Meanwhile winter was at the door and the cats were really getting hungry.

CAT TALES
The cats here don’t belong to anyone in particular, but everyone, to varying extents, contributes to their upkeep. Last summer four kittens were born, the litter of a white cat and a big white and grey tom, as tame as they come. Three of them disappeared, drowned by someone or maybe starved to death, unable to find the scraps necessary in this struggle for survival. One was still alive, and one evening I found it desperately miaowing outside my door. I let it in, an unusual thing for that place, and I gave it some milk and biscuits, leaving the door ajar to let it come back, if it wanted. Some time later I went back to the door: it was outside, hardly a centimetre behind the threshold, purring. One night I heard some noises, and I discovered that it had wet itself while lying on one of my T-shirts. The morning after I found it asleep snugly inside a cashmere sweater: I picked it up and threw it out the door, annoyed. After a bit I regretted what I’d done and had a look out the door. It was sadly sitting about 20 metres away. I stepped towards it, but it ran away, then showed me its contempt by sitting with its back to me. After some time we made peace, mainly because it was hungry, and a hungry cat is ready to forgive just about anything for a plate of leftovers. So in the evening I went to look for it, and I found it on the neighbour’s doormat having a snooze. I picked it up, took it home and put it inside my sweater, but it jumped out and ran through the door. I followed it and it led me, stopping occasionally to look back, to a barn, where it crept up a wooden ladder leading to the first floor, where it went to sleep between the bales of hay. The same thing happened the night after, and I have to admit that I felt great tenderness: it waited for me to take it to sleep, just like a child. Maybe its parents had abandoned it, and so it adopted me as its father cat. I could go on for ages talking about the cats from Freddezza and their stories, but I realise that this is important only for me, so I’ll leave the cats alone and return to my house and my neighbours. Winter was coming and my roof still had to be finished. I’d remove the beole from the roof: they were rotten though, and nobody round here is able to fix a roof made with stones. But it had to be recovered before the snow fell! It was then that I decided to cover it with some corrugated sheets, fixing them with pantiles and stones until the job could be finished properly. I didn’t know how strong the wind in Freddezza could actually get, and one night when it started to rain and the wind whistled so loudly that I was forced to climb up onto the roof in the beating rain to consolidate my handywork. Unfortunately that wasn’t sufficient; in fact the morning after, some of my corrugated sheets were happily sitting on my neighbours’ roofs. Another point against me...
In particular from Carmela, a ninety-two year old widow who lived directly opposite, who had been frightened out of her wits to see my roof fly away, and looked daggers at me! Carmela was fond of me, maybe too fond, and she would cover herself with talcum powder before coming out to talk to me. On the other hand she would tell me some remarkable stories of times gone by, when to go to a dance or a party held on the small farms in the district, they would leave on foot the day beforehand, spend the night along the way at their friends’ house, then arrive the afternoon of the day after, ready for the dance and festivities organised for the evening… Or about the time she went to send two caciotta to her husband fighting on the Russian front. She walked, one caciotta on her chest and the other on her shoulders, to the Bobbio post office. There she came across an inflexible post office clerk who refused paper money, accepting only silver coins, and so a rich gentlemen who happened to be there lent her the money so that she could send the cheese. I’ll no longer hear Carmela’s stories: unfortunately she was related to the farmer who was jealous of our relationship of exchange and of friendship that bound us: chicory and parsley from her garden in exchange for chestnuts and kiwi fruit that I obtained from the green grocer or from my great friend De Giorgi from Pieve Porto Morone. I’ll talk about him, Pieve and my flight from there further on. Having finished the roof as best I could and given that it was pretty cold outside, I suspended work and started playing. My piano was still in Travo in the stone hut where I had lived the two previous years and was now unusable due to the damp that had penetrated the wood. I did have however a keyboard that I could get by with, and was certainly better for composing, because it had all the sounds of the orchestra. Having made up for the point lost because of the roof disaster thanks to the charm of my music, I decided to introduce myself to Don Francesco, parish priest of Mezzano Scotti, the municipality of which Freddezza is part. I waited for him at the end of the evening mass and explained my situation. So on the Sunday I started working with the children’s choir, and everything seemed to be on the improve. Christmas arrived and the kids learned my Ave Maria. This was particularly successful during the midnight mass, the singing warming the hearts of the faithful. Some time before I had asked Don Francesco whether a charity concert could be organised somewhere in the parish. He had told me that, given that it was winter, nobody would come to listen, and that events like this were best organised during summer. So I was happy to wait. You can image my surprise then when I discovered that a concert had been organised for mid-January in the church for those fluty strummers that hang out at the local markets and sing songs that are almost all the same in do and la minor, with little guitars made from the shells of wretched little animals. Not only did I not take part in the concert, I also stopped frequenting the church. It is true that Don Francesco had suggested that I play two or three songs during the Bingo evenings at Christmas, but I hardly thought that that would make up for it, quite the opposite! In Venice they say "Peso el tacon del buso!". So the coldness of earlier times returned to the town fountain: in one foul swoop I had lost all the credit that I had earned, and even worse I had put myself against the Church! In the meantime I continued to play all day long and to arrange my Stabat Mater for voice and stringed orchestra. I also returned to my Ave Maria and completely rearranged it, making a Latin version; I did the same with the Pater Noster that had a few problems in the bass notes.
So winter went by, a cold, snow-filled winter with the heater on full, warming my bedroom which also doubled as the living room, while in the bathroom, that is what would one day become my bathroom, there was my keyboard; there I was kept warm by one of those little electric heaters with a fan. The cats were starving, there were about ten of them. Carmela and "il Maestro" had gone back to Piacenza, so at noon I’d make pots of pasta to feed me and them. In the meantime the farmer’s son, a traffic policeman, came to propose that I settle the dispute by paying two million lire to buy the passage rights over his land. I said that it suited me, and told him to prepare a written agreement. But his old man disagreed, in fact the acts of provocation and intimidation increased; when I came back from a brief stay with my mother in Milan I found that someone had tipped over my hortensia, and dried out due to the lack of water. And wherever I parked my car, there was always a problem, and the day after I’d find carts or tractors to prevent me from using the space that I’d occupied the day before. Once I had a visit from Sir Antony, a dear friend of mine, a pleasant former Irish diplomat who lives in a type of intellectual cloister in a hotel in Costa Filietto, not far above my town. He studies there in a small room that has been covered by a twin row of philosophy books, and aspires to writing an essay that restores the unity to knowledge, today broken down in different doctrines. Well, once he left, the farmer came over and parked his tractor opposite my entrance, then started up the engine.
That racket continued for hours. It was a clear act of derision, though it’s meaning is still unclear. I recalled reading during my childhood about Donald Duck who played the trombone, arguing with his neighbour, and I thought I’d let my neighbour hear some of the same music, but real music. I turned my stereo on to full volume, and after a series of lied and operas, I went on to the Rolling Stones! The farmer came in a huff and drove the tractor away, perfectly timed as his departure was greeted by the enthusiastic applause of the concert audience. In any case Easter came around and I had almost completed my sacred music. I was preparing to compose some music for a string quartet as well as to get out my tools to finish the jobs I had to do around the house. What a wretched idea! One evening, while I was kneeling to saw some planks, a rotten board broke and I fell on my hand. One of the fingers on my right hand had been twisted sideways. I kept my cool; I grabbed the finger with my other hand and put it back into its socket. My finger swelled up like a balloon, but then eventually returned to normal. I’ve never picked up a tool since, because I hadn’t left school to become an invalid, and besides, a composer’s fingers are too precious an asset to risk.
One Saturday morning, the day before Easter Sunday, Don Francesco came to visit. He didn’t have any musicians, so he wanted me to play for the choir kids the day after. I tried to explain that things could just not be organised like that at the last minute. He replied that I was presumptuous, that I was either a genius or an idiot, as well as a lot of other things that I’ll spare the reader. I let him hear some of my music that I played on the keyboard; I almost had to force him, in any case I accepted to play that evening and Easter Sunday morning, on the condition that I would only play my keyboard. When the priest entered for the Easter ceremony, I was to play some joyful music, because it reflected the Resurrection. I had prepared an appropriate piece, but when he entered at the ring of the bell, I forgot my plans and improvised a regal type of music, forceful yet unbelievably beautiful, in fact during the sermon Don Francesco spoke of music and magic. The following day, for the feast of the Angelus, I arrived early to accompany that ceremony as well. Don Francesco switched on the amplifier and put in a CD, the only one he had and that he had used for years whenever he needed to fill in for me. That was the last time I saw Don Francesco.
In the meantime, as the summer approached, the farmer’s intolerance towards me continued to grow; while at first he limited his contempt to giving me dirty looks from afar, he started to follow me along the streets of the town or to come out of his house whenever I passed in front of his house to get to my car. Until one day he actually knocked a corner of my house with his tractor; when I came down the hill to go to the fountain, I found him there, standing rigidly on a cart from which he was unloading cases of firewood. He stared at me straight in the eye, and I returned the compliment. He yelled at me angrily "So what are you looking at?", then threw a case onto the trailer right next to where I was standing. I kept calm, asking what he wanted from me. I realised that the situation had degenerated, that it was time to look for a solution, and the only one that I liked was to leave. There are probably some readers who think that to abandon a fight, to avoid confrontation especially when you’re in the right is a sign of weakness. But they’re wrong. I have often found myself facing negative situations during my life, and I realised when I looked back that the negative aspect was only an impression, and in fact it is negative to our eyes only. In short, if someone doesn’t like me and wants me to leave, I go away, to his or her benefit and to mine, because that is the element that fate has placed in my life to make sure I go where I’m meant. If I fight destiny, I’ll lose because destiny is stronger than any of us. Of course I can rebel as much as I like, but the will of destiny will always win out. And then someone else will perhaps carry on the life project that I refuse to follow. This is my interpretation of the concept of loving your fellow man. Love your enemy, love your fellow man as yourself; how is that possible if my fellow man only gives hate and violence? From this point of view, it’s not just a matter of loving someone because they are hurtful or in particular, they are hurtful to me or to someone who is dear, but because in their action there is something good that I am unable to recognise or judge at this time, but only at a later moment. The day after I returned from Milan in the late afternoon after a difficult day due to serious family problems that upset me, and I found the farmer’s son waiting for me at the pass. I had taken to parking my car next to their house, on their property, which drove them crazy with anger. He threateningly told me to shift my car. I moved it forward, even closer to their house, so he ordered me to move it again. "Why don’t you just go away from here, you know that nobody can stand your arrogance?". That’s right, I’m arrogant when I can’t even park my car on the road, not him who makes me move it wherever I leave it, and he even demands that I leave the house and the town! That’s exactly what I’ll do: I’ll go away. Doesn’t matter where; anywhere, but far away from these sods. "If I want to become a saint I’ll decide that on my own, but there’s no need for you to martyr me!", I shouted with all my strength... But then no, he’s right: and it’s thanks to him that I reached my new destination. Residenza Adriatica, Jesolo Lido.

SMALL FARM TERMINE GROSSO
I don’t really know why I decided to tell you my story backwards, just like a lobster. Maybe because that makes the realisation of its monstrous nature even more immediate. I mentioned an arrogant bully who make me leave to find refuge in Freddezza at the beginning of the previous chapter. Well what you should know is that the house that I found in Travo, Termine Grosso had also served as a refuge from a neighbour in Pieve Porto Morone, small town on the banks of the Po river, on the border between the Lombardy and Emilia Romagna regions. In that instance, after having put the house up for sale and then finding a buyer, I ended up in a hotel in Caorso while I waited to find another house. One morning I went to visit my friend Gandini at the cultural centre in Castel San Giovanni, where while we were chatting about this and that, I happened to notice a page in a newspaper that advertised real estate. I told Giuseppe that all I needed was a two-storey country house with a small front lawn, but not more than thirty million lire. I picked up the newspaper and found an ad that suited me completely: for sale, two-storey country home surrounded by one hundred metres of lawn, near Travo. I was first of all intrigued by the name of the town. I thought of a town lying at the feet of an enormous beam. Then secondly, the ad seemed made just for me. In any case, I immediately rang the estate agent and set a meeting for the following day. Some might ask why I always look for inexpensive places outside town. Well, I left my job as a teacher in order to dedicate my time to studying musical composition, so left with a minimum pension, I could hardly afford much, and furthermore I didn’t want to bother the neighbours with my piano. Early the next day I met the estate agent, who took me from Ponte dell'Olio in the Val Nure (south of Piacenza) towards Bettola, then to the mountain that descends to Perino in the Val Trebbia, then finally to Travo. I saw three or four country houses before the one in the newspaper. I immediately realised when I saw it that it was for me. A quaint little stone hut to be renovated, that I fell in love with and saw as beautiful, as if it had already been finished. Unfortunately I was never to see it that way; someone would prevent me, though I didn’t know it then. I made my own offer, then returned to the hotel until the owner gave his answer to my offer, which he soon after accepted. I had a new house! I asked if I could have the keys straight away so that I could enter and start working on it; soon after I entered the house, and there I spent the night as soon as I could. I was awoken that following morning by the owner complaining with a neighbour that I had already moved in. It was Sunday, a Sunday in May, and soon after an apparently endless procession of happy families with numerous offspring, all bouncing with health, began. I thought that there might be a restaurant in the area, then I discovered that it was the birthday of my neighbour’s granddaughter. My life in the new house began with the renovation works: I had to remove the rotting plaster work and all the rest. During the evenings, I enjoyed the cool air by taking long strolls through the woods, and when it was dark, I walked along the dirt road while a myriad of fireflies flew around me. At times when I turned out the lights and waited to fall asleep, I would see a tiny light fly over my bed, right up to the beams that held up the heavy stone roof. Once I even found one in my bed! Please don’t think badly of me… The abundant multi-coloured flowers that grew spontaneously in the fields and along the road reflected my love, and so my solitude was diluted in a feeling of union with nature and the animals of the woods. There’s a lot more loneliness when you have a wife and children in the city than as hermits at the top of a hill in the midst of nature! I realise that some might turn up their noses, but first try waking up in the morning, to see through the window the long tail of a fox slink over the silvery snow in the sunshine…

PIANO STORIES
My new piano had been waiting for months for me to have it picked up in Pavia from Mr Rizzi. One day he called me when I still lived in Pieve Porto Morone to tell me that he had found a bargain for me, an American upright piano. I had answered that I was broke and that I couldn’t commit to any more expenses.
One evening after seven o’clock I heard a knock at the door. It was him. You don’t know what you’re missing. But I can’t I repeated. It doesn’t cost anything just to come and have a look. I followed him all the way to his warehouse in Pavia. There were dozens of pianos, all types. He had me try out the American. The sound was strong and clear, but I wasn’t sure about the mechanics. You see, I said, I’m broke, but that doesn’t mean I accept just anything. He promised that he’d have it tuned, then he stayed until almost nine to have me play the best pianos, including a grand baby Steinway & Sons, whose low notes seemed like cellos and high notes that sounded like tiny bells. I bought it (the American upright) and ended paying it off two or three years later, in the meantime, since I wanted to go leave the house, I left it in Rizzi’s Pavia warehouse. Occasionally I got permission to visit and play it, the salesgirl gave me the keys and I could let some of the pressure off. Now I could have it delivered and I was overwhelmed with joy at the idea of being able to play on a decent instrument. The piano that I previously owned and that Mr Rizzi had reluctantly sold me had cost half a million lire, including transport and tuning! I remember going to his Pavia showroom where he had shown me a few bargains, but they all cost at least three million. I had money problems at the time, so I asked him for something more economical. He told me to have a look at the pianos to be junked to see if there was one that I could use. I found one that looked like it could be recovered. I wasn’t wrong: it had once been the piano at the Verdi theatre in Pavia and was played to accompany the operettas, but now it was run down. Rizzi delivered it to my house on an Ape van, and that was a great moment for me. Now in the main room of my home in Pieve di Soligo stands a baby grand Steinway & Sons in all its glory, its magnificent sound, of a heavenly beauty. But that doesn’t let me forget the joy I experienced that time, and all the music that I’ve created on that piano, above all the Ave Maria and the Veni creator spiritus. I remember as if it were yesterday the evening they arrived with the tractor to take it away, and we loaded it onto a cart to take it to the square in Pieve, where I was to play for a home for former drug addicts. Before I went on, there was a band that played opera pieces in a surrealistic atmosphere, like in a Fellini film. I recall video taping the concert, and when I watched it over again tears would come to my eyes to hear that music played with so much feeling and so many false notes. I played some blues on the piano, which was out of tune due to its long trip, then during the night someone had had the bright idea of covering it with a sheet of cellophane, so by morning it was ruined, because the sun had cooked the felt, which had been moistened by condensation. I called Rizzi, who came and told me off for what I’d done, then fussed over the piano for the whole afternoon to restore it to an acceptable state…

TO WORK
It was a hot summer, terribly hot. During the day I would stay indoors, trying to survive thanks to the coolness given off by the large stones that I had meticulously cleaned. Work continued with the replastering, and then I would play and work on the arrangements for the polyphonic choir in the Ave Maria and the Pater Noster that I had composed some time beforehand. The car that I arrived in was a beaten-up Panda that I’d purchased from Auto Oltrepò car yards in Stradella. The car wouldn’t go into reverse gear, and I was thinking of having it junked. So, with the money remaining from the sale of my house in Pieve Porto Morone, I bought an old Volvo diesel that allowed me to travel easier back and forth from Venice, where I still had my first house, a small attic that I rented out by the week. I drove the Volvo up to Termine Grosso and I parked it on an embankment above the road over the small farm, to avoid taking up the entire front lawn with two cars. I hadn’t thought that someone up there might not like that. So the cars became the victims of the usual nasty tricks. I say the usual, because in the past, in Pieve Porto Morone and Milan where I come from, I had been a victim of an endless series of damage, to the point where I even made a formal report to the Milan police. To get away from my neighbour, I had gone to a place in the middle of nowhere, but I never, repeat never thought that I would run up against the same problems. My Volvo had the steel rim around the windows punctured by a punch, while the Panda was I think sabotaged by sugar in the petrol tank, so I decided to have the engine and the gearbox replaced with used parts. The black plastic valve caps on my tyres were punctually slashed with a knife. Who could be responsible for this nastiness? In Termine Grosso, besides myself there was a couple of elderly pensioners, an old farmer who was a bit odd and who had a terrible lump on his forehead, child of alcoholic parents and he himself with a drinking problem, and a man with a big white moustache who passed back and forth on his tractor, he’d look at me then on he would go. Until one day, having some problems parking the car, I actually met him. He invited me to his house for a cup of coffee, I met his wife, daughter and elderly mother-in-law who lived with the family. He was a pensioner of around 60, strong and with a love for horses. He had about five or six horses which spent most of their time in a covered yard, waiting to let off steam and run about madly, the few times that he actually let them out to graze in the fields. Another time, while I was in Venice looking after my house, I received a phone call from his wife who told me that the wind had blown in a window, and to return straight away. I called a local craftsman and asked him to look after it, since it was impossible for me to return immediately. When I did return, I saw that the window could not have fallen by itself, that someone had rather pushed it violently inside. But who? Initially I suspected Piero because he was often drunk and therefore untrustworthy. There were in fact rumours that when his parents had died and his relatives had come and picked him up in a Seicento Multipla to take him into town for the funeral, he had thrown himself from the car out of fear: he’d never been to town in his life! This shouldn’t come as a surprise: Renata once told me that in the respectful city of Venice, there were some old women that had never set foot outside their sestriere. My relations with all the residents on the farm seemed cordial, yet someone still hadn’t accepted my arrival - but who? In the meantime I realised that in the town of Travo there was some sort of cultural activity and during the following summer I met several members of the Minerva cultural circle, who were organising a painting show to inaugurate the Travo castle, that had been recently restored. I took part in looking after the show, and it’s there that I met Andrea, a young clarino student whose story was incredibly similar to my own. He had chosen to study engineering, but his love for music had persuaded him to leave the university and to enrol at the Conservatorium. He led a choir at the Travo parish. Here there were two priests, two good-hearted twins, elderly with a delicate state of health.

THE TRAVO CHOIR
I started practising with the choir when it resumed rehearsals for the Christmas concert in September. Andrea was tall, thin, he wore glasses and a mocking grin, slightly ironic, though above all about himself. Andrea’s dad was tall and thin, with a moustache and glasses, but he actually was an engineer and owned an important studio. He was also absent-minded and had an inborn passion for good food, in fact that very summer he had involved his whole family in the opening of a bar-gelateria-restaurant at the entrance to the town, just near the Travo castle. Andrea was not particularly fond of this activity, which after not even a year was sold out. In the meantime I had completed the arrangement of the Ave Maria and the Pater Noster, so I asked Andrea to put them in his repertoire. The Ave Maria was in all European languages, and this posed a problem for a lot of the choir members. So one cold and snowy December I redid it in Italian and took it to him. Andrea came back a few days later with his own revision of the music. It was nice of him, but during the rehearsals I had a growing sense of dissatisfaction in hearing another sensitivity and by the fact that had hadn’t even been able to hear my own arrangement. There was a brief moment of tension, then in particular after I completely revised the part with the low notes that he really liked, peace returned between us. In the meantime Andrea suggested that I move down into town, into a single-room apartment belonging to his family and situated above the restaurant, so I left my beloved hut that during winter was a type of icebox. During the day I would make do, move about, play the piano and warm myself beside the hearth and a wood and coal heater, but at night when the wood had burned out, it got so cold that it would give me a headache. So I spent winter in this single-room apartment with my keyboard and the television, rarely playing music, watching the cartoons on TV. In the evening I would go down to the bar where nobody ever came, and I would have an ice cream or a dessert while I chatted about this and that with Andrea’s family. They had become like family to me, and tiny Isabella became fond of me, showing her affection by dancing for me while the rest of the family looked on worriedly. So came Christmas, my Ave Maria was a success in the town, and during midnight mass I felt an indescribable feeling in hearing my music resound through the vaults of the church. The two priests were also pleased, so much so that at the end of rehearsals on Christmas eve, they gave us each a sausage-shaped piece of chocolate coated nougat. Down in the restaurant with Andrea’s family, there was another person who had struck me: Marion, who was Dutch. She had an angelic smile and completely grey hair, which belied her age. She looked like a child who had suddenly become an adult, skipping her adolescence and youth. She was from Amsterdam or thereabouts, and she had little in common with Travo, but I was glad she was there. Her glasses were of all types, with different coloured frames every time she drove around town in a khaki military jeep, which made her look like a UN diplomat on a humanitarian mission.
There was a lot of snow that winter and I was pleased. I sold my house in Venice, and to celebrate the event I went to dinner in Andrea’s restaurant, which was called Il Bertoletto, after an infamous outlaw who live in Travo centuries ago. I went for long strolls along the river, and I liked to stop on the bridge and watch the water flow by below. At the end of winter, I returned to my little house and resumed works. Spring came and nature slowly began to reawaken. It is great to spend a winter of cold and frost, to then witness nature’s reawakening, to feel the sun’s rays as they become stronger, more determined, warmer.

THE SYNDROME OF THE SWALLOW
While fixing the kitchen windows, I had them entirely removed and taken away for the panes to be replaced. That was how one day a swallow flew into the house and starting flying about over my head. The kitchen ceiling was particularly high because I had removed the floor of a low mansard room, where it was impossible to move about, and that had once served to store grain. So the swallow decided to move into the upper part of the room. It brought its companion, and they spent the whole day flying in and out, returning with pieces of straw that they stuck together with saliva to make a nest. I had made a mezzanine floor on which I slept, though I decided to sleep underneath it, because the nest was right over the bed, that is exactly above my head. The female swallow laid an egg and sat on it, while her mate completed building the nest. I was touched and pleased to host a pair of swallows in my home. The eggs would hatch and I would be able to witness the young ones as they grew and learned to fly! But I had forgotten one thing: that as time went by, the swallows would become more assertive, claiming their territory. They flew about the room, clinging to the walls, marking out their area. Then they starting to swoop to make me go away. At that stage I took the nest, eggs and swallows, and out they went. I had the windows put back in, and I never let them come back.
For some time afterwards, they returned to cling to the wood on the window sills, peeping inside the room where they had built their nest, then they realised that it was useless, so they left and never came back. I truly felt sorry for them, but then I felt better when I discovered that swallows nest twice each season. I suppose the reader will hate we for what I did, but put yourself in my place; even a pair of swallows wanted me out of my own house!
It was some time later that I was told that hosting swallows under your roof brought good luck. And I had made them leave... It won’t be long before I’ll be made to leave as well...
That’s why I called my story "The syndrome of the swallow", because every time someone tries to make a nest in someone else’s territory, a conflict arises that leads to an inevitable struggle for dominion. I maintain that the true victor is really the one who leaves the conflict. Victory belongs to the one who allows others to take over their territory, as it is of the disliked person who leaves their territory after being subjected to acts of abuse. The loser is the one who takes on the struggle, the war that creates an objectively unliveable situation that generation upon generation are unable to erase. The case of Israel and the Palestinian people is indicative. There won’t be peace there until one of the two peoples decides to leave the spiral of war and madness that makes their lives incomplete and unhappy. To get back to my story, my neighbour on his small farm had in the meantime decided to open a farm holiday business and had commenced his moves to spread his dominion, which consisted in the conquest of space for customer parking. Too bad that neither I nor the other neighbours were in favour. So after he found piles of firewood all over the place, a signal with a clear meaning up there, he was forced to backtrack. Unfortunately relations between us were worsening all the time because of his dictatorial ways, to the point that I had started to avoid his house. I don’t want to tell you about the discussion that degenerated into arguments between us, nor my or his reasons. The fact remains that I no longer wished to frequent his home, and he found this unacceptable. I realised that I had to leave, so I started to look for a new house and I found one in Freddezza, that you already know about.

PIEVE PORTO MORONE: CASONI
When I talked about my arrival in Termine Grosso, I mentioned my escape from Pieve Porto Morone and now, while I prepare to retell what happened to me there, which was probably much more serious and difficult to face that was transpired thereafter, I am obliged to say that I arrived in Porto Morone fleeing from Milan, from my mother’s house. I had to leave at the request of my family given that, because of my love for a woman who lived three storeys above my apartment and who lived happily with a man that I naturally couldn’t stand, I had placed myself according to my family in a dangerous situation, and so one rainy day I loaded my car and moved everything to the house in Pieve. I must admit that I had bought that house as a potential refuge from a situation that was difficult, particularly from a personal standpoint - not that I thought of doing any harm to anyone or that anything of harm might happen to me. I decided to look for a place near Lodi, returning to the town that so many years before my father had left to go to Milan. I went to an estate agents in St. Colombano and made some appointments. I was shown three country houses. One was unattractive and depressing, the next was right for the price and for the size, the third was very pretty, but too much for my budget and size requirements, and besides it still needed a lot of work. I spoke to my mother about it when I returned home, but she didn’t want me to leave and dissuaded me. It was only later, when the situation further degenerated, that I realised that I absolutely had to find a way out. I therefore returned to the estate agent in St. Colombano. Only the most attractive house was still for sale. The house itself had three storeys, a barn, another small double-storey house and two thousand metres of land. All this without considering the fact the agency cheated me out of a small portico and a strip of land that had been included in the preliminary sales agreement. In any case I got the house, and I went to live there one day in November, sleeping on an ottoman given to me by my neighbours, with an electric heater set two metres away to try and warm up a bit. I soon got to know everyone who lived in the court, in particular a Calabrian who when I introduced myself, added "People from Milan who drive a Mercedes give me the s…". I told him that the Pope also used a Mercedes, but that was no reason to dislike him, but apparently I failed to make him change his opinion about me, in fact his hatred towards me even got to the point where he tried to kill me, and he almost succeeded. But first things first... At the time, as I’ve already mentioned, I was still teaching. My school was in Limbiate, north of Milan. Since I lived in the city, it was easy to reach by bus, while to get to the other school in Cesate, I took the ferrovie Nord, the northern train line. Now everything had changed, to get to the school I had to drive, so I sold my old gold-coloured Golf with the Treviso number plate, and bought a large diesel that made me feel safer driving around the foggy roads of Lombardy. This fact, this choice based on my safety had irritated this Calabrian, because he had a smaller car, an old Ford Taunus that was naturally soon after, or actually immediately transformed into a kennel for his dog, as he bought a new bigger auto. Straight after welcoming me with those unkind words, he invited me to come and see some old pieces of furniture that he was replacing and that I, he thought, should naturally buy, then he showed me the work that he had done on his house, saying that he was capable of doing just about anything and that he could do all the restructuring works on my property. In short, he thought that he’d found a real mug. I replied that I by myself had done all the renovations necessary in my previous house, and that I intended doing the same thing. Well, that meant war. One day he came over to ask whether he could use one of the rooms in the small house. He wanted to store some windows there until Christmas. By Easter, the room was full of mattresses, mopeds and other items, as well as the windows. I called his brother-in-law who lived next door, telling him that I needed the space. He replied that I could have asked him to pay rent! Soon after he arrived with the keys to the padlock. I looked at them, noticing that they had been bent. I was livid with anger. I went to his home. There he was raising the windows from a balcony, assisted by his wife and brother-in-law. "Professore fuck off, hold me back or I’ll come down!". I answered back, "You’re not even from here and you should be careful about the way you act!" It had been some time now that I had had enough of the bullying attitude of these southern immigrants. At work, above all in Limbiate, everywhere: pupils, families, teachers, headmaster were all recent migrants. Let it be clear that I’m not racist, nor have I got anything against southern Italians. At the beginning of the century my grandfather came from Minervino Murge to Milan to study engineering, and my mother’s maiden name was Saveria. But you had to see the situation at the school. The Milan education office was completely controlled by them, you could see the janitor’s washing hanging out in the atrium, while the janitor himself from his tiny room would greet you in his singlet. In the schools that they controlled, for the temporary positions they took on teachers with fake qualifications, who couldn’t teach and who let the kids do as they like. Naturally those who lost out were the pupils and their families. But also we teachers, I mean the authentic ones...
Given that I could no longer give lessons, due to the ruckus throughout the institute, as well as the fact that my pupils had become used to doing as they pleased during the other classes, I started to make complaints and to say that those who couldn’t teach and who had come just to ruin the kids should go back home. What a stupid thing to do! At one stage a fat new Neapolitan colleague arrived, constantly dressed in black and sunglasses, an opera singer and music teacher, at least that’s what she claimed. Only now do I realise that for me she was the representation of Death, in the sense of a radical change in life style. One day, during recreation, she came over and sat next to me in the teacher’s room, and opened my case. Amongst my things she came across a Gospel and said, "Mamma mia, so you’re a holy priest!" Then she added in a low voice, "You’re death is near". I looked at her and asked what she meant; she gestured for me to go outside, then added "You’re a charismatic leader and you’ve upset somebody. Not me, others have decided for you". I went immediately to the headmaster to report what had been said. She then came into my class to tell me that she had merely been repeating a literary quotation. The headmaster played down the incident, but then called in sick; during mark assignment at the end of the term, he accompanied me to the classroom door, then left wishing me the best. I heard someone whisper, "We must frighten him to death!". As a matter of fact I had denounced the incident to the Carabinieri, and more than one of them was running scared. I then went to the Milan police and denounced it there as well. It was clear that they could hardly have cared less, so I called Roberto, an old friend, and my family so that they would come and get me. I was shocked, shocked by the hatefulness of those people. Roberto advised me to take some time off due to exhaustion, and that’s what I did. I discovered that life was possible without having to go to school and teaching something to somebody, playing a piano and cultivating peas, cabbage and rocket salad. It was Carnival and I had been in Pieve since November. My life had been getting a bit too eventful. That was what I had been looking for when I left Venice, where I felt that my life was going nowhere, but now the events where coming thick and fast, while my life seemed to rolling crazily down a perilous slope, out of control.
Watch out for the petty expenses, professore - Dear old maresciallo De Giorgi. One morning as I pedalled home, I saw a woman wearing a handkerchief around her head, in the country fashion. It was Augusto’s sister who, seeing me pass, asked me if I lived in the area. I had already noticed the field that ran along her house because it was covered in flowers, but so superb and well arranged that it stood out completely from the others. She told me that I should go and visit her friend, and that was a fortunate suggestion. He was a clever person, and to get me to talk about my problems referred to an affair between a priest and a married woman, a story that recalled my own story in Milan, and that he used to bait me into opening up. Augusto was a retired maresciallo of the Carabinieri, and did he know how to get people to talk! Seriously though, I was pleased to oblige, and there a friendship was born and that continues to this day. It was the first time that I had lived in a small country town. I learned all the local practices and customs, good and bad. In the meantime my neighbour was back to his nasty tricks, more constant and determined than ever. Returning home once I found that someone has turned off the gas meter, and another time I went out to find that my car had been started, the lights blazing and the alarm on. For some strange reason all four of my tyres started going down, so that I ended up having to have inner tubes fitted. I had the meagre consolation that I was not the only victim of these acts. My plumber, who owned a house not far away, was also a victim. I recall him one evening with a torch and pliers pulling out three fine wires that someone had jammed into his gate lock! If anyone wonders why racist and anti-migrant organisations are created in the North, all they had to do is recall things like this. When the end of the school year was just over a month away, I had to face the problem of deciding whether to return and close the year. I feared that my pupils would be the ones to bear the consequences of the whole awful story and so, against the advice of my psychologist, I went back. On my return I found the parents waiting for me, annoyed. They weren’t upset with me, but with my colleagues, who after having spent the year doing nothing, now wanted to fail half the class to punish it for their own shortcomings. I had been right. Obviously the headmaster left me alone to face them. I in any case knew that they appreciated me for the work that I had done the previous year. I told them that in a school where the headmaster didn’t act like a headmaster, the teachers didn’t teach, the pupils didn’t follow the lessons nor do their homework and the janitor didn’t clean, it wasn’t possible to achieve decent results. I also said that I had obtained a transfer for the following year and that I wished them good luck. As you can see, sometimes life has its little big moments of gratification. In any case the previous year things had gone better, though not all.

VIRGINIO
Virginio had been through elementary school without having learned to write, though he was passed every year because of his threats to his teachers. When he did an essay in class, he crammed four pages with imaginary words, written in a childlike hand. He wouldn’t buy books, and even when he had them he left them at home. He read with great difficult, then got angry with the other kids who made fun of his mistakes, obviously threatening them that as soon as they were outside... Since it seemed that he only came to school to deliver threats left and right and that he wasn’t learning a thing, one day I had had enough and I sent him to the headmaster’s office. He came back in a terrible mood.
"I’m going to get my brothers on to you and to the headmaster too!". At the time the threat surprised more than frightened me, though later, after I found out that one of his brothers was in prison and that he was a professional boxer, I decided to take action. I consulted the penal code and I asked the Carabinieri what was in store for someone who assaulted a school teacher; I found out that on the school grounds a teacher was considered a public official performing his or her duties, and that therefore any charges were more serious. I then went to a book shop in the centre of town and bought a compact encyclopaedia full of illustrations. The following day I told Virginio what the Carabinieri had said, and indicated that if anything happened to me they would know who to look for. Then I gave him the book that I had purchased, and he broke in tears, and while he cried he swore; in short, I had touched him. Deeply. As a matter of fact from that day onwards I came under his protection. Watch out anyone who caused trouble or interrupted class: this little boss intervened before I could, and I must admit he was very authoritative. I was not however very pleased with this situation and I immediately recovered my prerogatives, but that was the end of my problems with Virginio, or almost, thanks to a film made by the class entitled "Il Reame di Limbiaturlandia", in which Virginio played the leading role.

AN AMAZING CHARACTER
Another incredible character of this school was the headmaster. Apart from the fact that most headmasters are incredible... But this one was really special. He was Sicilian, tall and dark, it was clear that he came from a good family. In a certain way he could also be described as handsome, upright, with a moustache and gold glasses. He came to school in a cream and black A112 crammed with pieces of paper and all sorts of junk. He himself was however always dapper, wearing black satin suits and tie, in fact he seemed ready to go to the first night at the Scala or his brother’s wedding. One of his various characteristics was that he thought himself master of the school, and he held towards me a two-sided attitude: esteem for my work, and hate for my rebellious behaviour towards his authoritarian ways. Once he walked into one of my classes and said right in front of the pupils, "Professore, you know that the school celebrations will be on soon. They tell me that you can play the piano; what do you think of coming to play for us dressed up as a bunny?". Another time he entered the teachers’ room while I was strumming a guitar. I stopped when I saw him come in and he, looking at me straight in the eye asked "Professore, are you scared of me?". His masterpiece was however the purchase of the piano. Without asking anybody he had a piano delivered to the school and installed in the atrium. The day of the school celebrations, decked out as ever with his fancy tie and would-be tuxedo, he went and stood next to a bench right in the middle of the atrium. Next to him, the chairman of the Institute Council. There was an enormous cardboard box on the bench, and to every parent that entered, they asked for a contribution, and when the poor person put in their money, they looked at them straight in the eye and asked "So little?". I have to admit that I didn’t understand the reasons behind his obnoxious attitude, nor could I understand him. Some time later, when I no longer taught in that school, I found out that he was seriously ill with leukaemia, and that he didn’t have long to live.

MEDE LOMELLINA
My transfer was nothing short of providential, and this time I ended up in Mede in Lomellina: from Pieve Porto Morone to Pavia and from there towards Mortara, in the midst of an expanse of rice fields. I felt comfortable in my new school. I only had a few problems because despite having two cars, at times I was forced to go to school by train, because my neighbour was more determined that ever. This meant leaving home at four-thirty in the morning, catching the local train at five, then waiting for the connection to Pavia, arriving at school just in time for class. The headmistress, who was already on with her years and had what you might call an imperial personality, fortunately took me under her wing immediately. She appreciated my creativity, but less that I left meetings that often lasted till late in the evening early to avoid missing the last train, so me made out a report in which she demanded justification for being absent during a parent-teacher meeting. After the following meeting, I took the train that sadly pulled in to Pavia station, without continuing to Chignolo Po. I took a taxi home from the station which cost me about eighty thousand lire. So I then thought of stopping off to sleep in Mede in the Locanda Italia, because after all it was cheaper and I could also rest, so that I would be fresh the morning after for the usual match with my fierce little enemies. That was how the message below was born, after an event that occurred after a shower in the Locanda Italia in Mede Lomellina. This is the message in its entirety as I wrote it then:
To Don Pietro
To the Vicar of the Archbishop of Milan, Monsignor Giovanni Giudici
To Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini
To His Holiness Pope John Paul II

"DIVORCE IN ST. MATTHEW’S"
"But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the case of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery; and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery."
It poured rain that February evening in Mede and I was staying at the Locanda Italia. During the afternoon I wandered aimlessly around Mede and I bought a clock for the creative competition organised by the school; a clock, awarded as first prize by the City Council which sponsored the event and that by the way was never paid for.
"Try applying to the mayor…", "Come over and we’ll discuss it, come to my office at 10 o’clock Monday". Discuss what? These are people who administer public assets, handling budgets of billions of lire, and won’t pay for a clock purchased by the teacher who organises a creativity competition in favour of UNICEF. This also is Italy today.
But let’s get back to my rainy afternoon. After returning to the hotel and a long, relaxing shower, I lay down on the bed in my tiny room and turned on the TV; there was nothing interesting on. I picked up my briefcase and had a look at what was inside: this and that, but also something that I never leave at home, the Gospel. I know of no other book that you can read and reread forever without ever getting tired of it.
It was a small blue book published by the Libreria Editrice Fiorentina, by the Compagnia San Paolo, with a preface by Cardinal Schuster, printed in 1926. I had found it in the drawer of an old commode in my house in Pieve Porto Morone. I was like thunderstruck, in particular by that phrase: "saving for the case of fornication". Adultery is committed by anyone who divorces his wife and marries another. But if someone asks for a divorce from the spouse that betrayed them and marries again, adultery is not committed! So why doesn’t the Church allow divorce in this case?
A heap of thoughts began to pile up in my mind. I decided to read up some more and to take it carefully. I discussed it with a colleague who taught religion, Prof. Sturla, who brought me a Gospel with a different translation, instead of saying "wife" it said "woman", and instead of "saving for the case of fornication" it said "saving for the case of concubinage". In this way the only exception concerning the possibility of dissolving the bond of marriage was eliminated, because dissolution of a relationship based on concubinage does not necessarily involve divorce. I still wasn’t convinced by the translation, however. To translate the Latin fornicationem or the Greek porneia with concubinage and Latin uxorem with woman seemed to force the meaning of the text: it was obviously translated intentionally that way, thus not respecting the original text. I decided in any case to let the matter settle, as I realised the delicacy of the problem. I discussed it with Don Pietro, the parish priest of Casoni di Pieve Porto Morone, who gave me some texts to consult, including "The Life of Jesus Christ" by Giuseppe Ricciotti. Ricciotti, when discussing this controversial point, states "Matthew, with his particular difficulty, seems to have best preserved the meaning of Jesus’ words" (Par. 480, page 570 ), then later continues, "Note that the Pharisees asked Jesus – If it is fair to send away one’s wife for whatever reason - referring without a doubt to Hebrew divorce; Jesus replied by declaring that such sending away was fair only in the case of fornication (adultery) by the woman". Further down he however adds, "Jesus therefore has accepted not divorce, but separation. But did the Jews distinguish between divorce and separation?". Sure, I say, Mr. Ricciotti gets out of trouble by inserting this subtle distinction between divorce and separation, a complete invention.
Jesus said that if a man leaves his wife and takes another, he commits adultery, saving the case of fornication. That’s the way it’s written. Jesus showed the way by following the logic of justice and love, but it is up to us to understand his meaning. Because love, the love that unites man and woman until they become one flesh can also end when another enters that flesh. This is not purely a material question, of just bodies.
I believe that one is a saint in one’s own body before the soul. A holy body does not commit sin because it does not feel its desire, or rather it does not send the mind signals and stimuli that can upset it. I believe that the soul is inextricably linked to the complete being of man, which included mind and body, senses and intellect. Is there someone out there preparing a stake to burn me against? Man should not keep together what God has divided. In this case I refer not to adultery, which is certainly not inspired by God, but to its victim. That the Lord, according to the words of Jesus, dissolves the bond with the companion who has betrayed, and leaves the other free to remarry. And the other one, the traitor, the adulterer? Jesus said: go and sin no more. Even the adulterer, he or she, can find the road to inner peace and real love again. Often people who are alone, betrayed, without any prospect of living a new period of happiness and love end up the prey of crows, living relations of non-love, sordid physical bonds, if not even ones of clear interest. And the offspring? Anyone who loves sincerely a man or a woman cannot but love also their offspring. This message is addressed to the Roman Catholic Church and is a heart-felt appeal to reconsider the position of those who have divorced or have separated because of adultery by the spouse and live this dramatic situation without being able to recreate a family. I do not ask for reforms or innovation, just respect for what the Gospel itself states. In the poverty of affection, the extreme discomfort of the lonely and outcast there is a poverty that is often greater than that caused by the lack of material goods. It is the lack of love, a void that can at times make life even inhuman.
Pieve Porto Morone 12-1-1992
Only a few days have past since I sent my letter, and I already have my first reply: it’s from Cardinal Martini’s Secretary’s office which tells me that, since the Cardinal is leaving for abroad, he hasn’t had time to read my letter.
Some time goes by, it’s Sunday, I’m at Marta’s house. I read the newspaper left by Marta’s father, staunch reader of Montanelli, an article draws my attention, with the title: "Help for the divorced", cautious opening by Pope -
-- Divorced and remarried people need pastoral help, but in respect of Canonical law --.
Then a thought flashes through my mind: can this be thanks to my letter? I’ll never know, but I like to think so.

BANKS
I’ve never had an easy relationship with banks, at least over the last few years. Let’s say that it has developed along with everything else. When I led my quiet existence as a teacher and I lived in Venice, I had no problem. For years I kept a simple savings pass book in which I invested the little money that remained after fixing my house and in my creative activities. I opened my first account when, on arriving in Milan, I bought the house in Pieve Porto Morone, after contracting a large bank loan. When I was forced to move to Pieve while still teaching north of Milan, my expenses increased exponentially, incurred both by travelling and the continuous repairs made to my cars damaged by my neighbour. The chapter regarding my cars is separate, though I promise to return to it later. Going back to the banks, given that the situation was becoming difficult I thought of increasing my earnings, and therefore of taking up activities besides teaching. I decided to set up an enterprise for the production of children’s books and toys. I developed a project, discussed it with friends prepared to enter a partnership, I found in my good old friend Marco a founding partner and in Cristina, who worked in a book shop in Pieve, a possible active partner, i.e. treasurer for the enterprise (as a teacher I was also a civil servant, so I could not accept such a position). I prepared a project with a dozen or so interesting productions, which was examined and approved by one of the foremost experts in Italy in that field. I therefore decided to apply for another loan, mortgaging my house in Pieve. I didn’t have any trouble in getting it, just as the manager of the other bank from which I had obtained my first loan for the purchase of the house had granted me credit to help me get back on my feet. Sometimes things work out differently from what we’d like, though I think that they rarely go as awry as they did this time. Cristina didn’t feel up to the responsibility of the initiative and then backed out completely, saying that sometimes that the ways of Providence are unknown! My friend Marco invited me to dinner to make the final decisions before taking the plunge. It was then that his girlfriend started to be incredibly rude to me, in fact she forced me after I had put up with more than enough to tell her that I deserved a bit more respect and that she stop being so unpleasant. Marco just came short of punching me on the nose. In any case they threw me out of the house. After reflecting on the incident, I later realised that Paola probably didn’t want Marco to be distracted from other commitments that she had given him, relating to her artistic activities of painting and upholstery material design, of which Marco was practically the rep when he wasn’t otherwise preoccupied as picture frame, baby sitter, civil servant, bricklayer, writer, farmer, apprentice lawyer and so on. So now I was in a fix, I needed the money from my second loan to pay off the instalments of the first, but once it ran out I still had two loans to pay. More than half my wage went on travelling to school and back, as well I had the house repairs, since I still didn’t have any heating and other amenities. Then it so happened that the managers of both banks were replaced, and the new ones asked me to cover the credit lines granted by their predecessors as soon as possible. One of them even sent me a court order to pay, which cost me almost a million lire, the other made me wait outside the revolving door of the bank because the metal detector at the entrance picked up the metal buttons on my jeans. Recall that I had a house in Venice, mortgaged with a bank, plus two houses in Pieve with barn and two thousand metres of land, mortgaged with another, as collateral for the loans. So the banks were safe. They had their hands on property valued at least twice the amount that had been loaned. What I can’t accept is when they humiliate the customer. When I told the bank manager in Pieve, who demanded that I return the money quickly, that I had sold my house and the preliminary agreement was ready, he threw me out of his office, saying that he didn’t have time to waste with people like me. When I brought the receipt for payment of the first instalment, he suspended my credit card, automatic bill payment service, and so on. Just out of pure spite. In fact I even wrote a letter to the bank management, asking whether they belonged to the Mafia, given the intimidating behaviour of the manager. They were really angry when they summoned me. After listening to my complaints, they eventually granted me another credit line that the manager had taken away, and they also guaranteed that I would not have any problems as long as our relations lasted. In return, I was asked to sign a written declaration saying that the bank did not belong to the Mafia! I did the same with the other bank manager, who even wore a cross in his jacket lapel. Maybe it was his emblem, to crucify his poor customers. In any case I wrote to the management saying that I would return part of my debt with the settlement that was to arrive in the next few weeks, and that I would rent out my house in Venice by the week rather than sell it. The same things that I said to the manager who had immediately denounced me to the court. At the end I also added that the manager who had treated me like that could stick his cross on his lapel where it fitted. The central bank finally allowed me to do as I had proposed, the manager with the cross no longer wished to see me and so I made all my arrangements with a woman clerk who was a lot more pleasant. After saying all this, I don’t want to generalise, not all bank managers have acted like that and now I have an excellent rapport with my banks, probably because my accounts are healthier. But that’s precisely the point. When an account is in trouble, should the bank behave like that? Especially when the customer is not responsible for the predicament …
In the meantime, the vicissitudes that I was experiencing slowly led me to the idea of leaving teaching. I was sick of spending just about everything I earned commuting to and from school, then to be constantly set back by the whole scene.

SWALLOWS AT SCHOOL
The creative activities that I practised for myself and with the children that had initially been source of gratification and appreciation in the school had now become a problem. Headmasters and colleagues alike had become jealous, even envious of my activities and initiatives, as well as of the articles printed in the local press that often reported their success. But if the articles concerned my own personal activities, I was subject to authentic attacks of homicidal envy by my beloved work colleagues. I remember an episode that was indicative of what I claim. The City of Castel San Giovanni had assigned me the task of holding a meeting with other high school classes, during which, as I had before, I was to give a talk about the problems of today’s youth, in particular of drugs, and I was to conclude with a few songs and a small exhibition of creative works. The meeting was a success and the following day the Piacenza newspaper published a half-page article on the initiative. A week later the end of year reports were to be handed out at the school where I taught. I arrived at ten o’clock to find a sheet pinned to the notice board, showing a photocopy of newspaper cuttings where, under my photo there was another of the first communion with a close-up of the Bishop; the sheet said that I had called on the kids to take drugs and have sex, and that fortunately I had been killed like an animal by someone who happened to be passing by. Now this might seem amusing to anyone who isn’t acquainted with the school today, when junk television programs like nothing better than to sling mud. The headmaster himself had seen the sheet and laughed, not even ordering that rubbish removed. Written by some fellow teacher who felt a professional failure, the paper was an attempt at spoiling a minor achievement of a colleague. I was humiliated that my pupils and there parents had read that piece of stupidity. This episode and countless others persuaded me to leave a job where there were too many mediocre people, who even feared me because I didn’t pull any punches when it came to reporting their shortcomings and lack of preparation in facing an ambient in which the new generations are forged but have other needs! In this case as well, as in the case of the bank managers, it is important to state that I do not wish at all to generalise, so that I ask my colleagues who read this not to bear me animosity and that I do not refer to all without distinction; but on the other hand, if this is read by any of the pseudo teachers or pseudo headmasters with whom I have worked over the last few years, they should know that my contempt is of the finest quality, because nobody deserves greater disdain than those who ruin the young through their incompetence, their poor example, their bad faith.

NO MORE SCHOOL
That year school started back as usual in early September, but I wasn’t there. I had been worriedly waiting for this fateful day, then I realised that in actual fact I didn’t miss school at all. I wasn’t quite sure what I would do, all that I did know was that my dignity and psycho-physical health could certainly not suffer from a choice that seemed increasingly inevitable. I let my instinct guide me towards my new life, and it soon became clear what my new occupation would be. I sat down at the piano and began to play with ever greater vigour, improvising for hours. This was my destiny. What I never would have known was that I would leave the guitar for the piano and rock for more classical music. I must admit that this change had been profoundly influenced by my experience with the Pieve polyphonic choir and its director, Rosalia Dell’Acqua.

THE ENCOUNTER WITH SACRED MUSIC
In a little town like Pieve, there isn’t much night-life: three or four bars, the oratory, the school gym twice a week to do a bit of exercise. At the oratory I met Ezio, a kind young man who helped me settle into the town by taking me to the choir, that met in a council hall. The choir was conducted by a woman: Rosalia Dell'Acqua, a fine music teacher who was later to become teacher of choir singing at the Parma Conservatorium. I went mainly due to curiosity and to meet people, since my favourite music was blues and rock ’n roll, and I actually felt like a lion forced to bleat instead of roar. Rosalia seemed like a nun, but one of those fearsome mother superiors, who when things went wrong was capable of mortally insulting those thirty poor souls who after a day’s work still had the courage to sing hymns to the Lord, amidst the terrible oaths of their director. I have to admit however that the more time went by, the more those melodies entered me, finally changing the music that my fingers played on the piano keyboard. It was thus that I began to sing melodies that were increasingly similar to sacred music, or that I modified other music in the discovery that it gained far greater charm in this new dimension. I sang with the choir for almost two years. Then, partly due to the fact that I had problems going to practice because my cars were constantly at the mechanic’s, and partly due to the discovery that I wasn’t liked by some members of the choir, I left. But by then that music had entered me, and I decided to attempt polyphonic compositions and the Stabat Mater mentioned before, thanks to the extreme ease with which this music flowed from my spirit. I later sang with the Milan Coro Rosetum and the Travo choir, but the Coro Polifonico Padano stands in my memory as the first and the one that marked a decisive change in my music. We were often invited to sing in the towns nearby during the festivities, ceremonies or other events, and at the end of each concert we never went without bottles of wine and all sorts of things. Once we went on a tour to Germany where we held two concerts, one in Geislingen and one in Stuttgart. I remember the enjoyable evening after the Stuttgart concert held in a cultural centre, where a few members of the choir performed a repertoire of unholy songs that were more or less improvised, and I had to play a roaring boogie-woogie on a magnificent grand piano that stood majestically on the stage at the end of the hall. During the trip on the way home, in Ulm, I was however saddened by an episode. After a visit to the beautiful cathedral, some members of the choir and I went to a cake shop that had drawn our attention, thanks to its abundant window display of multicoloured pastries. We sat down and had coffee with a few cakes. When we had finished I offered to treat everyone, paying as it happened quite a hefty sum.
The remark made by one of the choir members was more or less: he might be a pansy but he’s not tight. This probably only because Ezio, the one who had introduced me to the choir, who was a softy still attached to his mum and Don Lorenzo, had become fond of me, having found a person ready to offer sincere friendship. It was there that I wrote Cafè Troglen, the poem that gave the title to the collection of my twelve best verses, pushed by the anger at seeing how generosity and friendliness can be despised to the point of deviation - deviations obviously present in the person who said them and immediately picked by another worthy companion who I immediately silenced by threatening to expose him in front of everybody. Another place that Ezio had introduced me to besides the choir and Avis was the oratory. The Pieve oratory was next to the beautiful Baroque church, and had a bar that looked out onto a small football field. On top of the bar there were some rooms where the doctrine lessons were given, and next to the field there was a volleyball court. In short, the typical town oratory. Coming from a city like Milan, where one time there was no social life like this, I found the place had a certain charm. Everybody there called me "profesur", and I remember the warm summer evenings spent in jovial company, given that the town oratory is the centre of attraction for older people as well the young, and for someone like me, an out-of-towner, without knowing anybody, the place was attractive. The parish priest, Don Lorenzo, was rather elderly and feeble, and he would call me to come close and tell him about my day. His final comment was almost always "e alura", which for me had an irrevocable meaning. The fact is that by frequenting the place, I started taking part in Sunday mass, and I was invited to attend the evening meetings in the oratory. I recall that one summer I was asked to participate in a Grest, which I was more than happy to do, documenting the activities performed during the day with my video camera. During these activities, the kids and I wrote a prayer that I like to recall in times of intolerance and spreading racism.

PRAYER FOR EUROPE

Oh Lord from the heights of heaven
look over the peoples and nations,
may the peoples of Europe
be always united
and let no war
ever divide them. May they live
in harmony
without difference of nationality
and race, let them live in
peace with the peoples of other continents
and let them welcome with love the immigrants
as they respect and love those that
welcome them. For this we pray, Lord,
certain that this is Your will. Amen

In the meantime I received quite a few requests for private lessons of Italian and Latin for kids whose families I had met at the oratory. I recall with pleasure the that period of forced absence from school, indeed I had made my own personal school, a group of friends, and in the mornings I had time to play music and work in the vegetable garden. I spent the afternoons giving private lessons and visiting maresciallo De Giorgi and other friends from Pieve. I also took long rides on a beaten-up old bicycle that I had brought with me from the Veneto. One day I saw some posters around the town advertising a non-competitive bike race along the streets and banks of the township. I enrolled and went happily to the start, thinking that I was going to participate in a type of Sunday family bike ride. I found myself before a group of cyclists armed with space-age bikes, helmets, lightweight outfits and the like. I was the only one in shorts and a rusty old piece of junk that rattled as it rolled. I decided to take part just the same, and for two or three laps of the path I managed to keep up, then I broke a pedal and that was that! In this period there weren’t just moments of joy and gratification; my neighbour kept up his endless sequence of nasty tricks with the clear intent of breaking down my moral and economic resistance. I went to the Carabinieri several times, I told the mayor, but it was futile. He’s still there, and me? I’m here in Jesolo writing. How much time has gone by, how much water has passed under the bridge, obviously my contempt towards him is unchanged, but do you remember the observation that I made at the beginning? That observation on the positive function of negative events in our lives returns. If not for him, I would still be there. But my life has taken a different path and has been enriched by new acquaintances, by people and physical places. All I have to do is think of the new friends that I have found wherever I have been, my relationship with the cats in Freddezza or that with the fireflies that I talked to you about, reminiscing of the summers spent in Termine Grosso. And the enormous snails stuck to the logs that I piled up behind my house, how hard it was to detach them and to prevent them from ending up roasted! All these things are inside me, and even if I don’t have another chance to live in the woods, its poetry and its humus will always be a part of my identity.

SAMSON AND THE PHILISTINES
There was a new parish coadjutor, a young man of promise. The evening he was introduced he came up to me, shook my hand and told me that he had heard a lot about me and that he was pleased to meet me. The doctrine lessons began soon after, and my name was made to become one of the catechists. They put me in with Don Marco; my main task was basically to take the role, because the rest of the meeting was led by him. Once Don Marco had to go away on a trip and asked me to fill in for him. I went to the meeting, but no-one was there. I found out from a small boy that Don Marco had told them not to go. Too bad he had told me the exact opposite. The parish priest was closed in the clock room, and waited to hear my curses, and there were plenty. But as they say in Venice, the worst is never dead, and so... One morning in school at Mede Lomellina I had a free hour and I sat down to read the Bible, in particular the story of Samson and the Philistines. I read it carefully and enjoyed it, so much so that during the next lesson I illustrated it to the class brilliantly, as I succeeded in capturing the attention of my pupils. I was struck by the idea of a God who creates an exterminator, who dies while performing his prerogatives, though in death taking the enemies of his people and therefore of his god with him. I compared him to the figure of Jesus, who came to bring his teachings to the absolute antipodes, a heroic martyr who through his testimony of love converts the enemy in the exact moment of martyrdom. That evening, during a meeting and after the kids had sat through a boring, empty speech by Don Marco, I took the floor to briefly illustrate the story with my interpretation. Don Marco reacted by saying that I was not a Christian. You go to the oratory after a day’s work, then you also read the Bible, try to understand it then you speak to the kids. This was the crime. Watch out! A layman who speaks to young people! You’re not a Christian. A Christian listens to the priest and keeps quiet. If I’m not a Christian because I misunderstand biblical exegesis, that is if I get it wrong, I’m that for life, as are my choices, I answered. It’s not you but the Lord who does the good that you say you do. Furthermore, Christian heroism does not exist. And when I do ill I asked, is that me or the Lord? There’s a Caiaphas born every day, and they sit next to us in the oratories. I left outraged by such stupidity, to say the least, then I wrote a letter to the Bishop of Pavia. No reply. So I wrote to the Pope. The Holy See answered: we have received your letter, maybe they were afraid that I took the matter to God Almighty! It was thus that I realised that the attitude of the Calabrian, the guy from Piacenza, Zorro, Don Marco, all those who some way or another made their intolerance of my presence known, had a common denominator that I call the syndrome of the swallow.
The cleverer you are, the more you risk, because your intelligence and your skills highlight the limits of your fellows. This concerns all aspects of our lives. That’s why I love Jesus Christ so much. Because he was killed by order of the priests who detested his abilities. Jesus was not a priest, but had dared speak in the name of God: he was put to death.

CAR STORIES
I realise that my narrating method could lead to confusion in anyone trying to follow me in this incredible story. I will go back over the most significant stages by means of the cars that I have owned and that have accompanied me during my travels around the globe. The first was a Beetle. I think that everybody should start off with a Beetle, enter the automobile world in this bug on four wheels. It was dark blue and belonged to my cousin. One day, after returning from a school trip to Milan, I remember that it wouldn’t start and that in fact it left me grounded two or three times after that. Another time one of the doors opened while I was taking a curve, but what put an end to its days was the rust on the bottom, which seemed to threaten a total collapse in the near future. When I reached the gate of the wrecker, the engine cut out and wouldn’t start again: I had to get out and push it into what would be its last garage. At the time I lived in Venice and was teaching in Noale. The second car was a gold and black Golf with a skull on the gear stick, with a Treviso registration plate. I drove it to Milan and during the trip it kept on stopping because the battery wasn’t anchored and tended to fall into the engine compartment. The third car was a light blue Mercedes that my Calabrian neighbour in Pieve hated. The fourth was a dark blue Mercedes 500, like the ones driven by diplomats, and that I bought cheap and converted to GPL. I did that to give the Calabrian a lesson, in fact it drove him literally mad...
To the point where he would actually stick chewing gum to my velour seat covers, cut them or else every night he would scratch the body work or put nails in my tyres, until he managed to make me lose control of the car returning from Civenna where I had taken my mother to my brother’s house. The strange thing is that only the summer before I had written a story with the title "No accident on state road thirty five", and it was right on that road that while taking an easy curve, I lost control of my car, which span right round and ended up crushed in a ditch. Some time later I saw on television what happens to a moving car when a rear tyre blows, and the effect was identical to what it had done to mine. My tyres were new, I was doing about 70 km, it was practically impossible to run off the road, even if I had wanted to. The rear left tyre had blown... The worst part of the accident was when I heard the windows shatter into pieces, the noise of twisting metal and when I was thrown about inside the car; everything was happening about me like in a nightmare. I found myself bruised and battered in the back seat, fortunately without any serious injury. Later someone placed a part of an electric razor and a box of sticking plaster taken from the boot of my car, parked at the wrecker’s, in my garden.
It was a Mafia-style message: I have to thank the unknown culprit of this act of sabotage, because I was free of a vehicle that cost the earth to fix every time it broke down. So for a time I was without a car, until I found a dark green Golf that was completely demolished near Milan Central Station, with the steering column on the floor, not to mention the broken glass, etc.. The man at the wrecker’s yard told me that it had probably been done by some Moroccan migrant who had been frustrated because he was unable to steal the car. It was thus that I bought the light blue Panda, whose engine I had to overhaul as soon as I arrived in Termine Grosso. Then came the Volvo diesel and another petrol Volvo, the one I have now, that so far hasn’t given me any trouble. There were also the 127 diesel and a Lancia Prisma diesel, though I don’t remember much about them, except for a few flat tyres or the body parts pulled off by the same old madman. To get a better idea of my state of mind at the time, I’m including a copy of the report that I made to the police at Milan Central. It was when my green Golf had been wrecked, so I plucked up courage; since I had to make a report, I spoke with the commissioner, a charming young lady who advised me to make a statement on all the damages that I had suffered. Which I did. Here it is.
To the Superintendent XYZ of Milan headquarters
To the Carabiniere Headquarters of Chignolo Po
The undersigned Giorgio Lanzani hereby makes a statement on the following events.
On the 16/08/93 I found my car, an old Golf licensed PV ZX2, with a broken window and steering column uprooted, damaged to such an extent that I had the car wrecked. Nothing had been taken from the interior: the car was made in 1975 and was parked in via A. Doria. Such an incident in Milan could be seen as a normal attempted theft, even though this would seem strange given that the car was twenty years old, if it had not been the latest in an endless series of misadventures that I have had to face with consequent economic repercussions. In fact I have the suspicion that these incidents, which I will list below, have been guided by one hand, one mind with one objective: my ruin and, if possible, my physical elimination through an automobile accident.
The series commenced with a bicycle that was damaged in the courtyard of my mother’s house in Milan. When I moved to Pieve, I purchased a used Mercedes 300 D. The lights on this vehicle were burned out one at time over a matter of days, the clutch was damaged one night, the power steering tube punctured, the headlamp covers and windscreen wiper fluid container detached. The four radial tyres were punctured, to the point that I was obliged to fit inner tubes. I thereafter purchased a 127 diesel. One evening on leaving the house of friends I found that the left hand door had been kicked in, the front right tyre punctured twice, the front right window handle damaged. I then purchased a Prisma diesel. The same day as the purchase I went to Venice and parked the car at the Tronchetto island. When I went to collect the car two days later, an individual was waiting nearby and asked me if I was a musician given that I was carrying a guitar. He then left. My battery had been completely discharged. Also in this case I found that the clutch had been loosened and a nail had been forced into a tyre. I thereafter bought a Mercedes 500 in order to dispose of two cars, given that I worked approximately seventy kilometres from home and I was continually without a vehicle. The lock on the driver’s side was immediately forced. A month later I burned out the engine due to the lack of anti-freeze liquid, a strange incident given that the car had been prepared by a Mercedes dealer. The automatic gearbox had been emptied of all oil, and the brakes broke as I returned from an ACLI meeting in Alpe Motta. I once found all my rear lights disconnected and placed in the trunk. August last year my car left the road when I was driving practically straight at 70 km/h with new tyres. The vehicle commenced swerving to the right, I attempted to keep the car on the road by steering in the opposite direction, the car spun around and came to a stop in a ditch, where I risked death due to the danger of the automobile catching fire. Late last September I purchased the Golf which I mentioned at the beginning. In this case I found two tacks in the two front tyres while travelling along the motorway to Venice, and which I showed the Carabinieri in Chignolo Po. Last December, while travelling to the annual dinner of the Circolo culturale Cisalpino, a Fiat Uno passed me at high speed. I was walking at the time. A motorbike blocked my path. I stepped down from the pavement, at which the Uno reversed at high speed, almost hitting me, then took off again at a ridiculous speed. The morning after, when I left my home to go to work, a vehicle containing two individuals was waiting with the engine going; after staring at me, they drove off at a screeching speed. - I now recall another incident that took place at a lunch held at the Circolo Cisalpino: when I left the villa where the meeting was held, I found that my clutch had been damaged. I will leave out some other strictly personal events, the names of the people I suspect to be involved, and pass on to the conclusion of my statement. -
The incidents that I have been subject to demonstrate the existence of an underhanded entity, suggesting an on-going attempt of intimidation, combined with the objective of bringing about my ruin and an end of my livelihood. When I started the section of my story dealing with my life in Pieve Porto Morone, I referred to the fact that I had gone there at the request of my family, given that I had placed myself in a prickly situation, because of love, when I lived with my mother. I will now try to give you a brief description of what happened...

NO ACCIDENT ON STATE ROAD THIRTY FIVE
- You could have called me, my husband and my daughter have gone away. Now I’m going to Garda lake, I’m taking windsurfing lessons. The indicator light on the lift at my mother’s home is on at number seven, my heart is pounding: 6-5-4-3-2-1-T: it’s her.
- Hi, how are you? Did you call me? I’ve been busy over the last few days... -. This is Jenny. Jenny is twelve years old and is coming home from school. She holds her books together with a simple strap, her hair is blonde, her eyes aquamarine. She’s a little empress. Jenny is forty, her beauty has faded, her charm intact. Her garage holds first a silver Flaminia, then a blue Beta, now a white Thema. In our garage there’s a grey Appia, a green Jaguar, then Jenny’s cars: a hazelnut Colt, a Uno turbo immediately stolen, a grey Uno... Thirty years of life. Jenny opens the lift door, we ascend without exchanging words or looks, our cheeks are flushed: we’re twelve years old. Now we’re forty, Jenny looks at me confidently. - You could have called me, my husband and my daughter are away. - I meant to call you tonight to ask you for a translation of one of my poems in Spanish. - I’m sorry, I have to go to Garda lake... Ciao, goodbye, I’ll be back in three days time. - Her bags are in the back seat of the Colt, her red lights dwindle into the twilight. Something burns my spirit, turns on my nerves, overcomes my defences. It’s a tower, falling over a cliff into nothingness, impossible love. Jenny has a husband and a daughter. I had a wife once. Now I’m free, but she isn’t... The wheel of fortune: which way will it turn? - Hello? Hi, it’s Giorgio, how are you? Can you wind surf now? Listen, I have to speak to you... I wanted to come over to Milan, but there’s a train strike. - Well, I’m leaving in a few days. I’m taking a boat for Minorca and then... I’m a fatalist... it wasn’t meant to be. - You know that I feel emotional when I see you? - Really? - Yes, like it used to be, when I was little. - You never told me, anyway now I have to go. You’ll see that it’ll pass, I’ll speak to you when I get back... Ciao arrivederci. My heart is trembling, should I call her or not? Let’s see what the I Ching says: great possession. Well, I’ll write a poem. It’s not bad: this story makes me suffer, but at least it gives me some positive inspiration.

IN THE SILENCE OF SUMMER NIGHTS

If I walk up over the clouds

will someone pray for me?

If I light

forbidden fires,

will someone watch over my destiny?

If I plunge into the chaos and come out upright,

will life’s lines of strength

follow my intent?

If I let once more my heart

suffer for love, will there be

someone who will break it,

who will make a martyr of me

once more?

During life answers are much worthier

than questions...

But life's answers

depend on what we ask,

in the silence of summer's nights.

I’ll write another poem, now I’ll call her and read it to her.

MAY I PHONE?

May I phone

and tell you that I love you

after so many years

after so much waiting

in front of a lift

and so many embarrassed silences.

Can I wait once more

and feel the emotion

that your being gives to me

after such a long time like before...

May I break the wall

that divides us and that maybe

will never fall...

Only for a while

can we reach the union?

Who knows if I’m doing the right thing, what does the I Ching say? Attractiveness with changes on high, no I don’t want to present myself as an artist: I’m not an artist, that is I might be one but ... - Hello? Ciao it’s me Giorgio - and now I live what I feel, as always. Jenny lives in Milan, I live in Venice. Jenny lives in Milan, so do I. Jenny lives in Amsterdam, I in Milan; Jenny lives in Amsterdam, I in Venice, Jenny returns to Milan, I return to Milan. Jenny has a husband and I have a wife, Jenny doesn’t have a husband any more, I don’t have a wife any more, Jenny has a daughter. Jenny lives on the seventh floor, I live on the third, Jenny walks carrying a shopping bag. I meet her. - We run into each other often, don’t we? The metro passes quickly by. Loreto, Lima, Porta Venezia, it’s her, she gets on; I get off at Duomo station, so does she. - Ciao how are you? What are you doing here? I’m going to EMI, I have to get back some recordings. If you like, I can drop by tonight so you and your daughter can listen to them. - Okay, ciao and good luck. Valentina listens to the songs, looks at me intently: then she bursts out laughing, unstoppable. Jenny reproaches her: she doesn’t realise that it’s just her letting off emotions. - Hello? Ciao, it’s Giorgio, how are you? - Fine thanks. - I wanted to know if we can meet next week.
I’ll be in Milan on Wednesday. - Fine, but ring me when you arrive, because my husband’s here and I have to go away with him for a day. - If your husband’s there, it’s better if we don’t meet. - He’s not a brute, you know! - It’s not that, I know this type of situation and they don’t lead to anything good -. A week goes by and I feel bad. I don’t know why I feel this love so deeply, if it’s not right. I call her. She’s gone back to Holland to her husband, unexpectedly. That means that my call had an effect, seeing that she had just returned from her holidays there with him. I call her again, she’s distant, I try to force the situation and achieve the opposite result: - I’m sorry, but you force me to do this... I slam down the telephone. I call her back, I tell her that I was wrong, she says. - No, you weren’t wrong, you’re right, but we’ll have to wait a long time before we can see each other again. One day I see her from the window together with a young man. He’s not her husband, he’s carrying a pair of skis towards the service lift. I start to put messages in her letter box, that’s how my battle starts, with love poems and water colours. Her car is in the garage; the garage is empty; there’s her bike, or Valentina’s; the blinds are down, the window is open, the light is on. I hear a noise, I look, she’s arrived, gets out of the car, closes the garage door. It’s too late for a woman alone, for a mother, for a spouse: too late Jenny.

SIGHS

Sighs of stolen nights

heart of a woman, face of a child

a breath of wind stirs your hair

a spark of light in your eyes

scent of roses on your pillow

I will not let you sleep alone this night

I'll never let you sleep alone.

The Colt is gone. In the garage there’s the red Uno turbo IE, now there’s a grey Uno turbo IE, tonight there’s a red Delta. I get out and close the roller door. The I change my mind and I lift it up: it falls back down. It’s a sign of destiny... Who knows what face he’ll make tomorrow. It’s three thirty in the morning and I can’t sleep, with her lover’s car parked in my garage.
Jenny comes back from the holidays with her father and her husband. Actually her father could be her husband, the other one only exists in geographical terms, he doesn’t have a real temporal space dimension, he becomes nothing due to his betrayal. Never betray an empress, she’ll never forgive you. - Hello Jenny? Ciao, it’s Giorgio. - Hi, how are you? - Fine, sorry for the phone call in July and for what I said. I saw you arrive with your husband and I realised. I thought that you were separated, seeing that you live apart. No, my family’s like that... We’re happy like that, we only see each other during vacations. You know I used to dream about a big family, with lots of kids, but it didn’t work out like that. Anyway there wasn’t anything wrong with what you said. You know, I wrote a song for you: can I bring it over? - Fine, give me a call and we can meet up. - Hello? It’s Giorgio. - Okay, come up. It’s a sunny morning, after talking to her I’m in a state of blessedness that I’ve never experienced before. The sun is inside me; I visit an art show and think of her: - I wrote this song out of love... She’s blushing, her cheeks are burning. I’ve decided, I’m going back to Milan. I ask for a transfer: Sm Croce via Venezia Cesate, Sm Leonardo da Vinci via Trieste, Limbiate. I arrive home, it’s July. There’s a motorbike in my mother’s garage: I go down the stairs, the lift is busy. I meet him: jacket, striped tie, navy blue suit, Honda 750 licensed Salerno. The motorbike is now in front of the house, he’s working on it, she comes down and goes over to speak with him: her hair is light with hints of gold, she looks up, sees me on the balcony and gives me a secret smile. Her husband is in Amsterdam, her daughter is away: that motorbike has to go from my garage. I meet her, it’s November. - Hi Jenny, can I speak to you? - What is it? -How much longer do I have to see your lover’s motorbike in my garage? - It’s not your concern, if you’re mother thinks it necessary, she can evict me. You’ve no right, you’ve got nothing to do with this. I know, I accompany her. - I didn’t think you’d stoop to this. Jenny is silent, she’s going to him. - Hi, it’s Giorgio here. - What do you want? Haven’t you got over me yet? Why don’t you leave me alone? And will you stop putting messages in my letter box? What would happen if my daughter found them? I wanted to know how you were, you’re always alone... - I’m not alone if you have to know and it’s none of your business: I can have a husband, a lover, eight lovers. It’s not your concern, okaaaay? - All right, but remember that my love for you can end as it began. It’s already happened before. - Oh really, and when? - With my ex wife. - Well just quit it, what about my image as a woman, a mother, a spouse if my daughter find your messages? Three days later she returns from her holidays and I call her. - Hello? Hi, it’s Giorgio, I feel bad, I have to see you. All right, but I can’t tonight, I’m going out with friends, what about tomorrow. - Tomorrow? - Yes, I’ll call you when I get back from the hospital. - Hi, it’s me Jenny, come in. Come up. She sits down a kilometre away, I come closer, I speak to her and I feel like crying. Her skirt is really short. - I’d like to kiss you -. - Try it. - I wouldn’t dare... can I see you? - No. - Call you? - No. - Write to you? - No. - I feel like a trade unionist. - I’ve got a friend who’s a trade unionist, he could teach you how to deal with me... I’m not a trade unionist, Jenny, I never will be, neither in politics nor in love. I give her a photo and a drawing, there’s a poem written on the back of the drawing.

ACROSS TRANSPARENT SPACES

I will project you across transparent spaces.

Wrapped in myriads of lights

I will hurl you into the sky.

With you the universe

will be lit up,

every star

will shine at your passage.

While you advance,

like a goddess,

infinite spaces

will shed tears of light,