an excerpt from A Castle in Romagna
by Igor Stiks
translated by Tomislav Kuzmanovic
1
As
one comes down the old road from
Come nearer and it offers the chance
to examine renowned frescoes and study all the beauty of early Renaissance
architectural skill. One may also descend the two hundred thirteen steps that
lead to the dungeon in which Enzo Strecci, that giant of Renaissance
literature, spent days of hardship awaiting his death. He was the main reason I
decided to visit
There were three of us, two girls
and I, on a beautiful summer day, which was reflected in the red faces of the
breathless friar-caretakers of the castle and its garden. They directed us –– “a
destra, a destra” –– toward the tourist portion of the edifice. All the way
to where the friar sold the tickets and offered select information about the
history of the castle, we could feel a slight draft and smell the damp coming
through the dungeon bars at the bottom of the wall. Here and there we could see
a sword or mace or hear a voice from the cellar, as if Strecci himself were
still protesting his innocence.
The first thing I noticed about the
friar, with whom it turned out I was to stay until evening, was his unruly hair
and luxuriant curls, hanging like bunches of grapes all about his round face.
He waited for us, the tickets in his outstretched hands and a prepared smile of
warm welcome on his face. There followed a lecture on the most interesting
curiosities of the castle and then — because, as he put it, one has to make a
living — he requested five thousand lire for the free tour. While he was
putting the money into a box, probably in order to break the awkward silence
that had followed his last words, he asked kindly, “Da dove venite, ragazze?
(Where are you girls from?)”
Marianna said, “La Francia,”
Irena said the same, and he turned to me and asked, “E tu, bambino? (And
you, child?)”
“Sono bosniaco (I’m a
Bosnian),” I said reservedly, which made the friar suddenly break into loud
laughter and blurt out, looking me straight in the eye, “Bang, bang. Eh? Eh?
Bosniaco. Bang, bang.”
I stood before him, utterly
bewildered, unable to think of any words in Italian that might serve as a
response. “Capisci? Bang, bang,” he said again, this time without
gesturing in my face, waiting for a reaction to his all too obvious joke: it
was the summer of 1995.
“We should get going,” said the
girls, who were ready for the tour.
“Man this guy’s nuts,” I told them,
looking at the stiff grimace on his face, upon which he answered with yet
another surprise, uttered in Croatian: “Maybe nuts but safe at least, eh? What
do you say to that, Bosnian?”
“I’d better listen to the girls,” I
said. Suddenly he grabbed my hand and changed his tone. Once again he was the
pleasant friar selling tickets, maybe even more pleasant because of the
language only the two of us in the room and, it would seem, the general
vicinity, shared.
“Just a joke, eh? Capisci? No
harm intended. It’s been a long time since I saw anybody from home. At least up
close.”
That was the first time I wondered
how old he might be. Only after he had mentioned time and suggested proof of
his age, putting his hand on mine long enough for its surface to remind me of a
layer of cream cut through with barely visible veins, only then did I look at
him more carefully. Later I understood that he was over sixty-five.
There was a brief moment of silence,
and you could hear the girls in the next room, admiring the accomplishments of
Renaissance wall painting.
“I’m an exile, an ‘esulo,’ like
you a little,” he went on, without letting me interrupt.
I tried to explain that I was in a
hurry. He let go of my hand and said, “I wouldn’t want you to be angry. It was
just a joke. You’re not mad, are you? It must make you happy that I speak so
well. Before you is living proof that the language of one’s early days is not
easily forgotten. That feeling doesn’t grow old, you know. Yes, yes, no more terra
nostra. Good-bye. Never again, mai più, back home. Bang, bang, like
I said. See you when we free you, as they used to put it. Isn’t that right? Or
am I making things up?”
He didn’t wait for my answer.
“I haven’t run into anyone from there
for a long time, a really long time. Forgive me. Have a cigarette. I wouldn’t
want to part with yet another Slav this way. You’re not angry? Are we okay?”
In the hope of getting rid of him
for good, I said it hadn’t even crossed my mind, I was just a little
unpleasantly surprised, I didn’t want to talk about it, I was on vacation, I
was in the company of two angels who didn’t like to wait and, besides, I had
paid for the ticket, so it wouldn’t be right for me not to see where the
renowned Enzo Strecci had spent his last days.
At this the friar gave a knowing grin.
“Enzo Strecci, yes. Yes. Enzo the Great. You won’t believe it if I tell you
that he was like you and me. No, you won’t believe it. Just like you and me.”
He uttered every syllable of the last
phrase as if it were part of a plot, opening his eyes wide to emphasize our
new found closeness.
“Really?” I said with some interest.
He immediately went on, “Yes, really. I
sometimes think that that’s the only reason I’m still here. As if all my life
I’ve been executing other people’s wills. Others know better than I that that
is not an easy thing to do. ‘Let what has come upon me be remembered,’ as Enzo
says somewhere in his book of poetry, if I remember correctly.”
I nodded. It was clear that we could
share an interest in Strecci if the connection between us rested on a firmer
foundation. As I write about it today, I think it was just then that I tried
for the last time to remedy the tiny misstep on our intended journey into the
Renaissance. But I didn’t get far. It’s a point of personal consolation to me
that I stayed with the friar that whole afternoon. And, in the end, that is
what made this story possible.
I had taken a few steps in the direction
the girls had disappeared when he called me back and, his face to the window,
began to speak. I looked at his bent round back, and that was how it began,
when he stretched out his hand and said, “Come here. Look. That way there, up
the hill, that’s the path on which Enzo Strecci, the handsome Lombardian, came
to this place. Come. Take a look at that path.”
I couldn’t leave him after that.