The old man falls silent once again, and the young man wonders, in disbelief, whether he really has stopped telling the story. He follows his gaze as it points vaguely up at the sky, resting on the swallows and the city filled with light and shadows, alive with murmurings, so similar to that same city sixty years ago.
Then he realizes that the other man is starting to sing a song. But he can’t figure out what song it is, because it’s less than a faint moaning, like when you think of something far, far away. In space or in time.
The clawlike fingers hold that instrument, at once sorrowful and tragic, comical and surreal, that helps him make it through the shadows and reach the new morning.
The young man clears his throat and asks in subdued voice: Maestro, after that? What happened after that?
The old man turns around slowly, a little surprised, as if he’d utterly forgotten the young man was even there. What do you want to know?
The young man is breathless, it seems impossible to him that this is how it ends. He points to the world outside the window, as if the presence of streets and people, automobiles and airplanes somehow justified his curiosity. But after that, what happened to them, Maestro? Did the young woman go to prison? Did the commissario die? Was Gelmi released? And the . . . The young man doesn’t know how to finish that sentence, but there’s no need after all.
The old man shrugs his shoulders: Ah, he says, I have no idea. That same night I boarded a freighter, and after that, another one, and another one after that. I was terrified, I was afraid they’d drag me into it, charge me with complicity or, even worse, say that I’d organized the whole thing in cahoots with that lunatic Italia. Far better to take to my heels.
The young man sits there openmouthed: You ran away? Where? For how long?
The old man smiles, while the darkness advances little by little. Yes, I ran away, with nothing but this. And he lifts the mandolin in the shadows. My only luggage. And it was a good thing I brought it, because where I stopped, in South America, there were no instruments like this one. Who knows what kind of garbage I’d have had to settle for.
South America, the young man whispers.
That’s right, says the old man. I stayed there for forty years, with no further contacts with my past. I changed my name two or three times, and I had a thousand different jobs. But in the evening, I always found my way to a campfire, to play my mandolin. In front of hundreds of pairs of eyes welling over with tears. You know, guaglio’, so many people migrated from here. And they’ve had children who’ve had other children: but they all still have the desire to come back, even if, for one reason or another, that hasn’t happened. These people, when they hear the sound of the mandolin, for a while they dream of their long-ago home. And I gave them that dream.
The young man listens in wonderment. Then he asks: but Italia . . . and Fedora? Who were you in love with, Maestro? Was it true what the dancer confessed to the brigadier? The old man shakes his head. I cared for Italia, she seemed like a fine young woman; I hadn’t understood that she was completely insane. Fedora . . . Fedora was beautiful. A very special woman. She gave me the feeling that I’d . . . grown up. Become a strong, adult man. In a certain sense it was me who killed her, at least in part, don’t you think? If she hadn’t loved me, she would have lived to see other days.
The young man reflects and decides that the old man is right. Now he knows why that artist endowed with supreme talent has never left a mark on the musical landscape of the past decades. It’s because he wasn’t there. He was somewhere else.
Maestro, but what have you done in all these years? Did you give concerts, did you make records, maybe under some pseudonym, did you teach important students? And why have you come back?
The old man scrutinizes the mandolin, as if stunned to find it still in his hands. He struggles to his feet, with a creaking of bones; he places the instrument in its case, closing it gently. He runs his hands over its flaking black surface, the dulled buckle, the leather strap.
He steps over to the window and observes the swallows as they fly, following trajectories that are mysterious and perfect and useless.
He looks out at the lowering night, at the sea somewhere between sky blue and black, the mountain in its perennial wait, and he says: I am the swallow that, as winter ends, nurtures the dream of returning; and if it’s alive, then sooner or later, it returns.
He turns to look at the young man: I don’t know whether the kind policeman with the strange green eyes died that night. Or whether the big strong brigadier, who seized Italia and took her away, managed to figure out what had actually happened. Whether Gelmi remained in prison, with his diseased liver, or whether he found himself out from behinds bar and a free man again, though without the love of his life. Every swallow has its journey, guaglio’. I had to set out on my own. I returned to die where I was born. In the only place I’ve ever been happy.
He looks out the window again and says in a low voice: In the only place where it’s possible to be happy.
Then he turns, slowly bends over, and takes the case in both hands. He takes a step toward the young man and hands it to him, as if it were a newborn fast asleep in its crib.
The young man feels his heart skip a beat in his chest. He feels a mixture of inadequacy, sorrow, and sheer terror.
Maestro, he says, no. Not to me; I’m not capable, I’m not ready. I’m not worthy.
The old man smiles and he already seems dead, while the night glitters behind him; a skull with hair: thinning, white, weirdly long hair. He’s the tall, bony young man, the one who embroidered golden fabrics for Fedora’s sleeping hours, murmuring in tune with the swallows: Love of my life.
The old man replies, softly: You’re wrong. Before you weren’t worthy, just as anyone who plays and sings and has no idea what story to tell is unworthy. But now you’ve learned. And you understand that you need to depart, because you’re a swallow. A swallow needs a journey, to be happy.
The young man takes the case; never has any object felt so immensely heavy.
The old man drags his feet back to the armchair; he sits, with the blanket over his legs.
And he starts to dream. For the last time.