–14–

I’m fine, thank you. No, the dizziness didn’t come back; it was all in my mind. We can talk. Don’t worry, I’m back under control. My uncertainty has gone, and everything is clear again.

Let’s get straight to the point. I told you that reading my book would help you understand some of my processes. Some. And these processes are intellectual … Go ahead … Antonym says at one stage that his father isn’t worth it. So what? It’s a line — laden with self-reference, I admit — that only reinforces my intention to distance myself, through writing the book, from the real relationship that consumed me.

Don’t look for clues in the plot itself, please. That’s vulgar. What I have to say is of much more interest to you. And it will make everything clearer. You want clarity, don’t you?

I wanted, as I’ve said before, to speculate about the birth of Evil, after I’d acquired some knowledge of philosophy, literature, and existential matters … What? I don’t mean to offend you, but that’s a narrow view of the matter. Try to be less of an analyst and more of a philosopher. It is true that science explains that we are born with genetic determinants which can be developed or stifled by our environment. It is also true that psychology can provide explanations for my blasphemies when I was a boy, and much of what followed. But that’s not my point. It’s more transcendental than that. I was interested, I repeat, in finding out what lies beyond our genes, and their psychological or social triggers.

Let’s take a historical case: Hitler. Some people believe that his artistic frustrations and repressed homosexuality led him to do all those horrific deeds, as if they had activated hypothetical genes for Evil. But if they were the only factors, there would have been hundreds of monsters of Hitler’s calibre throughout human history — and there haven’t been. Hitler’s followers? They only confirm my theory. They were so petty that they would have been insignificant, or would only have been common criminals, were it not for Hitler. Now, consider the opposite: Good. Take the example of Saint Francis of Assisi. In an era of utter moral and religious decay, he renounced wealth to assume a life dedicated to Christ and the poor. He attracted thousands of followers, but there is no record of any of them having attained the same degree of sainthood and abnegation. Can hypothetical genes for Good explain Saint Francis? If that were the case, shouldn’t there be lots of others like him?

Where am I going with this? Well, you read Future. I’m suggesting that there are men of spirit, good ones and evil ones, who are granted complete free will. It is men of spirit who drive humanity and, one way or another, who fulfil God’s designs … How can divine designs and free will coexist? That’s the point I’d like to have elaborated on in my book: God’s designs are universal, but they are brought to fruition by the free will of special individuals. In other words, there had to be a Saint Francis, just as it was imperative that there be a Hitler, so that humanity could follow the path laid out by God. But Saint Francis only became Saint Francis, and Hitler only became Hitler, because they were given the ability to choose. The former chose Good; the latter, Evil. Which also means that Saint Francis could have chosen Evil, and Hitler, Good … Yes, in a way, they were equal at some stage. That’s another heresy for my list.

You’re right; most people choose their own path. But, unless they’re men of spirit, their power is undeniably limited by inner forces, by the instinct to follow the herd. For them, their will isn’t as free as they think it is. That’s what allows God to forgive the sins of the small … I beg your pardon? Can a monster like Hitler be forgiven? Well, based on the assumption that his entirely free choice is a part of the divine plan, I believe so. As it says in the last chapter of Future, Good and Evil are parallels that meet at the infinity that is God. But perhaps the idea of forgiving men of spirit who choose Evil is beyond human understanding.

My ability to converse with literary and philosophical traditions? You’d make a great literary critic, you know. You’ve perfected the art of saying nothing while creating the impression that you’re saying everything. The sarcasm again — forgive me. Remember the passage where I write that Antonym, to pass the time, liked to make free associations? Well, his favourite association is actually a line from a commedia dell’arte character, Il Dottore. That’s what dialoguing is: stealing.

What would have become of Antonym? He believed himself to be a man of spirit, but he wasn’t really. If I’d continued the book, Antonym would have formed a trinity with Hemistich and Farfarello. His baptism into the darkness of the religion of the senses would have been to kill Kiki, in a ritual similar to the one in which Augusto killed his wife. The aboulic, mistrustful Antonym would transform into an eloquent preacher, with an enormous talent for drawing people with money to the new religion. The enthusiasm of neophytes, you know.

Thanks to Antonym, the orgies would become more and more fantastic, and the evil ones would build a kind of cathedral of pleasure, far from the city. The success of the undertaking would attract the greed of extortionists connected to the police, and of those who dealt in the hallucinogenic weed that animated the parties. The situation would get complicated. To stop the business from crumbling, Farfarello would suggest to Antonym that, without Hemistich’s knowledge, he should approach the senator he had blackmailed in the first place. Using his great influence in the highest spheres of political power, the senator could help get rid of the extortionists.

Antonym would take Farfarello’s advice, and would be told by the politician that he’d only intervene if Hemistich were eliminated — the senator would want to take revenge against he who had blackmailed him. Antonym would hesitate, but Farfarello would convince him it had to be done so they could both be saved, and because of their undertaking. Antonym would then kill Hemistich, after a conversation in which Hemistich would offer himself as a sacrificial lamb. I had a draft of this dialogue, but I lost it. Anyway, after killing Hemistich, Antonym would receive a videotape, delivered to his home. Farfarello had filmed the murder, and would give a copy to the police if Antonym didn’t disappear without a trace, leaving the entire business to him, Farfarello.

Disoriented, Antonym would return to the beach, where he’d discovered, or thought he’d discovered, that he was a man of spirit. There, faced with the realisation that he was really no more than a cold-blooded assassin, he’d drown himself.

‘Another future dissolved under nature’s mantle of silence.’ That’s the sentence with which I was planning to end the chapter … What would happen to Farfarello? It would be clear that he had triumphed. Farfarello had masterminded everything: the blackmailing of the senator, Antonym and Hemistich’s meeting, Antonym’s conversion, the extortionists, the senator’s demand that Hemistich be eliminated, Hemistich’s murder — and, to an extent, even Antonym’s suicide … No, he wasn’t a man of spirit who had chosen the path of Evil. Truth be told, Farfarello was the Devil himself. He had materialised to play with two tiny, pretentious souls — Hemistich’s and Antonym’s. The name Farfarello, in fact, is a scholarly clue — it is another word for the Devil in early Italian literature.

Go on, ask … Have I ever believed myself to be a man of spirit, like Antonym? I repeat, I could have chosen to spare my father and myself … The entirely free will that is an attribute of men of spirit? I know where you’re taking this. I’d say I’d be a common criminal if I’d simply killed my father. But my philosophical motives for this act, and for what followed the patricide, belong to the sphere of the extraordinary. I was both the crime and the punishment. I beg your pardon? No, you’re wrong. Someone who kills, then kills himself, is the opposite. The last thing a suicide of this lowly calibre wants is to reap the punishment, do penance for his sin. He’s weak. I, on the other hand, am doing penance. I am confronted with my sin every single day.