Salvo’s Nose

A friend calls me from Palermo.

‘Did you hear? Salvo died.’

‘How can that be? He was younger than me!’

‘He had a heart attack.’

I swing my legs off the bed and stare in silence at the faux Persian rug where my yellow slippers are sitting.

I think about calling his wife, but I can’t remember her name. I only saw her once, at their wedding, and then never again. When I hung out with him, Salvo was free as the wind. Then he got married and had two sons. One was a communist, and the other, a fascist.

The last time we saw each other at a small café in Piazza Mazzini in Rome, he spoke at length about these two sons. He told me that they were still living at home even though one was nineteen and the other twenty-one.

‘I imagine they fight with each other,’ I commented.

But he shook his head.

‘They don’t fight at all. They actually get along quite well.’

‘You said that one is a communist and the other a fascist.’

‘They never talk about politics with each other.’

‘And what do they talk about?’

‘Soccer.’

‘And with you?’

‘With me they fight. One accuses me of being a capitalist, the other accuses me of being a dangerous subversive.’

‘Do they fight with their mother as well?’

‘No, not with their mother. They talk about women.’

‘With their mother?’

‘Yes, they tell her about their flings, their romances. She understands them, consoles them.’

#

Salvo was always a sharp dresser. Tall, lean, slender, sloping shoulders, elongated neck, long legs, even, pearly white teeth, prominent hook nose, a thick head of hair. ‘I wake up at night thinking I’ve lost all of my hair.’

‘What are you talking about, you have so much!’

‘All my friends have gone bald. And I expect to lose my hair at any time.’

But he never did. And he was proud of it. He often ran his fingers through his brown, wavy hair like a rake, while throwing back his head and squinting as if staring into the distance.

He was a witty man. Always the last to laugh at his own jokes, like a true humourist. His friends sought him out because they never got bored with him, even though they were a little afraid of him. Once a college friend who prided himself on being an avid reader told him that jokes are a sign of sexual neurosis: ‘Have you read Freud’s Psychopathology of Everyday Life, or, better still, the short essay titled Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious?’

Salvo immediately found a biting reply to make fun of his friend. But the latter went on: ‘Freud says that jokes are used as a technique to release the unconscious tendencies whose expression would not be permitted otherwise. What tendencies are you hiding, Salvo?’

‘Homicidal ones,’ was his swift reply. ‘Particularly the desire to kill one’s best friends.’

The other guy laughed and that was the end of it.

I’ve asked myself many times what lay behind his wisecracks. Which were always quick and felicitous, never crass, even though often cruel. As when I would ask him, ‘Do you love me?’ and he’d answer sarcastically: ‘Love is quite a ridiculous word, isn’t it?’ Or he’d flippantly declare: ‘Love is something you can’t drink; therefore, I’m not interested.’

What if I had paid attention to Freud? What would I have uncovered in a heart so stingy that it seemed as tight as a clam? Did jokes allow him to hide what he thought? Perhaps. Exposing something private, even letting a small truth slip between the folds of discourse, was an unforgivable sin. To steer clear of temptations he’d turn the conversation on its head with a small, striking play on words, instantly transforming it into something light, frivolous. But also cutting, and joyful, and clever.

I had many reasons to believe he loved me, but I wasn’t quite sure of it. ‘Love isn’t expressed through words, but actions,’ his sister, a petite brunette with light-colored eyes and the wisdom of an old medicine woman, used to say.

Was picking me up every morning when school let out an expression of love? Was frequently inviting me for lunch at his home with his mother and his sister Annina, his aunt Gabriella and his grandmother Titti an expression of love? He inhabited a female world, and he let himself be pampered and indulged by it.

Salvo was handsome, and he knew it. But he didn’t take advantage of his looks to win someone over or make them fall in love with him. He preferred to use the weapon of laughter. He was happy only when he managed to make you laugh. He excelled at the truly difficult art of keeping people’s attention alive with verbal acrobatics. He was sought after for parties and group dinners. He never disappointed. Even when he seemed calm, quiet and absorbed in thought. Was he listening to what the others were saying? He didn’t look like it. But all it took was a silly or pretentious word for him to swoop down into the conversation like a hawk and decisively strike the unfortunate victim by ridiculing him.

But what was he hiding behind all those witty remarks, the teasing, the jokes? What was he defending like a mother hen behind the satiric rigor of a stern Jacobin? His friends were offended at times but they didn’t hold a grudge. Or at any rate they didn’t show it. Because he was ‘just kidding.’ That’s what he said with a smile. Even though at times he cut to the core.

In those days I was reading Charlie Chaplin’s biography, and I was struck by the fact that the more the great director and comic actor engaged in writing and shooting films where humour intertwined with tear-jerking sentimentality, the more he became brutal, violent in life. He was accused of raping a minor, of seducing and abandoning God knows how many beautiful girls, of starving his illegitimate children, of being authoritarian and intolerant at home.

Is comedy an act of cruelty? I wondered when I saw my love strut around like a prince among his fellow students, his long red scarf dangling on his chest. He made fun of one because he wore resoled shoes, another because he was awkward around women, yet another because he was bad at public speaking.

He came across as posh and a bit of snob. But he wasn’t rich. He came from a humble family. Before dying, his father, a bank usher, managed to get his son into the financial institution and then departed this life happy. Salvo stayed with his mother, sister, aunt and grandmother. His sister Annina had been engaged since she was ten to the man she later married and with whom she had five children.

#

Once—we’d already lost touch for thirty years and we hadn’t seen each other since the conversation about his sons—he called me saying that he was in Rome for work and wanted to talk to me. I saw him approaching with the white trench coat flapping around his skinny body, his hook nose, his usual beautiful smile. He sat on the edge of the chair and kissed my hand, as a gentleman of yesteryear would. But he had a perverse twinkle in his eyes.

‘It’s nice to see you, Salvo, you’re still a very handsome man.’

‘You know, I haven’t slept for nights thinking about how I ruined your life.’

‘And why is that?’

‘You wanted to have my baby, you told me repeatedly. I didn’t want to, remember? And since you didn’t have any children later, I thought it was my fault.’

‘Don’t blame yourself for something you didn’t do, Salvo. I did have a baby. Unfortunately, he died before his first birthday. It’s got nothing to do with you.’

‘Your difficult relationship with motherhood comes from me, I’m sure of it, from my selfishness as a young wastrel. I can’t forgive myself.’

That was a really weird conversation. What happened to his sarcasm, his penchant for mocking and ridiculing himself and everybody else?

‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘No, I’m serious. I’m sick of joking all the time.’

I thought something was wrong with him. And sure enough, I subsequently learned that he’d already had a minor heart attack.

#

I didn’t go to his funeral. Not only because I live in Rome and he died at home, in Palermo. But also, because I don’t like funerals. I try to avoid them. Seeing a coffin covered with flowers conjures up images of frozen eternities in my mind. Brooding over the dead body, lifeless inside that horrible coffin nailed shut, kills forever the joy of seeing him move in my mind’s eye, as he was during our romance, in those distant years of an enchanted and unhappy Palermo

I wanted to keep seeing Salvo in my memory, walking with his trench coat flapping around him, the lock of hair on his forehead, the curved nose—his friends said that he looked like the Duke of Montefeltro, a man with thick curls and a prominent nose portrayed by Piero della Francesca—his long legs in perpetual motion.

Once a common friend told him: ‘Why don’t you get a nose job? You’re so handsome, you only have that one flaw.’ To which, piqued, he immediately shot back quoting a line from Cyrano de Bergerac: ‘Yes, I know … My nose, sir, is enormous. Ignorant clod, cretinous moron, a man ought to be proud, yes, proud, of having so noble an appendage.’ And he bowed, taking off an imaginary plumed hat.

It wouldn’t have been strange to see him stride forward dressed as a musketeer, with red stockings, burgundy knee-length trousers, a coat studded with ribbons and buttons, a long sword at his side, ready to strike. Not to kill: blood disgusted him, wounds bored him. But to shove his opponent against the wall. And when the poem ends, I hit! Allez! You’re dead!

He didn’t like to deliver a killing blow, not even with a phrase. He was a swordsman of the word, a daredevil juggler who only cared for the complicated laws of linguistic gravity.

#

Once he recited all of Cyrano on the radio. An independent radio station where I worked as well, a student-run radio where we talked for hours on end and late into the night about free will, the mafia, war, the right to piss against the wall, free love, and on and on.

I’d gotten good at letting my fingers run wild on the console keyboard. I learned how to quickly introduce one record after another, to raise and lower the sound levels. I knew how to fade out a track to segue with the next. I knew how to connect with a caller, how to cut them off when they went on some endless diatribe against the entire world. I knew how to find, when needed, the sounds of a demonstration, a gusty wind, a galloping horse, a morning by the sea. I knew how to lead a conversation so that everyone could speak without talking over each other.

I had turned into a console wiz and everyone called me for their shows. There were lots of them, split between the various university departments. I knew that I would be wiped out, that I was going to spend the night in that tiny room with covered windows, but I didn’t want to say no. In part out of shyness, in part out of pride, in part because I was always hoping my beloved Salvo would show up to talk about some news item in his rambling witty way. He had a full round voice that was a pleasure to listen to. A voice that knew how to flow, gently sway, but it could also suddenly shrivel up, turning hoarse and derisive.

‘My nose, dear sir, is a rock, a bluff, a cape, no, a promontory…They ask me: what may this oblong thing be used for? A writing-desk or a tool-chest? Are you fond of birds? How sweet—a Gothic perch to rest their tiny feet.’

These were his favourite passages, his quotes from the beloved text. No one actually made fun of him for his overbearing nose. It was he who pre-empted criticism, mocked, tormented and justified himself. Girls sought him out and often pursued him romantically. But he claimed to be faithful. ‘I’m monogamous,’ he’d say with a smile, ‘polygamy bores me: just think—instead of one cold foot against your thighs, you’d have to put up with ten, a different one every night. I ain’t no fool, nun sugnu pazzo.’

#

When it came to making love he was shy. Abrupt and apprehensive. We didn’t have a room of our own and when we wanted to be alone we searched for a place outdoors where we wouldn’t be disturbed. We didn’t even have a car. Palermo was poor. You got around by horse-drawn carriage. We had two rickety bicycles and with those, pedalling at breakneck speed, we reached some meadows in the outskirts of the city, past the hills of the Piana di San Lorenzo. And we lay his trench coat down on the ground among the bushes. I still remember the care with which he spread the precious garment, white as snow, as he delicately lay it on the thorny ground, making sure the white stayed on the inside so it wouldn’t get dirty.

I remember one time when we were hit by an unbearable stench as we lay down. ‘I say it’s poop,’ he said, moving the trench coat a few feet away. But the stench endured. Until, lifting the coat, we realized that with the weight of our bodies we had squashed and glued to the fabric a huge foul-smelling turd. We burst into uncontrollable laughter. In spite of his disgust and despair at seeing his only winter garment, to which he was so attached, ruined.

What acrobatics we engaged in to make love without taking off all of our clothes, with crickets jumping through our hair, ants crawling between our bare thighs, greedy for the drops of semen. ‘Go ahead, dinner is served!’ Salvo would say, watching the little creatures bustling around on my naked stomach. ‘I’m gonna go on a killing spree. And you, with your nature lover’s spirit, will scold me for it.’

He never let himself go completely. Even at the height of passion he was liable to break the spell with a caustic remark. ‘What do you think, is there someone spying on us behind the bushes? I did it too when I was a kid.’

The idea that prying eyes might be watching us without being seen frightened me. But he just laughed. And turning to the bushes he’d yell, ‘Vieni cà, cugghione! C’mere, ya dumbass! If I catch you I’ll stab you with my nose, I swear it on my future!’ And then, in a whisper, to me: ‘Do you think I’m going to have a future that won’t be shitty and totally suck?’ And he laughed softly, blowing into my ear.

We were ‘’nammurati e filici,’ happy and in love, for three years. Then I left for Rome and he married a coworker. I think they got along well together. I saw them at their wedding. He called me for a long chat, insisting I come for the wedding. ‘We’re going to have a big celebration. I really want you to come, it means a lot to me. And I expect a present, mind you. An elephant at the very least.’

I felt lonely and out of place among all those former schoolmates whom I hadn’t seen in years, and who had all been transformed: some had lost their hair, some had become obese, some had gotten over a terrible illness, some had turned fat and bitter, some had gone from anarchist rebel to conservative and moralist. I no longer recognized them. And thinking of the transformation I myself had undergone, which had to seem equally shocking, not to say depressing, put me in a bad mood.

Salvo was dashing as always, encased in a light blue linen suit. The bride wore a white gown, a short one, though, and no veil on her head. They got married in the Santa Cita oratory with Serpotta’s cherubs watching us mockingly from the walls. A musician friend of the couple played jazz pieces on the organ.

The reception was at Villa Igea, as tradition dictates. The guests wandered around the terraces decked with flowers overlooking a stormy sea. It was windy and the paper napkins blew into the trees. ‘We were the Leopards, the Lions; those who’ll take our place will be little jackals, hyenas,’ Salvo whispered in my ear, quoting Lampedusa. He was wearing a new scent, of tobacco and roses.

‘Did you start smoking?’ ‘Why, can you tell?’

‘You didn’t smoke when I first met you.’

‘Monogamy drained my lungs. Smoke helps me air them out.’

‘It’s actually the opposite.’

‘Since, as Beaumarchais says, marriage is, of all serious things, the most ludicrous, I’m going to ask you to toast with me now!’

#

When we met in Rome years later, on the upper floor of the Caffè Esperia, he confirmed to me that his marriage was happy. That his wife was wise and kind. That his sons were extraordinary, in spite of their ideological differences. ‘They share a room. Systematically split in two: on one side are books by Marx, Lenin, Mao; on the other the works of Evola, Guénon, Spengler. During the day they avoid each other. At night they go out together on the only motorcycle in the house.’

‘And where do they go?’

‘They go dancing! Did you think I had two nerdy sons?’

‘Didn’t you tell me that they spent their time studying and reading?’

‘That’s right, they study and read. But they dance too. They are the sons of Cyrano with the nose that snorts, trills, sways, leaps, shakes, pirouettes, dances. They are the sons of this nose.’

He was the same old Salvo, ready to joke around and poke fun, first and foremost at himself. In Sicily this type of wit is called ‘il sivo.’ More than irony, it means a slight wandering of the mind among the chaos of daily idiocy.

We had black tea and pastries with whipped cream. We reminisced about our Palermo sunsets, on the outskirts of the city, around San Lorenzo, in the times when Palermo hadn’t yet become overrun by concrete, when we spread out the white trench coat on the dirty ground, among thousands of hungry ants. We laughed remembering the poop episode and the foul smell that clung to his trench coat in spite of washing it hundreds of times with castile soap.

‘Would you like another pastry?’

‘No, I’m fine.’

‘Have you noticed that I’ve put on weight? All happy marriages make you gain weight.’

‘So do unhappy ones, as a matter of fact.’

‘I think I got everything wrong. From underwear to socks. But I’m happy all the same. I turned my mistakes into an armoured house, where I feel safe. Does it show that I’m a coward?’

‘You still seem the same to me: cheerful and generous.’

‘You’re either a consummate flatterer or an excellent actress. I saw it in the way you looked at me, you know—you thought: here’s the man who failed! Everything, from my shoes to my hat, points to my failure, and you can’t lie, at least not with your eyes.’

‘One fails with regards to a project, an aspiration. What do you feel betrayed by?’

‘By my nose.’