It was early June. Belbowas upset. The doctors had finally accepted the idea that he andGudrun were Diotallevi's only relatives, and they talked. When theprinters and proofreaders inquired about Diotallevi, Gudrun nowanswered with pursed lips, uttering a bisyllable in such a way thatno vowel escaped. Thus the taboo illness was named.
Gudrun went to seeDiotallevi every day. She must have disturbed him with those eyesof hers, glistening with pity. He knew, but was embarrassed thatothers knew. He spoke with difficulty. (Belbo wrote: "The face isall cheekbones.") He was losing his hair, but that was from thetherapy. (Belbo wrote: "The hands are all fingers.")
In the course of one oftheir painful dialogs, Diotallevi gave Belbo a hint of what hewould say to him on the last day: that identifying oneself with thePlan was bad, that it might be evil. Even before this, perhaps tomake the Plan objective and reduce it again to its purely fictionaldimension, Belbo had written it down, word for word, as if it werethe colonel's memoirs. He narrated it like an initiatecommunicating the final secret. This, I believe, was to be a cure:he was returning to literature, however second-rate, to that whichwas not life.
But on June 10,something bad must have happened. The notes are confused; all Ihave is conjectures.
* * *
Lorenza asked him todrive her to the Riviera, where she had to see a girlfriend andcollect something or other, a document, a notarized deed, somenonsense that could just as well have been sent by mail. Belboagreed, dazzled by the idea of spending a Sunday at the sea withher.
They went to theplace¡XI haven't been able to figure out exactly where, perhapsnear Portofino. Belbo's description was all emotion, tensions,dejections, moods; it contained no landscapes. Lorenza did hererrand while Belbo waited in a cafe. Then she said they could goand eat fish in a place on a bluff high above the sea.
After this, the storybecomes fragmentary. There are snatches of dialog without quotationmarks, as if transcribed at white heat lest a series of epiphaniesfade. They drove as far as they could, then continued on foot,taking those toilsome Ligurian paths along the coast, surrounded byflowers, to the restaurant. When they were seated, they saw, on thetable next to theirs, a card reserving it for ConteAglie.
What a coincidence,Belbo must have said. A nasty coincidence, Lorenza replied; shedidn't want Aglifc to know she was there, and with Belbo. Why not,what was wrong with that? What gave Aglie the right to be jealous?Right? No, it was a matter of taste; Aglie had invited her outtoday and she'd told him she was busy. Belbo didn't want her tolook like a liar, did he? She wouldn't look like a liar; she was infact busy, she had a date with Belbo. Was that something to beashamed of? Not ashamed of, but she had her own rules of tact, ifBelbo didn't mind.
They left therestaurant, started back up the path, but Lorenza suddenly stopped;she saw some people arriving. Belbo didn't know them. Friends ofAglie, she said, and she didn't want them to see her. A humiliatingsituation: she leaned against the railing of a little bridge over aravine full of olive trees, a newspaper in front of her face, as ifshe were consumed by a sudden interest in current events. Belbostood ten paces away, smoking, as if he were just passingby.
A friend of Aglie walkedpast. Lorenza said that if they continued along the path, they werebound to run into Aglie himself. To hell with this, Belbo said. Sowhat? Lorenza said he was insensitive. The solution: Get to the carwithout taking the path, cut across the slopes. A breathless flightover a series of sunbaked terraces, and Belbo lost the heel of ashoe. Lorenza said, You see how much more beautiful it is this way?Of course you're out of breath; you shouldn't smoke somuch.
They reached the car,and Belbo said they might as well go back to Milan. No, Lorenzasaid, Aglie might be late, we might meet him on the highway, and heknows your car. It's such a lovely day, let's cut through theinterior. It must be charming, and we'll get to the Autostrada delSole and have supper along the Po somewhere, near Pavia.
Why there, and what doyou mean, cut through the interior? There's only one solution; lookat the map. We'd have to climb into the mountains after Uscio, thencross the Apennines, stop at Bobbio, and from there go on toPiacenza. You're crazy! Worse than Hannibal and the elephants. Youhave no sense of adventure, she said, and anyway, think of all thecharming little restaurants we'll find in those hills. Before Usciothere's Manuelina's, which has at least twelve stars in theMichelin and all the fish you could want.
Manuelina's was full,with a line of customers eyeing the tables where coffee was beingserved. Never mind, Lorenza said, a few kilometers higher we'llfind a hundred places better than this. They found a restaurant attwo-thirty, in a wretched village that, according to Belbo, eventhe army maps were ashamed to record, and they ate overcooked pastawith a sauce made of canned meat. Belbo asked Lorenza what wasbehind all this, because it was no accident that she had made himtake her to the very place where Aglie would be: she wanted toprovoke someone, either Aglie or him, but he couldn't figure outwhich of the two it was. She asked him if he wasparanoid.
After Uscio they tried amountain pass and, as they were going through a village that lookedlike Sunday afternoon in Sicily during the reign of the Bourbons, abig black dog came to a stop in the middle of the road, as if ithad never seen an automobile before. Belbo hit it. The impact didnot seem great, but as soon as they got out, they saw that the pooranimal's belly was red with blood, and some strange pink things(intestines?) were sticking out, and the dog was whimpering anddrooling. Some villeins gathered, and soon it was like a townmeeting. Belbo asked who the dog's owner was, he would pay.
