Spatriati by Mario Desiati

Author:Mario Desiati [Desiati, Mario]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2024-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

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“I feel welcome, even if I still don't know anyone.”

“Maybe it's just your frame of mind, the city doesn't matter,” I replied.

“It matters, Francesco, the air that you breathe, the gazes of the people, they matter.”

“The people? People are the same everywhere.”

“I have the impression that here everyone is my accomplice.”

Her reports resembled those of an infatuated tourist, and nothing is more boring than the stories of a tourist. She said that the sky seemed higher than in Italy. I answered that it was the latitude, and she replied that I was turning into a curmudgeon.

She was always walking, following the wave of green traffic lights. Under the Jannowitz Bridge she could hear the clanking of the S-Bahn trains. Despite the noise, there was harmony in that commotion of rails, bridges and streets which rested on the authority of the Spree, a friendly river with a silvery glare that smelled like cold air and was the color of a stray cat.

At night swarms of homeless people emerged pushing shopping carts and dragging bags full of empty bottles that the supermarkets converted into coupons. She gave them empty bottles just to get a smile in exchange. It was gratifying to receive kindness for such a simple gesture. Then she would return home to read a poet who was lately her favorite, Raffaele Carrieri. One night on the phone she gave me a long speech to explain that Carrieri had left Puglia to embark on unknown ships, a little like her. Sometimes you read books only to find out that someone has already been there.

And what about my reading? In the past I had relied on novels and poems to locate Claudia's absence as well as a method to dismantle the prison I had built around myself. The rustic metaphors of Carrieri summoned his origins and seemed to have been written for us: “I am the one / who is always wrong. / The worm, the fruit. / I'm wrong in love, / wrong where it's wide / wrong where it's narrow, / I'm wrong to die / in a place where I do not live…”

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