Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [158]
“What?” Lorenza asked.
I explained, smugly: “When Salgari, in his adventure stories, includes a true event, or something he thinks is true—let’s say that, after Little Big Horn, Sitting Bull eats General Custer’s heart—he always puts an asterisk and a footnote that says: Historical fact.”
“Yes, and it’s a historical fact that Annibale Cantalamessa and Pio Bo really had those names, but the names were the least of it. A real pair of sneaks: they stole comic books from the newsstand, shell cases from other boys’ collections. And they would think nothing of parking their greasy salami sandwich on your prized Christmas book, a deluxe volume of tales of the high seas. Cantalamessa called himself a Communist, Bo, a Fascist, but they were both ready to sell themselves to the enemy for a slingshot. They told stories about their sexual prowess, with erroneous anatomical information, and argued over who had masturbated more the night before. Here were two villains ready for anything; why not the bombardon? So I decided to seduce them. I sang the praises of the band uniform, I took them to public performances, I held out hopes of amatory triumphs with the Daughters of Mary...They fell for it. I spent my days in the theater with a long stick, as I had seen in illustrated pamphlets about missionaries; I rapped them on the knuckles when they missed a note. The bombardon has only three keys, but it’s the embouchure that matters, as I said. I won’t bore you any further, my little listeners. The day came, after long sleepless afternoons, when I could introduce to Don Tico two bombardons—I won’t say perfect, but at least acceptable. Don Tico was convinced; he put them in uniform and moved me to the trumpet. Within the space of a week, for the feast of Our Lady Help of Christians, for the opening of the theatrical season with They Had to See Paris, there before the curtain, in the presence of the authorities, I was standing to play the opening bars of ‘Good Start.’ “
“Oh, joyous moment,” Lorenza said, making a face of tender jealousy. “And Cecilia?”
“She wasn’t there. Maybe she was sick. I don’t know. But she wasn’t there.”
He raised his eyes and surveyed the audience, and at that moment he was bard—or jester. He calculated the pause. “Two days later, Don Tico sent for me and told me that Annibale Cantalamessa and Pio Bo had ruined the evening. They wouldn’t keep time, their minds wandered when they weren’t playing, they joked and never came in at the right place. ‘The bombardon,’ Don Tico said to me, ‘is the backbone of the band, its rhythmic conscience, its soul. The band, it is a flock; the instruments are the sheep, the bandmaster the shepherd, but the bombardon is the faithful snarling dog that keeps the flock together. The bandmaster looks first to the bombardon, for if the bombardon follows him, the sheep will follow. Jacopo, my boy, I must ask of you a great sacrifice: to go back to the bombardon. You have a good sense of rhythm, you will keep those other two in time for me. I promise, as soon as they can play on their own, I’ll let you play the trumpet.’ I owed everything to Don Tico. I said yes. And on the next holy day the trumpets rose to their feet and played the opening of ‘Good Start’ in front of Cecilia, once more in the first row. But I was in the darkness, a bombardon among bombardons. As for those two wretches, they never were able to play on their own, and I never went back to the trumpet.
The war ended, I returned to the city, abandoned music, the brass family, and never even learned Cecilia’s last name.”
“Poor boy,” Lorenza said, hugging him from behind. “But you still have me.”
“I thought you like saxophones,” Belbo said. Then he turned and kissed her hand. “But, to work,” he said, serious again. “We’re here to create a story of the future, not a remembrance of things past.’’
That evening, the lifting of the ban on alcohol was much celebrated.