Mad Diary of Malcolm Malarkey, page 15
“What’s wrong?” Liliana asks.
“Can’t put my finger on it.”
“Can you put it on me?”
“I could, but it might be pointless.”
Malarkey smiles sheepishly.
“Talk to me, Malcolm.”
“Words escape me at the moment.”
“We’ve not made love since we’ve been here.”
“I’m aware of that. I apologize.”
“I don’t want an apology. I want you.”
There’s a “pregnant pause” during which time Liliana makes a face that reflects something isn’t quite right, but not necessarily with the lack of lovemaking or entrées.
“Damn!” Liliana quietly shouts.
“Damn what? I said I’m sorry.”
“No, I have to take care of something. I’ll be right back.”
She gets up and rushes to the toilet where she wipes herself only discover blood on the toilet paper.
“Fuck.”
Still sitting on the toilet, she starts rummaging through her purse for a tampon or a reasonable facsimile, but can’t find one. She looks again at the blood on the toilet paper and pauses. It is, after all, a reminder of her miscarriage and the fact she’s still not pregnant as she closes in on thirty-seven. It’s not a “bucket list” kind of look, but it is a look of waning expectations. If not waning expectations, then losing expectations. It’s the look of a woman who understands that diamonds may be forever, but eggs are not. She anxiously returns to the table.
“Let’s go!”
“Why? Haven’t finished my Verduzzo Toblar.”
“Fuck the Verduzzo Toblar, we have to go!”
“Right.”
Malarkey hastily pays and they scurry out of the restaurant and walk briskly down Largo Treves. Liliana is in a rush. Malarkey tries to keep up.
“Lili, what is it?”
“My period.”
“So?”
“So, I have no tampons. Is there blood on my skirt?”
Malarkey takes a look. There’s no blood visible, but he admires the view.
“No, but your ass looks …”
“Not the time, Malcolm, not the time.”
Liliana rushes into a nearby pharmacy near the Duomo as Malarkey waits outside looking toward the plaza while workers finish setting up the fireworks for that night outside the Duomo. Momentarily, Liliana walks out.
“Better?”
“It’s not like a cold, Malcolm.”
They walk back to the hotel in relative silence. Malarkey doesn’t have to tell the Reader what Liliana is thinking since the Reader should know what Liliana is thinking. It was alluded to in the toilet. If the Reader has forgotten, please return to the toilet scene and re-read the paragraph. As for what Malarkey is thinking, it’s debatable. No doubt he’s thinking about what he’s going to write in the chapter dealing with what Liliana is thinking. Regardless, the tenor of the time isn’t very festive and any plan they have for celebrating New Year’s Eve at or near the Duomo is as lost as the night itself. From their hotel window, they can see the fireworks exploding from the Piazza del Duomo and hear the residue of live concerts. But Malarkey stands in a bathrobe, hands locked behind his waist, looking at the festivities. Liliana lies on the bed. It’s one of those silence is deafening moments that Malarkey will probably not write about—at least not in this novel. Maybe the next. Or the one after. As a matter of fact, New Year’s Eve comes and goes. After all, New Year’s Eve really isn’t much of an eve and as Malarkey’s father once told him, “What everyone is celebrating is that they’ve survived for another year with or without Guy Lombardo.” Regardless, he walks over to her and they kiss, but it’s more celebratory than amorous.
“Do you love me?” Liliana asks.
“Yes, I love you.”
“Then why don’t I feel like you love me?”
“What would that look like?”
“You’re so good with words, Malcolm, why not with feelings?”
“Because words are easy to write and easier to erase.”
“And feelings?”
“Feelings have a short shelf life.”
“So do some relationships.”
Malarkey turns and looks over his shoulder.
“I am what I am, Lili. I don’t know any other way to be.”
Malarkey climbs into bed and she snuggles next to him.
“Malcolm?”
“Yes”.
“I’m sorry I said those things about, you know, about Verdi.”
“No apologies where none are necessary. I’m certain that Verdi wasn’t offended.”
She puts her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes. There’s no need to go into the details of what they’re feeling at that moment since Malarkey has alluded to it. Liliana slowly seeps into that slumber that belies something comforting as Malarkey continues to watch the fireworks and as they slowly dissipate into a kind of confetti of multi-colored detritus, he too falls asleep.
And then, Malarkey has a dream, a dream that haunts him to this day. It takes place in the dining hall of Christ Church College, Oxford. There’s a banner that hangs from the ceiling that merely reads “Reunion,” but of what type it’s not stated nor is there a year. It’s a black banner with white letters, written in large Old English font with the letters R and n smeared as if the letters had little time to dry. He remembers that very clearly. The hall is filled with men and women of Malarkey’s age, all of them wearing black, but not just black, but a faded black, a black dyed in the colors of mourning and all of them have aged much more than Malarkey, have aged to such a degree one might say they’re on the verge of looking macabre.
His peers appear to be in positions of frozen time, frozen in poses of walking, of eating, of talking, of everything but laughing or smiling or enjoying what one might consider the reason for attending a reunion. Even the once most attractive of them, the women for which he may have been the most enamored, have now surrendered to the fatigue of age. Malarkey, dressed as he usually is, that is, somewhat shabbily, carelessly, with a faded-green corduroy sport coat with patched elbows, a fading blue work shirt, missing buttons, faded jeans, makes his way between and around his peers being exceedingly careful not to bump into them for fear they will fall and crack or splinter or dissolve into the atoms that they are. A cold wind makes a shrill noise howling in and out of the paneled dining hall as Malarkey walks with trepidation toward the opposite end of the dining room. The long tables have been removed and what is in their place are round tables with black linens and black-draped folding chairs, black utensils, glasses filled with black liquid. It reminds Malarkey of a novel by Huysmans.
At the end of the room, where the high tables would be, Malarkey sees Liliana standing in the middle of the riser, but she’s not the Liliana he knows and loves, instead, she’s a Liliana who looks remarkably like Miss Havisham: dressed in rich materials, satins, lace, and silks, but all in an aging yellow-white. She wears a long yellow-white veil, her white hair adorned with dried bridal flowers. Some bright jewels sparkle on her neck and on her hands while other jewels lay on a table beside her. She only wears one shoe, the other is missing; her hose is snared and holey; her veil is but half arranged and shreds of lace cover her breasts. Trinkets lay on the table next to her engagement ring exposed through parchment. Malarkey approaches her, but as he does, she stands expressionless. Her expressionlessness doesn’t deter him. In his excitement to see her, he rushes to and embraces her. She embraces him as well, but when he pulls her closer to him, she suddenly decays and, like sand in an hourglass, sifts in fragments to the floor, a floor in which she only exists as a pile of yellow-white detritus.
Startled awake by the nightmare, Malarkey looks longingly at Liliana as a way of reconstituting her being, of making her whole again, climbs out of bed and sits in a chair by the window. Malarkey gazes at Liliana who’s sleeping peacefully unaware of the almost palpable horror Malarkey has just experienced. Malarkey puts his hand over his mouth and continues to look at her until he passes out and sleeps fitfully until dawn. After he awakes, he dresses as Liliana continues to sleep. He kisses her on the forehead and leaves the hotel room.
CHAPTER FORTY
AN UNSCHEDULED MEETING AT THE CASA VERDI
It’s rainy, chilly. Gloomy enough for Milan in January. The Reader might ask, Where might Malarkey be going on such a day? On New Year’s Day? To that, the Reader will soon discover. His journey is not serendipitous. There’s a reason for his walk, alone. Malarkey wraps a scarf around his neck, doffs a navy blue newsboy cap and leaves the hotel nodding as he does to the portrait of Verdi. One can hear the sound of workers cleaning the New Year’s Eve debris in the piazza. On his walk, he finds a vendor selling flowers, buys a small bouquet of roses and continues to walk with purpose toward the Casa Verdi, Verdi’s final resting place.
When he approaches the Casa Verdi, there is something severe yet sumptuous, imperfect but orderly and symbolic, and upon entering, Malarkey wishes he could sing opera as a way of praying, just as Verdi did. Verdi rests here along with his wife, Giuseppina Strepponi, beside him. The maestro’s descendants have supposedly said that he had thought about situating his tomb at his beloved villa at Sant’Agata, and that after having chosen the Rest Home as his final resting place he had explained to his relatives: “I’m eliminating the bother of having too many people coming to visit me at your home after I’m dead!”
At that time of day, on that type of day, Malarkey walks through a Casa Verdi bereft of visitors, of tourists, of other aficionados until he comes upon the maestro’s crypt whereupon Malarkey kneels, places the bouquet next to the crypt, then stands with clasped hands in front of him at the same instant Verdi appears dressed as he is in the Boldini painting.
“Thank you for the flowers. It is very kind of you to bring them on such a gloomy day,” Verdi says.
“Thank you for the music.”
“I do not think you came just to thank me for my music and leave a bouquet of flowers, no?”
“No.”
“Then why else are you here?”
“I wanted to ask you why you had no more children after yours had died.”
Even in death, Verdi has to compose himself. Perhaps, Malarkey should ask something else, but Malarkey is often as oblivious as he is delusional.
“My wife and my children were my only solace as a failed composer.”
“But you weren’t a failed composer?”
“At the beginning, yes, a very failed composer. A most failed of failed composers.”
“But there were extenuating circumstances, maestro.”
At that moment, Verdi becomes very nostalgic, one might say emotional. To call the deaths of his wife and children “extenuating circumstances” was a polite way for Malarkey not to force Verdi to regurgitate the tragedies of the past unless it is Verdi who wishes to do so. It’s common knowledge, that while he was composing Un giorno di regno both his children fell ill and died. His daughter, Virginia, was born on March 26, 1837, and died in August, 1838; his son, Icilio, was born on July, 11 1838, and died on October 22, 1839. Both children, babes in arms, had already died before Oberto was produced. Soon after those deaths, his wife, Margherita, contracted encephalitis and died as well. And while he grieved, he also had to write.
Contrary to what Malarkey thinks, Verdi is very open about how those deaths affected him and his work. It’s as if Verdi wants to compensate Malarkey for his visit on that cold and gloomy January day and so Verdi recounts how he recovers from those multiple tragedies and the events leading up to the composition and performance of Nabucco.
“Un giorna di repo failed to please me. Certainly, my music was partly to blame, but partly, too, the performance. My mind was tormented by the tragedies in my life and I was embittered by the failure of my work. I was convinced that I could find no consolation in my art and decided never to compose again.”
“But you were only twenty-six?”
“It didn’t matter. At that moment, nothing mattered to me. I had lost my wife and my children. Nothing seemed important. I eventually wrote to Merelli and asked for my release from the contract.”
“Merelli?”
“Merelli was the manager of the La Scala. He sent for me and even in my grief treated me like a child. In retrospect, maybe I was. He would not allow me to be discouraged by the failure of my last opera, but I was adamant about quitting. Merelli shrugged his shoulders as if he could do no more and handed the contract back to me as he said: ‘Listen, Verdi! I can’t force you to write. My faith in you is undiminished. Who knows whether, one of these days, you won’t decide to take up your pen again? In that case, as long as you give me two months’ notice before the beginning of the season, I promise that your opera shall be performed.’ I thanked him, but those words had absolutely no effect on my decision and I left. Artists respond to failure in many ways. Some fine renewed inspiration in their work; others, like me at the time, just wanted to quit. I am sure you know about what I mean, Signore Malcolm.”
“How do you know my name?”
“The dead know everything about the living.”
“Then you already know my future question to you?”
“In due time, Signore Malcolm. In due time. I took rooms in Milan at the Corsia dei Servi. I was still grief stricken and had essentially given up thinking about music let alone writing about it. How could one think about something as frivolous as music after losing my entire family? But one snowy, winter evening on leaving the Galleria De Cristoforis I accidentally ran into Merelli, who was on his way to the theatre. Taking me by the arm, he asked me to accompany him to La Scala. On the way, we talked about pedestrian things and he told me he was in difficulties over a new opera he had to present. Merelli had entrusted it to Otto Nicolai, the conductor and founder of the Vienna Philharmonic, but the latter was dissatisfied with the libretto by Solera.”
“Imagine!” said Merelli. “A libretto by Solera! Magnificent! Epic dramatic situations and beautiful verses! But that pig-headed composer won’t hear of it and says it’s a hopeless mess of a work. I’m at my wits’ end to know where to find another one quickly.”
“Of course, Merelli was a marvelous psychologist. I do not know whether he had rehearsed the possibility of meeting me at some point, but he knew exactly what he was doing when he shared that information with me and without thinking, I automatically replied:
“I will help you out myself.”
“Yes, yes. Didn’t you submit Il proscritto to me?”
“I have not written a note of the music, but it is yours if you want it.”
“Oh! Marvelous, what a stroke of luck! Who would have imagined it?”
“When we reached La Scala, Merelli told the stage-manager, Bassi, to look immediately in the archives for a copy of Il proscritto, which, as you know, is based on the play Hernani by Victor Hugo. The copy was there. At the same time, Merelli picked up another manuscript and, showing it to me, exclaimed:
“Look what I found! It’s Solera’s libretto. Such a beautiful subject. It’s hard to believe that imbecile Nicolai turned it down! Go on take it. Give it a read and tell me what you think.”
“What in the hell should I do with it? No, no, I have no wish to read librettos. I am finished! I told you that! It would be a waste of my time and yours.”
“Go on! It won’t do you any harm. Read it and then bring it back after you’ve finished. It will give you something to read during these frigid Milan nights. You can’t go to Pasticceria Marchesi every night.”
He handed me the manuscript, which was written on large sheets in big letters, as was then customary. I rolled them up, said goodbye and returned to Corsia dei Servi. On the way, I felt a kind of indefinable malaise, a profound sadness, a distress that filled my heart almost to the point of bursting. When I got to my room I threw the manuscript on the table with such anger that I thought I may have damaged them. But as I stood over the scattered pages I noticed one page in particular was staring up at me and I was drawn to the line: “Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate.”
“Fly, thought, on the golden wings.”
“Correct, Signore Malcolm. I am impressed with your Italian.”
“Pigeon Italian.”
“Maybe, but Italian nonetheless.”
Malarkey was still a bit overwhelmed by the fact Verdi knew his name, but then he remembered what Verdi said about the dead.
“I read through the verses that followed and was moved not only by the content, but the writing I thought to myself could Nikolai be that wrong about the work? As you may know, Solera was an accomplished writer whose style was very much influenced by Manzoni and with whom I collaborated a lot. I continued reading because the lines were almost a paraphrase from the Bible, and thought I am not that religious, the reading of Bible had at times delighted or lifted me. I read one passage, then another. Then, that antagonistic voice within me reminded me that I was done with writing and that the only antidote to failure was never to write again. If one never writes, one is never exposed, so I tossed the libretto aside and went to bed.
“But it was no use. You must know, Signore Malcolm, that once an idea infects your mind there is no remedy but completion. I couldn’t get Nabucco out of my head. Unable to sleep, I got up and read the libretto, not once, not twice, but three times, so that by the morning I knew Solera’s libretto by heart. Not a line, not a phrase, not a word did I not know. Regardless, I was not prepared to relax my unwillingness to write and that same day I returned to the theatre and handed the manuscript back to Merelli.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” he said to me, smiling as if he knew I slept not a wink.
“Very beautiful!”
“Well then, if you think it is beautiful then set it to music!”
“No, absolutely not. I will not hear of it. I am done!”
“Go on. Set it to music! I know you are dying to do that! Are you not?”
“And so saying he stuffed the libretto into my overcoat, took me by the shoulders and not only pushed me out of the room, but locked the door in my face. What was I to do? Of course, it was all premeditated. From that snowy evening the night before, Merelli knew exactly what I would do and so I returned home with Nabucco in my pocket. How conniving.
