Francesco Sasso
Love knots in the darkness, Live! story-reportage

italian version

Tiziano Scarpa, Groppi d'amore nella scuraglia, 2005, pp. 110, L'Arcipelago Einaudi, EINAUDI, ISBN 8806176412 9,8

<<Listen to my advice. It’s better to wait some more years and debut with something really strong>>, Tiziano Scarpa says to me. He’s a hearty person.
For the small swallow this shiny surface
is a depth of disaster
<< It’s easy to find me on the web…>>
<<No, don’t worr…>>, say I.
The bumble-bee
has shaggy wings
has shaggy eyes,
has a shaggy belly,
has shaggy legs.
The bumble-bee isn’t nice.
<<But it’s not a problem, I’ll give you the address; it’s Tiziano Scar…>>
<<No…don’t say it…>>, I stop him, don’t understand the reason why, but I don’t want to know Tiziano Scarpa’s electronic address. And yet I’m here for him.
Five p.m. “That great genius of my friend” is beneath my house. I have been able to convince him and he’ll accompany me in my voyage to the hereafter. We depart from Alberobello (Bari), destination Parabita (Lecce).
<<Where is Parabita?>>, asks my friend.
<<After Lecce>>
<<And then?>>
<<And then…and then there are the signs>>
<<We’re doing well, then>>, says my companion.
Fill up at a petrol station, start.
Alberobello-Lecce, everything as smooth as glass.
On the bypass Lecce-Galatina my friend says: << And now?>>
<<Fuck.. the map, I forgot the map>>, I’m mortifying myself.
And my fellow traveler: <<But you are a blockhead…CENSURE>>
<<Don’t worry, I’ll phone someone in Lecce >>, say I.
I dial on the cell phone, it rings rings and on the other side nobody answers. Then I try with a girl friend of mine. I press the buttons, it rings rings, a voice.
<<Hello, how are you? Yes…listen I’m over here. Yes, listen, but is Parabita a town or a bar?>>, I hear my friends’ teeth crack. << All right, if I have problems I’ll call you back>>.
Well then, after big and small signs, turns to the right and the left, questions to the passer-by – every time I made up a naive face, because those, as soon as they saw me going out of the car got an expression impressed on their face, like You are breaking our balls; we reach Parabita. We parked in a square placed right in front of a fine church. I look at my watch, it’s seven p.m. and a couple of minutes.
<<Where’s the meeting?>>, said my friend.
And I: <<I bought the paper>>, with a serious tone of voice, the sort of “On this I have prepared myself”.
I read the paragraph: Cloister of San Domenico.
I look around. My radar swings from here to there, enters the square’s airspace, frames a park bench crowded with elders. By now my engine is overheated. It’s my turn to ask. I go closer and ask for San Domenico.
<<That one there>>, indicating the church in front of us.
After a rapid reconnaissance along the perimeter of the building, one sudden certainty blooms out of these pilgrims: it’s not here, the meeting with Tiziano Scarpa, it’s not in the cloister of San Domenico. Not a chair, a small stage, a lighted bulb. Nothing. Everything is quiet. And then you have to rely on the newspapers.
To make it brief, we wander blindly about the town. Villagers look up and down at us like at two strangers in a western movie. In fact, my friend and I are a fine couple. I have my skull and beard shaved, he has long and wild hair and unkempt beard. I am tall and slender, he a bit short and becoming heavy.
<<Let’s try in the old town center>>, I suggest.
We turn into a small road that goes up and disappears among the old houses. Above, over the roofs stand out a tower, a castle or a distant relation of its. We wander uncertain. In my skull the wish to hear Tiziano Scarpa reciting his verse.
Suddenly the road we were going along, opens on a lay-by with small tables at its sides and green sunshade parasols of a well-known foreign make beer. And who do I see sitting there munching something?
<<That’s the writer>>, and wink to my friend.
<<And then!>>, he doesn’t’t care much about literature. He came to Parabita for me: he is a friend. He keeps me company. And I am in Parabita for Tiziano Scarpa.
<<Are we having something to drink?>>, I ask my fellow.
The cloister-pub is a rectangular prefab. The bar overlooks the lay-by. We go closer. Order a medium draught beer. I pay. We sit in front of the bar and swallow the famous beer.
Tiziano is in his promoter’s company, sitting on the other side of the lay-by and eating his snack. I would like to introduce myself and shake his hand, but I say to myself that even though being his reader, I have no right to go around and break the balls of the Italian writers, who are relaxing themselves before a reading.
I look at the time, there is a good half an hour to the reading of Love knots in the darkness. I suggest to my friend to find out were the show would take place.
<<Since there is a tower at a few meters from us, let’s see there. >>, I say to him.
So we both make our way up the asphalt slope. From a distance, while I move forward, I notice the first white plastic chairs. I relax. We arrive in front of the door of an ancient nobile house and in the inner courtyard there are chairs, lights, mixer, a small stage, two technicians;
in other words, all that’s necessary for a decent reading. My companion and I have gained one score. Now it’s essential to eat. Again we go along the street we were on before and plunge into the alleys of Parabita’s old town center searching for a grocer’s shop, so as to lower the costs. After five minutes we find what suits us. My friend and I have made a point in our favour. We enter and order two sandwiches with ham and cheese spread, and two Italian beers: in all five Euros. Honest price it seems to me. We step out, follow our instinct and discover a nice little spot.
On a bench hidden by a palm, we eat up our dinner quickly.
I look at the time: nine p.m.
<<Ohu… we must go>>, I say to my friend.
We finish our 66Cl beers along the way. Dismayed villagers. At a rubbish bin we get rid of the shopping bag with the leftovers of the dinner. At a fast pace we try to get our bearings through the alleys of the old town center and manage to come out in front of the castle. In the meanwhile we didn’t mind a look to
the females of the village
with their scent of wallflower on their breasts,
wide open blouses,
bewitching brassieres
Now I’m sitting in the second row. Animated, I can’t keep still. On the contrary, while continuously changing my position, I break one arm of the chair. I replace it with another one at my side. I look at the rectangle of starry sky. I admire the cherub on the moulding, halfway in the shade. I’m impatient. Nine thirty p.m.
Presentation from the promoter, applause. Tiziano climbs on the small stage. In his hands he keeps a ream of computer-printed sheets, held together by a black tab on the upper left side.
The scene: a reading desk, a chair.
Tiziano Scarpa dressed in jeans and a black button-neck sweater, concentrates.
Jesus
darkness came down here,
the whole village got back home.
And the writer discloses to me a huge main gate, introducing me into a world of poetry. More than the story, one about a dumping and an unlucky love, an amusing and often grotesque narration, it’s the melody of that strange and new language to dazzle and me and keep me stuck at the chair. It’s the poetry of a tiny swallow in the palm of a woman’s hand; it’s the Christ with open arms on the hillock, crowned with free swallows; it’s beauty and fear that run into each other at night; it’s solitude sprinkled with pain; it’s something else. It’s our fellow’s theatricalism, it’s the scenic talent of who’s capturing you and is able to tell you a story, setting up a world made of words, remaking voices, grimaces, gestures. We were all fascinated. Yes, I say all; because every time I looked towards my friend, I saw he was captured. Because every time I glanced at the other spectators, they were all tight and concentrated on the writer’s lips. Another point in favour of literature.
At every foot of the page the writer tore off the ream the sheets he had just read by heart and after having rolled them into a ball, let them fall to the ground: the image of the word just said and already disowned. At a certain point, who knows from where, a kitten enters the scene, right when the writer is about to exclaim:
The catty cat
is a professional scamp
he can’t manage to do nothing about nothing
Tiziano notices it and starts reciting his verses on the catty cat with his arm stretched out and the forefinger pointed at the kitten.
The kitten is the only living being absolutely not enchanted by the linguistic charm of the writer and, impertinent, launches himself between Tiziano’s legs, starts playing with the paper balls, like only cats can do. The enchantment of poetry and the benign elegance of chance.
Then arrives the bestiary interlude of the donkey (I won’t tell you everything, there’s the book), and from behind I can hear somebody shouting: <<It’s not possible… CENSURE>>, and interrupts the show. Tiziano gets stuck, seems to come out of a whirlpool, like all of us. The magic is broken. The writer is mortified. He says:<<I’m sorry for troubling you, but it’s a show>>. The overexcited one insists. Tiziano Scarpa keeps silent and rocks on his feet. Somebody in the dark approaches the shouting one so as to talk it over. Nothing, he goes on. One girl sitting among the audience says at once:
<<We would like to listen to Tiziano, thank you>>. The dissenter closes with his own reasons, senses that the silent audience is hostile in his regards. One more point in favour of literature. With effort, Tiziano starts again and we follow behind, trying to take up the thread of his speech about Cicerchio and Sirocchia.
Applause, applause and applause. Tiziano Scarpa bends forward, thanks.
<<Listen, to only this advice. It’s better to wait some more years and debut with something really strong…>>, says Tiziano Scarpa to me.
Now I’m side by side with one of the Italian writers whom I appreciate most. He asks me if I have already published.
<<No, I’ve never tried to publish>>
I must appear a bit strange to him, high-spirited, but he’s kind the same.
Definitely he thinks to have an aspiring writer in front of him, with his drawers full up with novels, while he doesn’t know that my drawers contain some small dream hidden amid the underwear. Tiziano gives me advice, he does it because he’s generous, I feel it, not because of a professional duty. But I interrupt his words several times, I don’t want to listen. Why? I covered many kilometers for the writer and now I find out that I’m attracted by something different. I have the light inside.
In other moments, I don’t know, even one hour before the show, there at the bar, I would have listened eagerly to Tiziano Scarpa. Probably we would have talked about novels, or about revolution; most likely we would have argued; But in that specific moment no, I was filled with the marvels of speech, I was tipsy, a prisoner bewitched by
At this world
those who own beauty rule us.
But even who keeps us frightened rules us.
World is a battle
between beauty and fear.
So that in the dark night
fear and beauty engage in a battle
so as to conquer the darkness of man.
the nightly night in the darkness. I didn’t want to understand anything else: I was a prey to the world of Love knots in the darkness. Inside of me the work had dimmed the writer, driving him out of the scene. I have hardly been able to say only <<Thanks for this>>, indicating to the writer the castle’s courtyard, to say goodbye and walk away.