Tristano Dies by Antonio Tabucchi Read Free Book Online

oh, it’s true, there’s nothing else for it, dear boy, you have to cross the Atlantic … and all at once you’re in America, because you can reach America quickly by plane. America … My father always dreamed of going to America, my grandfather would tell me this, that my father thought he could continue his research there, in America, he could become a world-famous biologist … America … The America my father dreamed of must have beenso beautiful! He knew everything about the plains, about the Seminole Indians, Benjamin Franklin, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Whitman, the Empire State Building, the music … my grandfather told me about this, too, how no one here appreciated that music, they thought it was awful, this negro music … idiots … but my father had a phonograph, and he had records shipped directly from America … it was my grandfather who taught me to love that music, after my father died, by that time, I’d lost interest in my grandfather’s Garibaldi sword, and so he had to invent a new Sunday-morning game: you’d tiptoe into my father’s study, as if he were in there, eye glued to his microscope and couldn’t be disturbed, and then my grandfather would put on a record of someone playing the trumpet, and he’d grow very animated, twirl his white mustache to the beat, listen to him, he’d say, listen to him blow that horn, how alive it is, breath is life, kid, in the beginning was the word, and the priests, I don’t know who they think they are, but the word is breath, kid, it’s only breathing … life, you’ve got to love life and always enjoy it – remember that – the fascists are the ones who enjoy death … Writer, if you check in the library, next to the table under the window, you’ll find my grandfather’s telescope and my father’s microscope … How strange, think about it, my father studied lives up close with a microscope, my grandfather searched for other distant lives with his telescope, and both of them used lenses. But you discover life with the naked eye, not from a distance, not too close, just at eye level … My father loved New York so much, and he died before he got there … I wanted to see New York,too, but I never did, it never worked out. Have you been there, to New York? – what am I saying – in your world, who hasn’t been to New York … You know, I’d really love to take that plane I was telling you about, one of these nights, maybe so, maybe so … Sorry, what was I saying? – I’m all over the place – maybe I was sleeping, you start talking nonsense when you’re nodding off, maybe we’ll pick this up later, it seems late now … You think I could have a smoke, just two puffs, and maybe Frau wouldn’t notice? At least open the shutters – it’s so damned hot.
    Word is, you’ve never wanted to go on pippopippi. I’m glad, good for you, it’s always so full of windbags who are on there just to show off how much they know, what everybody likes this year, if that government official’s a good dresser or bad, if it would be better to vote a little this way or that, what’s going to happen with that hole in the ozone, or what if the world were square, you never know … who knows how many times you were invited on, especially after that prize you won in the States for your novel, that’s typical: they won’t even look at you, but win something in the States, and you’re a star, and there’s no escaping pippopippi … in your novel, you really make Tristano out to be a hero, but he’s afraid, too, and this I liked, heroes are afraid, the simpletons might not know that, but he overcomes his fear … there’s another twist, though – and here you’ve done something really clever – because maybe he’s managed to overcome his fear because his fear is overpowering?… in short, the hero overcomes fear because fear overcomes him. You didn’t quite get it right, but the idea’s intriguing … You’re a