Tristano Dies by Antonio Tabucchi Read Free Book Online Page A

complicated guy – no one writes a book like that and lets pippopippi get the better of him … you’re also something of a senator – excuse me for that – what I mean is, you have this severe manner about you that you’ve done a good job of cultivating; when I imagined you, it was always in a white toga, like some Roman senator, a bit like Seneca, if I may, also considering your writing style, but maybe Seneca wasn’t a senator, I’m not sure … But listen, isn’t not going on pippopippi like going on, anyway? Sorry to be tricky here, but this way, everyone’s talking about your refusing to go on pippopippi, you’re on everybody’s lips, so in the end, not going on is like you went on … because pippopippi’s horrific, my dear writer, go on, don’t go on, either way, you’re fucked – that ever occur to you? I heard what they said about you on that pippopippi show Frau likes to call Tube Flush. I’m extremely informed about that thing over there even if I don’t watch it, Frau keeps me posted. Last month, when I was first bedridden, she shows up at the door and says, young sir, tonight on Tube Flush they talked about that writer you were reading yesterday. Get to the point, Renate, I say. Well, today’s program was, Having the Courage to Change Your Mind, and the host introduces his guests and says in his syrupy voice, we also invited a famous author on who wrote a prize-winning novel about courage, but unfortunately he declined our invitation, we can only hope he wasn’t too frightened to be on our program, oh famous writer … we’re waiting for you … see how nice weare? – let’s be brave now … Okay, Renate, I get it, and – ? Well, aren’t you the one who said you needed someone to come listen to you and that he had to be a writer? But before I could answer, she shut the door again …
    I feel good today, really good, and I’m going to tell you the whole thing, word for word, logically, it’s the set piece, in your book, it’ll be the set piece, listen and write, write and be quiet – ready?… It’s dawn. Tristano is alone in the goddamned woods, and he’s afraid. Because even heroes are afraid, you said so yourself. Besides, Tristano doesn’t know he’s a hero yet, he’s alone, hiding behind a boulder near the commander’s shelter, he knows he’s alone because all his comrades went down to the valley that night, under orders by that same commander, to attack a barracks, there were weapons, ammunition in the village, fascists standing guard, they had to go on a sortie, so his comrades went down to the valley, and Tristano’s alone on that goddamned dawn in the goddamned woods, on a dawn that should be pink and pale blue, soft, a dawn not made for days of tragedy but for loving, for holding onto a woman in bed, for love, not crouching behind a rock and trembling with fear; it’s an icy dawn. How many of them? They’re usually so cautious, there are never just a few when they make their raids, there could be ten, twenty, a whole platoon. Tristano heard shots, heard
Maschinenpistolen
fire, screaming, and now grave silence, the sun rising on that dawn, a dangerous dawn, because for Tristano,daylight’s the enemy, he’s alone behind that rock, and there are so many of them. After the slaughter, silence. But what are they waiting for? Why aren’t they leaving? What are they doing in there? Maybe looking for charts, maps, notes. They’d done it: in one master stroke, they’d eliminated the most dangerous commander of all, a great commander, not just any commander, that one, not some eager spur-of-the-moment partisan, no, an old soldier, in the Great War, already an officer in fifteen, with enormous responsibilities, a man who knows strategy, who’s calm, skilled, careful, strong-willed, he scares the Nazis, he’s caused many casualties, the order came down from the German High Command in Italy to eliminate him, the men under him don’t matter, he’s the one,