I can smell it from beyond the wall that every sound can make it’s way through
The almost poor smell of food
I see it in the light that I also remember well
Of a dim bulb, the one with thirty candles
Among furniture which has never seen any other splendour
Old newspapers and corners filled with dust and smells,
Among the used and strange sounds of it’s daily rituals
Eating, clearing, then washing plates and hands.
I feel it when I come home tired and late in the morning
Opening the shutter, pulling the curtain
And while I’m smoking one more cigarette
He goes slowly, in slippers, towards the day that awaits him
And then I meet him again when my time comes
His ancient courtesy gives me absurd pleasure
“Good morning professor, how is your wife?
And the cats? And this weather that hasn’t gotten better yet…”
She tells me a hundred times between the garden grids
Of her dead cat, of a quarrel with the neighbours
And he tells me softly, in his hushed tone
Of when he and Bologna were younger than they are now…
I listen and my thoughts run after his life
To all the faces seen by the old bulb
To the usual smell of dust and mould
To all the soups heated on the stove
To that tick-tock of an alarm clock that emphasises every second
To how from that place one can see the world
To an existence lived in so many hard days of the same
How even history has passed between those walls…
I listen and I don’t understand and everything around me astonishes me
Life, how it is and how one manages it
And the thousand way and times, then the possibilities
The choices, the changes, the fates, the needs
And still I wonder if he was ever happy
If he ever had a doubt, if only today he slumbers
If he had a doubt a few times or often
If it was enough to survive by himself…
But then I realise that it’s probably just the worries
Of one who has so much time and also the luxury of wasting it
I can’t or don’t know at all if it’s worse
In the end, his loneliness or mine…
Perhaps one day we will say “but if he was so well…
He’ll have the marble with the angel breaking the chains
With a little money saved up because you never know
A little out of habit, who is always ready for trouble”
We’ll see new faces, voices with dull smiles
“Pleasure”, “It’s mine”, “How do you do?”, “Were you related to him?”
And little by little it will go from our full minds
Only an impression that we shall barely remember…