Zone (32 page)

Tellerminen 35
were live, no one had realized it, the Bedouins had crossed the desert for three days with this explosive burden, the merchant in Benghazi had carefully stored them away without the 150 kilos of pressure necessary for their exploding being reached, and the socialist ardor might have spared them even longer, if the head of the troop, greedy and curious, hadn’t picked up a hammer lying nearby to open these pretty golden containers: the thirty kilos of TNT they contained sent flying not only revolutionary zeal, but also the shop where it was, and once the dust had settled the only thing found intact, in the debris and rubble, was the little music box, open, which was playing “Lili Marleen” in the midst of the ruins as if nothing had happened, the soldier killed thirty years earlier was whistling his revenge, his wife had given him this original portrait so that he’d think of her as he listened to his favorite song, in the middle of the Sahara, she was waiting for him like Lili, in Vienna, he never returned, reported missing among the Libyan sands, she learned nothing more about him, sometimes she imagined he was still alive, sometimes that he was dead, did she think of the painted music box, ordered specially in a shop on the Kärntnerstrasse, did she hear, in one final dream, the explosion of the mines in Benghazi on November 12, 1977, the very day of her death in the Franz-Josef Hospital, at the age of only sixty-two, as there rang out one last time the little metallic tune 3,000 kilometers away, in Libya,
wie einst Lili Marleen, wie einst Lili Marleen
, the last breath of an Austrian grenadier who decomposed a long time ago—I gave the music box to Stéphanie when I returned, I told her this anecdote that I got from the seller, she picked up the little mahogany object with her fingertips as if it were a piece of corpse, before burying it in a cupboard like the
Tellerminen
in the back of the shop near the Al-Jarid souk, is the last trace of one of the 50,000 Germans who died in combat in Africa still in a Parisian armoire, Lili is still waiting somewhere,
wie einst Lili Marleen
, I’ll get out at Termini whistling like a GI in 1944, that’s always better than humming
look here’s some black pudding
, always better, is that the strange martial tune that so fascinated Millán-Astray the one-eyed during his visit to the French legionnaires of Sidi Bel Abbès, Millán-Astray the crippled symbol of the martial aspects of the Franco regime establishes the Radio Nacional de España and becomes in a way Minister of Propaganda, a soldier-Goebbels passionate about the
Bushido
samurais and warrior honor in all its forms, son of a civil servant a prison director José Millán-Astray spends his childhood in the midst of criminals and delinquents, a cadet at sixteen sent at eighteen as sub-lieutenant into the last Spanish battles overseas, to the Philippines first where he will win fame defending small forts lost in the jungle, until the very end, he displays an uncommon physical courage, a sangfroid worthy of Andrija great shepherd of warriors, he returns decorated and emboldened to establish the military school, then he’s sent again into the colonies, this time to Morocco: it’s there he loses his arm and his eye in two skirmishes, during the war in the Rif against the little warriors of Abd el-Krim—in the spring of 1951 Millán-Astray is seventy-one, the old general in love with beheading Berbers devotes himself to culture to theater to Zarzuela to poetry, like his sister Pilar, a popular novelist famous in Madrid in the teens, at seventy-one Millán-Astray the wild beast presides over an obscure institute for the Glorious Disabled of War and Homeland, he loves to have his picture taken, one of his main pastimes consists of frequenting photographers’ studios, in plain clothes, in uniform, with his grandnephews, with his daughter, with medals, without medals, he photographs his mutilated body, his frightening face where a piece of the left cheekbone is missing, carried off by the projectile that also deprived him of an eye, photos with an eye patch pirate-style or a dark monocle, the right sleeve hanging down, empty, Millán-Astray the immortal has his photo taken in order to slow down the decay of his body, to document it forever, who will remember him dashing and noble, Millán-Astray sees himself with a great moral nobility in these rigid photographs, a knight, a gentleman, upright and courageous servant of the country, a man of honor, he continues to take part in the activities of the Radio Nacional de España, with the aide de camp that Franco’s army kindly keeps providing him, he likes concerts very much and that Saturday, April 14, 1951, in Madrid he is in full uniform to go listen to a young twelve-year-old prodigy play Bach and Scarlatti, Millán-Astray prefers operetta, like his sister, but no matter, the concert that spring afternoon is important, organized for the glorious disabled of the patriotic war, Franco will not come, he is busy, Carmen Polo his wife with the wide hips will be there, with her daughter Carmencita and her husband who have just celebrated their first year of marriage, personalities, distinguished guests some come from Argentina to talk with Franco the Iberian Duce last representative of international fascism: by a coincidence that only history knows how to concoct Ante Pavelić is in Madrid, accompanied by his chief of staff, Maks Luburić, he will be in the hall too, Millán-Astray the glorious founder of the Legion does not know them, he just knows the pianist is Croatian, that her name is Marija Mirković and she is accompanied by her father a rather distinguished man a fervent Catholic—they arrived the day before and are full of praise for the beauty of Madrid, the churches, the historic splendor of the capital of Philip II the Prudent, Millán-Astray shook the hand of this child prodigy of the piano, timid but with a determined gaze, who is traveling across ruined Europe with her Bach fugues, the Scarlatti program is an exception, a homage to Madrid, the young girl and her father of course went to see Leganitos Street behind the Gran Vía where the Neapolitan composer had his residence, Domenico Scarlatti the prolific music master of the Queen, virtuoso on the harpsichord, my mother worked for the occasion on two difficult sonatas that she plays super-fast, as they must be played, she often told me about this concert, she still has glass-covered photos in silver frames with the Spanish coat of arms, the invitation card with its red velvet ribbon, my mother, blushing, still remembers having missed a grace note in the seventh bar of a Scarlatti sonata, I wanted to go too fast, those people were there to listen to me play fast, I jumped over a trill and the sonata collapsed beneath my fingers, I slipped from measure to measure like someone who has tripped in a stairway it was horrible—in the first row Carmen de Franco with her hard features, Millán-Astray the one-eyed, Pavelić great collector of Serbian eyes and ears, Luburić the butcher of Jasenovac, what an audience, just six years after the end of the war Pavelić and Luburić were still on good terms, they still harbored a secret hope to reconquer lost Croatia, incognito the Poglavnik had come from Argentina to Madrid to negotiate for Franco’s help—the Caudillo hadn’t received him, entrusting the affair to a subordinate, he had advised him to stay quietly in Buenos Aires and let himself be forgotten, Perón’s government was welcoming—Pavelić was taking a calculated risk by coming to Madrid, he would return there a few years later, protected once again by a very Catholic Spain, my mother aged twelve on April 14, 1951 was giving a concert for the orphans of Carmen de Franco and the disabled veterans of Millán-Astray, I imagine the old one-eyed one-armed general must have seemed frightening to a child that age, the concert was broadcast live on Radio Nacional de España, the press obviously didn’t mention the presence of the distinguished Croatian guests, I wonder if my grandfather was happy to see them again, those dressed-up Ustashis, maybe he would rather have forgotten them, still the fact remains that my mother was permitted to have herself photographed with Pavelić the reckless egomaniac, with Millán-Astray the old lion of the Rif with trembling hands, asthmatic and decrepit, with Carmen de Franco the severe bigot, to the cheerful rhythm of Bach fugues, to the sound of the piano that profitably replaced military marches,
soy un novio de la muerte, I am the bridegroom of death, a man marked by the claw of Fate, who links himself by the strongest tie to the loyal company of Death
, what a song, all of it to Spanish oompahs that sound like they come straight out of a running of the bulls, the Grim Reaper’s household pets, artistically massacred by matadors dressed in bullfighter’s outfits, my mother at the age of twelve played in front of those knights undone by age, knights of the mournful countenance marked by war and death in all its forms, marked in their own flesh like Astray or in the flesh of others like Luburić, I too am engaged to implacable Moira, Hades’s niece, in my train rumbling towards nothingness, wearing the death mask of Yvan Deroy the mad, rushing to Rome and the end of the world in the midst of invisible Tuscan hills accompanied by phantom passengers and memories of massacres in my suitcase, son of my mother dubbed, during that Spanish ceremony, by the warriors present, she received the energy from those proud soldiers to transmit to her son an inflexible, fierce history, a share of Fate like a burden on my shoulders, everything connects, everything connects, the silence of the audience, my mother’s hands striking up Contrapunctus XI in
The Art of the Fugue
,
re la sol, fa mi re, do re mi
, not too fast, to let the four voices answering each other be heard, to warm up her fingers also, halfway through the piece the audience starts nodding off, it takes a little less than ten minutes for Marija Mirković my progenitor to come to the end of the fugue, with brio, so forthright already, so metronomic that despite her youth she manages to play as if she had four hands, what comes next will wake up the masses, prelude and fugue in D minor from the first book of the
Well-Tempered Clavier
, Millán-Astray stares wide with his one eye to follow the fingers of this gifted child so frail on her red velvet bench, in the spring light when Madrid smells of flowers and green Castilian wheat, frail but determined Marija promenaded her Bach and her Scarlatti sonatas through all of France, to Holland, to England, at twelve in a cream-colored dress she was applauded by all of Europe, she has already received more roses than she did in her entire life, she knows who she’s playing for on that April 14, 1951, she wants to do well, Carmen Polo de Franco the austere will present her with a medal of the Virgin to thank her, my sister still wears it today—my sister received holy inspiration from the dictator’s wife, I received the tutelary looks of Millán-Astray and Luburić my professors of military nobility and my patriotic conscience in the cold cruelty of the neatly combed Pavelić, those are the fairies who leaned over my cradle, the first snapshots of my history, on one hand my grandparents witnesses to the assassination of King Alexander on the Canebière, on the other my mother plays Bach and Scarlatti for Pavelić the man who had ordered the attack, the games of destiny,
wie einst Lili Marleen, wie einst Lili Marleen
, what solitude in this train now that there’s nothing left to do but let yourself be carried to Rome, to do what, to do what else in Rome to take revenge on barbaric Fate or find a welcoming grave, I’m beginning to glimpse my share of fate, did my mother know what god she would be the instrument of and in what battle, when she made a brief curtsey to the Croatian dictator and to Millán-Astray in Madrid—maybe she envisioned a great career for herself as a soloist, before the miracle of age diminished and before, despite the efforts of her Conservatory professor, Yvonne Lefébure, herself a virtuoso at the age of ten, she discovered herself to be when all was said and done an entirely ordinary pianist, whose passion for the instrument, perhaps blunted by adolescence, the terrible weight of tradition, and then of family, weakened and became a small flame maintained by pedagogy: dozens of relatively gifted girls from good families came to her place to prepare for the entrance exam to the upper Conservatory, why did she marry a man who had little appreciation for music I have no idea, why have I myself never been able to bear my mother’s repertory, allergic to Bach, Scarlatti, and all the rest, I know these works by heart though, I am resistant to art, insensitive to beauty, as Stéphanie the brunette said who liked my mother enormously, she said it’s a stroke of luck to be the son of such an artist, how was it that you never learned how to play the piano, damned if I know, maybe I didn’t have the gift, quite simply, I was much better at sport, programmed to be a warrior probably, which doesn’t mean anything really, swift-footed Achilles plays the lyre and recites poems in his tent—my sister Leda learned all the piano she wanted to, for years, clinging to my mother like a crab on Andrija’s balls, I was the audience, I had to endure private family concerts on Sunday afternoons, after lunch my mother called out,
come on everyone, come here, Leda’s going to play something for us
, my sister strutted like a pigeon in heat, put her fat buttocks on the stool everyone present sat down on chairs in a row facing the instrument she sits in front of, sonatina by Clementi number God knows what, etc., my stoic father applauded loud enough to bring the house down, bravo sweetie-pie bravo that was perfect, my mother a teacher to the tips of her toes said yes, it was good,
but
, but the tempo, but the crescendo, but this, but that, every Sunday we waited for my mother’s
but
after the applause, I was ashamed for my sister, when I think about it, I was ashamed that she made such a spectacle of herself, a shame mingled with jealousy perhaps, what did I have to show, me, what can earn me my family’s applause, Leda slipped into the mold prepared for her, a perfect young lady, sweet and diligent, then a deadly boring woman who unearthed a magnificently insipid husband to whom she has given perfectly inane children who will end up in a bank or in insurance, and voilà, the pianist Marija Mirković surprised Millán-Astray in Madrid on April 14, 1951, without knowing who this rigid general with the frightening appearance was, and now, hundreds of kilometers farther away, Francis the coward is thinking of his mother and that famous invalid in a train hurtling towards nothingness in an Italian night, alone like a star on a cloudy evening, into what obscure mold did I slip, what professor emerging from the shadows will say to me