The Combover (5 page)

I sat in front of the cave and looked down at the distant town. It was dusk, and the first evening lights were being switched on between the roofs. Lights were appearing further away from the town, in single farmhouses here and there or along the roads, and the first bats were coming out to clean the air, flitting madly over the bushes to hunt out midges. At that moment I ought to have been in Bari, or travelling back by train toward Recanati, reading a newspaper or a textbook on library technology. I hadn't the faintest idea what I could do up there in the mountains, apart from searching for food and keeping well hidden in the woods, for it is a well-known fact that if someone goes off to live in a wood, then everyone else goes searching for him and tries to get him to return to civilization. I had to be ready for all eventualities, I thought. But now I needed to start again from scratch. I had to learn to recognize plants, winds, animals, stars, as the Eastern anchorites had done, or those hermits who lived in mountain caves, some nearby, close to this cave of mine.

But how could I apply my knowledge on bibliographic data exchange formats up here in the mountains? I had learned so many things in life, of a kind that is generally transmitted from generation to generation more or less from the Sumerian civilization onward. I knew how to play the accordion, I had once even repaired a transistor radio, I knew how to change a spare wheel or play chess, but I had forgotten how to climb trees or identify mushrooms or distinguish a raspberry from a bilberry or how to light a fire with two sticks, in other words all those things that were done before the Sumerians and which are no less important than cuneiform writing or the invention of telegraphy. And as I was thinking this, I took a mirror out of my rucksack and studied myself in it. I hadn't shaved for two days and a hard prickly carpet of bristles was beginning to grow across my chin. I wetted my hands with the water from the bottle and then tidied my hair as best as I could, smoothing it forward. The thinner my hair became, the more attention I had to give to it. But in the mountains I had to be careful of wind and rain or, even worse, the bottom branches of trees, especially in the woods, which mess your hair up in no time at all. I hadn't brought any gelatin with me to stick down my hair—that was what my grandfather used to use (and every so often my mother would buy me a pack when she went to Nasello's supermarket . . . I'd then get a bowl of water, put a leaf of gelatin into it, pour it into a cup, and then I'd gradually spread it over my scalp and dry it with a hairdryer . . . it didn't smell much, indeed, hardly at all). The grease from my sebaceous glands was enough to keep it under control for the moment, but I felt uncomfortable with greasy hair, even though there was no one up there to see me.

The dew was falling over the whole mountainside. I went into the cave and took a few steps into the darkness. There was moss on the rock, a soft green layer that made me want to stroke it. I needed to get a hammer, a saw, and some nails so that I could start building something: a shelf, a table, a chair. I didn't even have a candle to illuminate the cave and had to go to bed in the dark, unless I wanted to go off looking for some bark to kindle a fire. I was frightened of going out. And anyway, it was better if I started straight away to acclimatize myself, to recognize sounds, smells, and so forth.

Tucked away inside there, in that secluded space, I was rediscovering all my childhood fears—in the evening, my mother would take me to bed and switch off the light and my brother would go calmly to sleep while I lay there with my eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. I would hear the sound of traffic on the road, or the voices of passersby. Then I'd get up and ask my father to come and sit with me and he'd give me a pat on the cheek and would lie down beside me, fully dressed, without messing up his hair (I too was very careful not to mess his hair up). I rested my head on his arm until he took it away, saying, with another pat on my cheek: "Go to sleep now, there's nothing to worry about, I'll be in the kitchen."

"Alright, Dad," I'd say.

But my fear of the dark would return, and would become terror when I saw the slit of light disappear from beneath the door and heard my parents' bedroom door close. Only when I could feel myself at one with the furnishings in my room—all these objects submerged in the darkness along with the beds and the clothes draped over a chair—would sleep descend upon me, closing my eyelids.

And that evening, in the cave, at that moment when things become a blur, I thought of the bedroom in which I grew up and where I began to harbor fears, of the noises on the street or in the downstairs corridor, noises that were now replaced by the creaking of branches, by the whispering of leaves or the screech of some night bird. But what most came back to mind, and racked my thoughts as I peered around me, was the story (I don't know how reliable) which they had told me at the bar—the story of the man-eating tribe from Umbria who had settled in the mountains of Cingoli many years before. I must admit I was frightened of falling into the hands of those savages, or men, whom I had good reason to consider far more dangerous than a bear or a pack of hungry wolves. Primitive men with no scruples—so they had told me—who could easily have scalped me, or clubbed me to death and then eaten me, or cut me up and smoked me, as has been reported by certain explorers who have been to study the Mianmin or the Kukukuku of Papua New Guinea, savages who take their victims and sacrifice them without pity. They didn't kill to defend themselves or because the victim had been making eyes—or perhaps just glanced—at one of the village women: they killed because they were in the mountains and were hungry, they didn't think straight, they ate whatever they could find, such as the first unfortunate wretch they happened to find living as a hermit, like me. But supposing they weren't cannibals, they could have killed me just the same, just for the pleasure of it, or to rob me. In this last case, it goes without saying that I would have handed over everything with no questions asked: sleeping bag, k-way,
Ethics
, introduction to the
Ethics
, toilet bag, and everything else. "Help yourselves," I'd have said to those marauders, "take the lot but don't kill me, and if you want I'll leave straight away, I'll let you have the caves forever and I'll never come back to Cingoli, just tell me what you want . . ." If they were cannibals who had lost all reason, as cannibals do when they haven't eaten for days, they would have killed me all the same, even if I was kneeling before them, because cannibals, I thought, aren't interested in the pleas of their victims, in fact the whining excites them. If they were more understanding, as those who came from Umbria appear to have been, they would have let me go. And with this thought I felt rather more reassured.

I took my shoes and socks off and stretched out on the ground, on top of my sleeping bag. I ate a couple of crackers, then washed them down with some water. I began to feel sleepy, even though it was still early and I wasn't used to sleeping on the ground. I got inside my sleeping bag and fell asleep as I smoothed my hair with my hands. But at some stage during the night I began dreaming about a strange, pale colorless body that you could see through, who rose up from my sleeping body and climbed to a point above the cave. It sat on the rock and from high above looked at the darkness inside my sleeping bag. And I was able, through that pale, colorless thing, to see myself naked, and meanwhile my skin gave off an evanescent gas and I began to flake away and dandruff fell around my head (I've no idea how I managed to see this—I haven't had dandruff since the time I did military service—and yet I saw it quite clearly, a halo of snow, like those around the saints in churches). I saw my pores silently distending and discharging a slimy liquid and I felt a nasty, early morning stench coming out of my mouth. Then I saw myself scratching a small pimple on my neck which was irritating the hairs of my beard. That pale body which I had seen gravitating above me looked very much like me, though it was of indeterminate age, whereas I am very well aware of mine. Ten, thirty, sixty—it was hard to say how old it was. Then it came down from where it had climbed, looked at me again as I slept, returned inside my sleeping bag, and slipped back into my body. At that point I felt a jolt, a great shudder, and woke up, my heart racing like mad. I opened my eyes and started thinking about the dream I'd had, about that pale colorless thing that had risen up from my body to look at me, and had slipped back inside me as if to say: "OK then, I'll stay inside Arduino a bit longer, let's see how he gets on up here in the mountains, I really want to find out what happens to him, someone whose life revolves around bibliographic data exchange formats . . . let's see what he does with those formats up here . . . then he'll learn how people once lived in the middle of woods and perhaps lived better, without getting too fucked up about their hair and those formats . . ."

Dawn began to appear behind the mountains, and Venus shone out like a taillight in the sky. I ate a few more crackers, then went for a pee among the trees. It must have been five or six in the morning. It was cold. I had an urge to go down to Cingoli and call my friend Sandro, to tell him I was in the mountains and had slept in a cave just like the one he and I had once visited in the Sibillini mountains, and that I'd also dreamt about a strange thing who watched me as I was sleeping, but then I had second thoughts. I trusted Sandro entirely, but it was better not to tell anyone where I was—no one must know, not even Cosino, who had most certainly spent that night wandering the house and, having failed to find me, had gone to sleep.

I was sitting outside the cave, on a branch I had dragged from the woods. I had never heard the early morning chorus of birds singing in the shrubs, nor that irritating whirr of insects buzzing around. "I'll have to get used to it," I said to myself. The last bats (those strange flying things, the only ones to have fur instead of feathers) were returning replete toward their hideouts, flitting here and there as though they were mad. I sat there gazing down on Cingoli, which looked like a model village with a few lights still on, set on its mountain crest. The churches, the towers, the pitched roofs, and then the squares and courtyards, and the tight-knit tangle of streets. I surveyed the town like a bird in flight, with my eyes half-closed.

I didn't know what to do at that hour of the morning. I took out my comb and smoothed my hair forward several times, from the nape of my neck toward my forehead, over the whole rotundity of my cranium, following its curve, and then down to the eyebrows. I enjoyed smoothing my hair like that, I found it relaxing. That was why, after the great Bari ruffle, I had stood there paralyzed, stunned. No one had ever dared to do a thing like that, not even my brother, who was an expert when it came to ruffling. What else could I have done that day, in front of the class, other than remaining completely still? I was expecting him, the Argentinian, or someone else in his entourage, to put my hair back straight, as it had been before. But no one had the courage to stand up and approach me or to pull that braggart down a peg or two; instead they burst out laughing like idiots, their mouths half gaping, smug, heaving like chimneys. In effect, they had left me on stage alone ("Laugh, laugh, laugh as much as you want now," I muttered to myself), with my hair disheveled in front of everyone and my forelock sticking back. That little act was enough for this exotic, half-Paraguayan Argentine to strengthen his leadership over those imbeciles—to put it quite simply, he didn't waste any time on idle chatter and knew how to get the best out of life, as leaders do, without mucking about. I could let the whole incident drop, let it pass, and think no more of it. After all, I kept telling myself, it was an impulsive, irrational act. But I couldn't just let it go, and I kept thinking about that idiot. And as I was puzzling over that bastard and all the bastards who, like him, would have no hesitation in ruffling up a decent person like me, someone who tried never to look anyone in the eye (so as to avoid having anything to do with the first hysteric who clouts you on the head with absolute nonchalance), I spat at the tip of a branch that was leaning against the cave. I got up and went for a piss against the same tree trunk I had pissed against the day before (how incredibly easy it is to become used to certain things). I went back to the cave and made a note of what I had to buy if I ever decided to go down to the town: a wood saw, a hammer, large and medium nails for making a bench, an axe, a bucket, a notebook, a new pencil, plenty of chocolate, shampoo, soap, a can of white paint and brush to give the cave a bit of a spruce up (but then I crossed these two items out), blueberry jam, dried fruit, a knife—no, two . . . a large one for hunting and a small one for domestic use—a bottle of grappa, a pair of scissors, which are always useful, candles and a lighter (underlined twice), a rope for dragging things, I didn't know what, but there is always something to drag around in a wood . . .

At a certain point, as I was writing my list, I heard the sound of trampled leaves and moving branches. I felt anxious. I didn't recognize the sounds and didn't know what it could be. I thought perhaps a deer might be roaming the neighborhood or a brown Apennine bear might have wandered down from the Monti della Laga and ended up at Cingoli, looking for some heather or birch to nibble. Then, along with the sound of trampling came voices, an occasional giggle—in other words, a typically human din—so I grabbed the piece of branch I had left outside the cave and took it inside. I sat there waiting, part hidden, expecting that the people who were approaching would carry on without seeing me; but no, as they were passing the cave, they saw me in a corner and jumped with fright. They stopped and looked at me without saying a word, as if they couldn't believe their eyes. They were a boy of fifteen with down over his lip and a girl of about fourteen (looking so sweet that it made you think perhaps there might be hope for the world after all) who was wearing a strange hat with a white flower in it and a pair of blue-rimmed glasses. After the fright, and realizing I was harmless, she smiled, giving a friendly wave.

"So then, what is there to look at?" I asked the boy who was staring at me as if I were a Martian.

"Are you alright?" he said (I wasn't sure whether he was asking her or me).

"You're asking me?" I asked, just to make sure.

"Yes, you—are you alright?"

"Yes, sure, I'm fine, and I'd be even better if you'd move away from the entrance."

"Ah, yes, the entrance," said the boy, moving to one side.

For a moment I thought how stupid I had been to mistake the footsteps of two such scrawny youngsters with those of a bear.

"Do you live here?" asked the girl as she peered at me with two large, green eyes.

"Yes, this is my new house," I said.

"Since when? Last time we came you weren't here."

"But now I am. This is where I sleep."

"Ah," said the girl.

"Yes, but try not to spread the word—when people find out someone's in hiding, they do all they can to get him to return to civilization, you understand?"

"And why are you hiding?" she asked.

"I'm not hiding, I'm escaping, that's all."

"We often come walking around here," said the girl, changing the subject.

"It's a nice place."

"Are you from Cingoli?" asked the boy, who was still eying me.

"No, but I came to Cingoli quite a lot when I was young. I used to go to the Salesians."

"And how come your hair is all sticking forward?"

"I like it, it's the way I do it."

"Oh," said the boy.

"And," I said, "it brings me luck."

"I've got nothing to bring me luck, can I touch it?" he asked. The girl started giggling and covered her mouth ("Go on, what are you talking about," she muttered, nudging the boy).

This, for me, was a real ordeal, but I couldn't get out of it, now that they'd seen me there in the cave.

"I'll let you, but please, don't mess it up."

"I promise," he said, lifting his right hand.

The boy rested his whole hand with great care on my head and then moved it down, following the direction of the combover. Then he lowered his hand and cleaned it on his trousers. He was quite right. Not even I would have I endured that filth on my hands.

"Sorry, I'm afraid it's rather greasy, but up here in the mountains it's not so easy to wash each day."

"And aren't you worried about the wind?" he asked. "I mean, of it messing up your hair."

"You bet!" I said. "Wind is one of the things I hate the most."

"But if you've come into the mountains to be a hermit you have to do without everything, even your combover."

"I haven't come to be a hermit and I don't have to do without anything, in fact I'm very fond of my hair."

I don't know why, but since they had mentioned the wind, I decided to tell the two youngsters the story about when I married Teresa, four or five years earlier, and she and I were walking along, and two photographers were following on either side of us, along a path lined with old oak trees that led up to the restaurant where our family and friends were waiting at the entrance. It was very hot, and there wasn't a breath of wind to dry those sweaty foreheads that were now all looking at us, waiting for us to arrive. We went into the main room of the restaurant. They had given us the central table so we could see all our guests, and likewise they could see us all the time. A semi-circle of tables and we at center-stage, smiling and nodding in all directions. All was going to plan until, just as the
antipasto
was arriving, something happened which I hadn't expected and which we hadn't been told about during our prior discussions with the restaurateur. As if by magic ("And I don't rule out the possibility," I told the two youngsters, "of some concerted plot against me, though I don't have sufficient evidence"), a series of ceiling fans were switched on, arranged in such a way to ensure that everyone had a little extra air, enough to tide them over the long wait between each course (especially between the first and the second). It was a factor I hadn't taken into account when I was organizing the wedding. Nor had it occurred to my wife that any sort of problem might exist; on the contrary she had raised her arms and thanked the staff for switching on those infernal devices, exclaiming "At last!", followed by an unforgivable, "About time too."

The fact that my combover was now in serious jeopardy, and that the whole thing had placed me in a very embarrassing situation, was a problem she completely failed to understand. Given her complete lack of responsibility, I realized there and then that our marriage was not going to be as blissful as we had imagined. ("If my wife couldn't recognize the problem, even on our wedding day," I told the youngsters, "it meant the marriage was destined to fail.") I was extremely annoyed. I already saw the outside world as a constant series of traps, but I never imagined I would be caught out like this on my own wedding day; and so, as discreetly as I could, I told one of the waiters that I had a back problem and asked if he would kindly switch off the fan that was right behind us (directed on that panoptic table
par excellence
, from which I was able to watch the blowing hair of the guests).

"I'm sorry," said the waiter, without any particular attempt to take me seriously, "it's a centralized system: if I switch one off, they all go off."

The whole thing seemed pretty odd, but I took it in good spirit all the same. I think I even apologized for my request. Moreover, what I was asking was clearly one of those things the restaurant had never contemplated. There again, I'd had to fight draughts all my life, so why shouldn't I do the same on my wedding day? The
antipasto
had already been put in front of me, a plate of anchovy with
salsa verde
and grilled squid, but what I was most bothered about was protecting my hair from that lively gust (useful against sweat but a scourge for everything else). Then, with a series of strategic maneuvers, hand smoothing, shifts of the head and so forth, I realized to my amazement that the breeze was not entirely unfavorable since—as I have already said—it came from behind, onto the back of the head, and as my combover was not lateral like my father's, my hair wasn't too badly affected, indeed, the air from behind helped to keep my hair in place. ("I just had to make sure I didn't catch a gust of air from the side or otherwise my combover would have shot up," I explained.) So far, I told the two youngsters who were now sitting down in front of me in the cave, everything was going quite well. But the problem would arise when I had to stand up to greet the guests or, even worse, when I had to turn to my wife for a photograph or simply to tell her how much I was enjoying the anchovies and the squid. In short, everything led me to think it was best for me to stay fixed there in my place with my head facing the central area of the semicircle, not turning to either side—to my friends on the far right, for example.

The only movement the fan would allow me to do was always to say "yes." In such circumstances, a "no" would have been fatal. I finished the
antipasto
in this state of uncertainty. My wife was talking to me. She was happy, though I never really understood from her expressions where joy ended and sadness began. But I answered her as best I could, gesturing with my hands or slightly turning my cheek to listen to her. I was sorry she hadn't understood immediately how difficult it was for me to turn to her, that she didn't realize how I was suffering because of the air currents, and that I didn't have the courage (goodness knows why) to explain that that accursed fan was ruining the wedding reception.

Then, in the pause between the
antipasto
and the first course, what I had feared from the very beginning finally happened. A guest stood up at the far end of the room, the usual bastard who can never mind his own business, and with a great booming footballer's voice, without even clapping his hands, he began chanting: "Kiss the bride! Kiss the bride! Kiss the bride!"

And a chorus of idiots joined in, banging their forks in time against their glasses, chanting once again: "Kiss the bride! Kiss the bride! Kiss the bride!"

And then my wife, smiling and blushing at the same time, without the slightest concern for my hair, leaned toward me and, taking my head between her sweaty, squid-oiled hands, she turned me toward her to kiss me on the lips. It was inevitable that the fan would make my hair stick up to one side, transforming me into an ignominious baldhead. I had no defense. But at the same time I was brave enough to flatten my hair down while she still held me by the mouth. My wife's brother—either as a joke or out of solidarity—then got up from his table and carefully smoothed down my hair, making light of what had happened. He was the sort who always kept to himself and the last person from whom I expected any help. Some people shouted, others laughed, some still carried on loudly demanding another kiss. I thanked my wife's brother with a nod and then went off to tidy myself up.