JК
The Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana :: Эко Умберто
Страница: 203 из 286In the city I had been a melancholy boy who played with hisschoolmates for a few hours a day. The rest of the time I was curled up with a book or roaming around on my bike. The only enchanted moments were those spent in my grandfather’s shop: as he talked with a customer, I would rummage and rummage, dazzled by endless revelations. But in this way my solitude increased, and I lived alone with my imaginings.
At Solara, where I could walk to the town school by myself and romp through the fields and vineyards, I was free, and uncharted territory opened up before me. And I had many friends with whom I roamed. Our main goal was to build ourselves a fort.
Now, once more, I can see my whole life at the Oratorio, like a film. No longer proglottidean, but rather a logical sequence…
A fort did not have to be like a house with a roof, walls, and a door. It was usually a pit or a ditch, over which we would build a covering of branches and leaves, such that an embrasure of sorts remained, allowing us to control a valley or at least a clearing. Walking sticks were aimed and fired like machine guns. As at Giarabub, only hunger could defeat us.
We had begun going to the Oratorio because at one end of the soccer field, atop a rise nestled against the low surrounding wall, we had identified the ideal site for a fort. All twenty-two players in the Sunday match could be gunned down. At the Oratorio we were basically free-they rounded us up only around six for catechism and benediction, but the rest of the time we did as we pleased. There was a rudimentary merry-go-round, a few swings, and a little playhouse where I trod the boards for the first time, in The Little Parisian. It was there that I gained that mastery of the footlights that years later would make me memorable in Lila’s eyes.
Older boys also came by, and even young men-ancient to us- who played Ping-Pong or cards, though not for money. That good man Don Cognasso, the Oratorio’s director, required of them no profession of faith; rather, it was enough that they came there instead of caravanning toward the city on bicycles, even at the risk of being caught in a bombardment, to attempt the climb up to the Casa Rossa, the bordello famous throughout the province.
It was at the Oratorio, after September 8 of ’43, that I first heard about the Partisans. Before, they were just boys who were trying to avoid either the Repubblica Sociale’s new draft or the Nazi roundups, which meant being sent off to work in Germany. Later people began to call them rebels, because that was what they were called in official communiqués.
At Solara, where I could walk to the town school by myself and romp through the fields and vineyards, I was free, and uncharted territory opened up before me. And I had many friends with whom I roamed. Our main goal was to build ourselves a fort.
Now, once more, I can see my whole life at the Oratorio, like a film. No longer proglottidean, but rather a logical sequence…
A fort did not have to be like a house with a roof, walls, and a door. It was usually a pit or a ditch, over which we would build a covering of branches and leaves, such that an embrasure of sorts remained, allowing us to control a valley or at least a clearing. Walking sticks were aimed and fired like machine guns. As at Giarabub, only hunger could defeat us.
We had begun going to the Oratorio because at one end of the soccer field, atop a rise nestled against the low surrounding wall, we had identified the ideal site for a fort. All twenty-two players in the Sunday match could be gunned down. At the Oratorio we were basically free-they rounded us up only around six for catechism and benediction, but the rest of the time we did as we pleased. There was a rudimentary merry-go-round, a few swings, and a little playhouse where I trod the boards for the first time, in The Little Parisian. It was there that I gained that mastery of the footlights that years later would make me memorable in Lila’s eyes.
Older boys also came by, and even young men-ancient to us- who played Ping-Pong or cards, though not for money. That good man Don Cognasso, the Oratorio’s director, required of them no profession of faith; rather, it was enough that they came there instead of caravanning toward the city on bicycles, even at the risk of being caught in a bombardment, to attempt the climb up to the Casa Rossa, the bordello famous throughout the province.
It was at the Oratorio, after September 8 of ’43, that I first heard about the Partisans. Before, they were just boys who were trying to avoid either the Repubblica Sociale’s new draft or the Nazi roundups, which meant being sent off to work in Germany. Later people began to call them rebels, because that was what they were called in official communiqués.