The Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana   ::   Эко Умберто

" The fog on the bristling hills climbs drizzling up the sky , and down below the mistral howls and whitens the sea… What’s the fog like?"

"You put me at a disadvantage-I’m only a doctor. And besides, this is April, I can’t show you any fog. Today’s the twenty-fifth of April."

" April is the cruelest month. "

"I’m not very well read, but I think that’s a quotation. You could say that today’s the Day of Liberation. Do you know what year this is?"

"It’s definitely after the discovery of America…"

"You don’t remember a date, any kind of date, before… your reawakening?"

"Any date? Nineteen hundred and forty-five, end of World War Two."

"Not close enough. No, today is the twenty-fifth of April, 1991. You were born, I believe, at the end of 1931, all of which means you’re pushing sixty."

"Fifty-nine and a half. Not even."

"Your calculative faculties are in excellent shape. But you have had, how shall I say, an incident. You’ve come through it alive, and I congratulate you on that. But clearly something is still wrong. A slight case of retrograde amnesia. Not to worry, they sometimes don’t last long. But please be so kind as to answer a few more questions. Are you married?"

"You tell me."

"Yes, you’re married, to an extremely likable lady named Paola, who has been by your side night and day. Just yesterday evening I insisted she go home, otherwise she would have collapsed. Now that you’re awake, I’ll call her. But I’ll have to prepare her, and before that we need to do a few more tests."

"What if I mistake her for a hat?"

"Excuse me?"

"There was a man who mistook his wife for a hat."

"Oh, the Sacks book. A classic case. I see you’re up on your reading. But you don’t have his problem, otherwise you’d have already mistaken me for a stove. Don’t worry, you may not recognize her, but you won’t mistake her for a hat. But back to you. Now then, your name is Giambattista Bodoni. Does that tell you anything?"

Now my memory was soaring like a glider among mountains and valleys, toward a limitless horizon. "Giambattista Bodoni was a famous typographer. But I’m sure that’s not me. I could as easily be Napoleon as Bodoni."

"Why did you say Napoleon?"

"Because Bodoni was from the Napoleonic era, more or less. Napoleon Bonaparte, born in Corsica, first consul, marries Josephine, becomes emperor, conquers half of Europe, loses at Waterloo, dies on St. Helena, May 5, 1821, he was as if unmoving. "

"I’ll have to bring my encyclopedia next time, but from what I remember, your memory is good. Except you don’t remember who you are.