The Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana   ::   Эко Умберто

"Royal soup was so good, such a crime they don’t make it anymore, I reckon because they sent the king packing, poor man, and I’d like a word or two with Il Duce about that!"

"Amalia, Il Duce isn’t around anymore, even people who’ve lost their memories know that."

"I’ve never been much on politics, but I know they sent him off once and he came back. I’m telling you, that fellow is off biding his time somewhere, and one day, well, you never know… But be that as it may, your good grandfather, may God rest his soul in glory, was partial to capon and royal soup, it wasn’t Christmas without them."

Capon and royal soup. Had the shape of the table brought them to mind? Or the chandelier that must have illuminated them each December? I did not remember the taste of the soup, just the name. It was like that word game called Target: table gives rise to chair or dining or wine. For me, it called to mind royal soup , purely through word association.

I opened another door. I saw a double bed, and I hesitated a moment before entering the room, as though it were off limits. The silhouettes of furniture loomed large in the shadows, and the four-poster bed, its canopy intact, seemed like an altar. Could it have been my grandfather’s bedroom, which I had not been allowed to enter? Had he died there, done in by grief? And had I been there to say my last good-byes?

The next room was also a bedroom, with furnishings from an indeterminate epoch, pseudo-Baroque. No right angles, everything curved, including the doors of the great wardrobe, with its mirror and chest of drawers. I suddenly felt a knot in my pylorus, as I had in the hospital when I saw the photo of my parents on the day of their honeymoon. The mysterious flame. When I had tried to describe the feeling to Dr. Gratarolo, he had asked me if it was like an extrasystole. Perhaps, I said, but accompanied by a warmth that rises in my throat… In that case, no, Gratarolo had said, extrasystoles are not like that.

It was in this room that I caught sight of a book, a small one, bound in brown leather, on the marble surface of the right-hand bedside table, and I went straight to it and opened it, saying to myself riva la filotea.