Nocturne (English version) Read online

17 - Marriage

  Her uncle took the news of the marriage in the worst way. He grieved, poor man, he would not listen to reason.

  Then Martina decided that the situation had to be solved by someone competent. By someone who could make a serious, adult, talk. And she went to talk to her uncle.

  From what I heard as I tried to eavesdrop, Martina admitted everything her relative accused her of: I was much older than her – and it's not that I looked that good – I was not good at conversation and I was not educated, I had no money and furthermore there was something vague in me that made me unconvincing: I had something amiss. All this just because he didn’t have the readiness to come up with the right word for his feelings: ridiculous. I no longer have the tower, remember?

  So Martina took care of that. The conclusion of her speech was that she would marry me, ridiculous or not. And if he didn’t accept it, we would go somewhere else. She had run away once and she could do it again.

  Why did she insist on wanting to be my wife? Obviously her uncle asked that too, but I could not hear the answer from behind the door that isolated them – them, not me – from the sound of the waves. Luckily it’s not like that of the sheet. This made me feel very relieved.

  She must have been convincing, or maybe not. Maybe she was just stubborn and her uncle didn’t know how to make her give up, however she had already set the wedding date, in a month.

  Remember when, hanging out around the tower, we had the time and the indecency to imagine her as a bride? Doesn’t it seem incredible, that all this is really happening?

  I'll have ginger cookies for a lifetime, if she doesn’t run away again, without me, I mean. And I wouldn’t rule that out. But how could I stop her, if she decided to? After all, I didn’t believe too much in this marriage. It was a whim, what else could it be? That's why I had humoured her.

  I need not tell you how good Martina looked in her wedding dress. Pearly white, with a very long veil. She had wanted a bouquet of small sunflowers, even though every girl in the town had tried to dissuade her. They were horribly out of fashion. I liked them, they reminded me of our friend the scarecrow, to which we had not even had the time to say goodbye. I had invited it to the wedding, but it had not come. Was it still offended for our hasty departure? It would have been good as a best man, wouldn’t it? It would only take putting a couple of wheels at the end of its legs to solve its problem with walking. Small ones, of course. Maybe they could have been covered with shoes, so not to make him uncomfortable in the midst of so many people with feet of their own. But he hadn’t wanted to. Yet I really saw it as a very good best men. It would also have solved that problem, because of course I didn’t have one. Who would have witnessed my loyalty to Martina and my intentions about her, if not it?

  In the end Malera – we had seen her on the terrace with Martina’s uncle the day of our arrival – offered to be my witness, although he had tried to dissuade her.

  I must confess it, although with some reticence because this isn’t really my kind of thing. When she marched down the church approaching the altar – instead of the wedding march, Nocturne No. 5 by Leybach was playing – I even got a little excited.

  "So? Don’t you answer? He’s asking you a question: don’t just stand there looking at me stupidly, or we’ll never get over this!"

  Oh, yes.

  "Yes, I do."

  Malera, who is no longer young, is wearing a tight dress and heavy makeup. To calm down, she tries to light a cigarette right next to the priest, in the place for witnesses, but the priest unleashes an aggressive altar boy who tries to stop her, somehow. The only evidence is that they are all very cheerful, even too much. Eventually, however, the altar boy goes away and Malera is shrouded in a cloud of smoke. She smiles again: she won. He smiles too, but no one knows why. The priest, however, doesn’t smile at all.

  And Martina? Martina smiles too. I can kiss the bride.

  What else is she expecting? Certainly not what I had imagined. After the banquet, during which she exaggerated a bit – could I forbid her a few glasses of wine at her wedding party? – she crashes on the bed, a bit tipsy. Since we arrived at the lighthouse, a month ago, we no longer slept together. But she doesn’t want to sleep: she is excited, it’s her wedding after all, isn’t it?

  "Mine too" I stress.

  "This has nothing to do with it."

  "What now?" she asks.

  "Now we sleep. You must be tired, I guess."

  "Forget it."

  "What do you want to do then?"

  "I don’t know. Shouldn’t you be the one to know? "

  "I only know that you're thirteen, that you drank too much and that now it's time to sleep."

  Not a chance. She keeps me awake all night. It's good, staying up with Martina, albeit a little unnerving in the long run. She insists, I persist.

  "Don’t you know that a non-consummated marriage is invalid?"

  "Then it will become valid later on. Meanwhile, no one will know."

  "What are you waiting for?"

  "For you to be a little older."

  "But I already am."

  "No, you're not. "

  "And when will I be?"

  "We'll talk again about this when you're at least fourteen. Then, if you want to be more it’s fine, but less no way."

  "But it's too much time! Ten months. We cannot wait that long!"

  "If I can wait, you can too."

   

  At first she pouted, then she decided to change tactics. I was adamant, of course, even if her nightgown, from the floor where she had thrown it in defiance, suggested me that maybe I could change my mind. Was I really sure? Yes, very. As for the fact that no one would know, I was wrong.

  The next morning, at the breakfast table, her uncle looked at her for a long time to figure out what had happened, and I don’t know how – he must have had a certain intuition for what concerned his niece – he realized that things had gone in a certain way. Would he despise me?

  He rose from his chair, walking around the table and heading toward me. He stared openly at my face. He was looking for something deep in my eyes. But my eyes are buttons, not mines, there is nothing to dig out of them. Then he patted me on a shoulder.

  "After all, you're a good man. Who would have imagined?"

  And he left to attend to his affairs.

  This is the only kind thing he ever said to me, so I had to appreciate it.

  Martina spent the next ten months with the only clear purpose of tormenting me. She’s like this: like every little whimsical girl, she desires with all her strength what she cannot have, and endeavours to obtain it.

  The ten months that separated us from her birthday passed very quickly, and nothing changed in our daily lives.

  When the time came, I congratulated myself. The determination – the first time in my life that I had a little of it – to stay firm in my purpose had undoubtedly positive effects: when she turned fourteen, she didn’t look askance at me at all. She had so much desired that day to arrive, that it had seemed beautiful to her.

  "The last two birthdays were definitely the most beautiful of my life. It’s not fair that you don’t have one. Why not choose a day to celebrate your birthday?"

  "One day at random?"

  "No, not a random day. A day that has some meaning. The day we met, for example."

  Of course, I didn’t remember which day it was.

  "I thought so" she sighed. She remembered it perfectly, and pouted for my insensitivity, which she never failed to make me notice.

  "And now, what are you doing?" she then asked in surprise.

  "I am getting dressed."

  "No way."

   

  Martina had begun to enjoy my hair a bit long. Too bad they weren’t smooth, she said, they would have suited me more. She liked that I didn’t sport moustaches or beard. She liked my arms, that she caressed with admired passion when I was over her, my muscles tense. I could never lay down on her: she was too ti
ny to support my weight. She liked to sit with me on the seashore, even though it wasn’t as good as at the tower. She always said that we had done well to move to the lighthouse. Moreover, she really loved the white flowers that her uncle kept on the large terrace, that sometimes I helped her watering. Their petals were the only snow we would ever see around here.

  I suspect that she didn’t like my broken incisor, and that a little more acumen wouldn’t have been bad.

  I need not tell you what I infinitely liked in Martina, right? You are not like me, you have a good memory, we have largely dealt with the topic of her eyes and what they contain: her and her mine. A cute black. And her ankles. Her biscuits too, of course.

  All in all, even being the keeper of the lighthouse wasn’t so bad.

  The moon and I made peace. I will not be a poet: I no longer need to. Martina understands everything without explanations. The important things, that is. Those for which sometimes, before, I didn’t seem to have the right words. Her presence is a good enough suggestion to renounce to some assonance and some wacky rhyme that just don’t want to be found.