My First Seven Years (Plus a Few More)

CHAPTER 11. The Mystery of the Amorous Statues

A beautiful eighteenth-century villa, surrounded by a park with a river on one side, stood facing the lake on the outskirts of the town. Here and there stood clumps of woodland — oaks, silver firs and beeches. Statues in the Palladian style depicting nymphs, satyrs and various gods had been placed among the trees to give a spurious impression of randomness. In the villa lived the owners of the glassworks. The park was enclosed by a long fence around the entire perimeter.

The keeper in charge of the life of the trees was called Serene, surname Weather. His brother’s name was Cloudy, indisputable proof of the madness of the town. He was a registered gardener with all his diplomas in order and had previously worked on the Borromeo family’s island, the Isola Madre. He was a quiet man, but he too one day went mad and was carried off in the usual padded van to the mental hospital in Varese. The fault lay with a passionate love affair which had broken out among the statues in the park. Absurd? A pata-physical hyperbole? It may be, but for Serene, who had no idea what pataphysics were, it was a tragic business all the same.

I was fond of that gardener so, once a few weeks had passed, I went to visit him in the hospital in Varese together with Giuda and Tajabis, two friends who were both a bit older than me. Serene seemed tranquil enough, as would be expected of someone of that name, and appeared both very happy to see us and keen to confide in us about what had caused him to lose his mind. In the visiting room, he started talking: ‘It all began with the creepers growing so wild and thick over the statues in the park that you could hardly make them out. The owner ordered me: “You’ll have to get rid of those creepers, otherwise they’re going to break the statues to pieces.”

‘Armed with scythe, secateurs and saw, I started to clear the creepers away, but gently because you have to be careful not to scratch their skin. Among the statues, there were some copies of Roman originals, but there were so many branches and leaves over them that it was impossible to make out if they were male or female. I started hacking away at the shrubbery at the base, and the feet were the first to emerge. It’s hard to tell the sex of a statue from its feet. Working my way up, I liberated the legs … long … delicately carved … certainly female … or maybe Apollo, which is more or less the same … the only difference is at the join in the legs, and the lyre.

‘And in fact it was him, the god of music, with his outsized guitar. Stark naked, except for a strategically placed loincloth … although it was not much good, since you could still make out his thingummy in its entirety … small and discreet. The gods never need to overdo things.

‘The second statue I set to work on was a female. Beautiful she was, pushing up through wisteria and trailing plants. Snip, snip, and legs like columns appear … pubic region … thighs … buttocks … magnificent! Carrying on up, the stomach and tits emerged. My hands were shaking as I revealed those two lovely curves. She seemed to be breathing. Finally the neck and face, mouth and eyes began to peep out … she smiled and looked at me … at me!.. as if to say “Thank you for rescuing me!”

‘So I said to myself, am I mad? What’s come over me? I felt I wanted to caress her all over, and I ran my fingers and hands over those cheeks of hers, so soft as to make me go all fluttery. Who knows what goddess she was? Perhaps she was a nymph … yes, she must be a nymph.

‘I was standing there in a state of enchantment when my eyes happened to drift over to the right and I saw Apollo staring at me, or more precisely gazing at the nymph. What’s going on? I hadn’t even noticed that his face was turned in this direction. I went up to him, took a look at the join of the neck and touched it. It was warm, in fact it was burning as though the stone had been twisted. Must be because of the friction with the branches which I had just cleared away. I look back over at the nymph; she had one hand over her breasts … and she seems to have turned away a little, as though she were embarrassed at the too intrusive stare from Apollo. Come on! That’s enough! I’m going off my head. This is turning into a nightmare. Time to get on with freeing the next sculpture, the third.

‘It’s much easier now. I know how to go about it. I clear away creepers as though shearing sheep. Here we go, torso emerging … another male … but this time there’s an animal tail … it’s all tangled, as you would expect if you found a statue under layers of ivy and fungus. There’s no way of knowing what kind of posture it was supposed to have … Ah! Got it! Once I clear away the bulk of the branches, a quadruped emerges. Is it a man on horseback? No, it’s a centaur.

‘Muscles taut and tense, a fine chest, and underneath the hindquarters, a grand piece of equipment … proud and erect … horses have no sense of measure. In addition, this quadruped is holding a bow with an arrow ready for firing, the whole structure set in bronze. As though by chance, the nymph turned to face the centaur, and the look of the man on horseback seemed fixed on the woman’s eyes. Statuesque love at first sight? I’m going off my head.

‘It’s getting dark. I go home, but I’m back the following morning. God in heaven, no sign of the centaur! On the ground nearby there’s only the quiver with two arrows … nothing else. Want to bet someone has stolen it? There’s a furrow on the grass, as though someone has dragged it along the ground. I follow the track and it leads me to the stables … door wide open … horses missing … I look around. Thank God, they’re all down there drinking at the pond. I go to round them up. Sweet Christ, there’s one in the water, drowned. Where did all that blood come from? A headless horse? No, it’s the centaur decapitated!

‘I trip over something … what’s my axe doing here? I hear someone shouting. It’s Signora Lazarini calling for me. Her voice comes from over beside the statues. I go running down and see the master beside her. They are extremely upset. The Apollo is lying on the ground with a bronze arrow stuck in his chest. The statue of the nymph is still upright but her arms are raised in the air in a gesture of despair and triumph, and in her left hand, she is holding an arrow.

‘“Who is responsible for this disaster?” The Signora’s tone is menacing. “Whose iron club is this?” She picks it off the ground, extracting it from Apollo’s tightly locked fingers. “Don’t tell me it’s part of the statue. Apollo with a club!”

‘“No, the club is mine, Signora, and so is the axe which has smashed the centaur in two. But I know nothing about it … and don’t ask me what she’s doing, the nymph I mean, with a bow in her hand. And I don’t know why she has her arms in the air either, because earlier on they were down at her sides, I’m sure of that. And she had one hand over her breasts, turned slightly this way … yes, there’s no doubt about it, somebody moved them during the night. These sculptures couldn’t have moved by themselves. Who put the bow in the nymph’s hand? It belonged to the centaur who is now at the bottom of the lake with no head.”

‘The master and his lady stared at me incredulously, then bombarded me with questions. “Excuse me if I make so bold, but in my view a real tragedy has occurred. I had noticed right away how they stared at each other, her and him … the half-horse … with real lust! And above all, you should have seen the miserable face that Apollo had on him … glowering like nothing so much as a statue of jealousy! I could swear it, it was him, Apollo, who smashed the centaur, and then the nymph, beside herself with jealousy, took revenge by firing arrows at him.”

‘The master burst out guffawing. “A tragedy of love and jealousy between statues!”

‘But I say, “Don’t you go believing that I’m responsible for this whole business all by myself. Apart from the fact that you’d need a tractor to drag that blessed statue of the centaur down to the lake … and no, I did not touch the tractor. The trunk of the centaur is on the tractor? I know nothing about it. No idea! You want to drive me crazy. So is this all some kind of joke? Not for me it isn’t!”

‘Insults, sniggers, threats, and it’s me that ends up in the madhouse. They’re off their heads, every last one of them.’