Old Charlie's post3

Today I would like to talk about an affliction that is not always judged a proper disease, but in fact it is one of the most dreadful conditions one might find oneself in.

In these days I happen to read on newspapers erudite articles written by psychologists who try to explain to the lay reader why that man— or young mother, or boy— yesterday committed suicide and they have arguments galore for pointing out the responsibilities of the heartless society, the ineptitude of the school system … you know the refrain: somebody is guilty. 

In the days of sixty-five years ago when I was a teenaged boy and felt desperate and alone, nobody was discussing this matter on scientific articles and all the help I got ranged only from the suggestion “drink a fresh egg every morning” to the counsel "concentrate on your schoolbooks without wasting time in shedding tears on yourself”. Indeed few, if any, believed me to be somehow ill. The general opinion was: Carlo is smug as a bug in the rug, with his pretense to endure anguish. A Molière character with his imaginary pain.

The point is - and was - that most people have little experience on this type of difficulties: I reached the conclusion that only a person who had some kind of personal exposure to this condition can help. It is like a wild beast, which swells inside you and can grow from some sort of childish timidity into that implacable cancer of the spirit that is fear of living. I remember I was trying (unsuccessfully) to make clear my plight saying that I would prefer to be ill with pneumonia (or you die or you get healed) rather than being devastated by this endless inconceivable nervous breakdown that caused me to throw up everything from my stomach as soon as any faint emotion stroke me.

In fact in the chapter “First love” as well as in “The great parade” of my self-printed book[1] you are allured to laugh about my vomiting predisposition: any kind of emotion, both fearful - (examinations with professors Cesare Castiglia and Gianni Jarre at the Polytechnic Engineering University) - as well as desirable (the first trip to Sweden, the arrival of Hildegard) … any novelty had the effect to make my esophagus work as a high-pressure pump, and sincerely I felt thoroughly unhappy about this.

But I was fortunate to get acquainted with a wise senior friend, who taught me the most important thing to overcome this devilish torment: I passed through all this, he told me, I know that this misery is no joke and it seems capable to destroy you. But I can guarantee that it is not a definitive, ultimate status. The trick is to know that it is only a transient condition. When you know it, gradually your nervous system will get used to emotions, gradually you are going to forget all this gloomy discomfort. I am sure in the future you will do great things, sure, beyond your wildest dreams. And since I knew how successful he had been in his life, I believed him. And eventually I found out by myself that he was right, his words healed me.

So now, dear readers, after my past posts, where I tried to humorously encourage the Parkinson afflicted and other friends trapped in various types of hardship, here I will inspire my closest mates, those who are scared by their own shadows, those who panic when any novelty is announced. Look, dear friends: you are not alone in your tribulations. I am an expert, believe me.

JJJ

Once upon a time … I was lying on the sofa and was stunned by emotion and empty stomach. The doorbell rang; my mother went over and returned at once with Doctor Verna. He was a tall distinguished man, formerly a medical officer in the Navy and I had always admired him because of his gentlemanly manners.

My mother said, hastily:

<Look what a state this boy is in. Till now he was sick on the eve of each examination, always the same story that you know. In these days no exam is in sight, but from yesterday to this morning he vomited even his soul. I don’t like to play the role of the apprehensive mom, but this new crisis worries me. And even he— it was he who asked me to call for you, doctor>.

I was trying to call the doctor’s attention to my eyes, to let him understand that I wanted to speak alone with him, but he was a gentleman of sterling character and never could imagine that I might want to involve him in any sort of subterfuge. He felt silently my pulse, time was running fast and I was in despair. No, it can’t finish in this way. At this moment Hildegard is waiting for me at the Dahlia. I imagined the girl walking in the hotel’s hall; somebody is observing her, perhaps addressing words to her … who can wake me up from this nightmare?

Doctor Verna dropped my wrist. He stretched out his lower lip, puzzled. Then he said:

<Let’s check the abdomen>

Oh boundless joy! After these words my mother went out of the room, as I had hoped. I grabbed the doctor’s arm and pulled him close to me, with all the vigor I could find in myself.

< I must talk confidentially with you> I whispered. He looked straight in my eyes. His eyes were serious and loyal, and for many years in the future I would have rejoiced, feeling friendly watched by those eyes. But that day I did not know this, yet.

I said:

<I made a date with an Austrian girl here in Torino, unknown to my parents. We are now corresponding long since, and my parents know it. But my mother doesn’t like the whole story, although I showed some letters from which anybody could see that she is a wise person, and even religious. Now, just thinking to go and meet her secretly, I throw up like an erupting volcano and cannot control it … I am here immobilized and she is waiting for me at the Dahlia hotel, you know, that place at the corner on Piazza Statuto— >

Doctor Verna smiled to me. Yes, for a fraction of a second he flattened his wrinkles of stern Navy officer, turning them into something that might be a smile.

<Do you want me to go and talk to that young woman? What’s her name?>

<Hildegard Andexlinger> I replied.

Oh! Thanks!  Heartfelt thanks. I felt relieved, now that I was left alone on the sofa in the empty room. I imagined doctor Verna parking his Lancia Aprilia in front of the Dahlia hotel, I tried to guess what he would say to Hildegard and all seemed to turn round, a sweet dizziness in which one feels to sink and you look forward to the coming of anybody who shake you saying that it was only a bad dream but now it’s over, yes, it’s going to its end, even though I can’t yet understand how.

Much time passed. The sunlight strip on the floor had grown longer and now lapped on the carpet edge.

At last the doctor came back. He entered the room followed by my mother and without even sitting down, without any preamble he said, in his shrill voice:

<She is a remarkable person. Nice, clever, agreeable.  We spoke a bit about Austria, soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, about music in general and other things. At first she was worrying about your health, dear young man. But I explained that you are sound, only emotional and too sensitive. Miss Hildegard, too, is sensitive; but strong. She made a 900 kilometers journey, changing train twice, to come here and greet this … hmm, forgive my brutal frankness, this stupid lad who throws up at every bend on the road of life— meanwhile the doctor came close to my bolster and put friendly his hand on my shoulder— of course I reassured her: the young man is absolutely healthy, only a bit too … shy.  Time will put things to right; he will grow up and stop vomiting. And that Fräulein is a treasure not to be missed>.

My mother, standing there, had opened her eyes wide after these surprising words. Then her face turned terrified by the awful revelation.

<You made that woman to come secretly in Torino — she said in a harsh voice, not even remembering that doctor Verna was still with us — and where is she now?>

<In the Dahlia hotel> I replied without a milligram of saliva in my mouth.

<Precisely where they go your dirty companions for their rendezvous with their girlfriends of loose morale.  YOU told me that, you! To make me appreciate that you are not like the others!>

<It seemed to me a place easy to find, near the railway station … >       I wheezed. I would have started vomiting again, if only I had enough energy left.

<Any hotel can be used well or badly> the doctor joined in the conversation.

My mother suddenly realized that the doctor was still among us, and addressing him in a quasi-weeping voice said:

<Tell me, doctor, if I am wrong. This stupidone, as you yourself called him, fell in love with a never seen girl, about whom we know nothing. They began to write to each other to improve their performance with foreign languages … nonsense. She might be a grand good girl, as you say after seeing her for a few minutes, but who knows? Keep in mind that when our daughter catches a train for going to the seaside near here, on the Riviera, in a holiday hostel managed by nuns, we let her be escorted by some senior wise lady … while that one makes all alone such a long journey with all the material and moral dangers that can be met nowadays … tell me, doctor, do you understand my anguish? Can you say that I am wrong?>

The aristocratic face of the physician looked deeply carved by the trade-winds he encountered in his foregone career.

< I think that between persons who love each other, between mother and son, the point is not to be wrong or right, to win or to lose. Mothers’ anxiety is a logic and frequent manifestation of love and you — now he had turned to me — must never forget it. And to you … I allow to myself to remind that this young lady travelled one day and one night to come till here, and if one decides to let her leave without even meet our nice stupidone, this can be done. But it does not seem the best decision, to me>.

After that the wonderful man left, without adding one word.

Then I spent a long, very long time alone, stunned on that sofa; nausea and vertigo let me perceive only confusedly, at intervals, the low subdued muttering of mother and sister in the near room. I felt the klic-klic-klic of the telephone disc, perhaps they are informing daddy in his office … time was passing and I was so knocked out that probably I fell asleep, for a while.

The doorbell rang again; I heard the voice of my mother saying, without any kind inflection, <Come in> and immediately I saw her, Hildegard, yes, she wore on her head a lovely small bell-shaped hat of the type 1923-let’s-dance-the-Charleston as I had seen in some film.  She seemed very high to me, since I was lying so low on that sofa, and came fast in my direction, saying:

<How are you feeling, Carlo! Are you all right, now?>

<I am all right, now that you are here> I squeaked. What a stupid sentence I uttered, I told myself. In the previous days I had thought many things nice and brilliant, too, and now it came up only such a banality… <Take that chair, will you? Sit here close to me>

My mother was sulky with our guest: she was unable to conceal her grudge, however asked, with evident strain:

<Do you want a coffee?>

<No no, please don’t take any trouble for me> Hildegard replied

<Take that coffee, I implore you — I muttered — at least we will have some minutes more to stay together>

<Well then, I will take it, thanks> Hildegard said kindly to my mother.

And so we remained alone only for few moments, the time required by a small coffee-pot … she bent on me and I saw her great blue eyes quite near, I grabbed her arms that seemed so firm to me, while I felt so weak and even flabby.

<You believe— I panted — that we will have a little daughter, fair, with blue eyes? Like you?>

<I don’t know>.

She smiled to me and all my life I would remember that sweet chubby face under the Charleston hat. It seemed too much, to hope that she would love me for so many years in the future. I pulled her closer and closer, so she reached my stinking mouth with her lips and chastely kissed me.

<I ‘m sorry, to be seen by you in this state - I said through my arid fauces - in normal days I am not so miserable … I am totally unhappy, ganz unglücklich>

<Unglücklich? Warum? Why are you saying that? We are lucky, Carlo. We had the fortune to meet in our letters, we understand each other and we love each other. We are lucky>

<Give me a little kiss again, before my mother arrives with the coffee>

Precisely in that moment my mother came back, and I understood that I had to wait still many months more, and face many examinations at the Polytechnic, accompanied by the punctual vomiting charade, before having a second kiss by Hildegard.


By the way, right at that time, newspapers were full of alarming comments about the carbon dioxide growing emissions, with consequent polar ice pack melting, which caused the oceans' level to increase - threatening the lower coastal regions all over the world. Awful, huh? Yet I am not sure: possibly the sea level was just influenced by the huge deluge of throw-up produced by me in the eve of my examinations.


Carletto Scara

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[1] Fun for the crippled in Paris, and other stories -