Multiplying Report 10

The eleventh day My coffee was ready and I could savour that splendid morning. The descent was very steep, and besides, I did not know those roads, so my trembling was not due only to the cold that sliding down the steep slope caused me. I did not believe in the ability of my machine, so now and then I had to slow my run; it was lovely when you could cut the bends on the wrong side of the road, also because at certain moments you could glimpse those coming up. When I reached the marina the landscape did not present itself with the usual splendour of these places; the village must have been a collection terminal for mining excavations; out to sea one could make out a fishermen's mooring. The village, however, offered some good sweets, which cheered my disappointed spirit. I stayed there for a few hours to keep the inhabitants company.

That white road I could see from below was impassable astride my bicycle; we came to an agreement: I would push her and my luggage through those short hairpin bends. The effort and the charm of the route, however, consoled me with the discovery of a place of extreme beauty: "Cala Domestica". A small road that continued over the sand led to a place of immense splendour. I immersed myself in that cold sea, as if to wash away my sins. But none of that was a sin. Sometimes after a pleasure it happens that one must punish oneself, almost as if it were not deserved. Then one may notice certain acts preparatory to this punishment: small lapses of attention, carelessness, forms of omnipotence. Words many times carry a misunderstanding with them, or perhaps naming is a desire, and when it becomes written on topographic maps, one can make mistakes.

Acquaresi was fatal to me; I kept wandering over those white, dusty roads in the hope of reaching a mirage. Those places had been abandoned for a very long time by then. Time was frozen on that day like the clock of Bologna station. The hamlet I thought I would meet to stock up on water was a heap of rubble and shacks left in the sun. The miners who had lived there perhaps never saw that place by day; they could not savour the taste of that sun. Today I tell how some road workers saved me, offering me a little of their water, which for me, despite my thirst, was too much. I did not make many promises; I thanked them quietly, almost asking their forgiveness for not having organised myself for that expedition. The wish to escape from that dream did not let me understand that, despite the descent, I would have had to continue my road on foot.

I reached the sea; before me a topos, "Pan di Zucchero", but this time the words did not find their signifier. I rested for many hours in the cool of the trees. Sometimes we are amazed by déjà-vu, which we can always place in the sphere of feeling, of emerging affections, and which take shape in updated returns, evoking scenes as already lived. But sometimes the "pre-déjà-vu" happen, carrying with them a certain enthusiasm, as if we recognised and congratulated ourselves on not having lost that sensitivity which little by little fades, because we are always projected toward filling ourselves with useless objects, pseudo keepsakes, or surrogates of desire. At a hotel I asked for information about the road still left for me to cover; a familiar voice answered me, in a body I did not recognise. At the fountain I filled my water reserves, mindful of the mishap just past.

I felt myself called by that same voice; incredulous, I recognised the face: it was Paolo. I let myself be pampered all evening; I felt a wayfarer in the house of strangers; I told them that the price I would have to pay was a bath in a tub. I discovered later that the voice that had foretold the encounter was that of a cousin of his. But I had no time to stay with them any longer; the next morning I set off — that was the last stop.