💙 The Blue-Eyed Sicilian, Part Two 💙

Il Giardino Inglese

Dr. Kent began the first class with a photoshopped image of an early cuneiform tablet he’d engraved with Roman letters. He told the students, “On this tablet I’ve engraved ten definitions of Canada.” The students were puzzled. He took a deep breath before continuing to address his audience, which he knew to be more or less 100% Catholic.

“I call my two tablets The Ten Commandments. I’ve engraved them with a stylus, much as Hammurabi might have done four thousand years ago. That is, thousands of years before any historical mention of Moses and his ten commandments. My point is that humans have made rules for their societies ever since the Sumerians, ever since Gilgamesh ruled Uruk and destroyed the sacred forest of the gods. But you probably haven’t heard that story.” 

Dr. Kent looked briefly upward, as if to catch the sharp ray of light that struck his lectern. He beamed back an intense yet invisible copper beam in the general direction of Heaven. Deep within the microcosmic specks that darted from the sun, a million angels crashed onto the smoothly-planed wood.

“Unlike the Ten Commandments of Moses, the Code of Hammurabi can be verified.” Tapping the track pad on his laptop, he projected onto the screen two photos.

“On the left is the most famous version of Hammurabi's Code, inscribed on a diorite stele from the 18th Century BC. Unlike the Shroud of Turin, it stands in the Louvre, for anyone to see. On the right is another photo from the Louvre: two cones from the city of Lagash, dating to about 2350 BC. The cuneiform writing on them urges the leaders to reduce taxes, to stop usury and theft, and to limit the control of the rich and the powerful.”

“We’ve only been able to read these codes, written in cuneiform, since the middle of the 19th Century AD. By this time, Europeans had lived for two thousand years as if cuneiform, and the civilizations that used it, had never existed. The Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Babylonians, and the Assyrians were seen as footnotes to history, or more often as the ungodly enemies of the Hebrews and their One True God. Three thousand years of culture reduced to crude stereotypes such as the Whore of Babylon...” He projected three images in succession onto the screen.

“For two thousand years we built our ideas on the borrowed foundation of Jewish law and culture, imagining that divine commands came down to us from Mount Sinai and from the blue sky above. And yet our most basic concepts — 60 seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour, 360 degrees in a circle — appear to come from the Mesopotamians. Yet we act as if the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Romans invented everything.”

Half of his students felt that Dr. Kent was belabouring his point, a point they didn’t fully grasp yet didn’t fully want to. Some of them, horrified by the recent killings in the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris, and by the truck driven into the July 14 crowds in Nice, felt they had nothing to learn from desert terrorists, no matter how outdated their language might be. Others were curious about where all of this was going. Dr. Kent noticed one pretty blonde in particular. She was sitting in the third row. Her large breasts were rising and falling, slowly and deeply. He locked his eyes on hers as on the pole star in a tempest.

He didn’t want to lose his students in the first class. He was sure they could follow his train of thought. They so desperately needed to know that they weren’t the great power that they imagined. Humans! Once they were taken over by the Baulians, they would still need to wake up to the true dimensions of the Kraslika. But who was ready to hear what he had to say? Baby steps, baby steps. He was sure that at least some of them could follow his train of thought if he gave them some idea where the terminal was.

“One of the biggest differences between the United States and Canada is that the US has a set of principles that they think about in much the same way they think about the Ten Commandments. Canada, on the other hand, has altered its constitution on a regular basis. The last time was in 1982. Canadians are a practical people, perhaps even a pedestrian people. One might say that Canadians lack the imagination required to turn politics into religion. But they are also, relative to the Americans, a liberal people — that is, in the terms of John Stuart Mill, who argues that culture needs a centre, yet that centre can shift.”

Claudia thought to herself, When did Monsignor Ferretti ever mention shifting centres or Hammurabi’s code during Sunday mass? Her mother's Bible study group never once discussed the Mesopotamians in earnest. Babylonian was just a byword for corruption and debauchery.

Dr. Kent read out his first two commandments:  

1. Canadians must not engrave definitions of themselves on tablets, stone, clay, microchip, or glass.

2. Canadians must not worship vague concepts like life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. 

Dr. Kent explained that Canadians were told to believe in Peace, Order, and Good Government — a national slogan almost as exciting as the Zurich city government code of conduct. Almost as elegant as its acronym, POGG.

He decided to skip commandments 3 to 6, adding, “I mean, what’s the point?” The final commandments were even less serious, as if to underscore the absurdity of boiling the collective life of 39 million people down to a list of ten laws. 

7.  Canadians are, but must not be, like Americans, yet with reservations and apologies.  

8.  Canadians, like Italians, like Italians. 

9.  Canadians are interested in American definitions of Canada.

10.  Americans are not interested in Canadian definitions of America.

Dr. Kent looked for a minute at his audience. He could tell that they were following what he was saying. Perhaps they even felt they understood how Canadian thinking worked and how Canadian politics might be shaped as a result. Ah, les pauvres!

He tapped his track pad and up popped the same list, but not the same list at all. He started with the first commandment, Canadians must not worship vague concepts like life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness, yet it wasn’t the same first commandment at all. Life had turned into a female, and liberty looked like Marie Antoinette walking up a flight of stairs. The pursuit of happiness stumbled into a bar and ordered un cidre de glace, and peace looked out over the Plains of Abraham and se souviened war. Order yelled like an English boss, and good government shuffled back and forth, from the Quebec national assembly to the national parliament in Ottawa. Dr. Kent observed: “Seen through the prisms of language and history, the clear light of political definition fractures into a hundred colours.”

The poetry students understood this. Claudia looked upward into the shaft of golden light that had been beating upon his lectern. She felt a puff of air enter her chest. The business students on the other hand were confused. They were even more confused when he added, “In considering each of my ten definitions, you must also consider that Canada is 1. a unified state, 2. a bi-national state, and 3. a multi-national state composed of English, French, 634 First Nations, and immigrants from every nation on Earth.”

He then gave an eleventh commandment: “All possible Canadas exist within a state of continual redefinition.”

Claudia wrote this final commandment down. At home, she substituted Claudia for Canada, and pinned it to her bedroom wall. All possible Claudias exist within a state of continual redefinition. It was the best description she could imagine for her elusive, confounded identity. 

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Dr. Kent’s second lecture was called “Operation Warka Vase: The Bush Years.” He started the lecture by projecting onto the screen a photo of the first sculpted narrative work of art in world history.

He commented: “The Warka Vase is a gorgeous light brown alabaster. It is carved in bas-relief and dates to the 4th millennium BC. Its lustrous, honey-coloured surface skillfully depicts civilizational layers of complexity. At the bottom we have vegetation and cultivation. Above that we have domesticated animals. Next, manual labour. Finally, at the top we have the wider scene of a procession leading to the gates of Ishtar in the great city of Uruk.” 

“The vase predates the Greek founding of Syracuse by over 2000 years.”

He paused, to let the students appreciate the beauty and the antiquity involved. He continued: “Several months after the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the vase found its way back to the Baghdad Museum. It had been snapped from its base and smuggled around the country in the chaos following the American invasion — and their decision to eliminate the civilian and military structure holding the country together.”

After a pause, he added, “The vase was brought back to the museum in a red Toyota, wrapped in a blanket, smashed into twenty pieces.” 

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As Claudia sat on the bench and looked up into the sky, she thought about her relationship with Dr. Kent. At first she was intimidated by his long, convoluted ideas. But then, slowly, she saw him getting nervous. He was more frightened of her than she was of him! So instead of stepping back, she stepped forward. He got more nervous and started to stutter. He even got English words mixed up. He seemed relieved when she did the talking. 

Several weeks into the term, she asked if he wanted to have a drink at Vita La Dolce, a small café behind the university. She mentioned that she might want to do graduate work in Canada. 

Tarnar knew the role he was supposed to play: the bumbling professor; at once a leader but at last a follower. Clark Kent — he had chosen his name well: the shy bumbler in the office in one scene, and the steel man of the sky in the next. It was a role he was born to play, for in the Copper Tarn universe everyday transactions required the skills and toughness of a Bedouin trader or a shape-shifting sand-demon. The Tarnese had the agents of Aatari Lok beside them and the machinations of the Frozen Skiff and Yellow Sky below. The Tarnese traded not as if but because their lives depended on it. They changed their persona to match every sly alien who waltzed through their universe — for the Copper Tarn had no interest in borders, be it trade, immigration, or military hardware. It was the Paraguay of the Grey Phantom Triangle.

In fact, the name of their universe cluster, The Grey Phantom, derived from the Tarnese word for chameleon. Unlike the Vicinese Federation or the Fallarian Dominion, the Copper Tarn didn’t have a title that suggested coherence or tight integration. Instead it was called The Copper Tarn Arrangement. As in business arrangement, with only temporary contracts.

So Clark Kent showed the girl that he was so nervous that she could almost hear his adam’s apple click each time he sipped his Campari. She couldn’t tell if he was serious or not, but all of a sudden he suggested that she might be able to get a scholarship to do a Master’s degree at the University of British Columbia. He joked awkwardly that she wouldn't be the first Italian to move to Canada. He said that with her command of the language and her diverse interests, she'd be a shoe-in. 

She looked puzzled. A shoe in? “Ah, you mean, I will get my shoe in the door?” She loved talking in English. It was so strange, so unmusical. Most of the time it sounded tough and business-like, yet then it would slide into some mellifluous cadence. After three or four drinks, she started calling him by his first name.

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Clark also helped her understand her father. She invited Volpaccio for dinner, and he saw for himself what she was up against. Volpaccio brandished his fork like a lighting rod. Strands of spaghetti slipped between the iron prongs like the twisted bodies of the tormented in Hell. He ate like a Fallarian drog! He banged his fist on the table and cried out Infidels! Atheists! at the middle managers who hovered, like ghostly accountants, on the peach-coloured wall of their dining room. Helping himself liberally to the bottle of red wine (his only liberal act, Clark noted) he shouted out all ten commandments, as if he were coming down from the mountain with tablets etched by an angry God. He then went through each of the seven deadly sins, pausing lovingly over Pride, the Demon Angel that fell headlong to his doom. This, he said, was the head of his boss, Grillo Parlante, falling from his soft leather desk into the crushing circles of his lathe.

Volpaccio elaborated on the seven deadly sins of Grillo Parlante and his Blue Fairy management team. How they pretended to be angels and yet how they lied and manipulated! Dr. Kent couldn’t hear what Volpaccio said about gluttony, however, amid the gnawing on osso bucco and the gurgles and gulps of his Nero d'Avola.

Volpaccio didn't pretend to be perfect, however; he admitted that he was a devil in his own way. Siamo tutti peccatori, he muttered, maudlin, into his partridge fricasée, garnished with melancholy and bitter paradise grapes. But if he was a poor devil, he swore that the rump at the end of his pitchfork would be that of the even greater devil, Grillo Parlante! Even in the afterlife, he sat behind his desk and ordered everybody about. He would get his, sooner or later. Saint Michael would see to that!

Clark counselled Claudia not to begrudge her father his drink or his visions of vengeance. “How else could he forget the boredom of his work days? How else could he get up each morning at 6:30 AM to spend eight hours on the lathes of Blue Fairy Toys, a subsidiary of Geppetto Corp., which was the only company in Sicily dedicated to the production of walking, talking, lying puppets? Without his rosary, his Saint Francis, and his visions of a managerial Apocalypse, Volpaccio would have blown up the factory decades ago.” 

Clark could have made Claudia’s life alot easier by making the old goat disappear, but if she was going to make the long journey ahead, then she needed to toughen up. Volpaccio wasn’t a Fallarian demon priest, yet he might be a first step in learning to deal with one. Clark had no illusion that Claudia could one day become tough as a Derelecta, yet he sensed something ruthless in her, something that was perhaps philosophical now, but could become a way of life later. And where she was going, she would need more than just philosophy.

Claudia wished she could talk to her father for two minutes without trying to suggest in one way or another that his point of view wasn't necessarily right because all the others were wrong. “It’s as useless,” Clark told her, over a sparkling glass of prosecco in a dark corner of Vita la Dolce, “as prying Americans from their guns, or as getting them to amend their sacred Second Amendment. But don’t worry, cara mia, neither your father nor the American army is nearly as powerful as they seem. You, and your open mind, will be more powerful in the end.”

💚

Claudia was getting used to the way Clark spoke, always exaggerating and making military scenarios which he might use in his lectures. She guessed that this was what it meant to be a professor. But he was also right about her father: Who doesn’t have pride? The philosopher who moralizes about the insignificance of philosophy will still be proud of his argument. The astronomer who sees how small we are still marvels at the nihilistic depth of his vision. We all find consolation in our versions of meaning. Clark was right: it may even be our pride that keeps us going.

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Just as Claudia arrived at this magnanimous feeling toward her father, she saw Clark walking toward the two bronze figures in the fountain. He had a preoccupied air, as if he had just happened to stumble on this tiny planet. He was in fact thinking about Claudia. Her bright eyes and her luminous skin. In the five thousand worlds he’d visited — from Copper One to Fallaria Indigna, from Copper Lokna to Vicino Argentum — he’d never seen such a beauty.

He may have looked like an ambling fool, but he knew exactly where he was going. As he pretended to stumble upon her sitting there on the bench, he let out a clumsy Oh, que bello surpressa! He was hoping to sit next to her, but there wasn’t much room on the bench because on her left was a strange man with all sorts of wires and meters spilling over the bench and onto the ground. The man kept looking at Claudia, jerking his head left and right. Claudia shifted several inches toward the strange man, gently turned her back to him, and gestured for the professor to sit down. Clark, davvero, che sorpresa meravigliosa!

The two men were almost facing each other — nose, 16 inches of empty air, nose — with Claudia between them. Pietro was staring fiercely at the interloper with his haughty air, his goat-like beard, his bald head, and his blushing face. He suspected he was from some cold country in Northern Europe — Denmark or Sweden, or even worse, England. He had a theory that the red faces of Northerners came from Protestant guilt. Without the comforts of the priest's wooden box, self-recriminations built up in the Protestant body, putting pressure on the nerves and veins, until Northerners began to look like Anglican preachers and pirates. It was only a matter of time before they made everyone confess their sins and walk the plank.

Claudia's complexion, on the other hand, had benefited from the exorcising powers of the priest. Her forehead was smooth, unruffled, pure, beatified. She didn’t have a care in the world. Her skin was olive, golden or tawny, depending on the light in which he saw it. Although Pietro couldn't have know this, her father once compared her luminous skin to the glowing amaro he drank after dinner, to help his spirit come to terms with a large plate of spaghetti carbonara, two lamb chops, three glasses of red wine, a plate of roast potatoes with onions, a mixed salad, and a castle of tiramisu.

Looking at his adversary, Pietro could tell that it wouldn’t be difficult to find a tourist like this at a loss for words. This one was obviously bottled up with unspoken frustrations — things he thought but couldn't do, and things he couldn't do but couldn't stop himself from thinking about.

The foreigner spoke Italian in a staccato manner, grasping awkwardly, scratching at the air for the right thing to say. To Pietro’s surprise, however, the alien’s voice was transfigured the instant he switched to English. All of a sudden, he spoke like the over-rated Shakespeare, the one who had plagiarized his elegance from Dante.

It bothered Pietro to think that English could sound this good. He preferred to think of the language that was poisoning their country as some bastardized version of German. The image of Hitler barking from his podium came to mind. Even worse, the blonde angel of his dreams followed the foreigner into the same hellish Angleschluss of vocables! She went from warbling in a dove's voice to cawing like a crow. Her perfect mouth, once a soft pink bud, miniature of the Blessed Rose, now seemed like the blowhole of a trumpet, one a demon might use to summon forth the coarsest of blasphemies.

To Dr. Kent, Claudia's inflection of English was like the music of the spheres, emanating in contrapuntal auras outward from her sunlit hair, which he took the liberty of telling her was like gold to airy thinness beat. He added that her voice held within it the vast sweep of the cosmos, from attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion to sea-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.

True, this music was even more melodic when she spoke in Italian, but then again when she spoke in English there were certain advantages. If Dr. Kent had to spell out these advantages, he’d say that Germanic languages sounded better when inflected by Italian or French, whereas Latin-based languages sounded worse when inflected by English or German. He’d use a hypnotic voice to explain this, and emit a faint copper light so that the eyes of his listener would glaze over and he would feel less guilty about the real reason: it made him master of the situation. And while she searched for the right thing to follow his plagiarized, hyperbolic compliment, he drank in his fill of her olive skin and queen-sized breasts.

Her eyes literally sparkled. He would give his left ventricle to touch that skin. He didn’t dare look below her lips for more than a second at a time — so petite and slender-waisted, and with such breasts, with their nipples clearly visible in the cool spray of the fountain. 

He thought to himself, By the Dark Order of the Copper Disk, I will make my intentions clear to this girl. It was no use beating around the bush: they had to start the paperwork. She needed instruction on what was to come. In any case, she wasn't an idiot. When the course was over, it would only be days till she escaped his clutches and went off with some handsome Italian man half his age. He dug to the depths of his throat for the right earnest register, and recited the speech he had worked on all morning: “I would be honoured to accommodate you in my large home. It has a wonderful garden. It is gorgeous in the early morning. You would be my most honoured guest, at least until you finish your Master’s degree and find suitable employment.” 

Pietro couldn’t stand it any longer. He blurted out in fractured English, “Howa dara yoo! Yoo com’een aura contry anda yoo zee deeza bayooteeful womanandayooatakeadvantages eena air. Yoo zeetta down, breking da seelenzio eena deez belleesseema jardeena, pretendinga tobea elping air!”

Tarnar had to stifle his laughter at this clumsy attempt at moral superiority. Italian men descended like wolves on any blonde women, without prejudice, from the edges of Lake Como to the jetties of Brindisi. Hadn’t this same lunatic been ogling Claudia, making her seasick with his gyrating head? He asked the man calmly in English: “So why then have you been staring at her for the last ten minutes?”

Pietro couldn’t answer that. Or, rather, he felt that he could answer, but the girl was so obviously impressed by everything the professor said that anything Pietro said would be used against him. Besides, he was distracted. When the foreigner looked into his eyes it was as if he was projecting fire into his sockets. His eyes hurt.

And yet, Pietro really wanted to say something. Something about Dante and the Blessed Rose and trumpets and the licentious evil of the English. But even if he argued like Aristotle, he would still sound like an idiot. Yet he had to say something now or forever hold his peace.

And yet, with his eyes burning, he sat there like a stone, at a complete loss for words. 

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Next: Part Three: Second Base

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