Translated by Luca Palantrani
“Nothing is known, everything is imagined”
(Federico Fellini)
In this carnivalesque period, I wonder how I will spend the days through the frost waves in the narrow streets of the medieval village of Cornello dei Tasso, where I live. I fear I might end spending time as usual: at the dull ball, with those few regular friends and many others, so insignificant in their way of being and locked in their circle of acquaintances, such that they render incredibly monotonous and hostile the atmosphere of that venue.
Happily, I am settled in the heart of Lombardy, among these enchanting alleys, churches and homey little squares of the ancient localities of Bergamo, scattered in the green Brembana valley. These back streets are continuously crossed, in these days of celebration, by original Venetian-style masks that perfectly match the bridges, the porticoes arcades and the bricks of the period houses. The carnivalesque costumes, throughout the dancing nights or theatrical plays, fit perfectly with the medieval architecture in such tradition and vitality, as if it were many paintings in motion, which hang on multiform walls.
Oddly among those masked ones, a couple in period clothing is coming forward and looks straight into my eyes, as if they knew me or wished to tell a very serious matter. Few minutes later, they walk off hand in hand without a goodbye. They hold a very strange air. They may have mistaken me for someone else, before fading into the crowd. Those concealed faces, however, I recall seeing them in some place, but not sure where. Here it is, now I remember. They take after some characters present at a masked ball, depicted on an old tapestry of this ancient tavern, run by my ancestors whose cognition is unfamiliar to me. It’s truly an incomprehensible coincidence.
Though winter is not over yet, there are some light, pleasant and sudden bursts of springtime sun that surrender to slightly cold breezes, but often frequent in a greyish sky. Late at night, from the misted window of my house, I discover the flashing blue light of an ambulance not far away. I draw nearer till I lay the nose to the glass but I cannot see through it clearly so I turn the handle and open the window to observe what is occurring, except that, as I look outside, I realize that nothing is going on, though I notice a white mask portraying a female visage. The plastic face lie on a road dampened of light rain and scattered with confetti, in a dark and isolated intersection, lit by the weak illumination of an abandoned lamppost. I wonder if a grave accident has taken place and hope no atrocious event has stricken the victim.
Just as I am closing the window, I observe a masked man coming across from the street. He wears the Harlequin costume and inch by inch walks to the mask dropped out on the road. He halts and petrified contemplates it for about ten seconds. He looks scared by his moves. Harlequin reaches for the splashed bloodstains on the asphalt and then, staggering just, runs his fingers over the face of the white mask as if he wished caressing it.
This view has shocked me and I imagine that man being truly a bit insane. I cannot depart and let that loony hang around there. I try, then to ask him: - What are you doing? Who the hell are you? Harlequin holds back for an instant and trembling raises his head to me, but I can't discern him: a black mask, figuring a grotesque face, extends up to his chin. As nothing I had said, the sinister Harlequin turns back again and stares at that bloodstained mask. The raindrops make the spots similar to red tears, which now flow from the black cavity of the big eyes of the white mask down to the cheeks, in a chromatic contrast poetic and dark at the same time.
A few minutes later, the unthinkable really becomes true. Harlequin bows his head to the point which his black mask closes in to the white one. Gently, he rests his lips on those of the mask and softly kisses it, so intensely and lastingly as to express a cold and sad tenderness.
I want to immortalize with my mobile phone this very rare scene, loaded of magical suggestion. Though I'm not skillful, I want to try to film for a few seconds the last instants of that, how say, kiss of death. Harlequin pops up and marches out without turning back he almost seems to vanish.
When I download the video on my computer, I fathom that the chief characters of that dark event are missing from the shot. I can only see an empty street where it no longer rains. It is as if Harlequin and his mask have dissolved. At this point I'm curious to look out of the window and well comprehend what I’ve seen few minutes ago. This time I am not standing in presence of a romantic scene but before a phrase written with shaving cream, which bears a Poe quote, that declares:
* * There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told * *
About Sandro D. Fossemo: Sandro D. Fossemò lives Roseto degli Abruzzi (TE), a town in central-east Italy. Boyhood marked the launch of his writing career with two short tale anthologies (Modern Man, Prometheus Curse), relating to horror and sociological sci-fiction. Also published by famous editor Solfanelli.In Italy he has contributed to monthly magazines "Enigmi" or "Hera" and much praised "Mystero", of director and writer Luigi Cozzi. His favourites writers are: Franz
Kafka, Edgar Allan Poe and Philip K. Dick. His gothic poetries have lately received praise by important literary contests.
