Did I Ever Promise You a Rose Garden? - Cem Akaş

Reading If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler on a sunny May day at Café P., Massimo Benetti let out an almost sorrowful sigh and smiled to himself as if there were nothing he could do: he would have to kill Italo Calvino.

This thought had been in his mind for some time now, not as a decision, but more as a curious and somewhat exciting fantasy – a dead Calvino lying on the big Iranian carpet in his living room, mired in blood, with his glass, once filled with Scotch, now empty and rolled out of reach; or a Calvino being slowly poisoned to death by the glass of water he sips every now and then as he talks with his readers during an autographing session; or a Calvino turned to coal, taken out from a burnt car at the bottom of a cliff, totally unrecognizable but still identified as Calvino thanks to his golden pen which somehow survived the blast relatively unscathed. Now, however, Massimo realized that, just like a mouse cornered and without anywhere to run to, he had no choice but to roar like a lion, and this realization gave him a nonchalance which made him confirm with all his heart the inevitability of the decision he had just reached.

The reasons that forced Massimo to undertake such radical action –or perhaps to take preventive measures?- had gathered through the years in a manner that left no place for doubting their scandalousness, and all added up to The Main Reason: Italo always acted first. For the last five years or so, eight of Massimo’s projects, for which he had taken notes, written drafts, made research, wrote a beginning or an ending, listed the sentences he wanted to use, and bought new notebooks, had all been published, before Massimo had a chance to finish or in some cases even to start writing them, with Calvino’s name on the front cover and his smiling photograph on the back – a smile, Massimo was sure, explicitly mocking him. While reading If on a Winter’s Night, Massimo had realized it was too late for yet another one of his projects: a book consisting of a series of texts, written by different writers, connected to each other by a central quote which appears in all texts in mutated forms; these texts would have been in reverse chronological order, and at the end of the book the reader would have realized that the initial writer (the last one in the book) had heard the quoted sentence from the last writer (the first one in the book), and that this writer had forgotten all about his sentence. Massimo felt the bewildered incredulity of a novice gambler who loses all his money because he chose heads at the beginning of the game and the coin came tails twenty three times in a row. The same had happened with The Castle of Crossed Destinies – the book appeared just when Massimo was contemplating a novel based on a Tarot reading; it was, of course, a brilliant idea and Calvino had done a good job, he was a professional, but Massimo was sure he could have done better, if Calvino hadn’t gone there first. Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps – one ought not to spend one’s time and energy correcting the mistakes or perfecting the creations of another. The lifeworld, however, which Calvino left to Massimo was exactly that, and this state of affairs was beyond tolerance – the solution was as simple as a beautiful law of physics. As he ordered another espresso, Benetti thought of some great ideas concerning the speech he would make at the funeral.

In the next few days Massimo fought with all his might and powers of persuasion to stop two details from turning into a problem, but he had to confess he fell far short of his expected level of success one morning while looking at himself in the mirror: 1- he had no prior experience in killing someone, which gave rise to serious questions about the bridgeability of the gap between his theoretical prowess and his practical inaptitude, and the types of problems that might arise if it turned out to be indeed unbridgeable; 2- Italo was his friend of fourteen years and knew him inside out, meaning he would immediately sense what he was up to; and since he had this nerve-wrecking habit of being three steps ahead all the time, it was possible that he would kill Massimo first; what was more, yes, what was more, he would first write a novel about it and then kill him. With furious anger, Massimo stopped shaving that morning.

An unexpected development confused Massimo even further. Sandbathing, the novel he published a couple of months ago, was received, except for one or two polite reviews, with a quietude on the part of critics that Massimo hesitated to interpret as disinterest. Unfortunately this was not the unexpected part – Massimo Bennetti’s two previous novels and his collection of poems had met with the same fate, and even though they earned him a small readership and a semi-respectable name, they nevertheless did not turn him into a devastating literary giant. No, the surprising thing was that Italo called him up one night at his home –the first such call throughout their friendship- and told Massimo how much he liked Sandbathing, praising his talent and technique with words that showed his grasp of the novel’s internal structure and what it was trying to accomplish. Massimo, with something akin to shyness, tried to change the subject and talk about the latest goings-on in the Parliament, but when Italo, before hanging up, suggested that they write a novel together, Massimo could only stutter that this was a great idea, and managed to ask what the topic would be. I don’t know, Calvino said, let’s think - surely we’ll come up with something.

Massimo got no sleep that night; listening to Satie, drinking a cup of coffee, thinking about the Milan-Juventus game of the previous weekend and, as a last resort, masturbating did not help one bit. He found it hard to comprehend Calvino’s reasons for making such a suggestion. Was he sincere in what he said about Sandbathing? Or was he trying to lend his moderately talented but hard-working old friend some of the glitter of his own name, and thus let him bask in the limelight, his limelight? Massimo saw signs of haughtiness beneath this act of charity; Italo ought to know that he would never accept such “generosity”. He sat at his desk with great anger and wrote three venomous letters to his friend; his head was filled with arrows and spears – he could not be expected to remain silent in face of such arrogance. But the next morning, before Massimo had a chance to mail the letters, Italo called again to tell him about his idea for the novel, and to give him technical details about the Moscow subway – the novel would take place in Moscow; as he listened to his friend, Massimo reached over to his desk, took the letters, tore them to pieces and threw them in the waste basket. Something in Italo’s voice had convinced him that the joint novel project was not a charity hoax, and that Italo was really excited about the whole prospect. To make matters worse, Massimo also began to feel the excitement. With a crackling voice he said, Look here, Mister Calvino, if you are trying to use me to further your career, do not call me again!; Calvino’s loud laughter rang in his ears for a long time afterwards.

For the next two months, both men came up with various ideas for the novel: a bank robbery; the 150-year history of a hat workshop and its clients; an international intrigue involving the Byzantine ruins which emerged after the big fire in Istanbul in 1948; a terrorist group working according to the principles of quantum physics; the afterlife of Hollywood props; an underground linguistic institution that fought relentlessly against the use of exclamation point. Most of their ideas seemed attractive and possibly fruitful, but the fact that both of them continued to spin out new ideas showed that the two men believed, without admitting it to each other and perhaps even to themselves, that they hadn’t yet found something that was “just right”. It was Calvino who eventually hit the bull’s eye: one night, while the two were urinating side by side in the toilet of the restaurant they had gone to with a big group of friends, Calvino said, Let’s write about two writers writing a novel, and added with a smile, Maybe we’ll even get to kill one of them in the end. After Calvino left the stalls without washing his hands, Massimo Benetti lost his cool; it took him a long while to remember what he was doing there and to go back to the table to search his friends’ eyes, trying to guess how long he had been gone, but this only helped him to realize that his absence had not created any perceptible worry among them.

The next week was a tough one for Massimo. He did not believe Italo could have actually said what he had said – this was the first obstacle to surmount. Then he felt like a pool player who realizes only too late that he has underestimated his opponent, and desperately wants to check the money in his pocket to see if he will be able to afford the bet. And then he got mad at himself – what kind of mad insolence was it that made him stand up against the wunderkind of Italy and of world literature, at his own game nonetheless? How did he dare to dare him? One late afternoon, watching the sun go down behind the tall buildings and drinking beer from a can, Massimo finally calmed down: he hadn’t done anything to arouse Calvino’s suspicion, he had been very cautious, it was Calvino who had made all the overt moves, not him – there was no reason to be afraid, at least for now. All he had to do was to gather his wits about him and work out a strategy.

During a moment of reality check, Massimo Benetti let the simple truth sink in – he could never kill Italo Calvino. This, however, did not need to stop him from bluffing; if he played it right, he could attain his aim by a roundabout way –so what?- and their joint novel provided the ideal ground for that. If he could sprinkle the necessary insinuations and hints in the novel, and made credible enough his symbolically stated threat, then Calvino, short of committing suicide, might decide in favor of living over writing, or at least might refrain from writing the things Benetti wanted to write, before he got a chance to do so. Providing his friend choices to choose from made Massimo feel better – Calvino was the one calling the shots. Massimo repeated to himself that he had to think everything through – there was no room for mistake in this line of business.

Italo liked the draft Massimo wrote very much: two writers who resemble us but are not us, one Old and one Young, decide to jointly write a novel, the draft read; the novel that these two writers were going to write dealt with the relationship between Elizabeth I and her astrologist-mathematician John Dee. Massimo had correctly guessed that Calvino would be tickled by this subject because of his interest in esoteric matters and astronomy. The Old Writer had written competent works in the tradition of the 19^th century novel, as well as unquestionably perceptive essays, and braved experimentation only in minor pieces that would constitute his “marginalia”. It was as if he had made a choice early on in his career and locked up one of his twin identities in a dark cell, from where he was only rarely and restrictedly allowed to come out – now he wanted to free him at last. The Old Writer had chosen the Young Writer because he resembled this locked-up identity, and trusted his talent; collaborating with him would make it easier for the twin identity inside him to overcome the heavy-handedness and awkwardness brought on by years of silence. The Young Writer, on the other hand, even though he was gifted and creative, had not been met with the interest he sought and deserved, and was now on the brink of giving it all up. He found it flattering that the Old Writer, whom he professionally respected and personally loved, should suggest writing a novel together; the suspicion that the old Writer approached him with this project to do him a favor and to set his career straight created some hesitation on the part of the Young Writer, but the exciting prospect of working with the old master, of creating together, blew away these negative thoughts in his mind with a simple twist of the wrist.

As the novel progressed, however, the Old Writer’s attitude would perceptibly change – he would become blunter, much more patronizing, even aggressive, forcing his own will on the Young Writer, who in turn tried to take this in his stride but began increasingly to feel like a rabbit runner in a ten-thousand-meter race. The Old Writer’s aggressiveness would come to encompass making cynical remarks about the Young Writer in the company of other people, provoking him, ridiculing him, repeating that time would show which one of them is the better writer, etc.

There Massimo’s draft ended – he told Calvino that trying to work out more details would unnecessarily restrict them, that some things were better left undetermined; the material they needed to start off was there. Calvino said he agreed completely and wanted to write the first chapter himself, if Massimo had no objections. The ball starts to roll, Massimo said.

He was wrong. For the next five months, Massimo waited for Calvino to write that chapter; that was not all he did, of course – he spent a significant part of his time researching the Elizabethan era, and tried to find sideshows and extra characters – the possibility of including Shakespeare made him happy like a child; he also read up everything he could find on sorcery, conjuration, curing the plague, witch hunts, secret organizations, underground religions and numerology. He did most of his work in libraries, spending a week in Sienna and two in Rome – such was his passion for the project that he occasionally forgot his real aim. He could not, on the other hand, understand why Calvino had suddenly turned sluggish – the idea had been his, he had been the one to approach Massimo at the start with great excitement, he himself had volunteered to write the first chapter – why didn’t he then? Massimo had managed not to get too impatient during the first two months, after which he started to bring up the matter with Calvino once every fortnight – I know, I will write it, I am working on it, I get great ideas, I don’t want to hurry it, don’t worry, I will write, Calvino would say on each occasion.

Then a new collection of short stories by Calvino was published – Massimo felt like a bullet had hit him between the eyes and, as he thought about it, realized that there was more to this metaphor then first met the eye: Italo was killing him. Massimo had committed himself to an imaginary project and Calvino had gone away to take care of his personal business, he went on writing his own stuff, ticking off the items on his own agenda. True, about half of the stories in the book had been previously published in various magazines, and Massimo knew that Calvino had been working on one or two of the stories for a long time; nevertheless, this did not change the fact that he had written new stories and, unlike Massimo, did not devote all his energy to their joint novel; it was highly probable that he did not even think about it. Benetti could not bring himself to touch Calvino’s new book due to his rage; he repeated to himself while furiously cleaning his long abandoned living room that Calvino was dead wrong if he thought Massimo would wait in a corner until he dried up and withered away. He suddenly dropped the vacuum cleaner and ran to the phone – he wanted to call Calvino and tell him the novel was no longer a jointly written novel, that he had decided to write the whole thing by himself. Calvino was glad to hear his voice, he had good news, he had started writing, Massimo would love it when he read it; without letting him say a word, Italo invited Massimo to dinner - Paola has missed you, he said, bring Louisa too if you like.

Louisa was Massimo’s on-and-off girlfriend for the last four years; after spending two or three months together, Louisa would throw a tantrum of jealousy and mess up Massimo’s apartment, get lost, never call for another five months or so, and then appear at his door one day. Massimo had grown used to this routine, and had even accepted it as a lifestyle. This time their separation had lasted longer – the last crisis had been more severe than previous ones and before leaving the apartment, Louisa had thrown the iron at Massimo’s head. Which explained why Benetti went to the dinner alone – throughout the night Italo made jokes, told funny anecdotes, passed on the latest political rumors – he was in a jolly good mood. During a moment’s silence Massimo asked Italo whether he could see what he had written for the joint novel. Italo’s answer –Patience, my friend, it’s going well, I’ll give it to you as soon as I’m done- exacerbated Massimo’s premonitions to such an extent that after drinking up his coffee he left abruptly to walk the streets till the wee hours of the morning. It was only the next day he remembered Calvino’s suggestion that they go to a mountain resort for three or four weeks and seriously get down to work together, and his remark that both Paola and Louisa would love such a break (All right, so you are cross at each other, so what, you know Louisa, you’ll make up until then, why don’t you call her this time?).

The liaison between Paola and Massimo started around that time. Massimo had known her since she got married with Italo ten years ago; she was five years younger than her husband, had always deeply loved him; she was always frank about the men she took a liking to, but as far as Massimo knew, this was the first time she had an affair with someone else. Massimo was taken by surprise at first to see Paola in love with him all of a sudden –it was as if she had seen him in her dream one night and woken up in love- and took it as some kind of a compliment, but when he realized he adapted to this state of affairs with great speed and derived great happiness from being with her sans Italo, Massimo concluded that he had been suppressing something all along.

They were of course very discreet about the whole thing - they always met at Benetti’s place, and both were very good at their act when Italo was around, almost never missing a beat. There was a palpable feeling of guilt, but while for Paola this was the guilt of not being able to share with the man she loved the most –i.e., Italo- her long sought and newly found passion, of having to keep secret such a momentous development in her life, for Massimo it was the guilt of possibly punishing Italo by using Paola, and this blow under the belt really worried his conscience.

He did not, however, have any qualms about using Paola in another sense: he had asked her to bring him photocopies of Calvino’s “Book of Secrets” –his big, leather-bound notebook in which he took all his notes, wrote first drafts and even drew etchings- and immediately regretted it; but when Paola, without so much as an objection, showed up with the photocopies the next time they met, regret and guilt left their place to fear. Massimo was not afraid that Italo would find out what was going on – what really troubled him was Paola’s defiance, and Massimo realized that, sad to say, he did not share this. That was perhaps why he called Louisa that night.

“The Book of Secrets” turned out to be yet another source of frustration for Benetti. It was impossible to explain this with laws of chance; neither did he and Calvino spend that much time together. Then how was it that half of these projects, which would easily take Calvino ten years to finish, overlapped with Massimo’s own projects? As for the other half, most of these were ideas Benetti hadn’t thought of but easily could have one day – like the one about an international organization set out to transfer all important knowledge in the world to the next universe. Massimo could stall no longer, this was not Denmark: he had to finish this business.

But before doing anything else, he wanted to make Calvino feel, just for once, what he had been forced to live through all these years. For this purpose he chose the “The Little Red Riding Hood” project from “The Book of Secrets” – the contemporary adaptation of the classic tale became, in the hands of Benetti, a longish story wrought with a macabre sense of humor and elements of a thriller. His friend Gemini, the famous graphic artist, drew illustrations for the text, and the book hit the shelves before four months were over. Massimo immediately sent an autographed copy to Italo, but he could not get the reaction he expected – Calvino’s face did not turned the color Massimo had hoped for. Calvino said he liked the book, which he found “cute and cleverly done”; he did not say anything about how he had always wanted to write something similar. Massimo became depressed; it upset him very much that Calvino showed no signs of anger and acted as if he had saved his own ass by letting someone else use a bad idea he had – yes, he did say “cute and cleverly done”, but on second thought, what kind of a compliment was that anyway? To add insult to injury, all the short reviews –none were longer than two paragraphs- mentioned Calvino’s name, and some went even further by insinuating that what Benetti did in the book added up to little more than a decent imitation of the true master. Benetti could not believe his eyes. Simply couldn’t.

On a rainy morning, late to his rendezvous with Louisa and utterly unable to find a cab, Massimo saw the light: this stinking literary marketplace adored Calvino, everyone worshipped him, even his harshest critics were in a way proud that Italian literature had a Calvino – all, all were Calvino’s dogs. The nonchalance Italo exhibited when he read The Little Red Riding Hood was of course the result of his total confidence in himself and in his command over the battalions of nitwits. Massimo did not register that he finally got into a cab, gave the address and reached his destination until the driver asked for the fare for the third time. He almost rolled out of the car, feeling the pull of gravity deep in his bones; it took him a conscious and concerted effort to remember why he was there. Killing Calvino would accomplish nothing; a Calvino who had committed suicide was even worse than a living Calvino; the Salinger example clearly showed the effects of living in solitude – even if Calvino resigned himself to oblivion, his afficionados would not forget him, creating an even greater clamor which would drown out Massimo’s voice forever. This must be the longest nightmare in history, Massimo thought.

He no longer brought up the joint novel, there was no point; he hadn’t worked on it in a long while anyway, the thrill was gone. Italo, on the other hand, kept reminding him of their plan to rent a house in a mountain village for three months and work on the book. Massimo had started seeing Louisa again, but they had adopted a “cooler” definition for their relationship, or at least Massimo thought so – he realized he sincerely loved Paola, and did not want Louisa to come to the mountain house, for fear of complicating things even further. It was Paola who insisted that she should come: if the three of them went there without Louisa, Italo would sense right away there was something going on between them; Massimo had to treat Louisa like his girlfriend for the time being, until Paola spoke with Italo. Why don’t you talk with him now, Massimo asked – Paola’s look told him he was being unfair, that they had to think about “the beloved one”, that there was a time for everything. That was when it dawned on Massimo how to play his final card – he was going to accept the defeat, but would deliver such a blow to the castle in return that everyone would see how bereft Calvino was left after losing his love. Massimo hated himself for stooping so low for revenge, but this was a rather pocket-sized hatred compared to his hatred for Calvino the author. I’m ready, Benetti said, draw up the curtains, turn on the stage lights, let the play begin: the scene, a mountain house; the HUSBAND finds out about the clandestine affair between his WIFE and his FRIEND by personally witnessing it, and breaks down. Curtain. Applause.

By the last week of June everything was ready: the house had been rented –Massimo had gone out to see it and give his approval in the name of the group- the dates were fixed, everything was arranged in the city. The foursome had dinner one night at Massimo’s place; when it was time for drinks Calvino took out a blue folder from his briefcase and handed it to Benetti: “Joint Novel, Chapter I” it said on the front page. Massimo glanced through it with a smile on his face, and put the folder on the coffee table wearing the same smile – still smiling, he took another sip from his drink and asked Paola whether she had read it. It was a sad smile. He never remembered Paola’s answer afterwards.

After Italo and Paola left, Louisa started to tidy up the place a bit, but Massimo told her they could do that in the morning and, registering her surprise from a distance, he took her to the bedroom. He made love to her like bidding farewell. After he was sure she was asleep, he went back to the living room, turned on the light, rubbed his cold hands and reached for the blue folder.

Calvino had begun with the book within the book, the one the Old and Young Writers wrote together, which took place during the reign of Elizabeth I, but had chosen to start with the end part of that story: Edward Kelley, assistant to the astrologist-mathematician John Dee, was tried and found guilty in 1580 on charges of fraud and charlatanism; his punishment was having his ears cut off. In fact Kelley was the Devil incarnate and used Dee as his pawn (and penis). In 1583 the two of them toured Europe together with their wives, visiting royal families of Europe, reading their future, talking with their dead, and all the while spreading the kingdom of the Devil. In Prague, Kelley’s wife caught him and Dee’s wife in bed, and shot Kelley with a rifle. Inflicted with deadly wounds, Kelly nevertheless managed to escape from the house, but it was deemed certain that he died before going very far.

So he knew. Massimo realized he did not find this as unsettling as he should have. The message was clear: Dee was Calvino, and his assistant Kelley was Massimo himself. Massimo had thought that it was his play that was going to be put on stage, but Calvino had upped the ante with his own text, a text that would eliminate Benetti without smudging Calvino’s hands. Benetti shuddered at the cool-headedness of the man he chose as his enemy – Calvino knew about his affair with Paola all along, but he still managed to resist showing an immediate reaction behind the curtain and to wait quietly till it, the curtain, went up. Unbelievable. One might say that Calvino made a mistake by trusting Louisa that much, would she really become that enraged at the sight of Paola and Massimo so as to grab a rifle and shoot at them? – just possibly yes, one never knew with her; Massimo did not doubt that Calvino had prepared the necessary elements of provocation. Calvino had not shown all his weapons; rather, he had announced the outcome and dared Massimo to come out to settle their account. Was this the game Italo had been playing all along, was all that joint novel crap designed to lead to this outcome? But why? Because, Massimo answered his own question, because I’m not the assistant to the master as the whole world believes, but the Devil himself, I am the true master, and Calvino knows this, he feels it in his guts, and even though I will have to accept a dog’s fate like Kelley did and even though I am already done in despite all the sound & light engineering, he wants to defeat the True Master personally, ego, yes, but a sort of respect as well, I could not let you die a less honorable death at the hands of my dogs, O True Master, so allow me, yes, and doubtless all my notes and drafts will pass into his hands, Paola, I don’t know, or have you done that already, was the joint novel the book he always wanted to write but for some reason couldn’t, he knew he needed me, maybe to start him off, maybe like the peelings of an apple put on the table for stimulation, maybe for my magic, but knowing all the while that he would have to get rid of me in the end, never forgetting that, because in the eyes of the world he is the master, he has to work the biggest trick all by himself, he has to, even if that means having someone else sing all the high notes, and he doesn’t really want to have me killed of course, why else would he warn me, beside his respect rises his love for me, Master, I beseech you, don’t force me to do it, go away while there is still time, I beg you. All right. All right, my son.

***

Massimo Benetti left for Sicily that night, and never went back, never called anyone, and even if he did write, he never published the things he wrote under his own name. He came across The Mole, a novel authored by Benetti and Calvino, five years after it was first published; he bought it, and felt the need to explain to the girl at the cash register why he couldn’t stop smiling to himself: I know one of the authors - a good friend of mine, and an excellent gardener. Benetti never once opened the cover of the book.