Dissipatio H.G. by Guido Morselli (smart ebook reader .TXT) 📕

according to rumor owned by two powerful local entrepreneurs, had plans to build a Le Havre–Athens continental motorway. Where this artery crossed the mountains it would “impact” Widmad Lewrosen. There would be a huge tunnel that let out in the upper valley and assorted “creative solutions” would be built, among them a “daring” viaduct in reinforced concrete over the Zemmi (my Zemmi), as well as a cloverleaf and entrance ramps. And a motel.

As Durkheim might say, there’s your trigger. Slow-acting. The winter went by, then spring, which comes late up here and exquisitely, began to arrive. It was mournful for me, with those red and white stakes under my nose. My decision grew firm, and though I lingered over the details in a self-satisfied and somewhat comic way, I was quite calm and certain about it.

I would be gone, leaving no trace. That point seemed essential to me. People, if they did look into it, must come to the conclusion I was permanently missing. Or better, mysteriously annihilated, dissolved into nothing.

The good Giovanni, my neighbor, caretaker, shepherd, husband of my housekeeper Frederica, suggested the place without intending to. He knew about a certain cave, up on the spurs of Karessa, a cave discovered by him and explored by speleologists (specologists? I’m not altogether sure what they’re called) on further visits. As for the date that I chose, between June 1 and 2, there was a specific reason for it: I was born on June 2 at midday, and I didn’t want to turn forty. A point of passage, forty, when maturity begins to decline toward old age. I wanted to be off while I was still thirty-nine, if only technically.

•

At twelve thirty, having eaten nothing, I started out, creeping past the house of my shepherds on tiptoe. But Giovanni was there, in the doorway: “What are you doing up at this hour?” He’d just come from the barn. A goat had gotten untied and was bothering the other animals, they were making noise. “You must help me build a shed for the goats. Goats and cows don’t get along.”

I said nothing in reply, but took the path that runs beside our meadows and then heads into the shadows of the fir trees. A downward spiral (I thought to myself, walking). You’ve always taken downhill slopes in your life (I thought); the last one will be straight down. Your life will come to an end in a narrow rocky channel. It was more an academic consideration than a practical one, just then. But I was as light and dry as a pumice stone, and the image of a fine channel into which my existential curve would slip pleased me. I had no regrets, for everything was used up; no uncertainties, for everything was planned, and my habitus, my nature, as a facilitator, obviated the need for courage.

In reality I didn’t have to descend at all, I had to climb. The cave opening is at 1,600 meters and the path led sharply up to it. I was winded when I got there, but otherwise fine. I recognized the opening immediately although I’d never seen it before. I lit, and then immediately extinguished my flashlight, which I didn’t need (being a nictalope,13 equipped with night vision), and walked comfortably; there were no stalactites, no bats (as I’d feared), and the ground was flat and just slightly slippery. By twelve fifty I was at the edge of the well, a large oval pit with standing water down below. Giovanni’s description had been meticulous: the well was shaped somewhat like an S on its side; after a short stretch downhill, it rose for a couple of meters and then there was another bend (a natural siphon that trapped the water). From there it was a dozen meters straight down to a sealed lake, Lake of Solitude it’s called, that doesn’t communicate with the outside. I only had to let myself down into the well, hold my breath and swim past the siphon, then fall. Straight up or head first, my choice. Into the lake. Three or four minutes later, I’d drown.

On the edge of the well, feet dangling in the dark, I allowed myself a sip of brandy. I had brought half a bottle with me. At a quarter past midnight,14 if I pushed off still seated, I’d be down there quickly, a couple of strokes to the siphon, then the final jump. But at thirty past by my watch I was still there. Contemplating. I was contemplating Spanish brandy, and the fact that my Spanish brandy was every bit as good as the French product. Why was that? Because, yes, it made sense, if you distill wines with a high sugar content (those that come from the south) the result can only be superior. Those French Premier Bois are made with varieties that ripen under a miserly sun. Any advantage lent by aging in the famous oak barrels of the Charente is neutralized by that fact. Now it was twenty to one, and I’d come to a conclusion: The glory enjoyed by French cognac was due to the collective power of suggestion, admittedly a power that’s been working for centuries. Either that, or it was just one of those phony miracles effected by advertising.

No. For me, there was nothing humorous about these ruminations on distilling. (And note that no further sips from the bottle succeeded the first.)

Nor did my thoughts disguise some deep angst. Although I wasn’t in a particularly introspective mood, I felt clearheaded and calm. And well, strangely, unshakably well. On that unexpected note came what followed. I didn’t act, I was acted upon by organic logic, that is: some eighty-five kilograms of living substance just didn’t obey. Aware, in its way, of the rule that to die is to be materially transformed, the matter simply refused to budge.

By a quarter to one I was already on my way back out of the cave. Still inside, I hit my head hard on