Emmanuel's last journey Part II In search of myself I've been driving blindly for more than half an hour: finally I don't recognize anything anymore; I see a sign, it says Schierano, what the fuck is this place. I turn onto a dirt road that disappears into the vineyards and emerge between two sets of hills; the scenery that opens up in front of me is breathtakingly beautiful: rows of vines as far as the eye can see that draw perfect diagonals on the sides of the hills tidied up as if by a comb, on opposite hills two twin churches that seem to talk to each other from afar, just below a large farmhouse shaded by a majestic plane tree, behind them two ancient castles, one of which has crenellated towers, in the background the frame of the Alps veiled by a light mist from which emerges the surreal pyramid of Monviso, which projects its disturbing outline against a transparent gray backdrop. The evening envelops me in the caress of its scents and the horizon reddened by the sunset opens up in front of me, far away, infinite, as far as the eye can see. This place is perfect to live or die in. I want to listen to something, I don't know what. I turn on the car radio: the station is playing an old song from the 80s that dances on the razor's edge between stupidity and self-irony, Enigma. I've never tolerated this kind of music, but I discover that it's perfect for someone in my confused state: it makes me feel better, it comforts me. I turn the volume up to maximum and let myself be carried away by those elementary sounds, by those cheap winking lyrics, while I drive zigzagging at a hundred miles an hour on the hilly roads: these hairpin bends don't allow me to go faster, I'm not a rally driver, even if I'd like to. I hope I don't run into a police patrol: they'd take away my license, and rightly so. I'm completely drunk, even if I don't know of what, having only drunk the orange juice that Antonia prepared for me before sending me away. It had a disgusting, bitter taste, but I think it was my tears, which I swallowed so as not to let her see them, while she fed Martino who stared at me imperturbably scrutinizing my strange expression with a critical eye. That child is not like me, he does not know what pity is. No, he does not take after his father. Give me a bit of mmh you're a mystery And I'll give a bit of mmh to you… Life is strange: I never thought I could find comfort in Amanda Lear who invites me to give her a bit of my mmh and take a bit of hers, but she's doing it in such an adorably ironic way that I would gladly do it: I have nothing to lose, at this point. All my existential reference points have gone, I might as well be able to have fun. The ambiguity of the character immediately reminds me of Michelle: where is she, what happened to her? Why do I feel bad at the thought of her feeling bad... I'm done with the past, there's no point in feeling bad. I should feel bad for Arianna, for what I just did to her, I should… But I don't feel anything, anything at all, except this music and its dance rhythm that makes my blood flow through my veins and makes me want to be in that bed again doing very strange things, maybe in the company of Carlos. Give me a bit of mmh And I'll give a bit of mmh to you it's so confusing… Yeah, I'm really confused. What the hell is happening to me? There's no way I'm listening to this and having these thoughts. I need to cut it out. I turn off the radio, stop on the side of the road and rummage around among the CDs I keep in the glove compartment: I come across one that I didn't even remember having, a sort of musical fossil from the Sixties dating back to Antonio's time. I vaguely remember having had an argument with him about it: I argued, I don't know if rightly or wrongly, that The house of the rising sun was a bit overrated compared to other songs by the group: a great song for goodness' sake, but still a cover; one song had struck me in particular in their repertoire: When I was young. Its apparent roughness conceals a very sophisticated musical research; in that song I had found, so to speak, the very essence of the Sixties, beat in its primitive form, the hard and pure soul of the early days, when music hadn't yet complicated its life like in the progressive of the Seventies. I put the CD in the player and set off again. Listening to it again I confirm my opinion: the Indian riff of the song played by an electric guitar and a violin, which comes after the heavy distortion of the initial guitar vibrato, immediately involves me, forcing me to beat time with the palms of my hands against the steering wheel and to hum a couple of verses that I remember by heart. I met my first love at thirteen She was brown and I was pretty green And I learned quite a lot when I was young When I was young… My faith was so much stronger then I believed in a fellow man And I was so much older then When I was young… I sing at the top of my lungs the ramshackle central refrain made of onomatopoeic sounds. Na-na-ninana-naniranana… Suddenly I measure the sidereal distance between the me of then and the me of now, to the detriment of one of the two. My arguments with Antonio about the music of the Seventies, my long discussions of music criticism with Michelle... How long has it been since I put together two sensible thoughts about music? What am I, without music? Seized by a sudden musical bulimia, I put another Sixties song into the player that I listened to with Antonio and that always had an exciting effect on me: I started dancing like an idiot, with the epileptic style of those years; he laughed, shaking his head and with the excuse of blocking me, he hugged me tightly. But now I don't want to think about him again, I just want to hear that music again. I said girl, you really got me now You got me so I don't know what I'm doin' Yeah, you really got me now You got me so I can't sleep at night… It was August 1964 when the Kinks with this single song laid the foundations of what many years later would be punk, hard-rock and metal: it's all there, in that elementary and obsessive riff, in those raucous voices, in that furious guitar solo. I'm alive, damn it, I'm still alive: but who am I? What am I? What have I become? At this moment I can't understand it: my brain is stunned by primitive music, flooded by the deafening buzz of a hive with two queens, one of which is preparing to swarm. In nature, if the queens belong to different hives, selection reserves a cruel end for the weakest. The weakest queen must flee, and I will follow her like a faithful worker bee, and if necessary I will die with her. I am not natural, I have always detested Malthusian logic: I am with the losers. It is just a matter of understanding who is the loser. But is there a loser queen? Or am I the only loser? Arianna who sends me to Antonia, Antonia who sends me back to Arianna: I roll the dice and go back to the starting square. It's a kind of game of the Goose, but less fun. We are not there, there is a missing piece in all this: the picture does not fit together. I reflect with the maximum concentration allowed by my precarious mental state. I know they saw each other, but that doesn't explain Antonia's anxiety to send me back to her, and it doesn't even explain the confidence with which Arianna let me go back to Antonia. She knew she was taking a big risk, but she was evidently sure she had the game in hand. And then how could she not have realized that Antonia was nine months pregnant? I have a sudden flash of inspiration: I'm an idiot, how could I not have thought of this before? She's that gypsy who emptied my wallet at the service station while distracting me with a sleight of hand. God, yes, I'm an idiot, the perfect subject for a scammer. I have to call her immediately. I turn to look for my cell phone, it slipped under the seat.