Indian Nocturne by Antonio Tabucchi

distinguishable, with a little concentration.
    ‘I’ve told you what I do,’ said Christine, ‘so what do you do? If you feel like telling me.’
    ‘Well, let’s suppose I’m writing a book, for example.’
    ‘What kind of book?’
    ‘A book.’
    ‘A novel?’ asked Christine with a sly look.
    ‘Something like that.’
    ‘So you’re a novelist,’ she said with a certain logic.
    ‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘it’s just an experiment, my job is something else, I look for dead mice.’
    ‘Come again?’
    ‘I was joking,’ I said. ‘I scour through old archives, I hunt for old chronicles, things time has swallowed up. It’s my job, I call it dead mice.’
    Christine looked at me with tolerance, and perhaps with a touch of disappointment. The waiter came promptly and brought us some dishes full of sauces. He asked us if we’d like wine and we
said yes. The lobster arrived steaming, just the shell singed, the meat spread with melted butter. The sauces were very heavily spiced, it only took a drop to set your mouth on fire. But then the
flames died out at once and the palate filled with exquisite, unusual aromas: I recognised juniper, but the other spices I didn’t know. We carefully spread the sauces on our lobster and
raised our glasses. Christine confessed that she already felt a bit drunk, perhaps I did too, but I wasn’t aware of it.
    ‘Tell me about your novel, come on,’ she said. ‘I’m intrigued, don’t keep me in suspense.’
    ‘But it’s not a novel,’ I protested, ‘it’s a bit here and a bit there, there’s not even a real story, just fragments of a story. And then I’m not
writing it, I said
let’s suppose
that I’m writing it.’
    Clearly we were both terribly hungry. The lobster shell was already empty and the waiter appeared promptly. We ordered some other things, whatever he wanted to bring. Light things, we specified,
and he nodded knowingly.
    ‘A few years ago I published a book of photographs,’ said Christine. ‘It was a single sequence on a roll, impeccably printed, just the way I like, with the perforations along
the edges of the roll showing, no captions, just photos. It opened with a photograph that I feel is the most successful of my career, I’ll send you a copy sometime if you give me your
address. It was a blow-up of a detail; the photo showed a young negro, just his head and shoulders, a sports singlet with a sales slogan, an athletic body, an expression of great effort on his
face, his arms raised as if in victory; obviously he’s breasting the tape, in the hundred metres for example.’ She looked at me with a slightly mysterious air, waiting for me to
speak.
    ‘And so?’ I asked. ‘Where’s the mystery?’
    ‘The second photograph,’ she said. ‘That was the whole photograph. On the left there’s a policeman dressed like a Martian, a plexiglass helmet over his face, high boots,
a rifle tucked into his shoulder, his eyes fierce under his fierce visor. He’s shooting at the negro. And the negro is running away with his arms up, but he is already dead: a second after I
clicked the shutter he was already dead.’ She didn’t say anything else and went on eating.
    ‘Tell me the rest,’ I said, ‘you may as well finish the story now.’
    ‘My book was called
South Africa
and it had just one caption under the first photograph that I’ve described, the blow-up. The caption said:
Méfiez-vous des
morceaux choisis
.’ She grimaced a moment and went on: ‘No selections, please. Tell me what your book is about, I want to know the concept behind it.’
    I tried to think. How could my book turn out? It’s difficult to explain the concept behind a book. Christine was watching me, implacable, she was a stubborn girl. ‘For example, in
the book I would be someone who has lost his way in India,’ I said quickly, ‘that’s the concept.’
    ‘Oh no,’ said Christine, ‘that’s not enough, you can’t get off so lightly, there must be more to it