Before dawn, a name should have shown that it deserves the future
by Marialuisa Veneziano
***********
🎧 MUSIC FOR LETTURE
Carl Maria von Weber: Grand Duo concertant, op. 48, for clarinet and piano
Let the clarinet accompany you in the misty Paris of Madame Oblio, among enlightened workshops, names that disappear and promises entrusted to time.
Weber writes for the clarinet as if it were a human voice: he can rest, tell, linger in the shadows and then suddenly open to light.
It's not just an accompanying music
It's almost a second voice of the fairy tale.
Start music. Then he starts reading.
(Click on the black arrow to make the listening appear).
In Paris, in some winters, the fog had the bad taste to enter everywhere.
He entered the doors, clinged to the wheels of the carriages, hung the glasses, shoved in the collars and made the lamps so pale that they seemed to apologize for failing to illuminate better.
In the evening, in the most laborious districts, the workshops closed one after another.
The shoemaker turned off the lamp.
The libraio took the stand.
The baker covered the remaining bread.
Even the horses, at a certain hour, seemed to beat the hoofs with less conviction.
But there was a small shop that often remained lit longer than the others.
Out of that shop, strange noises came out.
A scrape.
Light shot.
Madame Oblio had learned something that even time alone could not teach her. There are names that want to be remembered. And there are names that accept responsibility.
Metallic dye.
Then silence.
Then a note.
Sometimes one.
Long.
Sure.
Like someone was trying the voice of a creature still without a name.
The shop belonged to the Buffet family.
And there were clarinets.
Jean-Louis Buffet was a man who couldn't do anything quickly.
Which in Paris was already a form of rebellion.
He had strong hands, an apron almost always covered with wood dust and the annoying habit of rechecking something just when everyone else was convinced it was over.
A screw could be narrow.
Jean-Louis checked her again.
A key could work.
Jean-Louis still tried.
A hole could be well calibrated.
Jean-Louis measured it again.
His apprentice, a thin boy called Étienne, found him exasperating.
— Monsieur Buffet — said an afternoon, while outside it rained for three hours and inside the shop also the stove seemed tired — That key works.
Jean-Louis did not raise his eyes.
— Yes.
Étienne waited.
— Then why are you dismantling her?
— Because it works pretty well.
— Doesn't that mean well?
Jean-Louis stopped.
He looked at the boy.
— No.
— I thought so.
— That's why you're still an apprentice.
Étienne sighed.
Jean-Louis smiled.
Then he showed him the key.
— Look at this.
— I don't see anything.
— That's right.
— Exactly what?
— The defect is so small that perhaps the musician will never know that it exists.
Étienne enlighted himself.
— Then we can leave him.
Jean-Louis was serious.
— That's exactly what we don't have to do.
The boy fixed it.
— Why?
Jean-Louis supported the instrument on the counter.
— Why do something good only when someone can notice it is not a job.
He took a break.
— It's vanity.
Étienne, who was fifteen years old and considered vanity a much less serious problem than hunger, did not seem entirely convinced.
But he did.
Outside, in the rain, a woman dressed in gray had stopped walking.
He had heard every word.
Then resumed the path.
Her name was Madame Oblio.
Of course no one knew if it was his real name.
The elders claimed that no one was born with a similar name.
The children, on the other hand, felt perfectly possible to be born already by calling Oblio, especially if you had the air of that woman.
Madame Oblio was tall.
Very high.
And so thin that, when it crossed a alley immersed in the fog, it seemed a line of ink drawn on the wrong page.
He was wearing a ash dress.
Not light grey.
Not silver.
Ash.
The silk fell heavy to the saddle and seemed to absorb the light instead of reflecting it.
The skirt was wide, the severely narrow bust, the long sleeves.
He was wearing a high black lace on his neck.
On the shoulders, a dark velvet cape.
In the throat, a silver pin shaped like a moth.
The hands were always covered with ivory gloves.
Always.
Even in summer.
Even at home.
Even when he wrote.
From a wide-stitched hat a thin veil descended.
Behind it was a pale, almost motionless face.
But the eyes looked good.
They were gray.
Not strict.
Not cruel.
Simply old of too many things seen.
Eyes used to observe men declare eternal what would last a season.
Madame Oblio was carrying a small black bag.
Inside there were a white rubber, a transparent ink bowl, a pair of silver scissors and a huge register.
On the cover was engraved:
We know that the world has a lot to do with it.
Madame Oblio didn't like to explain his job.
If someone asked her, she would say,
— I'm ordering.
It was an answer that could mean everything.
And it meant a lot.
Madame Oblio erased the names.
As soon as the dead.
It would have been too easy.
Waiting.
One year.
Ten.
One hundred.
When a name survives only because someone claimed to survive, Madame Oblio came.
He erased the signature of those who loved the glory of the work more.
The title of those who ruled only to be celebrated.
The initial of those who wanted to be remembered without leaving anything useful to anyone.
He didn't like it.
He didn't feel remorse.
He said:
— Time is not cruel. It's selective.
And nobody dared to ask her who gave her the right to decide.
Maybe because, in the end, everyone was afraid of the answer.
In the same winter when Madame Oblio listened to Jean-Louis speaking to his apprentice, Zoé Crampon entered the workshop for the first time.
Zoé did not look like a person destined to change the story of something.
Which, as often happens, was a great start.
He had bright eyes, plum-colored gloves and a laughter that always came half a second before what good education would recommend.
Jean-Louis proudly showed her the workshop.
He showed her the wood.
The tools.
The keys.
The instruments finished.
Zoé nodded.
— Interesting.
— Just interesting?
— Very interesting.
— Worse.
She laughed.
Then he stopped in front of a bench full of small components.
He took a tiny screw.
— What about this?
— You need to fix a key.
— If she misses?
— The mechanism would work badly.
Zoé observed it.
— So one thing nobody sees can ruin everything.
Jean-Louis looked at her.
— Basically, yes.
She put her life back in her place.
— It's a good lesson.
— It's a life.
— Small things give excellent lessons. The important men, much less.
Jean-Louis didn't know what to answer.
It was the first of many times when Zoé had the last word.
A few days later Jean-Louis made her listen to a new instrument.
A clarinetist came to the shop.
Mounted the instrument.
I'll inspire.
He wrote a sentence.
Jean-Louis was satisfied.
Zoé no.
— There is something.
The clarinetist smiled.
— Madame is a musician?
— No.
Jean-Louis sighed.
— Exactly.
Zoé gave him a look.
— You still play.
The man sounded.
Zoé raised a finger.
— Here.
— What?
— That note.
Jean-Louis took the instrument.
— It's plastered.
— I didn't say it wasn't.
— So?
Zoé sought the word.
— It's held.
Jean-Louis attacked the front.
— A note cannot be held.
— That's right.
The clarinetist still played.
Jean-Louis listened more carefully.
And finally he heard.
A little resistance.
Almost nothing.
He dismantled the clarinet.
He controlled the mechanism.
He was running a tiny detail.
The musician repeated.
The note changed.
Not high.
Freedom.
Zoé smiled.
— Now breathe.
Jean-Louis looked at her longer than she needed.
And it was so, without castles, without dragons and without celestial violins, that began a great love story.
They married in 1836.
Marriage was cheerful and imperfect.
An uncle drinks too much.
A child slept under a table.
A violinist jumped a whole musical phrase, but it was so bad that no one could prove it was really missing.
Zoé laugh.
Jean-Louis watched her laugh.
He thought he'd be happy to listen to that sound for the rest of his life.
Of course he didn't.
The men of the nineteenth century, like those of any other century, were able to build very complicated things and to fail miserably in front of a simple phrase.
A few days later Jean-Louis brought a new wooden table into the shop.
On it was engraved:
BUFFET
Zoé observed it.
— Nice.
Jean-Louis stiffened.
— What?
— Nothing.
— When you say "nice" in that way there is always something.
Zoé took a piece of charcoal.
Next to the word Buffet wrote:
CRAMPON
Jean-Louis was silent.
Now it was written:
BUFFET CRAMPON
— It's long — He said.
— Even a good marriage.
— It's my family's name.
Zoé nodded.
— I know.
— The shop was born like this.
— I know.
Jean-Louis looked at her.
— So?
Zoé planted the charcoal.
— I don’t want to erase what was there before me.
Then he named the second name.
— I want to see if a story, to continue, must remain identical.
Jean-Louis did not answer.
Outside, a carriage passed by lifting mud splashes.
Zoé still looked at the table.
— Perhaps an inheritance is not something to store under glass.
— What is it?
— Something to add your own piece without destroying that of others.
Jean-Louis observed the two names.
For the first time he did not see two surnames.
He saw two directions that met.
She did not know that, on the other side of the road, Madame Oblio was still under a lamp.
And he was watching that table.
That night Madame Oblio returned home.
If the house could be called.
It was an apartment on the third floor of a building that no one remembers seeing building.
The walls were covered with shelves.
There were records on the shelves.
Thousands.
Madame Oblio lit one lamp.
Sit down.
He opened the great book.
He was looking for the B.
Buffet.
Nothing.
Then C.
Crampon.
Nothing.
He took the pen.
He kept her suspended.
He didn't write.
— We'll see. — I'll bite.
Then closed the book.
The next morning, only one word remained on the table.
BUFFET
Crampon was gone.
Not bad deleted.
Not scraped.
Scared.
Zoé first noticed.
— Jean-Louis.
— What?
— Come here.
He came.
He looked.
— You canceled?
Zoé slowly lifted his eyes.
Jean-Louis immediately realized that he asked the wrong question.
— Sorry.
They rewrite the name.
The next morning, Buffet disappeared.
He was alone:
CRAMPON
The third day both disappeared.
This time Jean-Louis said nothing.
He took the charcoal.
He rewrites them.
Then forgetfulness began.
A supplier entered.
— Good morning, monsieur...
He stopped.
Jean-Louis knew him for years.
— Buffet.
Man roasted.
— Of course.
The next day a neighbor met Zoé on the street.
— Madame...
Quiet.
— Crampon.
— Sorry.
But the worst thing happened one night.
Zoé was writing a letter.
He arrived at the signature.
Zoé C...
The pen stopped.
Jean-Louis saw her whiten.
— What's going on?
Zoé kept fixing the sheet.
— I don't remember.
— What?
— My last name.
Jean-Louis laugh.
She's not.
— I don't remember my last name.
Five long seconds passed.
Then the word came back.
— Crampon.
Zoé put the pen.
That night neither of us slept well.
At midnight the bell ringed.
Jean-Louis went down.
Opened.
Madame Oblio was in front of the door.
The fog moved behind her as a tent.
The ash dress.
Gloves.
The silver moth.
The veil.
— Good evening.
— Who are you?
— Depends on how much you have to lose.
Jean-Louis did not appreciate the answer.
Zoé came behind him.
Madame Oblio entered.
He didn't ask.
He approached the sign.
— Buffet Crampon.
He slowly pronounced the two names.
Like she was weighing them.
Then he opened the bag.
He extracts the register.
He put it on the counter.
Jean-Louis read the cover.
We know that the world has a lot to do with it.
— She is. — whispered Zoé.
Madame Oblio looked at her.
— Do we know each other?
— No.
— So how do you know?
Zoé looked down on the white rubber.
— Intuition.
Madame Oblio smiled.
— Dangerous quality.
Jean-Louis stood in front of the table.
— What do you want?
— An answer.
— What question?
Madame Oblio touched the word Buffet.
— Why should this stay?
Jean-Louis answered immediately:
— It's my father's name.
— I didn't ask.
— He founded this workshop.
— Many shops close.
— He's worked his whole life.
— Many do.
Jean-Louis ate.
Madame Oblio directed Crampon.
— What about this?
Zoé looked at her.
— It's my name.
— I see.
— It's a new story.
— All stories are new at first.
Zoé squeezed his lips.
Madame Oblio looked both.
— You think a name deserves to live because it belongs to you.
No one answered.
— It's a common mistake.
He opened the book.
— My shelves are full of people thinking the same.
Jean-Louis stiffened.
— You won't have these names.
Madame Oblio smiled.
— Not yet.
He extracted a small silver watch.
— You have until dawn.
— To do what?
— Convince me that these two words mean something even for those who are not you.
Jean-Louis looked at Zoé.
— What if we can't?
Madame Oblio took the gum.
— No one will remember that they ever existed in the morning.
Then he went out.
Jean-Louis spent the first time searching for arguments.
— My father.
Zoé shook his head.
— You already told her.
— The shop.
— Also.
— The instruments.
— Too generic.
— Quality.
— Sounds like an advertising sign.
Jean-Louis looked at her badly.
Zoé sat down.
— We're wrong.
— What?
— We're trying to explain why we deserve to be remembered.
— That's exactly what he asked us.
Zoé shook the boss.
— No.
— Zoé...
— He asked us what these names mean for those who are not us.
Jean-Louis ate.
Zoé directed an incomplete clarinet.
— Finish it.
— Now?
— Now.
— A few hours till dawn!
— Exactly.
— And that should save our name?
Zoé looked at him.
— Stop saving him.
Jean-Louis fixed it.
— What?
— Since that woman came, you don't think about the clarinet anymore.
— I'm trying to avoid forgetting my last name!
— Exactly.
Zoé got up.
— And if to save the name stop doing well what that name should represent, then Madame Oblio has already won.
Quiet.
Jean-Louis looked at the counter.
Wood.
The keys.
The instruments.
Then he took off his jacket.
He wore the apron.
And it started.
The night left.
Jean-Louis worked.
Zoé listened.
Étienne was awake and sent for a lamp.
— At this hour? — protested.
— At this hour.
— Are we crazy?
— Probably.
— Good. I just wanted to know.
They worked.
An almost perfect key was dismantled.
A buffer replaced.
A lightened spring.
At some point, Étienne dismissed.
— Monsieur Buffet, no one will ever know that we spent half an hour on that life.
Jean-Louis stopped.
He looked at him.
Then he smiled.
— That's right.
Zoé lowered his eyes to hide his smile.
Just before dawn the instrument was ready.
He wasn't decorated.
It wasn't extraordinary to see.
He had nothing theatrical.
It was just fine.
Madame Oblio arrived with the first clairvoy.
— Time.
Jean-Louis gave her the clarinet.
She looked at him.
— Is this your subject?
— No.
— So?
— It's our job.
Madame Oblio just attacked her eyebrows.
Jean-Louis called Étienne.
— Play.
The boy paleed.
— Me?
— You.
— In front of her?
I watched Madame Oblio.
— I'd prefer a fire.
— Play.
Étienne took the instrument.
I'll inspire.
The first note was hesitant.
The second best.
Then a sentence.
Simple.
Chiara.
The sound filled the shop.
Madame Oblio listened.
When Étienne finished, she waited.
— So what?
Jean-Louis replied:
— He doesn't know how long I spent on that key.
Madame Oblio was silent.
— He doesn't know who chose wood.
Zoé added:
— He doesn't know how many people have learned before us what allowed us to build it.
Jean-Louis looked at the apprentice.
— And one day, maybe, someone will play a tool here without knowing anything about me.
— Terrible — said Madame Oblio.
Jean-Louis just smiled.
— A week ago, I thought so.
— What now?
— Now I think maybe that's the point.
Madame Oblio studied it.
Zoé intervened.
— A name should not force the future to remember the past.
— Interesting.
— He should force whoever leads him to be worthy of what he promises.
Madame Oblio didn't move.
Jean-Louis pointed out the sign.
— If Buffet Crampon means just the two of us, cancel it.
Zoé looked at him.
Jean-Louis continued.
— If it can mean a job done with care for someone we may never know...
Madame Oblio lowered his eyes on the clarinet.
— So?
Jean-Louis rejected.
— Then the name is no longer a monument.
Zoé completed:
— It's a responsibility.
Madame Oblio took the gum.
He approached the sign.
He passed his hand.
BUFFET disappeared.
Jean-Louis took a step.
Zoé kept him.
Second pass.
CRAMPON disappeared.
Empty table.
Étienne opened her eyes.
— But...
Madame Oblio raised a finger.
— Play.
The boy obeyed.
The note went out.
Same.
Clear.
Madame Oblio looked at Jean-Louis.
— Your name is gone.
Then he pointed the clarinet.
— Yet this has remained.
Jean-Louis did not answer.
Madame Oblio smiled.
— Why?
Zoé was the first to understand.
— Because the value was not written on the sign.
Madame Oblio announced slowly.
— He was at work.
Quiet.
Then, with a slight gesture, it again passed the glove on the table.
The letters returned.
BUFFET CRAMPON
Jean-Louis fixed it.
— Why do you give it back?
Madame Oblio puts the rubber back in the bag.
— Because now you know it doesn't belong to you.
Jean-Louis broke his forehead.
She pointed out the sign.
— From today's name won't say who you are.
He looked at the instrument.
— He'll say what you promise.
Zoé observed it.
— What if one day that promise was not maintained?
Madame Oblio smiled.
— I'll be back.
He left.
Then Zoé called her.
— Madame Oblio.
The woman turned.
— Can I ask you a question?
— One.
— Why do you keep the names you delete?
Madame Oblio remained still.
— Who told you I kept them?
Zoé directed the register.
— If you really wanted to destroy them, you wouldn't need to write them.
For the first time Madame Oblio seemed surprised.
Zoé continued:
— Do you remember them all?
The woman did not answer.
Jean-Louis looked at the great book.
— Everyone the world has forgotten?
Madame Oblio lowered his eyes.
He passed a hand on the cover.
— Someone has to.
Zoé smiled slowly.
— Then you are not the Oil.
Madame Oblio fixed her.
— What?
— You are the last memory.
The woman remained perfectly immobile.
Even the fog over the door seemed to stop.
Then Madame Oblio slowly lifted his hands.
He took off his gloves.
Her fingers were thin.
Normal.
Human.
Zoé noticed something.
On the index finger there was a small ink stain.
Madame Oblio looked at her.
— Curious.
— What?
— In hundreds of years no one had ever noticed that maybe I was wrong.
Zoé smiled.
— It happens.
Madame Oblio almost laughed.
Almost.
Then he went out into the fog.
Episode
Years passed.
Years have this habit.
They change faces.
They take their hands.
They fade the photographs.
They make old news.
Jean-Louis raised.
Zoé.
Étienne became an adult.
Others entered the shop.
Others learned.
Others were wrong.
Others ran.
The instruments changed.
They perfected.
They traveled.
They were played in bright rooms and in poor rooms.
From professionals and boys to the first lesson.
From people who knew that story and from people who had never heard of the names of Jean-Louis or Zoé.
And maybe that was their triumph.
Because true inheritance does not force those who come after to live backwards.
He puts something good in his hands.
And he says,
Go.
Madame Oblio returned many times.
In winter nights.
Always with the ash dress.
Always with the silver moth.
Always with the big register.
He stopped in front of the sign.
BUFFET CRAMPON
He watched her.
Then he listened.
If from the shop came the noise of someone who still worked when it would be easier to settle...
If a hand rechecks a key that no customer would ever know was correct...
If someone was looking for not the sound easier, but the right one...
Madame Oblio closed the bag.
And he kept his way.
One winter evening, many years later, remained in front of the workshop longer than usual.
From the inside came the sound of a clarinet.
First a note.
Then another.
Finally a melody.
Madame Oblio lifted his face towards the sign.
The silver moth trembled just in the light of the lamp.
His hand went down to the bag.
He blew the white rubber.
But he didn't take it.
He kept listening to the last note.
Then he smiled.
And he disappeared in the fog.
Morale
The first asks:
«How long will you talk about me?»
The second asks:
«What will become better because I've been through here?»
It is a much more severe question.
Because fame can be inherited. Reputation can be bought. A plate can last centuries.
But no writing, no statue, no surname can replace the real value of what is delivered to others.
And maybe that's why a clarinet is a wiser creature than many men.
He's not trying to own his breath.
If he did, he wouldn't make any sound.
He receives it, transforms it and lets it go.
So they do the things they really deserve to last.
So do the teachers, so do the best loves; so do the lives that do not need to become monuments.
Because, sooner or later, Madame Oblio comes to take our name.
It's his job.
But the question that matters is not if we can stop it.
It is another:
When our name is no longer pronounced, will something remain in the world that, thanks to our passage, works better, breathes better, lives better?
If the answer is no, no stone will be big enough.
If the answer is yes, maybe we already got something more important than memory.
We left an inheritance.
We have received something from the world and we have not limited ourselves to restrain it.
We worked it. Curated. Improved and delivered over.
Just like the clarinet.
The breath enters, crosses the wood, becomes sound.
And then he leaves.
But after passing from there, it is no longer just air.
It became music.
Perhaps we are also this: a place of passage between what we have received and what we will have the courage to leave.
And then, when Madame Oblio comes, he can also take our name. What we have really transmitted will already be elsewhere, in the hands, in the lives, in the breath of someone else.
NOVELLA SIMBLES (Click on the black arrow to open the contents)
The silver moth
It belongs to the night, but seeks light.
The register
Keep what the world can no longer appoint.
White rubber
Clear the letters, but reveal the value.
The clarinet
Turns a breath into inheritance.
The sign
A name only applies to the promise it maintains.
The fog
He hides the world to make the mystery speak.
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