The Periodic Table (20 page)

Since the storeroom contained several shipments of perilously basic chromate, which must also be utilized because they had been accepted by the inspection and could not be returned to the supplier, the chloride was officially introduced as an anti-livering preventive in the formula of that varnish. Then I quit my job: ten years went by, the postwar years were over, the deleterious, too basic chromates disappeared from the market, and my report went the way of all flesh: but formulas are as holy as prayers, decree-laws, and dead languages, and not an iota in them can be changed. And so my ammonium chloride, the twin of a happy love and a liberating book, by now completely useless and probably a bit harmful, is religiously ground into the chromate anti-rust paint on the shore of that lake, and nobody knows why anymore.

S
ULFUR

Lanza hooked the bike to the rack, punched the time card, went to the boiler, put the mixer in gear, and started the motor. The jet of pulverized naphtha ignited with a violent thud, and a perfidious backfire shot out (but Lanza, knowing that furnace, had gotten out of the way in time): then it continued to burn with a good, taut, full roar, like continuous thunder, which covered the low hum of the motors and transmissions. Lanza was still heavy with the sleep and cold of a sudden awakening, he remained squatting in front of the furnace, whose red blaze, in a succession of rapid gleams, made his enormous, crazed shadow dance on the back wall, as in some primitive movie house.

After half an hour the thermometer began to move, as it should: the hand of burnished steel, slithering like a snail over the dark yellow face, came to a stop at 95 degrees. This too was right, because the thermometer was off by five degrees; Lanza was satisfied and obscurely at peace with the boiler, the thermometer, and, in short, the world and himself because all the things which should happen were happening, and because in the factory he alone knew that the thermometer was off: perhaps another man would have given a boost to the fire, or would have started to figure out who knows what to make it rise to 100 degrees, as it was written on the worksheet.

So the thermometer halted for a long time at 95 degrees and then began to climb again. Lanza remained close to the fire, and since, with the warmth, sleep began pressing in on him again, he permitted it softly to invade some of the rooms of his consciousness. But not that which stood behind his eyes and watched the thermometer: that must remain wide awake.

With a sulfodiene one never knows, but for the moment everything was going properly. Lanza enjoyed the quiet rest, going along with the dance of thoughts and images that is the prelude to sleep, yet avoiding being overcome by it. It was hot, and Lanza saw his hometown—his wife, his son, his field, the tavern. The warm breath of the tavern, the heavy breath of the stable. Water trickled into the stable with every rainstorm, water that came from above, from the hayloft—perhaps from a crack in the wall, because all the roof tiles (he had checked them himself at Easter) were in perfect condition. There is room for another cow, but (here everything became fogged over by a mist of sketchy and unfinished calculations). Every minute of work put ten lire into his pocket: now he felt as if the fire was roaring for him, that the mixer was turning for him, like a machine to make money.

On your feet, Lanza, we have arrived at 180 degrees, we’ve got to unbolt the kettle hatch and throw in the B 41: but to go on calling it B 41 is really a big joke when the whole factory knows that it is sulfur, and in time of war, when everything was lacking, many took it home and sold it on the black market to the peasants who dust the vines with it. But if that’s how the boss wants it, that’s what he gets.

He switched off the fire, slowed up the mixer, unbolted the hatch, and put on the protective mask, which made him feel like half a mole and half a wild boar. The B 41 was already weighed out, in three cardboard boxes: he put it in cautiously and, despite the mask, which may have leaked a bit, immediately smelled the dirty, sad smell that emanated from the mixture, and thought that maybe the priest was right too, when he said that in Hell there is a smell of sulfur: after all, even the dogs don’t like it, everyone knows that. When he was finished, he shut the door and started everything up again.

At three in the morning the thermometer stood at 200 degrees: it was time for the vacuum. He lifted the black lever and the high, sharp racket of the centrifugal pump was superimposed on the deep thunder of the burner. The needle of the vacuum gauge, which stood vertical at zero, began to fall, sliding to the left. Twenty degrees, forty degrees: good. At this point you can light a cigarette and take it easy for more than an hour.

Some are fated to become millionaires, and some are fated to drop dead. He, Lanza, was fated (and he yawned noisily to keep himself company) to make night into day. As if they too had guessed it, during the war they had immediately shoved him into the great job of staying up nights on the rooftops to shoot planes out of the sky.

With a jump he was on his feet, his ears listening tensely and all his nerves in alarm. The clatter of the pump had suddenly become slower and more clogged, as though constrained: and in fact, the needle of the vacuum gauge, like a threatening finger, rose up to zero, and, look! degree by degree, it began to slide to the right. That was it, the kettle was building up pressure.

“Turn it off and run.” “Turn everything off and run.” But he did not run: he grabbed a wrench and banged the vacuum pipe along its entire length: it had to be obstructed, there could be no other reason. Bang again and bang again: nothing, the pump continued to grind away, and the needle bounced around at about a third of an atmosphere.

Lanza felt all his hairs standing on end, like the tail of an enraged cat: and he was enraged, in a murderous, wild rage against the kettle, against that ugly, reluctant beast crouched on the fire, which lowed like a bull: red hot, like an enormous hedgehog with its quills standing straight up, so that you do not know where to touch and seize it and you feel like jumping on it and kicking it to pieces. His fists clenched and his head bursting, Lanza was in a frenzy to open the hatch and let the pressure escape; he began to loosen the bolts, and, look! a yellowish slime squirted hissing from the crack together with puffs of foul smoke: the kettle must be full of foam. Lanza slammed it shut, filled with an overwhelming desire to get on the phone and call the boss, call the fireman, call the Holy Ghost to come out of the night and give him a hand or at least advice.

The kettle was not built for pressure and could explode from one moment to the next; or at least that’s what Lanza thought, and perhaps, if it had been during the day or he hadn’t been alone, he would not have thought that. But his fear had turned into anger, and when his anger had simmered down it left his head cold and uncluttered. And then he thought of the most obvious thing: he opened the valve of the suction fan, started it going, closed the vacuum breaker, and stopped the pump. With relief and pride because he had correctly figured it out, he saw the needle rise up all the way to zero, like a stray sheep that returns to the fold, and then slide gently down on the vacuum side.

He looked around, with a great need to laugh and tell it to somebody and with a feeling of lightness in all his limbs. He saw on the floor his cigarette reduced to a long thin cylinder of ash: it had smoked itself. It was five twenty, dawn was breaking behind the shed of empty barrels, the thermometer pointed to 210 degrees. He took a sample from the boiler, let it cool, and tested it with the reagent: the test tube remained clear for a few seconds and then became white as milk. Lanza turned off the fire, stopped the mixer and the fan, and opened the vacuum breaker: he heard a long, angry hiss, which gradually calmed down into a rustle, a murmur, and then fell silent. He screwed in the siphon pipe, started the compressor, and, gloriously, surrounded by white puffs of smoke and the customary sharp smell, the dense jet of resin came to rest in the collection basin, forming a black shiny mirror.

Lanza went to the main gate and met Carmine, who was coming in. He told him that everything was going well, left him the work orders, and began pumping up his bike’s tires.

T
ITANIUM

To Felice Fantino

In the kitchen there was a very tall man dressed in a way Maria had never seen before. On his head he wore a boat made out of a newspaper, he smoked a pipe, and he was painting the closet white.

It was incomprehensible how all that white could be contained in so small a can, and Maria had a great desire to go over and look inside it. Every so often the man rested his pipe on the closet and whistled; then he stopped whistling and began to sing; every so often he took two steps back and closed one eye, and also at times he would go and spit in the garbage can, then he rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. In short he did so many strange and new things that it was very interesting to stay there and watch him: and when the closet was white, he picked up the pot and many newspapers that were on the floor and carried everything next to the cupboard and began to paint that too.

The closet was so shiny, clean, and white that it was almost indispensable to touch it. Maria went up to the closet, but the man noticed and said, “Don’t touch. You mustn’t touch.”

Maria stopped in amazement and asked, “Why?” to which the man replied, “Because you shouldn’t.” Maria thought about that, and then asked again, “Why is it so white?” The man also thought for a while, as if the question seemed difficult to him, and then said in a deep voice, “Because it is titanium.“
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Maria felt a delicious shiver of fear run through her, as when in the fairy tale you get to the ogre; so she looked carefully and saw that the man did not have knives either in his hand or near him: but he could have one hidden. Then she asked, “Cut what on me?”—and at this point he should have replied, “Cut your tongue.” Instead, he only said, “I’m not cutting anything: this is titanium.”

In conclusion, he must be a very powerful man: but he did not seem to be angry, but rather good-natured and friendly. Maria asked him, “Mister, what’s your name?” He replied, “Felice.” He had not taken his pipe out of his mouth, and when he spoke his pipe danced up and down but did not fall. Maria stood there for a while in silence, looking alternately at the man and the closet. She was not at all satisfied by that answer and would have liked to ask him why he was named Felice, but then she did not dare, because she remembered that children must never ask why. Her friend  Alice was  called  Alice  and was a child, and it was really strange that a big man like that should be called Felice. But little by little, however, it began to seem natural to her that the man should be called Felice, and in fact she thought he could not have been called anything else.

The painted closet was so white that in comparison all the rest of the kitchen looked yellow and dirty. Maria decided there was nothing wrong in going to look at it up close, only look, without touching. But as she was approaching on tiptoe an unexpected and terrible thing happened: the man turned, and in two steps was beside her; he took out of his pocket a white chalk and drew a circle on the floor around Maria. Then he said, “You must stay in there.” After which he struck a match, lit his pipe, making many strange grimaces with his mouth, and resumed painting the cupboard.

Maria sat on her heels and considered the circle for a long time and attentively: but she became convinced that there was no way out. She tried to rub it at one spot with her finger and saw that the chalk line actually disappeared; but she understood very well that the man would not have regarded that system as valid.

The circle was evidently magical. Maria sat on the floor silent and quiet; every so often she tried to reach far enough to touch the circle with the tips of her feet and leaned forward so far that she almost lost her balance, but she soon realized that there still was a good hand’s breadth before she could reach the closet or wall with her fingers. So she just sat there and watched as gradually the cupboard, chairs, and table also became white and beautiful.

After a very long time the man put down his brush and paint pot and took the newspaper boat off his head, and then you could see that he had hair like all other men. Then he went out by the balcony and Maria heard him rummaging around and tramping up and down in the next room. Maria began to call, “Mister!”—first in a low voice, then louder, but not too loud because at bottom she was afraid that the man might hear.

Finally the man returned to the kitchen. Maria asked, “Mister, can I come out now?” The man looked down at Maria in the circle, laughed loudly, and said many things that were incomprehensible, but he didn’t seem angry. At last he said, “Yes, of course, now you can come out.” Maria looked at him perplexed and did not move; then the man picked up a rag and wiped away the circle very carefully, to undo the enchantment. When the circle had disappeared, Maria got up and left, skipping, and she felt very happy and satisfied.

A
RSENIC

He had an unusual appearance for a customer. To our humble and enterprising laboratory, hiring us to analyze the most disparate materials, came all sorts of people, men and women, old and young, but all visibly members of the large, ambiguous, and cunning network of commerce. Anyone who has the trade of buying and selling is easily recognized: he has a vigilant eye and a tense face, he fears fraud or considers it, and he is on guard like a cat at dusk. It is a trade that tends to destroy the immortal soul; there have been courtier philosophers, lens-grinding philosophers, and even engineer and strategist philosophers; but no philosopher, so far as I know, was a wholesaler or storekeeper.

I received him, since Emilio was not there. He could have been a peasant philosopher: he was a robust and rubicund old man, with heavy hands deformed by work and arthritis; his eyes looked clear, mobile, youthful, despite the large delicate bags that hung slackly under his eye sockets. He wore a vest, from whose small pocket dangled a watch chain. He spoke Piedmontese, which immediately made me ill at ease: it is not good manners to reply in Italian to someone who speaks in dialect, it puts you immediately on the other side of a barrier, on the side of the aristos, the respectable folk, the “Luigini,” as they were called by my illustrious namesake;
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but my Piedmontese, correct in form and sound, is so smooth and enervated, so polite and languid, that it does not seem very authentic. Instead of a genuine atavism it seems the fruit of diligent study, burning the midnight oil over a grammar and dictionary.