The Seventh Function of Language

The two young people at last leave their wooden friends and go out into the already hot air of the Piazza Maggiore. They skirt the fountain of Neptune, his demonic dolphins, his obscene nymphs. Simon is giddy with fatigue, alcohol, pleasure, and cannabis. Less than twenty-four hours after his arrival in Italy, he thinks to himself that it is not going too badly so far. Bianca accompanies him to the station. Together, they walk up Via dell’Independenza, the city center’s main artery, past the still drowsy stores. Dogs sniff at trash cans. People come out, suitcases in hand: it is the start of a holiday, and everyone is going to the train station.

Everyone is going to the train station. It is 9:00 a.m., August 2, 1980. The July people are coming home, the August people preparing to leave.

Bianca rolls a joint. Simon thinks he should change his shirt. He stops outside an Armani shop and wonders if he could claim that on expenses.

At the end of the long avenue is the massive Porta Galliera, in appearance half byzantine house, half medieval arch, which Simon would like to pass under, though he doesn’t really know why, and then, as it’s not yet time for the meeting at the train station, he leads Bianca toward some stone steps by a park, they stop in front of a strange fountain embedded in the wall of the staircase, and they take turns smoking the joint as they contemplate the sculpture of a naked woman grappling with a horse, an octopus, and some other sea creatures that they are unable to identify. Simon feels lightly stoned. He smiles at the statue, thinking about Stendhal, which leads him to Barthes: “We always fail to talk about what we love…”

Bologna Central swarms with vacationers in shorts and bawling brats. Simon lets himself be guided by Bianca, who leads him to the waiting room, where they find Eco and Bayard, who has brought his little suitcase from the hotel where they checked in but in Simon’s case didn’t sleep. A small child, running after his little brother, charges into Simon, almost knocking him off balance. He hears Eco explaining to Bayard: “That is tantamount to saying that Little Red Riding Hood is not in a position to conceive of a universe where the Yalta Conference took place or where Reagan will succeed Carter.”

Despite the look Bayard shoots him, which he decodes as a cry for help, Simon does not dare interrupt the great academic, so he looks around and thinks he spots Enzo in the crowd, with his family. Eco says to Bayard: “So anyway, for Little Red Riding Hood, judging a possible world where wolves don’t speak, the ‘actual’ world would be hers, the one where wolves do speak.” Simon feels a vague rising anxiety, which he puts down to the joint. He thinks he sees Stefano with a young woman, moving off toward the tracks. “We can read the events described in The Divine Comedy as ‘credible’ in comparison with the medieval encyclopedia and legendary in comparison with ours.” Simon feels as if Eco’s words are ricocheting inside his head. He thinks he sees Luciano and his mother carrying a large bag overflowing with provisions. To reassure himself, he checks that Bianca is standing next to him. He has a vision of a German tourist, very blond, with a Tyrolean-style hat, a large camera on a strap around her neck, leather shorts, and knee-length socks, walking behind her. In the hubbub of Italian voices echoing under the roof of the station, Simon strains to isolate Eco’s French phrases: “On the other hand, if, reading a historical novel, we find a King Runcibald of France, the comparison with the world zero of the historical encyclopedia makes us feel uneasy in a way that presages the readjustment of cooperative attention: obviously, this is not a historical novel, but a fantasy novel.”

Just as Simon finally decides to greet the two men, he thinks he might be able to deceive the Italian semiologist, but he sees that Bayard has immediately understood that he is—as he realized himself, standing by the statue—lightly stoned.

Eco addresses him as if he had been there since the start of the conversation: “When reading a novel, what does it signify to recognize that what is happening is ‘truer’ than what happens in real life?” Simon thinks that in a novel, Bayard would bite his lip or shrug.

Then Eco finally stops talking and, for a second, no one breaks the silence.

Simon thinks he sees Bayard biting his lip.

He thinks he sees the man in gloves walking behind him.