Free The Silence of the Wave by Gianrico Carofiglio Page A

parasites, which gives way eventuallyand crashes to the ground, among the other trees, destroying branches, sweeping away bushes, and maybe rolling once it’s fallen. Imagine there’s nobody in the forest to hear the tree fall and crash.”
    Roberto was looking at him, puzzled.
    “Do you follow me?”
    “I’m trying.”
    “If there’s nobody to hear it fall, does the tree make a noise?”
    “How do you mean?”
    “If there’s nobody in the forest or in the immediate vicinity, and so nobody hears the noise, can we say it existed?”
    “The noise?”
    “Yes.”
    “Obviously I’d like to say yes, but I assume it’s a trick question.”
    “There’s no trick. Did the noise exist or not?”
    “Of course it existed.”
    “How do we know if nobody heard it and—”
    “What has that got to do with—”
    “Wait, let me finish. How do we know if nobody heard it and there’s nobody to tell the story?”
    Roberto did not reply immediately. This was no chance provocation on the part of the doctor, and so, in all probability, the most obvious reply wasn’t the right one. In the past, the doctor had mentioned the fact that paradoxes help us to understand reality and solve problems. Especially those of an agitated psyche.
    “Do you mean that if no one hears it, the noise doesn’t exist?”
    “It’s an old Zen riddle, which also has a scientific basis, though I’m not going to bore you with that. The function of Zen riddles—they’re called
kōans
—is to confront the pupil—in this case, you—with the contradictory, paradoxical nature of reality. They help to draw attention to the multiplicity of possible answers to the problems of existence and aim to awaken consciousness. In some ways they have a similar function to the practice of analysis.”
    “So?”
    “So thinking about the question of the tree in the deserted forest may prompt you to think about dreams and about what it means to remember them or not to remember them.”
    “But what does it mean?”
    “The Zen master rarely responds to such a direct question. The idea is that the pupil, in searching for the right answer, finds himself. In other words, self-knowledge.”
    At that moment, there was an explosion of yelling from somewhere in the building. A man and a woman were arguing. Of the two, it was the woman who was shouting more loudly and angrily. The man seemed to be on the defensive, and was about to give in. Roberto wasn’t sure if the voices came from the apartment above or the one below.
    “They’re downstairs,” the doctor said, guessing Roberto’s question.
    “Why are they arguing?”
    “Because they’ve reached the end of the line but can’t summon up the courage to admit it.”
    In the meantime, the shouting had stopped. Roberto felt an incomprehensible sense of anguish about that private tragedy being played out downstairs. He thought about those disintegrating lives and those hearts filled with resentment and the things those two must have imagined for their future together.
    “Do you know something?”
    “What?”
    “I’m sorry for those two. I don’t understand why, but I really feel sorry for them. As if I knew them, as if they were friends of mine.”
    From the apartment downstairs came the noise of a door being slammed, but no more voices.
    “Am I mad?”
    The doctor made a gesture with his hand, as if to brush away something that was bothering him.
    “We all have our share of madness. The question is how we live with it. Some manage quite well, others don’t. People come to me to learn to live with their own madness. Even though almost nobody is aware of it.”
    The words should have scared him. Instead, Roberto felt an unexpected sense of calm. Like something that could be accepted and which, when you confronted it, was much less unpleasant than when you imagined it hidden in some fetid compartment of your consciousness.
    “There’s something I’ve never asked you, Roberto.”
    “Yes?”
    “Do you like