Dinner and a Metamorphosis

CW: Fascism

The Italian Futurist art movement was no place for a foreigner. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the founder of the movement, had said regarding his associated Futurist political party, and Casimiro Rana could quote, “My passion for Italy forbids me to savour any internationalisms.”

Although the Futurist political party had been defunct for over a decade at this point, Casimiro could tell that the art movement he had become a part of had not become any less nationalistic with time, seeing as Marinetti was promoting that Italians stop eating foreign food or using foreign words for things, and many of his artist friends had joined the Fascist party. Casimiro knew that his artist friends would shun him or worse if they ever found out that he used to be a Slovene named Kazimir Poglavec, he had fought in the army of Marinetti’s beloathed Austro-Hungarian Empire during the war, and that his most recent painting, “Living Wheel in Space”, which he had just sold for a significant amount of money, had been inspired by a book written by his old acquaintance Herman Potočnik, a Slovene-Austrian engineer and Army officer writing under the pseudonym Herman Noordung. Casimiro told himself that none of that mattered; he was now an Italian citizen, had lived in Milan for many years at this point, and had built his entire career as an artist in Italy. He was Italian in every way that mattered. Still, he could feel threads from the tapestry of his past beginning to unravel every time he was with his artist friends, deteriorated by the fear that this was the time they’d discover him to be a subhuman Slav.He wielded the impeccable Italian accent that he had developed like armour whenever he was with them.

Tonight, Casimiro was to attend a Futurist dinner party, which his friends were calling “Dinner and a Metamorphosis”. It was Marinetti’s idea; part of the dining as a performance art concept he was developing as some sort ofGesamtkunstwerk.

Casimiro arrived at the dining venue along with the other guests, other men dressed in tuxedos, a few of whom wore metal spoons in their lapels, and a few women in ball gowns. The waiters seated them around a big table, and Casimiro found himself seated next to his friend Alessandro Davide Grillo, a poet and Fascist party member. He was about to ask Alessandro about the Fascist party but then remembered one of the rules that Marinetti had outlined for dinner: no political discussion.

The first course was a ‘polyrhythmic salad’. The waiters brought everyone a box containing lettuce leaves, dates and grapes. The box had a crank on the side, and Marinetti instructed everyone, “We will turn the cranks in unison with our left hands as we eat with our right hands.”

Once everyone had been served, they began to turn the cranks while eating and the boxes played the song “Verwandlungmusik” from the opera Parsifal by Richard Wagner. Casimiro felt the tension he was holding inside of him dissipate as the calming music resonated through the dining room. He leaned back and ate as he turned his crank and watched the waiters dance around them, their forms in a constant state of movement.

After the song finished, the waiters took the boxes away even though the guests hadn’t finished eating and brought out the second course, frog with a scent of ozone on carrot puree with rosewater. The frog on the plate was surrounded by tadpoles, spread out in a circle over the carrot puree. For drinks, they were served a polibibita, a cocktail made from mineral water, beer and blackberry juice. As the guests began to eat with their hands, as there was no cutlery, hidden phonographs began to play sounds of frogs croaking in the night.

Casimiro put down the tadpole he was about to eat. Alessandro glanced at him and asked, “Is something wrong?”

Casimiro said, “I suddenly find something disquieting about eating this, is all.”

Alessandro looked around the table at the guests who were eating frog to the sounds from the phonographs, without any hint of disquiet on their faces. He said, “Do you find it disquieting to eat meat now? What are you going to do, become a vegetarian?”

Casimiro took a sip of his polibibita. He once had been a vegetarian, during and following a stay at a natural healing sanitarium in Zuckmantel at the age of nineteen, but after he recovered he had gone back to eating the Balkan food that he was used to, not that he could mention any of this.

Marinetti, having overheard their conversation, laughed and said, “A vegetarian? What would you even eat? Pasta al pomodoro?” He grimaced and said, “Pasta causes lassitude, pessimism and lack of passion. It is not suitable for preparing the Italian race for war.”

Casimiro said, “I thought you said no political discussion or speeches.”

Marinetti said, “I didn’t say anything political.”

Alessandro said, “Yes, you did.”

Marinetti said, “I suppose I did.”

Casimiro turned to the frog on his plate and ate it even as he suppressed a gag.

As the waiters cleared the plates, Marinetti said, “Poetry will now commence”. A few of the dinner guests took turns reading poetry aloud. During the poetry reading, the waiters brought out the next dish-something with sardines, judging by the smell-but they did not serve it, they only brought it back to the kitchen.

Marinetti said, “Poetry will now cease” and the waiters brought out the next course, ‘tactile vegetable garden’. Bowls with external textures, which changed across the surface of the bowl, were placed in front of each guest. Casimiro looked at the bowl placed in front of him, which was filled with vegetables. He felt the surface of the bowl with both hands, then, upon seeing everyone else at the dinner bury their faces in the bowls to eat like a dog, did the same. When he lifted his face from the bowl, chewing, a waitress standing across the table from him sprayed perfume in his face. He flinched and buried his face back in the bowl. He ate more vegetables and lifted his face again, and the waitress sprayed perfume in his face again. Droplets of perfume, dripped down his face, and the scent of Capri lemons and Calabrian bergamot burned his nose. This was going to be a long course.

Finally, the waiters cleared the table again and Marinetti said, “Poetry will now commence”. A few more guests read poems as the waiters brought out dessert. Then he said, “Poetry will now cease” and they began to eat.

Dessert was ‘Italian Breasts in the Sunshine’, or almond paste topped with a strawberry and sprinkled with black pepper. After they ate dessert and the waiters cleared the table, Casimiro slipped away from the dining room even as Marinetti and most of the guests lingered over coffee.

Casimiro woke up early the next morning, before even the sun had risen, and took the train from Milan to Genoa. As the train rolled across the Italian countryside, Casimiro felt himself become heavy inside, as if he was turning into the asphalt that one of his Futurist artist friends used to make sculptures. Perhaps he should find a way to incorporate asphalt into his next painting.

It was still morning when the train arrived in Genoa. As Casimiro stepped out into the seaside city and the ocean air filled his nostrils, he saw the morning sun shining overhead. He silently thanked Mussolini for making the trains run on time.

He went to the seaside and slipped into a tent, where he changed into his swimsuit. He emerged from the tent and went into the ocean to swim. He swam directly away from the shoreline as if swimming to Corsica.

As he swam, he remembered childhood visits to the seaside, during which he had been warned not to swim in the ocean because of sharks. Today, however, he did not need to fear any sharks because he was the shark. He was a streamlined killing machine, adapted to the ocean like how the science and machines that the Futurist movement exalted had adapted humans to modernity. He was well prepared to kill in the upcoming war that Marinetti and the Fascists spoke of.

With each meter that Casimiro swam forward, he had a choice to make: was he a streamlined killing machine, continuing to swim forward through the ocean, or was he an awkward, vegetarian human, on the verge of turning back to shore so that he could rest and breathe the air? He continued to swim forward, even as his muscles ached.

Suddenly, a fishing net caught him and enclosed around him. He struggled against the net, but there was no escape. He tried to bite his way out of the net, but the strong threads would not unravel against his teeth. His human limbs flailed under the water. As he resigned himself to drowning, the net lifted him and he spilled out onto a boat.

Lying on the floor of the boat, he looked up and blinked against the sun. A familiar man stood over him. Casimiro said, “Alessandro? What are you doing here?”

Alessandro said, “I sometimes work for my uncle’s fishing business to supplement my earnings as a poet.”

Casimiro said, “I would not expect you to do that.”

Alessandro said, “I can be unexpected” and crouched over Casimiro as he recovered on the boat.

Casimiro asked Alessandro about the Fascist party as he had wanted to the night before, but as he spoke, his Italian accent that he had worked hard to maintain faltered and a Slovene accent slipped out.

Alessandro caressed Casimiro’s pale skin and said, “You’re not really Italian, are you?”

Casimiro blurted, “no”. He could not maintain the facade any longer.

Alessandro said, “Me ne frego”. I don’t give a damn.

Casimiro stood up, jumped out of the boat, and swam towards the shore, his body streamlined, the waters gliding seamlessly over his rough shark skin.