NOTE: This extract from The Taletellers delivers a vivid dosage of the consummate vision of a marvelous teller of tales. Peter Caputo's long-awaited epistolary novel is the multilayered tale of a professor and his students embroiled in an animated storytelling match. Spanning from New York City to Rome, these frame stories entwine within the far-reaching narrative. They ignite our astonishment of the dark realm from which tales originate, and reveal deep intimations of the primeval dreamscape. In the author's own words, these intimate tales within tales “teach us and the dead the poetry of wakefulness; how to dream without sleep.” In our words, Caputo's sonorous prose is a medium for the archangels of Rome.

The Taletellers will be available from Pen & Anvil in 2019.

- PR and DS, Editors

May 13 P.M.
Thomas

What gets developed in the dark room of god. You needed to know this tonight because it’s the dark rooms that produce the truth. Isn’t it the dark room that god waits in. To see what develops. To see what world he’s created. Who’s in focus. Who’s in hazy trouble. Who sits on the roof and waits hopelessly for his tales that never take effect. Who can bear the suffering. Who makes stories but trembles before them. It all moistens and dries in the dark room Thomas. The truth of god’s creation. And what does he do in the dark room. Do gods laugh or cry in the developing room. Are they night blind and reckless like the bulls of Seville. Do they have the gift of speech. And if Ahmed’s poem was wrong we will talk about nothing under that right and scented sky. For what shall we talk about with mute gods after all.
        The dark room of god produced a tale tonight. The thirteenth night of telling. The thirteenth tale. There’s a tale in every fear Thomas. Dark rooms dark cities dark gods dark Gypsies.
        You tapped your tale tonight as follows. Who are they. Who are they cried the ancient god in his dark room. Cried the ancient god with his beaded red shirt and rhinestone belt and flowers in his hat. The beaded god looking at his photos coming to life. Who are they that I should not know them in my own world. The film is yours said his soft-spoken apprentice. The camera is yours. The pavement on which they stand is yours. These Gypsies are indeed yours for you created them. The ancient god stared at the floor in meditation. You need to give me time my friend of the soft voice. Remember even you I didn’t know when the shapes and colors came in. When your picture was shiny and ready for the world even you I didn’t know.
        Out into the light they went and walked through the city of strangers. Tell me again how I create the world asked the ancient god. You think said his apprentice. You think the thought. You bring the breath and then you take the picture so as not to forget the names. And then you forget until the film is processed which sometimes takes centuries and by then you need more than a picture to remember. But it comes back eventually. As it did when you recognized me. As it will when you recognize the silent ones of the long skirts and bandannas.

May 14 A.M.
Dear Christina

        The next night I stayed in and paced around until I dropped on the bed and slept. Ahmed slept in the bedroom next to mine and in the middle of the night he woke me. If people don’t sleep Thomas they talk in their sleep once they finally give in to it and so you’re making too much noise and competing with these two downstairs who just beat the hell out of each other and are now having sex he said. Besides I’ve just had an idea to enroll at the university and take some science which is after all what I was supposed to be studying before you ran your life and that Chinatown duo before my eyes. Maybe science will give me back my body Thomas because I don’t feel it right now being weightless and all and it will also give my father an excuse to keep me here because my grandparents are asking for me one too many times.
        He wanted school. What do you want with school I asked and by the way wasn’t I the one who woke you up while you were trashing in your sleep. I was getting to that he said and turned the light on. Listen to these two going at it upstairs Thomas. They’re fucking like gladiators after a very messy performance before the emperor. Do you see the bites of animals on their torsos and oozing wounds and black bruises and gashes made by swords. They don’t know if they’ll see the dawn so they’re locked in ecstatic despair in each other’s loins. But here’s my other idea. I thought I could go to school while you were hard at work on the Gypsies. I’ll go to school with my new clothes and lunch box while you figure out the Gypsies and then you won’t have to stuff food into yourself as the furry humans once did and I won’t have to bury my fingers in my thigh every two hours or breathe on mirrors or test myself for a pulse because let’s face it Thomas we’re living somewhere but we know it’s not earth and so you’ve got to solve the story of the Gypsies. You’ve got to tell us the rest so that we know who and where we are.
        We went up to the roof and Renata was there once again stark naked in the heat and her broken violin sitting on the table. I’ll have to replace it she said. It can’t be fixed. Did Arturo break it over your head Ahmed asked staring at her full breasts and scars hidden by the night. Well he’s all right she laughed and you know we just get a trifle bored in the night. Ahmed moved closer to her for a better look and asked how could you be bored in Rome these days. If you were Roman you would make nothing of our headlines she said.
        Then to Italian. He suddenly switched to Italian Christina and said your thundering city signora is heating its own heat but I’m anxious to know what this means to you. Is it bomb and heat to fuck by. Or play a faster violin to. His tone was light his voice not raised. Renata laughed and said that reminds me I’ve got practice tomorrow morning and will need a violin and so walking past him and swaying her hips she said goodnight to his eyes moving with her.
        He went to school Christina with fingers in his thigh and his breath on mirrors and I knew there would be no phoning in. There would be no sign of his flickering old self phoning in his I’m sorry Thomas. For he would not be sorry this time. No part of him would return to apologize even for a few clear minutes. This is the eternal city not New York Thomas.
        He liked the Gypsy story. He liked it better than wall people and fat men in vests. Better than all the others Thomas. And the taunting continued. Tell us what happened. Tell us this tell us that Tommy. But this time I didn’t care Christina. It was too late to care about his betrayal. Neither one of us would phone in. We would not save each other. He would know this of course. What could I care about the quality of nightmares. And what could you Ahmed.
        So I hit the streets again but this time not to search for them because I knew that I could walk simply. I simply had to walk and they would show up eventually. Either I was everywhere or they were but it only mattered that the odds for collision were very high. The heat and pounding nearly destroyed my feet blistering and cut drained and bandaged and cut over again and then I bought a pair of hiking sandals that saved me from having to walk barefoot in the city as some were doing. If I was afraid of anything it wasn’t them. I didn’t fear them any more than I would have feared Rosella. If I felt fear I feared their story. I feared their story which held me without regard.
        What took me to the Campo dei Fiori. Where I found myself at sunrise looking at Giordano Bruno’s statue. Burned at the stake in 1600 at 2 A.M. I had to ask him something. Was he still burning in this square in this Roman heat that never surrenders and did he have to relive the flames of his own martyrdom not every morning at 2 A.M. as he did in the past but now all day. Through the Roman heat of day and night. I lit a match at the base of the statue to make him speak. Tell me if that black hood always burns but never sighs to ashes. I thought of food also Christina. Of all that would be sold in this beautiful food market with its stalls and vendors and which would soon open.
        In this beautiful market was a man setting up his stand under a large white umbrella while his sons unpacked the crates and heard my question. Could I buy food I asked and told them about the statue’s perpetual misery. One of the sons about eighteen in jeans and very black beard spoke to me stuffing fruit and cheese into my bag and pushing away my money. That statue he said. Giordano Bruno’s statue is nothing in this city and you sir I could tell by your accent you’re not a Roman and can’t be expected to know these things. Think sir he said about all the statues.
        His father much shorter than he with clean-shaven glowing face and blue eyes interrupted. Statues don’t feel anything he said. And his son laughed and said while fingering my new white shirt torn with the buttons off think sir. Think about statues stone and soil that have become as modern as our automobiles and hardly care about the flames or disagreements of the past. They have changed with the times. Giordano Bruno doesn’t care and no longer faces the Vatican with his rage hidden under his ugly hood as some still say. That’s the fancy talk of artists who are infected by the past. Think of the stones of the forum or the Colosseum. They contain the gases of our time and no longer worry about the things they have seen. Believe me Giordano Bruno doesn’t worry and that’s a good thing.
        But I replied Christina. With my mouth full I replied that once I heard a similar speech about a famous man of fury. Thank you for the food and most of all for telling me where to go. And I’ll warn you as I’m leaving. You’re burning the ground with your sweat so please be careful. And you sir said the father. What is protecting you from the heat. Maybe all the food in your mouth and in your bag. Perhaps I said but be it food or the grace of gods I’m not afraid of the heat.
        Think sir of the Colosseum stones. I knew where to go and made my way there. Though it was very early I sat outside in the shade of an empty archway near the entrance with my water and food and not wanting to must have slept for hours without interruption. My eyes opened. No one around outside the walls. I bought a ticket and walked sleepy inside and here at high noon the place was fuller than I had ever seen it. Packed on every level and very still without the cell phones you often see here and without the tourist’s third eye camera. This crowd was everyone from teenager to very old. Male and female well dressed shabby and striped and looking. Really looking at this old stadium they took it inside themselves and I took it in with them. Is this a research team I asked but they didn’t know each other. They didn’t speak and just took it inside of them. I thought Romans never came here and what do you do with it I asked because I myself could do nothing with the place once it was inside of me Christina. And I had no sign from them. They simply stood and looked out over what was once the arena staring down into the underground tunnels.
        Are you taking in the fear of those huddled in the underground tunnels and about to surface or are you watching the spectacles above ground. I had no clue but did find Maria there in a short black skirt without Tosti next to her. There were others from that movie theater. There was the bus driver but not in uniform with deep-set eyes and very flabby jaw. There were some students including one I knew by her waist-length hair and red-framed glasses. Now they all began to depart slowly and I hid so as not to let Maria see me. And when they were gone and the place deserted and no one else entered in the midday heat that singed your clothes the Gypsies entered with tickets in hand. I’m not surprised I whispered for the son at Campo dei fiori has sent me right to you.
        And so in the dark of an archway at field-level I hid again and watched them stand on the upper tier relaxed now and not fighting or bickering. I crouched so as to have a safe view this time noticing the teenage girl who was quite beautiful with dark hair thick eyebrows and black and piercing eyes. I wanted to but didn’t know why. I wanted to kill her and she just a teenager in a colorful skirt. Was she the most potent of the six. Was it her power I hated. She took from her pocket the cell phone and in seconds was in the larger Gypsy world who knows where. She talked lively with laughter and the Colosseum was gone where minutes ago it rang with all of its bloody history and tears and lamentations. All of its love and hate stupidity and circus and all the sores of its swordsmen and grunting animals and the happy hunger sounds of spectators.
        Now what did I see Christina but half the place gone and half only because they couldn’t get rid of it all and I mean whole patches of the building were missing as your eyes circled but not the section I was sitting in. Whole pieces as if blasted and removed by the wrecking crew and from where I crouched I could see clear into the outside with a perfect view of the Roman Forum. Did the teenage beauty give the order by phone or did she receive it.
        Crouching I cursed them with my eyes closed and head between my knees and I closed tight like a child and tried to imagine. Bloody gladiators dragged into the mortuary and tested for dead with the red-hot iron and martyrs waiting in pitch-soaked clothing. I tried to hear the dying animals with their primal sounds that couldn’t reach even their own ears in the roar. Stakes trumpets and thumbs I could see in the sightless black in front of me and as much as I wanted to follow them I couldn’t open my eyes and didn’t move so they left without me and I was alone with half of the Flavian Amphitheatre shot with much larger holes than the Romans or their tourists would see by sun or moon. And I didn’t open my eyes but made my way out by the touch of stone blind with no hand on my arm. Outside now yes I opened my eyes. Heat and no one around and the building restored to its guidebook truth.
        Ahmed wasn’t home but next to his bed I found a picture of his sister. Why this publicity photo. A handsome face which looked like his. Thick but much straighter hair and a silly tilt of the head at a foolish angle glossy magazine style and a pathetic photo for a suicide this was. But the eyes large and oval seemed all friendship with the world and without signs of the grave and in that confusion of love and death lay Ahmed now in Rome and now one octave above the boy who laughed at me in the New York classroom. I heard Roberto and the TV on the roof and went up.
        Ahmed’s sister I said to him. Tell me how she died. He had installed the table umbrellas and was now sitting under seven feet of white like an angel and with a man who looked exactly like him tall with black metal glasses and brushed back hair and the same beautiful hands. I was worried about you all morning he said turning off the television because of the explosion at the railroad station and because I worry that one day you’ll just walk off and take the first train out of here. Ahmed is not home yet and I’m still worried about him on his way to the university to sign up. I watched the people carried out Tommaso and I prayed to my wife that I wouldn’t see a familiar face.
        This is my friend who is old like me and you know Tommaso it doesn’t look like anyone cares now that it’s part of Roman life. But even for Rome the attitude is too relaxed and maybe Renata is right that no one really fears a bomb which is more television than real. Here his friend didn’t agree. Ah but Roberto there are screaming children and worried parents and Roberto waved him off to say we’ve heard all of that from Inspector Tosti but I’ve been watching their faces and it hasn’t taken them very long. They polyurethane themselves.
        Polyurethane and so I discovered he had been a carpenter and this man his partner and no wonder everything in the building so beautiful. This partner rose to check the plants and Roberto lowered his voice slightly to say everyone will get used to it as they will the heat. Look at us up here in this inferno. I no longer even think about it except to worry about those plants who will not be put inside no matter how much I protest. And Tommaso I’ll tell you that Ahmed’s poor sister died quite quietly with a children’s book in her lap and some pills in her stomach and no note to say goodbye and now they have one more reason to be sad he said looking over at his plants and his partner agreeing.
        But he wasn’t dead. Ahmed returned and had given up the jeans. He had given in to khaki pants and white tee shirt and the heat which had made his eyes dull and agitated. What will it take Thomas to go to school in the old fashioned way he asked and added that he had indeed enrolled at Rome University to study biology. With the course beginning that morning he made his way through a labyrinth of science buildings. I took my seat in the front row of a large lecture room. It was interdependency Thomas and a good topic and I could feel the heat off everyone’s body and I could smell them too. Even with all their well-scrubbed limbs and shiny hair I could smell them and I knew that smell was about interdependency. And the professor Thomas.
        She told a story this mild professor. About a trip she took to the Amazon and how one afternoon she began to cry in front of her colleagues who told her to stop it there was no time to be sentimental. She protested she wasn’t sentimental but simply seeing what was and knowing that the evidence was sufficient. But the guide who was with them who knew the jungle couldn’t understand her either. And then she returned to Italy and wrote up her research and fought with her colleagues and ecology groups and the government and she pounded and spat and made the papers and knew after this trip. Really knew she said the extent of the problem. She could see what was happening and bought a pocket watch with a loud tick and put a crack in the face and she carries it around with her so that she can hear the ticking often. Well Thomas I looked over to her purse on the table in front of the room and I heard the ticking and felt something rather ecstatic if you’ll permit the religious note and I passed out to the lovely beat of its pulse. And they were all around me Thomas with water and wind and a quite beautiful girl was holding my head with large eyes and short hair and big earrings.
        Known for disturbances. You’ve been known to cause disturbances in the classroom I said. And what else did you do Ahmed. This woman with the watch in the purse did you laugh at her too. Did you sit there laughing yourself into a tick tock. There was nothing to laugh at Thomas and no compulsion to disrupt and why should there be if she was telling her story. And who cared if it was true or false. It slowed my pulse and drew a beautiful dark. Now what do you think of that clock Thomas and the sad professor. And what do you think of the sweet blackness they sent me into. And on the subject of blackness where is my Gypsy update. Have you seen them. Do they crack the faces of watches also. Do they wear short hair and big earrings. Where is the next chapter of their story. You promised.
        Maybe you don’t need any more stories Ahmed. Maybe you fell to the bottom of that clock story and should give up on stories. No he said. I fell to the bottom of my desk and now I need to rest because I’m still a little dizzy.
        So I sat with the beautiful furniture. In the living room for hours Christina with all of Roberto’s beautiful wood handsomely carved. For hours I stared and now noticed what an exquisite carpenter he must have been with his beautiful hands long and loving over his cherry wood tables and bookcases finely carved at the top but empty except for those unknown Rizzoli books which Ahmed never glanced at. And now what to do with Cecilia or this boy sleeping in the next room and dreaming the ticking clock. Maybe dreaming its hands backwards and forward. What to do I didn’t know except that clocks I didn’t want any more than birds on balconies or lonely chairs before walls or cloth with printed strawberries or fans with printed Roma or big clocks of the train station variety but they were here in Rome with me and I couldn’t run from them though I wanted to. Though I wanted to run from vanishing buildings and Gypsies on cell phones I ran to them instead. Did you also run to what horrified you Christina. When you crossed over and saw the jigsaw life of the dead did you run to it in fear.

May 14 P.M.
Thomas

        As long as the Colosseum stands then Rome will stand. If Rome falls the world shall end. So said Venerable Bede. This morning’s talk of the Colosseum brought his words to the roof in the evening. What shall you make of an historian’s oratory. He spoke in the tongue of high drama and cast his words down the ages for fools to dress and adorn. But what if Thomas. If high drama is the language of prophecy and not artifice. Months ago you witnessed it. You who saw them snuff out the Colosseum witnessed what they could do with those ancient stones. And Rome and the world. So if you’re fighting against the end of the world you’re losing. And your tales are not bringing the world back if it’s thinning each day. You can’t buy the Roman crowds by hallucination. Their hell and heat hallucination is stronger. And you know this by the happy stylish folk with their fancy silk mourning sashes embroidered each with a different touch. Each with the artist’s love. So many who have lost someone to fire and blast are wearing them around the waist. Women and men alike. It’s a Spanish look. Gypsy look. To think about it is to bleed from the foot Thomas.
        Tonight you sat at the top of that wide stone stairway on the Via Magnanapoli looking down to the base of Trajan’s Column. What tale could you tell in a happily vanishing world. The tale of the Invisible Roman. You spoke in the voice of the lonely Invisible Roman who wanted back his form. Who wanted back symmetry and geometry and mass. And heaviness he wanted. Things that weighed one down. That were lost and missed. Things that hurt. Who wanted pain back. Quietly on the steps you spoke in the voice of the Invisible Roman who said this is my story. I’ve been removed from the air and demand reinstatement. Who wanted back his form and the pain of visibility.