The echo of the door knocker

‘L-eku tal-habbata’ Author: Joe Camilleri Publisher: Horizons Year: 2022 Pages: 252

The door knocker is a staple feature of the old houses in Malta, especially in rural areas, although some, or many of them today, have electric bells.

The knockers, however, are kept on, not just for their traditional look and sound but also for their practical use. Their sound is more peremptory than many electric bells – they force anyone who is in the house to go and see who it is. They may welcome but they may also repel.

The author has already published two novels and six collections of short stories, some of which have been reviewed on these pages. So, this is the seventh collection – a reputable record.

As usual, the setting is more or less Gozo, specifically Victoria. But the stories vary.

The last story in the collection has as its title, The Door Knocker. It tells of an old decrepit building in one of Gozo’s lost alleys, barely passable by cars. The house, like so many old houses, has a knocker, the same as in the past. The house too has a past, long buried in so many years. But soon it will be pulled down in the current craze of development.

The story, Fula Maqsuma, takes off from a consideration and appreciation of an erotic painting by Gustave Courbet, dated 1886, showing two naked lesbian women entwined together, and then moves on to Lucien Freud’s parallel painting of two men. All this to introduce a story about one man whose mother for a reason that will come clear only at the end, always gave him things by two.

The Saint George of Victoria background is a rather confused introduction to the story Is-siegha tad-dragun based on a small boy’s fascination and terror with the figure of the dragon that enhances every statue of San Gorg. During childhood the dragon terrorised all those boys with guilty consciences. Today, however, the fiery dragon is something in one’s body for which he is being treated.

One delightful story is Girien about a hairstylist, Giulia, (unfortunately misspelled throughout the story) who fills her mind with all sorts of misconceptions when she gets to know that the old and shuttered house next door has a new resident and that he is a rich Swede who does not believe in God. But that was before she meets him and he becomes her client. And again, that was before she glimpsed him in a bar.

Stqarrija is a strong story about a son who gets up enough courage to admit to his parents that he is gay, as a result of which his father kicks him out of the house. But then his father dies and something from the past uncovers another side to the upholder of morality.

Other stories decry the blight of construction that is gobbling up what remains of the countryside. Or the reality about the elderly forced to stay indoors by the pandemic and then taken to places that remind them of the past, and of their sins in the past.