by Edoardo Nesi
Bradycardic, blessed with a right arm almost double the size of his left, Vezzosi would never tire and never even seemed out of breath, not even during the most testing games on the hottest days. This invulnerability would soon dishearten every opponent, who would often have to hear him moaning about not being able to enjoy playing a full five sets, rather than just three.
He had begun playing tennis late, at the age of twenty-three, and his style was self-taught. His forehand was short and snapped like a boxer’s hook, always sending the ball down the line to torment the opponent’s backhand, with just a hint of topspin. It was a shot aimed at accelerating the exchange, and it forced the rival into a continuous adjustment of his game, which invariably generated confusion and, eventually, an error. His backhand, on the contrary, was surprisingly elegant, almost pretentious. Always sliced and long, it was the Beast’s favorite shot because its movement reminded him of a fencer’s lunge and allowed him to place on the other side of the court a low, slow ball that was spitefully different in weight and rotation and speed from the snapped ball that came from the forehand — a ball that the adversary would quickly find impossible to attack.
Patient, infinitely calm, almost incapable of unforced errors, and impossible to call a mere baseline player given the intensity and speed of his game — of all the great champions, his style was closest to that of Jimmy Connors — the Beast went to the net only to shake hands with his defeated rival or to pounce on the drop shots with which his desperate opponents would try to break the spider’s web of his rallies. Perhaps because of the short, hunched run it required to return, a drop shot would always irritate him deeply, and invited him to reply with another viciously diagonal drop shot that made it just over the net before falling dead on the court, impossible to reach.
Given his perpetual admiration of everything Anglo-Saxon, he only played with Dunlop rackets, making a point of distinguishing himself from the army of those using the more traditional, local, Maxima instruments, which, elastic as they were, would have been much better suited to his game than those rigid British tools. He only used strings of natural gut, always strung to a tension of eighteen kilograms.
Many of those who didn’t know him would smile at seeing him enter the court with that disdainful half smile and his gunslinger’s gait, and some would even stifle a laugh when he practiced his serve, undoubtedly the least effective shot in his repertoire.
Sadly, there was no real difference between his first and second serve, and Cesare Vezzosi could only dream of possessing the power of Roscoe Tanner or the Brancusian elegance of his idol, Adriano Panatta, with whom he once had the honor of playing a ten-minute rally, bursting into tears from the emotion immediately after, under the shower so that no one would notice.
So, seeing him contort himself in that confused, jumpy, almost comical twisting of arm and torso — the only result of which was an inoffensive ball floating slowly toward the other side of the court — his adversaries from outside of Tuscany assumed that they were up against a beginner or a “caveman,” as he was disdainfully called by a once-ranked, well-known Roman player in that delightfully small tennis club nestled in the pine groves of the seaside town protected by the smallest mountain range in the world.
A furious Vezzosi, offended by the sniggering of the audience of layabouts the gentleman had brought with him, and incensed to realize that Arianna and Vittorio, who were sitting close by, had also heard the joke, subjected the Roman to a merciless defeat by 6–0, 6–0, and had that snob running up and down the court for an hour and a half, making him sweat like a bricklayer from the second game onward and taking great pleasure in keeping him on court for as long as possible, without conceding as much as a game.
His volley shots, which he rarely used in singles, made him an excellent doubles player. Like an Australian or South African, he volleyed on instinct, hitting short and nasty shots that felt like slaps, while his lethal smash had none of the baroque movement of his serve, but rather was a tennistic sublimation of the swipe of a billhook.
A conservative in tennis as in politics, he was always dressed rigorously in white from head to toe, and showed a strong preference for anything by Lacoste. He could not bear decoration or color in tennis wear, and if he showed great disdain for anyone who appeared on court with a white T-shirt adorned with stripes, lozenges, or patterns — he would tolerate the Fila’s microstripes set that Borg wore — he refused outright to play anyone wearing a colored T-shirt.
He had equal contempt for left-handers, whose asymmetric game seemed to upset the abstract perfection of his idea of tennis, and disturbed his tactics. He so much enjoyed beating them that sometimes, in the changing room, he would ask them why on earth they had started playing tennis, if they could count solely on the hand of the devil.
After years of victories, Cesare Vezzosi barely signed up for tournaments reserved for nonranked players, partly out of boredom and partly due to his obvious superiority, choosing only to play the Tuscan championships, which he had won in singles uninterruptedly since 1969. While he was waiting to reach the age of forty-five to qualify for the veterans’ circuit, he amused himself by teaching the game to Vittorio, and training with dedication every other day of the week at the newly opened tennis club, where he also hoped to be able to find work opportunities, given that in his fast-expanding town there wasn’t a businessman, retailer, lawyer, accountant, or notary who didn’t play tennis and wasn’t more than happy to play for an hour and even lunch with Cesare Vezzosi, known as the Beast, the Best Unranked Tennis Player in Italy.
He had known Ivo Barrocciai for a long time, but only by sight. Their relationship had for years been limited to brief yet cordial greetings whenever they met, without ever speaking to one another or being introduced, because they both knew very well who the other was. This situation changed when Ivo — whose tennis was of purely aesthetic value and led to dozens of unnecessary errors and hazardous runs to the net following sliced serves that would have been much more effective on grass than on clay — began to stay for lunch at the club to avoid the tension that was now filling every moment he spent at home with his parents.
Thanks to his sunny character and the universally shared but momentarily unfounded certainty that he was on the verge of becoming a highly successful entrepreneur, Ivo was immediately given a place at the top table, the fulcrum of the club’s social life, where Vezzosi held court — adored as he was by other members because of the very particular philosophy of that tennis club (this consisted in giving precedence not to the richest, who were instead bombarded with insults because they worked too hard and didn’t enjoy life, but to those free spirits who best knew how to divide their time between tennis, friends, women, and very last of all, work) — and every day narrated the tales of victories past and present, both on the court and in the bedroom (Cesare had quite the reputation as a womanizer), and would always proclaim his battle cry to the hushed restaurant: “The same ones always win!”
One splendid day at the beginning of July 1973, following a long shower and a brief lunch of mozzarella and tomato, the Beast was making his way down the cypress-lined walkway that led to the parking lot, when he heard someone call, “Hey, Cesare!”
He turned and saw Barrocciai walking straight toward him.
— Hey, Ivo.
As Cesare instinctively tidied his damp hair to make himself more presentable to a potential client, Ivo smiled, came closer, and took his arm.
— Cesare, hi, I wanted to talk to you about work.
— Ah, well, if it’s about work, Ivo, you’ll have to excuse my hair. I’ve been meaning to go to the barber’s to get it cut for a week now…
— Don’t worry about that, it suits you. You’re a handsome guy. Listen, I need to ask you something…So…I’ve been looking at a piece of land for a while now, and I’m having a nightmare with lawyers, subdivisions, maps…all things that I don’t know the first thing about. However, it now looks like I’m finally able to buy the land, oka
y? And I think I’ve got it for a good price, but I’m not absolutely sure, and I would like your advice, Cesare, a little assistance, as I don’t understand all that much about real estate…
— No problem. Tell me, how much are we talking about?
— Ten thousand meters.
— Ten thousand meters? Seriously?
— Yes. And I want to build the new factory on it.
— Good.
— Trouble is, Cesare, I don’t know anyone in your field, and I never trust anyone. I can’t help it, it’s the way I am. And even if I don’t know you all that well, I always see you here at the club and you seem to be a decent person. That’s why I’m asking you…
— I see. Thanks.
— Am I wrong to trust you?
— Sorry? No, of course not!
— Okay, so, I don’t want to go to those big companies, I’ve never liked them…I prefer small scale, for everything. And I’ll tell you now, I can’t pay a lot, or up front. But I will pay. I’ll pay you your dues. Bit by bit, over time, but I will pay.
— I know you’ll pay, Ivo. Everyone knows that.
— Thanks. I’m glad to have a good reputation. Now, Cesare, I’ve come to ask you if you’re in. That is, if you would build the factory for me.
— Me?
— Yes, you. With your firm.
Having worked his way up through the ranks to become the head of works at one of the city’s largest building companies, for a few years now Cesare had been working for himself, taking on a laborer and a decorator. But he had specialized in small apartments, the most lucrative part of that booming business. He had never built a warehouse.
— Of course, yes, I’d love to. Who’s the engineer?
— No, no, I don’t want an engineer.
— What do you mean, you don’t have an engineer?
— No.
— Okay, so who’s the architect?
— I don’t want an architect either.
— But how…
— I need you to deal with those things, Cesare.
— But Ivo, you have to present your plans to the council. And they need to sign off on the project.
— Really?
— Of course. It’s the law.
— The law…, the shitty law, always getting in the way…I want my factory the way I like it. Don’t want someone else coming into my house and telling me what to do, understand? I’ve already worked it all out. It will be a beautiful factory. I just need someone very good to sort out the technical problems, and we’re there. So, do we have a deal?
Cesare watched Barrocciai light up, radiant as a boy, standing out against a hundreds-year-old cypress tree, and the only thing he could do was reciprocate that contagious smile. He had just been asked to play a game against himself — against Cesare, not the Beast — and the playing field wasn’t the 78-by-36-foot rectangle of red clay on which he had no adversaries, but that terrible, accident-strewn desert that he had always been afraid to face, harder than cement and more slippery than grass: work.
He immediately liked everything about the idea: the risk, the difficulty, the uncertainty of being able to complete it and the parallel certainty that, even if he didn’t manage it, he wouldn’t have to pay any great penalty. What really won him over, however, was that bold, injudicious young man who was making the proposition: son of the most respected and intractable manufacturer of blankets in the city, best known for his very flexible working schedule and his playboy antics, Ivo was clearly possessed by a fierce dream that was entirely invisible to everyone else.
It was a dream — it was clear from the dimensions of the warehouse he wanted to build, totally out of proportion with the small ambitions of the fearful mass of antlike owners of microscopic textile works that populated their city — that he had decided to dedicate his life to. A dream he planned to make true by spending a load of money he still did not have. Cesare now understood the irrational, courageous tennis Barrocciai loved so much to play.
— Okay, Ivo, yes. I’m in. Look, listening to you speak, I’ve thought of the perfect person to sign off on the project…
— Good. Come and see me in the office tomorrow, you know where we are, don’t you? Around midday. You can leave your car there, we’ll take mine and go see the lot, then we can start working it all out.
They shook hands in the tennis club parking lot, under the brilliant sun, surrounded by the gracious sound of tennis balls bouncing against natural gut strings.
— You’re married to Arianna, right?
Cesare smiled, nodded.
— My compliments, she’s a fantastic girl. We went to high school together.
— Oh, I didn’t know.
— We weren’t in the same class though. I’m older than her, by two years. She was always with Rosa. Rosa Gonfiantini, you know, the one who married my cousin Brunero. Do you know Brunero?
— Yeah, I know him. Of course I know Brunero, everyone does. He’s…he’s a little bit…
— Let’s just say he’s a bit of a prick. And that’s being kind.
— Exactly.
— He’s been copying me my whole life. When he found out I’m building a new factory, he decided he wants to build one for himself, right in front of mine…And how is Arianna? I haven’t seen her for years.
— She’s fine. She breaks my balls a bit to be honest, but she’s a good girl, at the end of the day.
— Ah, okay. Say hi to her for me. See you tomorrow, Cesare. Bye.
He smiled and turned toward his blue Alfetta. For a moment Vezzosi regretted having said his wife was a ball-breaker. He’d never said that to anyone, and it wasn’t even true. He shrugged, got into the car, and set off behind Ivo.
LET THE OTHERS CRY
ONE BITTERLY COLD DAY at the beginning of December, Vittorio came home late from school. He had stopped to collect the last chestnuts of the season along the way, filling the pockets of his trousers and his blue woolen overcoat.
A few weeks before, when he had taken a handful to Grandmother, announcing that he would like to eat them with his snack, she had cuddled him and explained that they weren’t real chestnuts — the ones that are delicious roasted and that he liked so much — but the poisonous seeds of another tree, the horse chestnut.
— Vittorio, do you know that the chestnut tree is a noble one? Have you ever seen it? It doesn’t grow in the cities, only in the hills, where the air is clearer.
She added with a smile that he was right to collect those horse chestnuts anyway, because even though they aren’t edible, if he kept one in his pocket it would protect him from colds and all other afflictions. At that point, Vittorio asked her if the horse chestnut tree was magic, a cross between a horse and a chestnut.
His mother wasn’t waiting for him at home, as she did each day. Instead, there was his father, looking very serious, who called him into the living room and made him sit on the sofa while he made himself comfortable in the armchair.
During the long silence that followed, Vittorio thought he was about to be severely told off, and was just about to say he had been late because he was collecting horse chestnuts to put them in his grandmother’s pocket, as she had seemed a little under the weather lately, when his father raised his head and told him that Grandmother had been taken ill that very morning. The ambulance had come and taken her to the hospital. His mother had gone with her; this was why she wasn’t home. This was why he was there.
— It’s serious, Vittorio, very serious.
And he kept silent for a while.
— Do you understand, my love?
His father had never called him “love.” Vittorio suddenly stood up:
— We need to go straight to the hospital Dad, we can’t waste any time. I’ve got lots of horse chestnuts…
His father’s face went blank and he looked away. Vittorio heard him inhale deeply and slowly exhale, and at that very moment, he realized.
— Is she dead, Dad?
His father walked over
and held him tightly, without noticing all of the shiny horse chestnuts that were pouring out of the child’s pockets and rolling across the rug. Even though Grandmother was Arianna’s mother, when she had become a widow, Cesare had been more than happy for her to come and live with them, and he loved her, as much as was possible for him.
— Yes, Vittorio. I’m afraid she is. Grandmother has gone to heaven. She’s in paradise now. With the angels.
He let himself be held for a moment, inert like a mannequin, then he feebly embraced his father.
—You need to be strong, my son. You must be strong.
Vittorio closed his eyes and saw Grandmother before him, resplendent and smiling, in her woolen cardigan with its tiny buttons, the lace collar, the flannel skirt, the fur-lined slippers she wore in the house because she always had cold feet, and all her silk shirts in pearl gray and pink and ivory, the flowery summer dresses she kept in the wardrobe with little bags of lavender and never wore because she was afraid of damaging them.
He remembered her beside him, just a few days ago, when the light had gone out in the house and in all the other houses, and the streetlamps had also gone out and the world had become dark and the house a cavern, and he had run to hide in the tepee in the middle of the living room and didn’t want to come out, and Grandmother had kneeled down in front of the tepee and had started to talk to him in a soft voice while striking the head of a match along the strip of sandpaper, and when that crackling flame appeared, filled with miraculous colors — yellow, red, orange, even a shade of blue — Vittorio had left the tepee to watch the match head move closer to the candle’s wick, and he had hoped that the wick was set alight before the flame burned its way up the match and caught Grandmother’s fingers, because he had been taught that you should always be afraid of fire and that every flame, no matter how small, could catch things or even people, because everything was flammable: the house, the school, his father’s car, the bus, the trees, the grass, paper, even his schoolbag and clothes were flammable — he himself was flammable.
