by Edoardo Nesi
— Ivo, just a second. Let’s go over it together.
Pasquale leaned forward to look at the plans. He could tell it was a factory, a big one.
— Please, tell me exactly what it is you don’t like, because I want to understand properly, and you need to be happy with it.
Barrocciai sneered.
— All of it…I mean, none of it. I don’t like any of it at all. Come on, Cesare, it’s not right. It doesn’t say anything to me. It’s a normal factory. It’s the same as all the others. It’s old, understand? I want my factory to be completely different. I want it to be new. I didn’t buy all that land to build an old factory!
Vezzosi shrugged.
— Ivo, I’ve told you many times we have to talk about it, but you were never available, and so I had to work on my own initiative, to save time. I thought you were in a rush.
— Of course I’m in a rush. You can see for yourself that this new business has hit the ground running, and that we can’t stay in this cubicle one week longer. We need to start building the new factory now, understand? But it needs to be beautiful, absolutely stunning!
Pasquale stared at him, astonished. It was the first time he had heard someone give so much importance to beauty.
— Okay, Ivo, let’s start again from the beginning. I’ve spent three months on calculations and designs, but that’s not important now. You want something new, and I’ll give you something new. But please, Ivo, let’s agree on some of the technical details now, okay? You want a warehouse that covers five thousand square meters, with an internal courtyard, right?
— Yes. But I want it on two levels, Cesare. I want two floors, not one. I want to go higher than the others, understand? In every possible sense. I want to see the horizon. A man’s gaze must roam free, Cesare. If I have a wall in front of me, how many ideas do you think I’m going to get? So I want a building with ten thousand square meters of floor space. On the ground floor I need all the warehouses with the raw materials, and all the machinery, spinning, warping, and weaving. On the second floor, I want all the offices, the sampling department, and storage.
— Okay.
Cesare answered immediately, instinctively, hoping Ivo would not notice that he was startled by the enormousness of the challenge. A ten-thousand-square-meter factory! Over two floors! To be built by someone whose greatest achievement was a block of four apartments of fifty square meters each, which Pasquale had painted on his own!
Citarella saw that Vezzosi had leaned over to write on the blank sheet of a notepad:
TEN THOUSAND SQUARE METERS. OVER TWO FLOORS.
— But Ivo, if it has to be over two floors, then we will have to build elevators and freight elevators and perhaps even conveyor belts…
— Sure.
— How many?
— How many? Cesare, are you asking me? You need to tell me how many.
— Yes, of course. You’re right. Okay. Yes.
There was a long pause during which the two men looked one another in the eye, engrossed in their own, very different thoughts.
— Ivo, I’m sorry, there’s one thing I don’t understand. If you put all the machinery and wool on the ground floor, you are going to have space left over, and a lot of it, because no matter how big you make the offices and the storage, they can’t take up more than, I don’t know, a thousand square meters? Maybe two thousand? What are you going to do with the rest of the space?
Pasquale saw Barrocciai stand up and begin to pace up and down the cubicle, his hands in his pockets, his head slightly bowed. He was wearing flannel trousers in a light-gray mélange, handmade leather shoes, a blue jacket, and a blue-and-gray-striped tie. Pasquale was very impressed by his elegance. He hoped that, one day, he too would be able to dress like that, perhaps for a special occasion.
Barrocciai didn’t open his mouth for an entire minute, then turned his back on them and started to look outside the box, toward the gray wall of the warehouse, and Pasquale wondered what could that young man see, instead of the wall. Florence? Milan? England? America? The future?
— A swimming pool.
Pasquale turned to look at Cesare, who was staring straight at Ivo’s back.
— Excuse me?
— A swimming pool, Cesare. I want a swimming pool on the factory roof.
— A grimace that was only vaguely reminiscent of a smile spread over Cesare’s face.
— You mean a water tank? In case of a fire? Or some tank for rainwater, for the dye works…?
Barrocciai turned toward them. He was smiling.
— No tank, Cesare, no dye works. I don’t want dye works. I want a swimming pool. Something I can swim in, in the summer. A place where I can bring my clients to sunbathe and be in peace.
— Sorry, what?
— I said it in Italian, didn’t I? I want a swimming pool. On the roof of the factory.
— Are you joking? Are you pulling my leg?
— No, I’m not pulling your leg. I want a swimming pool.
—…
—…
— And how big is it going to be, this swimming pool?
— Big, Cesare. Very big.
— Yes, but how big? How long? Five meters? Ten?
— I want an Olympic swimming pool.
— An Olympic swimming pool? Twenty-five meters?
— No, Cesare. An Olympic swimming pool is fifty meters long, not twenty-five.
Cesare watched him silently for thirty seconds.
— Come on, don’t mess around…
Pasquale Citarella smiled, full of admiration. He had immediately understood that Barrocciai wasn’t joking, he really wanted an Olympic swimming pool on the roof of his factory — so this is what he saw when he was staring at the warehouse wall!
It was crystal clear. You could tell just by looking at him. His eyes were shining with the same look his father had had that day, when he had gone back to Ariano and told his family that they would be moving north, all of them, in a week’s time. It was that look a man is rarely allowed to have in life, because life is a bastard and kicks you down every day, and wants to flatten you, knock you right to the floor, and it always wins and you always lose, but on those marvelous and incredibly rare days in which for some reason you wake up one morning and feel you are truly alive, and all around you the world is shiny and perfumed and you can see the future and you are certain it will be full of good fortune and wonderful things, and so you find the courage to say what you have wanted to say for the longest time, and you finally make that decision you have always been scared of making and from which you can never back down because there is no turning back from some decisions, and you accept all of the consequences, good or bad, certain that they will only be good.
You, Vezzosi, you just can’t understand these things, thought Citarella as he saw Barrocciai move closer to Cesare, look him in the eyes, and place a hand on his shoulders.
— Cesare, listen to me. Are you with me or not?
As always, Vezzosi answered immediately, ever obedient to that ironclad impulse that obliged him never to let on he wasn’t prepared for something.
— I’m with you. Of course I’m with you.
— So help me do what I want to do, please. I know it is difficult. It’s difficult for me too. Look where we are now…And he held out his arms as if he wanted to embrace the cubicle.
— Cesare, I need you to tell me now whether I can count on you, or if I have to look for someone else. Because I want to move on.
— No, damn it! Of course you can count on me.
— And on me, Barrocciai! You can count on me, and my entire family!
Ivo and Cesare turned toward Pasquale, who had been unable to stand in silence before all that passion. The three of them looked at one another. They were about the same age.
— Thank you. What’s your name? Sorry, I’ve forgotten.
— Me? Pasquale Citarella.
— Good, I’m Ivo Barrocciai. Thanks again, Pasquale. So, Cesare: I want
a factory over two floors, five thousand square meters per floor. The machines all on the ground floor, the offices upstairs. And above the offices, I want an Olympic swimming pool, complete with diving board and starting blocks. On the factory roof. Okay? Can you build it for me?
— Yes, I can.
— Are you sure?
— Yes, of course.
— But up until now you’ve only built apartments, right?
— Yes.
— No factories.
— No.
— So tell me why I shouldn’t call someone else to build my factory. Someone with experience.
Citarella swallowed.
— Why? What do you mean, why? Because we know one another. Because you trust me, because I’m a serious man, because…because quite frankly, Ivo, it hardly takes a Brunelleschi to build a factory, come on! I have seen plenty of them built from scratch! And I can get help, if I need it. I will get some good people in…and then there is Pasquale…
— No.
— What do you mean, no?
— No. This isn’t why I’m giving you the job. I’m giving it to you because I don’t want someone with experience that breaks my balls, an old fellow who tells me what to do and tries to get me to change my mind.
— Of course, Ivo. You’re right!
— I wouldn’t have any fun.
— Exactly.
— Okay. So, when can we get started?
— Right away. It’s going to cost you a fortune, Ivo.
— I know. It’s not a problem. I’ll find the money. You, Pasquale, are you a builder? Have you got your own business? How many employees do you have? Five? Ten?
— Mr. Barrocciai, sir…Pasquale cleared his throat and turned bright red, his heart suddenly beating faster than ever, terrified by the possibility of being excluded from the project.
— Don’t call me sir. From now on you will call me Ivo.
— Okay, well, Mr. Ivo, thank you. I’m…well, to tell the truth, I work for Mr. Vezzosi, and I’m a painter, but I can do building work. No problem. I’ll give it my all, Mr. Ivo, don’t you worry. I can learn. It’s not a problem at all. It’ll be fine, Mr. Ivo. Don’t you worry.
Ivo stared at Cesare for a few seconds, then burst out laughing and couldn’t stop, and they all started to laugh so hard that Giuliana had to cover the mouthpiece with one hand and knock on the glass to tell them to be quiet, because she had to write down another order from Germany and she couldn’t hear a thing.
MY LODEN
— BAROCCIAI, LISTEN TO ME. You’re making a big mistake.
Leo Gabriel removed his glasses and laid them on the leather pad of his desk. He leaned into the back of his armchair and took a long deep drag on his Marlboro.
Having canceled three appointments at the last minute, he had finally agreed to meet Ivo in his small, elegant office with dark wood paneling on the walls, in Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele.
The agent had grown fond of the voice of this Tuscan guy who, in their frequent telephone calls, had always been extremely polite in that cheerful accent of his, and so he had granted him a fourth appointment, to which Ivo had arrived with a two-liter bottle of fresh, fragrant olive oil the color of emeralds.
Leo Gabriel was universally respected in the world of textiles. Now close to sixty, thin, not short but gnomelike, and still blessed with most of the thick, straw-colored hair he had been born with, Gabriel was known for always being tough in his dealings, but honest and very, very good at his job.
Born into his profession, he had two lines of business that were both complementary and opposed. The first saw him as a sort of luxury wholesaler, selling classic imported fabrics from the finest English cottons for shirting to Harris tweed, from Irish linen to Shetland wool, from cheviot to moleskin, which he sold by the meter in his shops in Milan and Rome, and distributed to dozens of outlets throughout Italy and Ticino in Switzerland. His second line of business was, however, the one Gabriel owed his reputation and most of his income to: an established textile agency which employed a formidable, personally selected network of aggressive subagents who were bound by contract to dress and speak like him, and sold the best combed wool fabrics from Biella and the most elegant Como silks throughout Europe, Great Britain, and North America.
— Barrocciai. My name is Barrocciai, Mr. Gabriel. With two r’s.
To overcome the discomfort of hearing his surname being so horrendously mangled, Ivo cast a sidelong glance at the photo inside the large, ornate silver frame that occupied pride of place on the desk, facing the agent: two indistinct men in tuxedos were shaking hands, and the one smiling more happily was a young Gabriel.
— Yes, of course, please forgive me, Barrocciai. In any case, that is the reality of the matter. Loden isn’t produced where you come from, and even though yours isn’t that bad —
— Hold on, what do you mean by “it isn’t that bad”?
— Well, it’s a fine fabric, okay. It is a fine, shiny loden…and you certainly gave it a good hand, I’ll give you that.
He delicately rubbed the fabric between his thumb and index finger, without rubbing the underside as is commonly done by the ignorant.
— What did you make it with?
— It’s a rather original mix, Mr. Gabriel. Well, it’s really a factory secret, but I’ll tell you. There is Australian wool — no fleece, just carbonized skirtings — some twenty-micron noils, and polyester.
— Noils? Do you mean the waste from combing? The fluff that falls under the machines?
—Yes. That fluff is very fine, Mr. Gabriel.
— I see, Mr. Barrocciai uses noils for his loden. And you also use polyester…How much?
— Thirty percent.
— Thirty percent? That much?
— Certainly. It makes the fabric smoother and more resistant, and it prevents creasing in the fabric. It’s also far less expensive than wool.
Gabriel nodded and plunged the Marlboro into a decorated ceramic ashtray that was already half full with cigarette ends.
— Well, it’s a fine fabric, but we sell very little fine loden, Barrocciai. You see, it’s the more classic loden that sells best.
Ivo had moved to the edge of his seat, and was having trouble holding back from singing the praises of his brand-new quality, so much lighter than the one that was made in Tirol, and at the same time finer and shinier and more resistant to any mishandling: a unique article, with no market competitor and an excellent price for such quality, aptly baptized Ursula in honor of Ursula Andress.
Why wouldn’t it work? Ivo could not make sense of it, but he chose to contain himself. He had come to hear Gabriel’s opinion, not for a fight. He knew that it was futile, stupid even, to interrupt and, even worse, contradict someone whose opinion you have requested: it was best to keep quiet, listen, and then decide if the opinion was useful or not. But it took self-control. In some cases, such as this one, a great deal of self-control.
— You see, my dear boy…Gabriel paused, lingering pensively over the lighting of another cigarette.
He was wearing a white shirt with finger-width blue stripes, red suspenders, a gray unbuttoned vest, light-beige corduroy trousers, and shoes of orange leather. He definitely has a lover, Ivo thought, that’s why he’s dressed like that, and he’s going to see her tonight. The thought of Gabriel holding a voluptuous younger woman in those thin little arms made him want to laugh, and he had to fight hard to hold it in. The agent inhaled long and hard on his Marlboro, and continued.
— Let me explain, Barrocciai. You see, loden is not simply a fabric or an overcoat or a jacket or even, as many think — especially in America — a color. Loden is a concept. A way of life. It is the most Germanic — no, Teutonic thing in existence. It brings all the Krauts together, it’s the textile equivalent of the Anschluss, understand?
— Yes, but Gabriel —
— Please let me finish. I was saying…, where was I?
— At Anschluss.
— Tha
t’s it…Now I’ve forgotten what I was going to say. Ah, yes. Ideas regarding the nature of loden vary depending on the country. In Tirol, in Austria, and even in Bavaria, it’s used for sports coats, whereas in Italy and Spain, my dear boy, loden is used for elegant overcoats, and is extremely fashionable among lawyers, accountants, barristers, doctors…They even wear it to go to the theater.
— Yes, of course, but —
— And there is no explaining it, believe me. Nobody has ever done a marketing campaign to create this preference. To put it simply, it’s what the market wants, and the market is unique in every country: whimsical, sometimes even irrational, but above all else, sovereign. Never forget that, Barrocciai: sov-er-eign.
Forcing himself not to interrupt the lesson, Ivo looked out of Gabriel’s office windows. The Christmas of 1975 was on its way, and the Galleria was full of people going in and out of shops. From the way they stopped to shake hands, embrace one another, and exchange greetings, it seemed the Milanese all knew one another. Apart from one fabulous lady wearing a mink coat and another wrapped in an exquisite sable, everyone was wearing overcoats that were so beautiful they managed to lift Barrocciai’s spirits. Even from behind the windowpanes, it took him no more than a simple glance to recognize which prized fiber had been used in those wonderful garments: alpaca wool in the warm colors of the sun-scorched Andes, the icy sheen of precious mohair, the comforting luster of cashmere, the dry, austere elegance of camel hair.
It was a fashion show, and the Galleria a monumental catwalk: you could admire all kinds of shapes and cuts in an astonishing display of total freedom of inspiration and style. All kinds of prints — even the most daring — were used to embellish overcoats, greatcoats, capes, jackets, stoles, duffle coats, and suits: dogtooth in all sizes and colors, Prince of Wales enlivened by the brightest threads, the subdued or bold tones of pinstripes, the splendor of fishbone in all sizes and combinations, the large chevrons, and then the old Scottish joke that is tweed, which looks rough but can be as soft as clouds, the jovial harlequin buttons of the knickerbockers, the light swell of mouflons, the simple elegance of all the loden mixes and the glamorous, inimitable richness of astrakhan.
