by Edoardo Nesi
Germano had blushed, said “Ah!” and then he repeated it — “Ah!” — and then he murmured about how, perhaps, for that client and only for him, it might be possible to try and make Cabora in periwinkle.
— So, guys, listen up, Vari announces, I went to see the client yesterday evening. He said he can’t approve the periwinkle because it’s cloudy in Milan, but as soon as the sun comes out, he says he’ll look at it again and will give us an answer.
Germano nods, smiles, throws a knowing glance in the direction of his two assistants, shrugs, and shouts, “Cheer up Barrocciai! You need patience with artists!”
Then he calmly puts his head back down and continues to untangle the wool, but there is no sarcasm or derision in his smile, nor is there any anger, and Ivo wonders if this is how the botteghe d’arte of fifteenth-century Florence worked, leaving the artist free to make any request, even the most illogical, while the shop boys stood mute and admiring before the genius, who was beyond judgment and had to be forgiven every weakness.
There is a long silence, then Ivo turns to Vari.
— And now would you mind telling me why you’re wearing just one shoe?
A FUTURE THAT WOULD NEVER END
WHEN MORENO BARBUGLI WENT TO TELL HIM he had to stop working immediately and consider himself on vacation — Barrocciai’s orders — Pasquale Citarella was about to finish painting the back wall of the huge raw materials warehouse, oblivious to the fact that the wall was destined to be permanently hidden from view by columns and columns of wool bales. He protested and asked to finish the job, but Barbugli wouldn’t be moved.
— This deed has so been willed where One can do Whatever He wills, O Citarella!
As they made their way along the narrow corridor between the rows of jute bales that contained every textile fiber known to man, Pasquale realized he was very tired as his muscles autonomously began to release the tension, in anticipation of the needed rest that would follow.
Given the vast dimensions of the warehouse and the fact it was so well insulated, it had its own microclimate, so when he walked out into the open, he felt as if he had walked into a wall of hot air, and after a few steps he stopped and closed his eyes to enjoy the great heat that was pouring down from the sky onto his chest and his shoulders. It was the same sun that was warming Maria, who had gone to the seaside with Dino and Tonino for the four weeks of August, waiting for Pasquale, who had missed the first but was about to enjoy the remaining three.
He couldn’t wait to take her out for a stroll and watch the sea with her on a bench, at sunset, surrounded by children and dogs and tourists, and hear her breathe quietly, that exceptional woman he had had the fortune to marry, and then go with her to get an ice cream and make fun of her barbaric (a term coined by that rascal, Tonino) tastes, which always led her to choose chocolate and lemon together. And go to the cinema with her and ask her to explain the plots of the films that lately eluded him more than ever. And lie in the sun next to her for those few minutes she could manage before escaping to the shade, smiling happily, to finish the crossword. And buy her something useless despite her resistance, because she wanted all their money to be put in the bank and never thrown away.
Maria, Maria, Maria. No one else existed for Pasquale!
He loved Dino and Tonino more than life itself, of course, but they were still boys: when they turn eighteen, he will teach them a few things, but until then, it was best that Maria dealt with them and their problems.
All he was asking for himself was to be able to sleep until ten o’clock without anyone knocking at the door. Then he would put on a fresh short-sleeved white shirt and a pair of Bermuda shorts, go to the bar for his croissant and cappuccino, and smoke a cigarette in sacred peace while walking slowly to the beach, sandals on his feet and Ray-Bans protecting his blue eyes.
Pasquale wanted this and nothing more. He certainly wasn’t asking for more rest, because a healthy man like him didn’t need any rest. And rest from what, work? He already missed his work, and couldn’t wait to be back in the warehouse, in September, to paint the back wall he had to leave unfinished!
He opened his eyes and looked up. Two slow clouds were roaming around the sky, as if lost. He smiled. Everything was going well, and couldn’t be any better. And it would continue to go well next month, and next year, and the year after that. Forever.
It was a future that would never end.
NO PROTECTION
MILENA RETURNS FROM LONDON, where her parents sent her for a month to learn English, and calls Vittorio as soon as she gets home. She must talk to him, right away. When he says, “Tell me everything, baby,” she takes a long pause. It’s not something she can say over the phone. She will get on the afternoon bus to the seaside town that curls up at the foot of the smallest mountain chain in the world.
Vittorio is waiting for her sitting on his Vespa in the little square where the buses arrive, tanned and blessed by the gods, his hair still wet from the shower, dying to see her again, and when Milena finally gets off the bus, she looks somewhat different — thinner, pale, almost pained — but it’s just a second, then he is overwhelmed by joy and they embrace and kiss briefly and start to walk along the famous small seaside town hand in hand, talking about nothing.
She buys Lancaster sun cream with no protection to get at least a little tanned before summer ends, because she is really too white, and tells him about London and how she really liked the English people, most of all because in the twentieth century they still insist on having a queen.
They get back to the square, now filled with adolescents sitting on Vespas, and Vittorio says that he might buy her some hot focaccia, and Milena says yes, of course, but she wants to come too, and takes off her shoes and starts walking barefoot toward the baker’s.
There is some kind of collective Oh! and all the boys and girls immediately turn to watch her walking barefoot. Then Milena stops, turns to him, and says, “Come on, take your shoes off too,” and Vittorio is very embarrassed because now all those boys and girls are looking at him, and he is certainly not going to walk barefoot to the baker’s, and so he shakes his head, but she stands there in the middle of the square in her blue T-shirt with OXFORD printed on it, and says again, Come on, Vittorio, try it. So he smiles and takes off his Stan Smiths and rests his right foot on the ground and feels the heat of the asphalt and its grainy texture and starts laughing, then he puts the other foot on the ground and starts walking toward her. She takes him by the hand and they go together barefoot to buy the focaccia, and even though they have to be extremely careful not to step on something unmentionable that could have unimaginable consequences, as he warns under his breath, they experience that rare and precious sensation of doing together something they had never done before.
After nibbling at the focaccia, they get on the Vespa and set off toward her house so slowly that the waterfront seems to stretch out to infinity. When Vittorio realizes she is not holding him as she usually does, he lets go of the handlebars and takes Milena’s cold hands and squeezes them to his chest, so she can hug him and rest her head on his shoulders and smell his hair.
When they arrive, Milena asks him to come in, even if it’s nearly dinnertime: her parents aren’t home yet. The house is dark and Milena opens all the windows, then sits on the sofa in the living room and stares at Vittorio, who was expecting some kind of intimacy and is surprised to see her sitting there in silence. So he waits a few seconds before sitting down on the sofa, uninvited, half a meter away from her, thus establishing a distance that is entirely new to them.
Then Milena says she has to tell him something very important, something she has to say now, before her parents arrive home, but she doesn’t know how because it really is something enormous and terrible, and she suddenly starts crying and can’t stop, and Vittorio moves closer and holds her, but she is distant and cold and shaken by sobs, and then he says, “What is it, Milena? What’s wrong? Tell me,” and she suddenly pulls away from the embrace and lo
oks him in the eyes and tells him they can no longer be together because she broke her promise, and while she was in London, she was with a guy — that is, she went to bed with him, last night — and now she feels so bad, so horribly, disgustingly bad, and she’s been thinking about it all day, if she should tell him or not, and she had almost decided not to tell him but then she could never have looked him in the face again, and so she decided to tell him, but now she can’t look him in the face anyway, and lowers her gaze and cries and the tears fall on her thighs and her knees and Vittorio can only think of one single thing, and the one single thing is that he doesn’t want to lose her, regardless of what she has done, and he is about to tell her this, that he doesn’t want to lose her regardless of what she has done, when she looks at him and takes his hands and says that at this point they can’t be together as they were before, it was far too big a thing, what has happened, and he could never forgive her, right?
And Vittorio looks back at her and is about to respond that yes, of course he forgives her, he’ll suffer like a dog but he’ll forgive her, of course he will, naturally, and his heart starts beating wildly and he opens his mouth to say it, that one single thing which will settle the whole problem, but then he sees her, Milena, and he understands that it is all useless. That it’s over.
Because it’s no longer Milena, the girl, who is looking at him from the sofa. It’s a woman who is waiting for his reaction and seems to expect to be scolded, insulted, probably even slapped, repudiated — but then, finally, liberated.
It’s over and it’s been over for a long time, since the day Milena decided in her heart that she could be capable of doing what she did. And it is over because she decided that it was already over, and even if it wasn’t a real decision, even if she just made a silly mistake, if she strayed as you may do when you are eighteen, well, it’s happened, and nothing can be as it was before.
This is what she thinks, and Vittorio’s opinion is irrelevant: he has never made love to anyone, so he cannot know how empty and guilty you can feel if the first time you do it, you are betraying someone.
It’s over, and it doesn’t matter that Vittorio doesn’t want to know anything about what she has done in London because truth is a hard and cutting thing, and cruel, and partial, and useless, and damaging, only one little step above a lie, and whoever always searches for it is nothing but a fool.
It’s over, and all he can do now is gather together every drop of pride and courage and heart, and go. Immediately. But he can’t. He just can’t. He has to say something, and he has to hear something from her.
— So we are breaking up.
She looks at her feet, then him, then back at her feet.
— Yes, she answers in a tiny voice.
One, two, three heartbeats.
— We’re not even going to the concert tonight?
She shakes her head and Vittorio feels like he is about to faint. Everything seems to become confused and lose importance. He notes that the soles of Milena’s feet are thick with dirt, and his must be too.
Vittorio stands up and sways for a moment. She stands up, but doesn’t move toward him. He looks at her as if to imprint her image onto his mind, but then he thinks that he doesn’t want to remember her like that, not with those lost eyes swollen from crying, so he turns to leave, but he doesn’t remember anymore where the door is, in that house where he has been so many times before, and his disoriented gaze ends up in the direction of her room, and when he sees all of her shoes lined up in order of height, all the way to the Camperos boots he had bought her in Rome and greased with seal fat, the ones he always had to help her pull on because they were so tight, Vittorio must divert his gaze and turn toward the window, which shows a sky burning with orange.
Then he finally sees the door and opens it and leaves, takes those ten steps over the gravel to cross the garden, opens the gate, goes out into the street, and puts the key in the Vespa’s steering lock. When he turns, she is there next to him as beautiful as ever, and Vittorio’s heart breaks — he can even hear the small sound inside — and he wonders if he can embrace her, if he can kiss her now that — good God, how is this possible — they are no longer together, and just the thought of it makes him sway and his eyes cloud over and he is about to cry, too, but he somehow manages to resist, poor thing, he manages to open the steering lock and sit on the Vespa, and tries to turn it on by pushing the pedal, but the first attempt doesn’t work, so he pulls the choke and tries again, but it still doesn’t work, and he is assailed by the unbearable thought of having to start the Vespa with a push, and he prays to God that he is at least spared that, and he desperately kicks the pedal again and the Vespa finally sputters to life, and while he keeps it running and a cloud of white smoke forms around them, Vittorio turns to her.
— Goodbye then, Milena, take care of yourself — and then, out of breath — I wish you all the best, because you deserve the best the world has to offer. And please remember that I never lied.
He tries to smile and keeps on looking at her in the desperate hope that she might stop him and ask him not to leave, that she might tell him she has changed her mind, or even that it was just a joke. He would accept anything because he doesn’t want them to break up, and he doesn’t care about what she did in London, really, he hasn’t thought about it for a second. He doesn’t want them to break up, that’s it. And he wants to shout it out loud, but he can’t even bring himself to whisper it.
Milena draws close to him and kisses him on the mouth and hugs him tight, and while in their tight embrace he whispers in her ear, “I will always love you,” and she starts crying again and runs down the gravel path and into the house, slamming the door behind her.
It takes him a few seconds to realize he has to leave now, and so he leaves, or rather his Vespa leaves of its own accord and moves very slowly through the labyrinth of narrow streets with the names of poets, strewn with pine needles. As he brushes past the many small, newly built villas Vittorio wonders if he is now achieving an escape velocity from her; if from that moment on he will be irredeemably distancing himself from Milena, meter after meter, like the astronauts that leave their spacecraft and travel forever through infinite space, stone dead, because that is exactly how he feels, stone dead, and when he finds the way out of the pine grove and ends up on the waterfront, he has to face a sunset so red it seems to be bleeding, and as he ignores every traffic light it’s a miracle, a true miracle, that he arrives home safely, without being run over by one of the many cars that speed by toward the nightclub that seems a house, where in a few hours Gloria Gaynor will appear to sing.
THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST
CESARE DIDN’T WANT TO GO to the concert.
He moaned for weeks about how he couldn’t be bothered about celebrating Barrocciai for the umpteenth time, and agreed to the invitation only at Arianna’s insistence.
He was now a successful man. After his victory at the Italian championships and the more or less simultaneous completion of the pharaonic work, Cesare Vezzosi was the talk of the town. He had already received some offers to build other factories, and his old employer had asked to meet him to discuss the future, because he had just bought out his old business partner and needed someone like Cesare: someone who sees things through, someone who can solve problems.
Miraculously, all of the ineptitude, disregard, negligence, and incompetence he had shown over the years it took to build the pharaonic work had melted in the building’s imposing beauty, and Cesare had become the man who solves problems.
Success had assailed him all of a sudden, and in the last few months he had bought a white Mercedes 200D with a cream-colored leather interior, two made-to-measure suits — one pinstriped — ten tailor-made shirts, a camel hair overcoat, and the wild-mink fur for Arianna, who had been happy about it, of course, but not nearly as happy as when he told her that instead of staying at the lemonary that summer they would be renting the large house with the magnolia tree.
After his
great victory, tennis was not that interesting anymore. He knew he would never again make it to the national finals.
He had found himself a new lover, and she wasn’t half bad — a shop assistant, slim, brown hair, always upbeat — but in bed the difference between her and the Historic Baby Doll was immense.
So Cesare arrives at the seaside at the end of the afternoon, bored and bad-tempered. He parks his Mercedes on the gravel driveway in front of the house and, instead of going to the beach to meet Arianna, he sits in the garden in the shade of the magnolia and drinks a glass of iced tea.
When she arrives on her bicycle, it’s already half past seven. She was late from the beach because she had been waiting all day for him, she says, then greets him with a quick kiss on the forehead before running upstairs to dress up for the concert.
Cesare looks at her and nods. He doesn’t say a word. He finishes his tea, stands up, follows her up the stairs, lies down on the bed, folds his arms behind his head, and watches his wife illuminated by an orange sunset as she silently prepares to go out. As soon as she’s ready, he asks her for a blow job.
Arianna had dressed calmly and decisively, pulling on a close-fitting, sleeveless, aquamarine dress that ends just above the knee and highlights that slim silhouette that even Father Time could not attack. She had pulled on one shoe, then the other: the Ferragamo pumps Cesare had bought for her in Florence one Saturday afternoon a few months earlier. She had applied a light layer of makeup in two minutes flat, moving smoothly from foundation to mascara to lipstick, with a brand-new decisiveness and speed of movement.
Her taut and radiant skin, her tan just a shade lighter than the deep bronze of previous years, her hair almost blond and cut in a shorter, more elegant style she had chosen during the winter and which had permanently replaced the old, familiar cut she had had since high school, the definitive rejection of Strass earrings in favor of coral and the adoption of a thread of pearls had transformed Arianna into a serene and elegant woman finally at peace with herself and her life.
