Nostalgia
Page 18
That Gideon Westfall was an artist, and an artist of some repute, was, Gideon would tell you, of much less significance to Luisa and Aurelio Fava than it was to Carlo Pacetti, his first friend. As Luisa and Aurelio saw it, being an artist was an interesting profession; it was very unusual, they appreciated, for people such as themselves to befriend, or be befriended by, a painter whose work was known all over the world. They knew next to nothing about art, but they could see that Gideon was an expert, and they respected him for it. Aurelio, who could cut for you a suit that would hang almost weightlessly on your body and would last so long your son could wear it, was an expert too. He spoke to Gideon as an equal, as did his wife. The Favas liked Gideon because he was Gideon – ‘he is good company,’ said Luisa. ‘He entertains us. He is very alive.’
It was only with Luisa and Aurelio, Gideon would sometimes say, that he ever experienced envy: only the Favas ever made him regret that his choice of life had made marriage an impossibility. No arguments appeared to mar their relationship: they were naturally and perfectly attuned to each other. They were both, remarked Gideon, ‘paragons of common sense and decency’, and were always absolutely straight with him: if they didn’t like a particular painting, or didn’t understand the point of it, they would tell him so, without apology or embarrassment. Even-tempered without being dull, they were an undemonstratively affectionate couple, and amiable towards almost everybody. The sole citizen of Castelluccio whom they admitted to disliking was, unfortunately, Carlo Pacetti: Lauro Pacetti, said Aurelio, had been a horrible individual, whose politics stank to high heaven and whose character was just as rank, as had been demonstrated in an incident – never explicated – in which he had in some way grievously insulted a young woman, unnamed, of the Perello family; and whenever Aurelio observed Lauro’s son, he had to confess, what he saw was Lauro with a mask on his face. Lino Pacetti had been a mean-spirited husk of a man too, just like his nephew: other people in Castelluccio had given food and clothing to POWs on the run, despite the risk of imprisonment or worse, but not Lino Pacetti – if payment was involved, he would have done business with the devil himself, but if cash wasn’t involved, Lino wouldn’t lift a finger, even if Saint Francis himself came to his door. So Aurelio regarded Gideon’s friendship with Carlo Pacetti as an aspect of his life that had to be ignored, like a weakness for alcohol, just as Luisa, for her part, said nothing more about Ilaria Senesi, after warning him that there was trouble in that family, because the wife, more than once, had appeared at the market with bruises all over her arm, covered badly with make-up.
Gideon’s first dog, the black mongrel, was acquired through a friend of Luisa and Aurelio: it was Aurelio’s opinion that Gideon would benefit from the company of a dog on his morning walk, because a dog establishes a connection with nature, and its companionship is an aid to thought. Had the idea been proposed by anyone other than Aurelio, said Gideon, he might not have entertained it for more than five seconds, but he allowed himself to be persuaded by the tailor, and has never regretted it: all three of his dogs came to him through Aurelio and Luisa. Once Trim the black mongrel had been trained, it would accompany its master on evening strolls with Aurelio and Luisa. Sometimes, on a Sunday, they would all go for a drive in Gideon’s Mercedes, to some hill or woodland where Aurelio would look for butterflies; once they even drove across Italy on a Saturday night so that they could spend the next day in the Majella national park, searching – successfully, as it turned out – for the elusive Parnassius Apollo. While Aurelio – a decade older than his wife, but slighter by far, and nimbler – dashed back and forth in pursuit of his butterflies, Gideon and Luisa would follow at their own pace, often in agreeable silence, and if not in silence then in conversation that was never about art or anything profound. Trivialities that from anyone else would have bored him never bored him when it was Luisa who was talking: they were the currency of an intimacy that was unique to this relationship. Through Luisa, he once remarked, the mundane was distilled. When he walked with her, he said, his mind received, as though transmitted by radiation, a sense of extraordinary well-being, of tranquility. He thinks she is more a Buddhist than a Catholic, and he loves her, he admits, as he has loved no one since his mother. More than anyone else he has ever met, Luisa Fava is imperturbable; she appears to live in almost perpetual harmony with herself and with the people among whom she lives – almost perpetual, because of course there were episodes of tension with a daughter who came to despair of ever finding a real job in Italy (she became a project manager on the other side of the world, in Shanghai) and a son whose adolescence was blighted by an awareness that he lacked both the intellect and the application of his sister (he works for a bank in Arezzo).
Luisa has accommodated without show the sadness of the loss of her father, the loss of Aurelio, the absence of her daughter, and the long decline of Elisabetta. It has been nearly two years since Elisabetta last left her bed unaided. Since her health began to fail, she has lived in what was once her granddaughter’s bedroom, in the house on Via dei Giardini. Gideon is one of the friends who has a key to the house, so he can let himself in, and he calls on Elisabetta regularly. Often, now, she’s asleep when he arrives. The window in her room is kept open all day if the weather is fine, so she can hear the sounds of the town going about its business, and the birds and the leaves in the park across the street. When she dreams in the daytime, she tells him, leaves are often rustling in her dreams, and when the leaves are rustling she sees Marco. Gideon reads to her: she has a predilection for the novels of Graham Greene, and Gideon’s voice, she tells him, suits their sentences perfectly. Always she falls asleep while he is reading, and she falls asleep whenever they listen to music, which they do in the course of most of his visits, because she cannot operate the buttons on the CD player any longer and therefore has to rely on her guests. Il barbiere di Siviglia was her Marco’s favourite piece of music in the world, so, as often as not, it’s Il barbiere di Siviglia that she requests, with apologies, because she knows that Gideon doesn’t share Marco’s enthusiasm for Rossini, even if she doesn’t know that Rossini is akin to torture for Gideon, and he turns the music off as soon as he’s sure that Elisabetta is asleep. He has tried to make her like Bach, and she has liked some of it, but not the Masses or the cantatas – not much of it at all, in fact. It’s too German for her, she confessed, in a voice that’s now like the slithery rasp of parchment. In the summer she occasionally hears German being spoken in the park: she is sure they are nice people, but the sound of that language still makes her shudder, after all these years. To her ears, it’s the language of slaughter.
With Gideon she sometimes talks about her death: she talks of it without fear, because she knows that she will see her Marco one day soon, just as her daughter will one day see Aurelio. Listening to Rossini, she closes her eyes and smiles like an effigy on a tombstone. She has allowed Gideon to draw her while she listens, eyes closed, smiling, on the brink of bliss. Elisabetta has been dying for so long, he says, she has almost become a saint.
He has painted Luisa’s portrait twice and drawn her many times, more often than anyone other than himself and Robert. Once he suggested that she and Aurelio might model as Mr and Mrs Blake, sitting under their tree, naked as Adam and Eve. They were amused by the idea, but could not be persuaded.
5.8
‘I think he’s relieved it went so well,’ says Robert, as they are strolling along on Corso Diaz.
‘So he was expecting a day of interrogation?’ she asks.
‘Something like that.’
‘I haven’t come here to hold him to account,’ she says. ‘Well, not only for that.’
‘What else?’
‘Curiosity.’
‘Curious about the horrible uncle?’
‘About the artist uncle.’
‘I don’t understand why you waited so long.’
‘It wasn’t possible before.’
‘Your father wouldn’t have allowed it?’
&nb
sp; ‘Not a question of allowing.’
‘It would have been like defecting to the enemy. Is that it?’
‘Not that extreme. But something along those lines.’
‘And as far as you’re concerned, Gideon’s to blame?’
‘He behaved appallingly when my mother died,’ she reminds him. ‘Before that, too. He was dreadful.’
‘You know that for a fact?’
‘I do. He was obnoxious.’
‘Or so you were told.’
‘He was obnoxious,’ she states, halting to face him. ‘Arrogant, rude and selfish.’
He raises his hands; unamused, she nods acceptance of the surrender. ‘But you enjoyed your afternoon with him,’ he proposes.
‘I enjoyed Siena. Gideon was OK.’
‘Not arrogant or rude.’
‘No,’ she agrees.
On Piazza Maggiore three boys are kicking a football around; one of them – a lad of about ten or eleven – bends forward sharply, arms out like wings, to catch the ball on the back of his neck. ‘Your parents still alive?’ she asks, waiting to see if the boy will do another trick.
‘They are.’
‘Get along with them?’
‘Fine.’
‘Where’s home?’ she asks
‘If you mean where are the parents – Bristol.’
‘Thought I could hear an accent,’ she says, moving on. ‘Think you’ll ever go back?’
‘To Bristol? No.’
‘To England?’
‘Who knows? One day.’
‘But not any time soon.’
‘Doubt it.’
‘You’re happy here.’
‘I’m content,’ he says.
She stops again, and she looks around the square – at the town hall, San Giovanni Battista, the lights in the apartments, the footballing boys, the Caffè del Corso – as if trying, and not entirely failing, to imagine how this may account for his contentment. With a nod towards the café she announces: ‘I fancy a nightcap. Care to join me?’
‘I’m expected,’ he apologises.
Inside, there are two couples at the tables and two men at the bar. ‘A woman dropping in for a drink on her own – will this be controversial?’ she asks.
‘It will be noticed.’
She raises her eyebrows, shakes her head, smiles to herself. ‘Buona notte,’ she says, and she strides into the café as if she has an appointment with one of the customers. ‘Buona sera,’ she calls to Giosuè, on her way to a table.
5.9
In 1895 the businessman Silvio Ubaldino – who had made his fortune from an aniseed-based liqueur produced in his distillery outside Volterra, and in 1893 had acquired Castelluccio’s hotel, the Belvedere – bought the vacant property at Corso Garibaldi 2–4, previously the offices of an insurance company. Less than six months later, on January 1st, 1896, the Caffè Ubaldino welcomed its first customers. Luxuriously furnished and decorated in the Liberty style, it quickly established itself as the most fashionable café in the region.
The Caffè del Corso – as it has been named since 1922 – retains many of its original features. The façade is plain: the old black mirrored sign above the door is the only adornment of the exterior’s cream-coloured plaster. The interior, however, is opulent, with its dark wooden panels, stained-glass partitions, brass bar fittings, marble-topped counters and small round marble-topped tables. A number of television and film productions have used the Caffè del Corso as a location.
Around the cash desk are displayed autographed photos of various celebrities, among them Tito Gobbi, Vittorio Pozzo, Umberto Saba and John Huston. The original gold and black glass sign of the Caffè Ubaldino is now affixed to the back wall, above a drawing in red chalk of Arrigo Pepe, the celebrated marksman of Castelluccio, and a crossbow that is said to have been used by him. In the corner farthest from the door, Domenico Scattolin’s pastel portrait of Tommaso Galli, the manager of the Teatro Gaetano, hangs over the table at which Galli habitually sat. It was Galli’s custom to take his lunch here; frequently he would also call at the Caffè Ubaldino after the evening’s performance, either alone or with members of the cast. Every Wednesday night he would be joined by Paolo Campani, with whom he would play cards until late. Galli would sometimes entertain the customers by playing the mandolin, which is why he’s depicted holding this instrument, a gift from Paolo Campani.
5.10
It is midnight, and again Gideon has not worked well. The still life is a chore; the self-portrait is inert. The sketchbook from Claire is out of sight, on a shelf in the corner of the room. It crosses his mind, not for the first time, that it might be expedient to return it to her: she would be less hostile, perhaps, if he did; it has some monetary value. There are other considerations, however, and now – needing to do something – he decides that these must prevail. Page by page he examines his apprentice work. The drawing of the view from his window is inept; with a scalpel he excises it and cuts it into slivers. The array of hands is better, much better – the modelling is good; he removes it and sets it aside. The students, whoever they might have been, can be destroyed without qualms. His portrait of Martin Scammell is also of poor quality, but cannot be thrown away, and the sketch of himself has some documentary value, and so is saved. The dog has almost no merit; the sketch of Lorraine is deplorable, and has to be destroyed. He stuffs the scraps in a pocket and summons Trim.
They walk to the Giardini Pubblici, where there’s a rubbish bin. Trim takes a dip in the park’s pool. It’s a pleasantly warm night, and Gideon feels some relief at having acted decisively; he thinks he may paint a night scene soon, but has no clear conception of what it might be. Empty-headed, he sits on the bench, watching the bats crossing against the moon. When he leaves the park, the moon is far from where it had been when he arrived. He has seen nobody since coming out of the building, but a young couple are crossing Piazza del Mercato. The young woman is tilting her head to her boyfriend’s shoulder – she is not tall, and the short skirt reveals powerful legs. It’s Ilaria, he realises, and the shock makes him stop. It is not Ilaria.
5.11
The Lagotto Romagnolo, or Italian Water Dog, is a small to medium-sized dog, around 41–48cm (16–19in) in height and 11–16kg (24–35lb) in weight, with a dense and curly coat that might be solid off-white, solid brown, solid orange, brown roan or white with brown or orange markings. Thought by some to be the ancestor of all breeds of water dog, the Lagotto is recorded as being used in the marshes of Romagna as far back as the seventh century BC; its name derives from Cán lagót, meaning ‘hairy wetland dog’ in the region’s dialect. For centuries the Lagotto was employed in hunting waterfowl, aiding the hunter by springing the birds and chasing them into nets; when guns were introduced, the dogs became retrievers. A remarkably hardy animal, the Lagotto can remain in water for hours at a time, as its two-layered coat is water-resistant; webbing between the toes makes it a strong swimmer. The draining of the Romagna marshland in the latter part of the nineteenth century brought about a change in the Lagotto’s role: as the flocks of waterfowl dwindled, the dogs were increasingly used as truffle-hunters, a task for which their agility and scenting ability made them particularly suitable. At the same time, the Lagotto was being cross-bred in order to pass on its qualities to other hunting breeds, and by the 1970s this dilution had all but eliminated the pure Lagotto. Thanks to the efforts of various Romagnolo breeders, however, the Lagotto was saved from extinction. No other pure-bred dog is recognised as a specialised truffle-hunter.
Mantegna placed a Lagotto in the frescoes he painted for Ludovico Gonzaga in the Camera degli Sposi of Mantua’s Castel San Giorgio: the animal is standing behind Ludovico’s white-stockinged legs, in the scene depicting the encounter between the marquis and his second son, Cardinal Francesco. A magnificent Lagotto can also be seen in a painting by Guercino (or his workshop), in which the dog is flanked by Guercino and a woman who may be the artist’s older sister, or his mother, or someone else.
5.12
Teresa says: ‘Why do you have to be with them every evening? Last night you were with them, tonight you are with them.’
‘But it was better if I didn’t come over right away. That’s what you said. And—’
‘Yes, I know what I said. Renata is in a difficult mood. That’s how it is. But I’m not asking why weren’t you here. I’m asking why you need to be with them all the time.’
‘I don’t need to be. I was invited,’ he says. ‘It’s only for a few days. She’ll soon be gone.’
‘Every day she’s here, you have to keep them company? Why? If she goes with him to Siena, she can’t be scared of him any more.’
‘She was never scared of him. If anything, he’s scared of her.’
‘That’s stupid. She isn’t scary to anybody.’
‘Families aren’t his thing.’
‘That is ridiculous,’ Teresa pronounces. ‘Where did he come from? A test tube? He comes from a family. A family is everybody’s thing.’