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The Mysterious Flame Of Queen Loana :: Эко Умберто
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Ido not know what Paola said to that, because I was still making the chair rock and I dozed again.
Briefly, I think, because I heard the doorbell, and it was Gianni Laivelli. We had been desk mates, the two Dioscuri. He embraced me like a brother, emotional, already knowing how to treat me. Don’t worry, he said, I know more about your life than you do. I’ll tell you every last detail. No thanks, I told him, Paola already explained our history to me. Together from elementary school through high school. Then I went off to college in Turin while he studied economics and business in Milan. But apparently we never lost touch. I sell antiquarian books, he helps people pay their taxes-or not pay them-and by all rights we should have each gone our separate ways, but instead we’re like family: his two grandchildren play with mine, and we always celebrate Christmas and New Year’s together.
No thanks, I had said, but Gianni could not keep his mouth shut. And since he remembered, he seemed unable to grasp that I did not. Remember, he would say, the day we brought a mouse to class to scare the math teacher, and the time we took a trip to Asti to see the Alfieri play and when we got back we learned that the plane carrying the Turin team had gone down, and the time that…"
"No, I don’t remember, Gianni, but you’re such a good storyteller that it’s as if I did. Which one of us was smarter?"
"Naturally, in Italian and philosophy you were, and in math I was. You see how we turned out."
"By the way, Paola, what did I major in?"
"In letters, with a thesis on Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Unreadable, at least to me. Then you went off to Germany to specialize in the history of ancient books. You said that because of the name you’d been stuck with you couldn’t have done anything else. And then there was your grandfather’s example, a life among papers. When you came back, you set up your rare book studio, at first in a little room, using the little capital you had left. After that, things went well for you."
"Are you aware that you sell books that cost more than a Porsche?" Gianni said. "They’re gorgeous, and to pick them up and realize they’re five hundred years old, and the pages still as snappy beneath your fingers as if they’d just come off the press…"
"Take it easy," Paola said, "we can start talking about his work in the next few days. Let’s give him a chance to get used to his home first. How about a scotch, kerosene-flavored?"
"Kerosene?"
"It’s just something between me and Yambo, Gianni. We’re starting to have secrets again.
Ido not know what Paola said to that, because I was still making the chair rock and I dozed again.
Briefly, I think, because I heard the doorbell, and it was Gianni Laivelli. We had been desk mates, the two Dioscuri. He embraced me like a brother, emotional, already knowing how to treat me. Don’t worry, he said, I know more about your life than you do. I’ll tell you every last detail. No thanks, I told him, Paola already explained our history to me. Together from elementary school through high school. Then I went off to college in Turin while he studied economics and business in Milan. But apparently we never lost touch. I sell antiquarian books, he helps people pay their taxes-or not pay them-and by all rights we should have each gone our separate ways, but instead we’re like family: his two grandchildren play with mine, and we always celebrate Christmas and New Year’s together.
No thanks, I had said, but Gianni could not keep his mouth shut. And since he remembered, he seemed unable to grasp that I did not. Remember, he would say, the day we brought a mouse to class to scare the math teacher, and the time we took a trip to Asti to see the Alfieri play and when we got back we learned that the plane carrying the Turin team had gone down, and the time that…"
"No, I don’t remember, Gianni, but you’re such a good storyteller that it’s as if I did. Which one of us was smarter?"
"Naturally, in Italian and philosophy you were, and in math I was. You see how we turned out."
"By the way, Paola, what did I major in?"
"In letters, with a thesis on Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Unreadable, at least to me. Then you went off to Germany to specialize in the history of ancient books. You said that because of the name you’d been stuck with you couldn’t have done anything else. And then there was your grandfather’s example, a life among papers. When you came back, you set up your rare book studio, at first in a little room, using the little capital you had left. After that, things went well for you."
"Are you aware that you sell books that cost more than a Porsche?" Gianni said. "They’re gorgeous, and to pick them up and realize they’re five hundred years old, and the pages still as snappy beneath your fingers as if they’d just come off the press…"
"Take it easy," Paola said, "we can start talking about his work in the next few days. Let’s give him a chance to get used to his home first. How about a scotch, kerosene-flavored?"
"Kerosene?"
"It’s just something between me and Yambo, Gianni. We’re starting to have secrets again.