Infinite Summer

by Edoardo Nesi

  — It’s so beautiful…That’s not a swimming pool, it’s a lake…

  — Look at all that blue…

  —…

  —…

  — It’s enormous…

  — God knows how many liters of water it takes to fill it.

  — Three million.

  — Really?

  — Vezzosi told me.

  — Holy Mary, three million liters!

  — I’m not sure I could swim from one end to the other…

  — I think I could swim the width.

  — Me too.

  — Are you a good swimmer, Pasquale?

  — I go a bit like a dog, but I don’t drown. What about you?

  — I swim like a lifeguard, with my head out. I learned to do it in Viareggio when I was a kid.

  —…

  — Pasquale, why do you think Ivo had this swimming pool built?

  — I don’t know. I asked him once, but he didn’t answer…

  — I’m sure he wants to send a message…

  — To who?

  — I don’t know. But he wants to say something to someone. I’m sure of it.

  — Hmm…

  — Pasquale, shall we dive?

  — Absolutely not.

  — Come on, why not?

  — Nonono!

  — We’re not going to ruin it…

  — Nonono! It’s not ours.

  — Just one dive…

  — Do you know how long Ivo has been waiting for this pool? Years. He will be the first to swim in it. I’m going to call him now, to tell him it’s ready.

  — But it’s eight in the evening, he’ll be at dinner…

  — Where is the reel with the telephone cable, Barbugli? Because there must be a phone up here somewhere…

  — It’s under that sheet.

  — I’ll call him now…Hello? Ivo?

  — Pasquale, good evening.

  — Ivo, listen, the swimming pool has been filled.

  — Ah. Good. What’s it like?

  — Ivo, it’s incredible. It’s so beautiful…And it’s enormous. It’s like a lake…

  — Good, good…

  — Tell him it’s all blue.

  — Barbugli, who’s standing next to me, said to tell you it’s all blue.

  — Excellent! Take a swim, guys!

  — No, Ivo. Thank you, but no.

  — What do you mean, no? Why not?

  — No, Ivo, we would never do such a thing!

  — Come on…Dive in, boys! I can’t come because I’ve got to take some clients out for dinner, otherwise I’d join you…

  — But Ivo, you’ve been waiting such a long time…

  — Pasquale, you and Moreno go for a swim, and tell me what the water’s like…

  — No, Ivo, it doesn’t feel right…I can’t…

  — Just listen to this guy…Go on, Pasquale, dive in…

  — And we’re all sweaty…

  — Pasquale, come on…Listen, now I need to get off the phone. I have to go to Florence to pick up three Americans from the Baglioni Hotel. You guys take a swim, and tomorrow morning you’ll tell me what it’s like.

  — Are you sure?

  — Absolutely.

  — Okay, thank you.

  — Ciao, Pasquale.

  — Bye Ivo, have a good evening.

  — What did he say? Hey, Citarella, what did he say?

  — He said to take a swim.

  — I knew it! That’s just like Ivo. Come on! Let’s dive in!

  — But I’m really not sure…

  — He told you to, come on…

  —…

  — Come on!

  — We need to be quick though, Barbugli, because I have to get home for dinner…

  — And I don’t? Come on. I’m ready!

  — How, naked?

  — Of course! Let’s go! I’m jumping in!

  — This guy’s crazy!…Hey, Barbugli, what’s it like?

  — Cold, is what it’s like. Holy Mary of the highest skies of Finland, it’s so cold! Get in!

  — Okay, I’m coming in…

  — Glacial Jesus! You need to swim, otherwise you freeze…

  — Oh, mamma mia, it’s freezing! Mamma mia, it’s so cold!

  — Let’s see if we can warm ourselves up by swimming to the other side.

  — Shall we see who makes it first?

  — Ready, set, go!

  Saturday, 7 August 1982

  PERIWINKLE

  A BLACK ALFETTA with its headlights on shoots into the forecourt of Barrocciai Tessuti, barely missing Ivo, who stands right in its center, under the midday sun, watching a single swollen cloud drift slowly across the sky. The car stops with a furious slam of the brakes and out steps Sergio Vari, who walks slowly toward Ivo while the opening notes of “Like a Rolling Stone” pour from the open door and roll across the forecourt.

  — He didn’t approve it, Vari says.

  — That’s not possible, says Ivo.

  “Once upon a time you dressed so fine,” sings Bob Dylan.

  — He didn’t approve it.

  — It’s the fifth fucking time…It was perfect…

  — Come on, Ivo, you’re color-blind…

  — What’s that got to do with anything? The technicians told me it was perfect.

  — He might approve it tomorrow.

  — Tomorrow? What do you mean, tomorrow? Is he going to approve it or not?

  — He’ll approve it tomorrow. I’d put money on it.

  — So why tomorrow and not today?

  — I’m not going to tell you.

  “Now you don’t talk so loud, now you don’t seem so proud…”

  — And why’s that?

  — Because you’ll get angry and you’ll call him and tell him to fuck off.

  — No, I’d never do that…

  — Yes you would…Listen to this bit, Ivo, it’s beautiful…

  “How does it feel, how does it feel, to be without a home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone…”

  — What is he saying?

  — Who, Sergio? The client?

  — No, Bob Dylan. What exactly is he saying in this bit?

  — Can’t you understand it?

  — You know I don’t speak English.

  — Ah, that’s right…What did the client say, then?

  — He said that he hasn’t approved it because yesterday in Milan it was overcast, and he only approves colors when he can see them in the sunlight.

  Ivo wonders if this is the right moment to point out the matter of the shoe — because when Sergio got out of the car, he had just one shoe on: a dark-blue suede moccasin, soft, with tassels, with his other foot wrapped in a woolen sock — to that thirty-nine-year-old Bolognese with intense blue eyes and jet-black hair down to his shoulders, a snake charmer extraordinaire and a dyed-in-the-wool Communist from the day he was born in the basement of his house during an American air raid, dressed in a perfectly creased linen shirt, dark jeans, a Navajo belt complete with coins and a mother-of-pearl buckle bought many years ago in Venice Beach, who interrupted his education right after middle school because of an irresistible fascination with soccer, and had lived his youth in the splendor that was Bologna in the sixties, managing promising, shambolic rock groups made up of his peers and then setting off on a yearlong holiday of meditation spent contemplating the sunsets of Goa, where he sensed that the times they were a-changin’ and decided to come back to Bologna and get a job in fashion, immediately becoming the best textiles agent in the whole of Italy, and certainly the only one who could translate into the rigid language of producers the brilliant if confused ideas of the new designers — that gang of enthusiastic, insecure, mostly Italian but also Japanese, American, and even British young stylists he accompanied to Barrocciai Textiles to show off the collection and meet Ivo and spend an afternoon in the swimming pool because, apart from a few rare exceptions, these kids had no technical knowledge whatsoever.

&
nbsp; They talked mainly about colors, and couldn’t pronounce the names of the weaves. They asked for things that were technically impossible. They stroked the reverse of the fabrics as if it were their cat, without realizing they were not touching the finished side. They mixed up the fibers and the finishes, and called every wool fabric that weighed more than three hundred grams cloth. But they learned everything instantly and were ready to take everything in with their quick eyes, and were continually taking mental notes, and though they did not know what fabrics to use, they knew perfectly well which clothes they wanted to make, and you could sense that they had a bright, bright future ahead.

  As they praised the beauty of the factory and stared at the swimming pool with their mouths open wide, eventually buying just a few meters of the very best fabrics, these young designers told their own story of how all over Italy and Europe and America millions of enthusiastic and newly proud people were now buying the new — new jackets and new skirts and new shirts and new tops and new sweaters and new shoes and new scarves and new trousers and new overcoats and new dresses and new suits and new foulards, garments that did not replace something that was already in their wardrobe and had been worn out, but pieces that had to be completely different in cut, design, pattern, shape, and color.

  It was up to these young men and women to represent the new in a world that was clamoring to discover that, in Italy, a courageous, totally contemporary fashion was exploding, inspiring itself and even finding its roots in the ancient, artisanal know-how that had been the driving force of the Renaissance itself. It was no less than the zeitgeist that propelled the sales of these young people, with Brunelleschi and Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci doing their marketing for them.

  Sergio Vari had been the first to understand this, and had instinctively developed an unrivaled sales vocabulary which the young designers adored listening to, hypnotized by his soft Bolognese accent and the hypnotic, psalmodic singsong that was artfully punctuated by deep pauses and then suddenly violated by memories of concerts he had been to fourteen years ago, while the distracted world had other things to contend with—“A hundred of us went to see the Jimi Hendrix Experience, in May ’68, and then I went to see him backstage…He was wearing bordeaux velvet trousers and an incredibly tight Indian jacket…He was as thin as a rake, seriously tall, with a gorgeous broad next to him, and he asked me if I enjoyed the show.”

  He excelled in a masterly use of melodious and carnal adjectives to describe the textiles’ qualities, as if the choice of the right fabric and the right color for a jacket or a coat was a Timothy Learyesque adventure in fashion, the new and perhaps last unexplored territory for Western culture which he, and only he, could lead those amazed young designers into, helping them to avoid the many perils of taking the wrong path or getting lost on bad trips. He was basically their guru.

  It was of little or no importance that Sergio didn’t possess even the slightest grasp of English or the most elementary technical rudiments: he had always refused to learn either, convinced that in order to sell fabrics in the sentimental way he did, there was no need for those things, and if he ever required a translation or some technical advice, Ivo was there.

  If Barrocciai initially balked at dealing with the illogical requests and minuscule orders proffered by this wave of young designers, he quickly realized that he couldn’t ignore the new, and patiently dedicated a considerable part of his time and energy to satisfying the fixations of these young men and women who were on the cusp of becoming billionaires but still continued to ignore the difference between flannel and velour, or alpaca and angora.

  — Sergio, you must be joking…

  — No, Ivo. I’m not. You wait, if it’s sunny tomorrow in Milan, he’ll approve it.

  — Sergio, you are not normal, you know…And neither is your client…

  — Why, are you normal, Ivo? And, in any case, it’s your client! I don’t make textiles. I sell them.

  It had all started a month earlier, when Vari had turned up at the factory carrying the photograph of a beautiful, brown-haired girl with eyes the color of dark chocolate. She was wearing an indefinably colored overcoat as she walked down an elegant street in the center of London, perhaps New Bond Street.

  She was lit by a pale sun as she looked at either a man, the future, or the void of existence itself. It looked like a frame from a film by Antonioni, and for a minute Ivo struggled to lift his gaze from that photo. He wondered who she was, what her name was, where was she at that exact moment — and immediately fantasized about seeing her walking down the hall of the Dorchester toward him, smiling, wearing that coat, her cheeks flushed with the cold of Christmas, happy to be meeting him for a dinner date.

  After that day at the Motel Agip, Barrocciai had stopped looking for Arianna in every beautiful woman he saw, and resolved instead to admire how she took refuge in the carefree and guiltless, almost bold infidelity which she seemed to enjoy so much because it was born out of freedom and desire, not from need. Exhilarated by being suddenly able to desire and immediately obtain, she freely decided — often whimsically — if and when and how to see him. Arianna would call and Ivo would rush to organize every detail of their infrequent yet heartfelt, happy, and forcefully brief meetings in the very finest hotel rooms within an hour’s drive from their town — no more Motel Agip.

  Each time they met it was the rediscovery of a newfound freedom, a luxury and a gift for both of them. They laughed and agreed on everything, and always said they loved one another — of course they did! — but they couldn’t run away together because she was already married with a son she adored, and Ivo was married to his business. So the months went by smoothly, and they never once asked themselves what they were doing, because they knew very well that a quarrel — just one banal quarrel — could be enough to extinguish the fragile affair they had decided to let burn as bright as a comet, hoping that its trajectory across the empty sky of their lives would last as long as possible.

  Spellbound by that photograph, Ivo started to wonder if it was in some way possible to meet that girl with the lost gaze who walked through New Bond Street with that marvelous overcoat whose color defied description, and only came to his senses when Sergio Vari announced that the color was called periwinkle, and the client wanted it in Cabora, but before placing the order he wanted to approve the color from a sample.

  Cabora was one of the most beautiful fabrics in their collection: a wool-angora-cashmere-nylon mix that weighed 520 grams per linear meter and was sold to the best coat makers in Europe, who were enthusiastic about that unique composition which invoked both the otherworldly, vaginal softness of angora and the desire to protect oneself from the cold by wrapping up in the softest and most impalpable of fibers.

  Of course, Cabora wasn’t easy to make. The wool, angora, cashmere, and nylon had to be spun and twisted together in a very delicate thread that could only be used in the weft of the fabric, and though Cabora had to shine with the heavenly luster of angora to please the German ladies it was mostly destined to, the buyers also needed it to be resistant to creasing, ripping, and the friction caused by use. So the minute it came off the loom Cabora had to be finished with the greatest care, using a procedure as long as a via crucis, in which anything could go wrong. You could dye Cabora a special color, even a very light color, even a pastel, like that periwinkle, but it was a nightmare. Anything could stain it, even air.

  Ivo, still lost in the contemplation of those dark-chocolate eyes, had asked dreamily what periwinkle was, and Sergio Vari had immediately taken on the role of teacher, and announced that periwinkle is the color of the charming flower of a humble plant that was used in the Middle Ages for love potions: “It’s a fantastic tone of sky blue and violet and gray, Ivo, one of the most graceful colors on the face of the earth.”

  Ivo had looked at Sergio, smiled, and the order had been accepted. Now, two months later, with all the white pieces ready to be dyed in periwinkle, five sample colors had been rejected by the
customer.

  — Come on, Sergio. Let’s go see the technicians. You can explain to them that this genius didn’t approve the color because it was cloudy in Milan.

  Ivo and Sergio Vari cross the forecourt and enter the office of the head technician, who is completely uninterested in the vibrant summer afternoon illuminating the world beyond his windows, and is unraveling a handful of wool to ascertain the length, quality, and cleanliness of the fiber, flanked by two younger assistants.

  — Germano, Sergio has something to tell you.

  The head technician, a robust and patient man who was as awkward and distracted in life as he was precise and accurate in his work, throws Vari a terrified glance, fearing him like the plague since the day Ivo introduced him as the greatest textile seller in Italy today, perhaps in Europe, and the Bolognese immediately and maliciously announced that there were four whites in the next summer collection — “Germano, we will have optic, candid, dirty, and jonquil white”—and three blacks, the first of which would be “the color of the deepest darkness”; the second would have “a reddish flare that will be reminiscent of a great fire at night, like Troy burning”; and the third wasn’t exactly a black, but the “absolute blue of a moonless night.”

  When, two months ago, Ivo had shown him the pastel color from the photograph and said that a client wanted it in Cabora, Germano had rolled his eyes and answered that it was impossible: reproducing a color from a photograph was a fool’s game, and he had never heard of anyone asking or doing it.

  — That color is made up of at least four or five other colors, Ivo, and mixing the pigments will be hell and you will end up wasting a lot of time and throwing away a lot of pieces, and I’m not here to damage pieces, not even if you ask me to.

  Then he had looked Sergio Vari straight in the eye and proclaimed that he will have to tell a client no at least once in his life. Then he had asked who the client was, and Ivo had told him.

  He was the most important of them all. Numero uno. The first and the best. The one who had started everything. The artist whom Ivo had been unable to persuade to work with him until Sergio Vari had arrived. The poet who had declared that his suppliers, just by virtue of being chosen by him, were the best in the world. And the absolute idol of Germano’s jovial, rotund wife, who had only been able to afford a single white shirt and a pair of shoes by that designer — and only recently, after the raise Ivo had given her husband without him requesting it.