Inconveniences
aside, there is something about a blizzard that gives you time. Unexpectedly,
there’s time to wait as energy-saving light bulbs grow bright enough to light
something more than a Neanderthal cave. Time enough to notice how quiet the
world looks while wearing white. And there’s time enough to visit good friends:
for if the streets are clear, it makes sudden sense to use them.
Giovanni is an old friend and frame-maker in Certaldo
whose secret love for all things beautiful finds full expression in the carved
frames he fashions. His workshop smells like dry wood dust and pink rubbing
alcohol. Now pushing 70-something, he has needed glasses for years but has his
own logic for never wearing them. When you work with your hands, he says, the
less you see, the more you feel. This could be true. Whenever he sees me, he
somehow manages to truly see me, zeroing in on my flea-like worries and ladybug
joys with the perception of a man whose main concerns are tiny stretches of
smoothness and stubborn bits of rough.
‘Chi non muore, si rivede,’ he muttered, suppressing a grin
and shuffling aside to welcome me across the threshold of his studio. ‘Those
who don’t die come round again.’
I smiled and
stepped into the space, making no move to greet him with two kisses. For
Giovanni, demonstrated affection is something to argue about. ‘You’re right. I
thought it was time for a visit. Come te la passi, allora? How are things?’
‘I’m fine,’
he replied unceremoniously, leaning closer to frown upon my face, ‘Ma te, che fai? Le ore piccole?’
By asking if
I had been staying up until ‘the small hours,’ he was bringing attention to the
unpleasant bags under my eyes. Talking with Giovanni is like playing checkers.
Each exchange is diagonal, a side step that you, as opponent, must foresee or
successfully interpret.
‘A little
insomnia, si,’ I admitted. ‘No real reason why.’
‘E’ il tempo,’ he decided categorically.
‘Really?’ I
asked surprised. ‘I thought snow made people sleep.’
‘No, the sun
does that.’
I couldn’t
help but smile. No matter the weather I’d have started with, he would have
insisted on the opposite climate as culprit. Giovanni likes being contrary. To
him, agreement is for ninnies. It’s a Tuscan principle, perhaps: real friends
make argument an art. In a word, he delights in doing what Italians call fare il bastian contrario, to unfailingly contradict all
voiced opinions. Walk in elated because the market had lilies on an off day,
and he’ll tell you that their smell in a closed room can make your head spin
worse than inhaled turpentine. Praise the exquisiteness of his work or anyone
else’s and he’ll tell you of termites and cowards he knows who have weak
fingers. He’ll finish by describing the whittling knife he’s never learned to
use without abusing his wrist. But if you’re in a glass-half-empty mood, he’ll
borrow an almost bubbly attitude and serve up spuma bionda as if the world deserved a toast for how well it’s working.
The
expression fare il bastian
contrario is credited
to a certain incorrigible Count of San Sebastiano, who disobeyed orders during
one of Italy’s innumerable battles long before the country actually became one.
The count’s unwillingness to retreat clinched an unexpected victory against the
Franco-Spanish army, justifying contrarians forevermore.
‘How’s your
heart?’ I asked once perched on my habitual stool. ‘Have you been to the
doctor’s lately?’
He shook his
head no. ‘I don’t like them making a liar out of me.’
‘A liar?’
‘I never
tell the truth to doctors. The more they know, the faster you die.’
‘Oh, via, Giovanni, don’t be like that. Health is important.’
‘Hah!’ he
snorted. ‘You come in here as pale as a watermelon in winter and expect me to
hear you?’
I laughed.
‘Hear me, yes. Listen never.’
Happy with
my answer, he said nothing. A positive response is seldom more than an upward
tilt of his chin and a grunt that, to the untrained ear, could just as easily
be taken for disapproval. Once you’re a pro, you know that appreciation is
quiet and begrudging. By the very nature of it, dissatisfaction needs far more
words.
‘So tell me
something,’ he said, for he likes undersized stories as much as I like telling
them. This visit’s tales centered on a Telecom hotline assistant telling me to
‘expect’ faulty service and the happy discovery of a nineteenth-century art
museum in a tiny Bologna hill town. His wood chips flew much faster than my
words and new curves appeared on his frame with stunning quickness. But the day
wouldn’t hold enough hours to complete it, he said; its intricate design had
been styled in France in the 1700s, maledetti francesi, he swore.
When it was
time to leave, he grinned and summed up the visit. ‘You could have made a
market for how much you talked.’
I was ready.
‘And you could have made a tombstone for how much you listened.’
In response,
he gave a tiny grunt. Then he returned to his begrudging Parisian Rococo. The
strength of his tireless arms and the increased stoop of his shoulders made me
nostalgic for him. What a pity the man refused to be hugged. It was late and
dark when I finally left the studio, walking past his courtyard well that had
once given the Romans water. The evening had a lull to it, the kind that’s fit
for nighttime prayers and nursery rhymes. So, goodnight room and goodnight
moon. And goodnight good well, we’ll see you soon. And God bless men who work
with their hands. And God bless the blizzard and bastian contrario.
