Infinite Summer by Edoardo Nesi

Author:Edoardo Nesi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2017-07-11T04:00:00+00:00

A COOL MORNING

IT IS A COOL NOVEMBER MORNING when Arianna walks into a grocery store and sees Ivo buying a handful of truffles. She moves closer to greet him, he sees her and his face lights up. He embraces her and kisses her on both cheeks — they are cool from the wind — and his right hand brushes against her waist for a second.

He holds the biggest of the truffles under her nose, and when she smells its rotten, irresistible strength, Arianna starts laughing and says she cannot understand how people can eat those things. Then she asks someone to serve her and gets distracted, and only when she has finished does she realize that Ivo is still standing next to the checkout, chatting idly with the shopkeeper — asking over and over whether those truffles really are from Alba. She wonders for a second whether Ivo might be somehow waiting for her, because he suddenly cuts the conversation short when he sees her moving closer to the cashier.

Arianna has two full bags, and he offers to help her take them to the car because his hands are free: he only bought the truffles! They leave the shop together, and when they get to her car, Arianna can’t find her keys. They aren’t in her bag or in her coat pockets, and it starts raining. Ivo, shopping bags in hand, offers to take her home, if she’d like, or — he adds, faced with her silence and a helpless look — at least to give her some shelter.

Then the rain begins to pour and the decision is made for them. Laughing, they take refuge in Ivo’s car — a blue Mercedes Pagoda whose interior still smells of leather. Ivo turns to place the bags on the backseat and the rain starts beating down like a drum on the roof of the car and the water streams down the windows and suddenly they can’t see anything. It is as if the outside world has disappeared and only they were left.

Arianna senses the intimacy of the moment and moves immediately to break it: she strokes the dashboard and compliments him on the car. Ivo thanks her and says that, thankfully, work is going well. Then he compliments her on the brown velvet jacket she is wearing under her trench coat and starts telling her all about velvet. He explains that no one really knows its origins, and everything they know about it comes from art and literature, but everyone agrees that the most beautiful velvets in history were made during the Renaissance in Lucca, Florence, and Venice, and how there were many types of it: cut velvet, patterned velvet, ferronerie velvet, curly velvet, brocaded velvet, ciselé velvet, but the most beautiful was velluto allucciolato, a velvet that took its name from fireflies because it had a double weft and one of them was made with a bouclé streaked with the finest thread of gold, which shone in the light of the candles.

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