Italian Neighbours_An Englishman in Verona by Tim Parks

Author:Tim Parks [Parks, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, Biography
ISBN: 9781446485576
Goodreads: 17308788
Publisher: Vintage Digital
Published: 1992-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

19

I morti

TO PUT YOUR car in the garage under Via Colombare 10, you inch along a crazy-paved drive the opposite side of the palazzina to the garden, then down a steep ramp behind the building and sharp sharp left into the garage. Among the many early morning sounds, as I sit at my desk translating sales forecasts for marble granulates, comes the roaring of a small motor, tackling the ramp from the garage. Suddenly, the roar dies; instead there’s a sharp whine, then a puttering, almost immediately beneath my window. Then the whole noisy business repeats itself.

I don’t normally go out on to the back balcony above the ramp. I don’t go out because, directly opposite, across Negretti’s garden where Vega tugs her chain, is a thin, tall crooked house like something from a children’s book; the witch’s house: flaking stucco, battered shutters, grubby lace curtains awry. And at the window exactly on a level with mine, an old old woman with long face, skin shrunken on to her cheekbones, and black shawl pulled tight about her hair, is constantly looking out, so that if I step on to the balcony my eye inevitably meets hers. Upon which, a ghost, very definitely a ghost of a smile will cross her face. My salute is hollow. The experience is not unlike seeing Don Guido’s photographs of the recently dead. And, in fact, today is All Saints’ Day, or as the Italians more commonly call it, I morti, the dead.

But the unusual sound of this car – roar, whine, putter, putter, putter, roar, whine, putter, putter, putter – is too intriguing, and I head for the balcony, studiously avoiding that ancient gaze.

It is the first time in the four months since we came to Via Colombare that Lucilla has got her car out. From above I can just see that the back seat of the tiny Fiat is full of flowers. She has a fair few cemeteries to visit today.

If she can get the car up the ramp.

On the flat patch at the bottom outside the garage she revs it furiously. With the choke full out, the air turns Fiat blue. The engine is racing. And off comes the clutch with a jerk. The car shoots up the ramp. But at the top she must turn sharply right to fit in between the railings and the wall of the house. Racing up so fast, she loses her nerve and hits the brake. The car stalls and comes whining back down the ramp, careering about dangerously close to the outer wall that shores up the garden, coming to rest askew on the patch at the bottom. Immediately, she turns on the engine again, putter, putter, putter, and is presumably getting up courage for the next attack.

After watching the show through two or three times, I go down to help. The car isn’t warm enough, she explains. I nod in agreement. Would she like me to try? Troppo gentile, Signor Tino, troppo gentile! Although the car is not old, the white paintwork is dull and cracked.

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