The Lover of No Fixed Abode by Franco Lucentini

Author:Franco Lucentini
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press
Published: 2023-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

5.

The next destination is an old shop near the Lista di Spagna. A destination likely to provide some fun, or so it had seemed before the visit to the Ghetto. It is a second-hand clothes shop, which Mr Silvera has long known of, and which a rapid enquiry conducted from the hotel revealed as still in operation.

It is unthinkable, inconceivable that Mr Silvera should turn up at the dinner tonight dressed in new clothes. Before falling back upon a funereal dinner jacket, still stiff from the factory, or upon a tragic tuxedo of mass-produced impeccability, they must first make some experiments in the antiques line, so to speak, and trust in finding some garment which, without appearing too shabby, cast-off or alien, will nonetheless bear some suggestion of a past life, some historic patina worthy of Mr Silvera. A light-hearted task, an amusing exercise in exterior decoration.

But after the visit to the Ghetto the atmosphere has changed; Mr Silvera’s voice, as they walk towards the nearby Lista di Spagna, sounds exaggeratedly animated even to his own ear, like that of a person wishing to avoid silence at all costs.

“And not only were they forbidden to print their books, but every so often they would be burned, great bonfires would be made of Talmudic texts in Piazza San Marco.”

“How awful.”

The conversation continues in this fashion through mere inertia, with no interest on either side. They pass from the law against the printing of books to the prohibition on weaving cloths, even veils, and then, laboriously, to the final resort of the strazzaria – the trade in rags and second-hand clothes, traditionally in Jewish hands in Venice as in many other cities.

Does this shop in the Lista di Spagna belong to Jews as well?

Yes, to an old Jew called… called… Peres, perhaps, or Perez, with a z.

But when had Mr Silvera last been there? When Pordenone’s frescoes were still at Santo Stefano, perhaps?

No, no, much later, three years ago, four at the most.

To sell or buy?

To sell. A coat that was too heavy, an absurdly padded loden.

Ah, I see.

The fact is, Mr Silvera reflects as they cross Campo San Geremia, that superficiality is a difficult art to practise, especially with a woman like this, who possesses such a keen sense of the implicit. Besides, all this non-specifying, non-explaining, non-saying is beginning to take its toll on Mr Silvera as well, the “everything’s all right” fiction is getting more and more difficult to keep up. Over the last few hours there have been a few tiny signs of yielding on his part, determined no doubt by his condition of weariness but which could also be explained – it is no good denying it – by the way Mr Silvera feels towards his companion.

To emerge from these waters before they become too emotionally and dangerously high, and to set his feet on more carefree, frivolous ground, Mr Silvera takes her arm (an affectionate but also symbolic gesture) and quizzes her about the lady of the dinner, this Cosima.

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