at a stranger; or perhaps they too know me by now. Cats hide suspiciously in the deep shadows under steps or lintels, their alert eyes bright and devious like those of child pickpockets in Naples.
One doorway always has an old woman sitting within it. She makes lace, her gnarled fingers like the roots of the trees in the piazza but still nimble, flicking the bobbins over on the frame with a practised dexterity I admire. She sits in the shade but her hands and lace are in the brilliant sunlight, the skin over her knuckles tanned as leather.
Every time I pass her by I smile. Often I pause to appreciate her handiwork.
Her greeting is, regardless of the time, ‘ Buona sera, signore ,’ delivered in a high, squeaky voice like that of a cat mewing.
I wondered at first if she was blind, every hour being evening-tinted, but soon realized it is because her eyes see everything in twilight, permanently dazzled by the sun on the white tracery of the lace.
I point at her lace and remark, ‘ Molto bello, il merletto .’
This remark invariably prompts a wide and toothless smile and the same retort spoken through a porcine snort of comical derision.
‘ Merletto. Si! I lacci. No! ’
This is her reference to my first meeting with her when, in searching for the word, I assumed laccio was lace. It was: a shoelace.
Today, as I walk, I open my letter, read it and memorize the contents. I also watch out for someone following me. Before I return to the car, I stand and survey the piazza, pausing to tie my shoelace. During this time, I cast an eye over the vehicles in the piazza. Most I know to be owned by locals. Those I do not recognize I momentarily study, committing their details to mind. This way I can ensure one does not follow me back to the town.
Satisfied I am safe – or at least prepared – I leave. I take several other precautions as well, but you are not to know of these. I cannot afford to give away every detail. It would not be circumspect.
On the way back to the town – a distance of some thirty-five kilometres – I watch to see if I am being tailed and, bit by bit, I shred the letter into the tiniest confetti and let it blow, a pinch at a time, out of the window.
The second bedroom in my apartment is a workroom. It is quite large, almost too large, for I prefer to work in enclosed surroundings. This preference is not good for my health, not with the kind of work I do, but I have become accustomed to it and so am inured to small rooms.
In Marseilles, I had to operate from what had once been a wine cellar. There was no ventilation at all except a grid high in the wall and a sort of flue rising from one corner. There was no natural light, which was awful. I strained my eyes for weeks in there, on just one job. The results were superb, possibly my best ever, but it ruined my eyesight and scoured my lungs. For months, I suffered from bronchitis and sore throats and was obliged to wear sunglasses, gradually lessening the density of the lenses until I could once more face raw daylight. It was hell. I thought I was finished. But I was not.
In Hong Kong, I rented a two-room flat in Kwun Tong, an industrial area near Kai Tak airport. The pollution was atrocious. It lay upon the district like the strata of leaves collecting in a pond. At ground level was offal, waste food, strips of rattan scaffolding ties, styrofoam fast-food containers, discarded plastic shoes, paper, filth. At first-floor level – in the building in which I rented my temporary workshop this was ironically termed the mezzanine – up to third or fourth, the air stank of diesel and petrol fumes. From there on up, the smell was predominantly carbon tetrachloride delicately impinged upon, depending on the direction of the stifling breeze, by burning sugar, sewage, melting plastic, textile dyes and frying fat. The floors below my own were occupied variously by a dyeing works, a toy manufacturer, a fish-ball kitchen, a candy-maker, a dental laboratory making
One doorway always has an old woman sitting within it. She makes lace, her gnarled fingers like the roots of the trees in the piazza but still nimble, flicking the bobbins over on the frame with a practised dexterity I admire. She sits in the shade but her hands and lace are in the brilliant sunlight, the skin over her knuckles tanned as leather.
Every time I pass her by I smile. Often I pause to appreciate her handiwork.
Her greeting is, regardless of the time, ‘ Buona sera, signore ,’ delivered in a high, squeaky voice like that of a cat mewing.
I wondered at first if she was blind, every hour being evening-tinted, but soon realized it is because her eyes see everything in twilight, permanently dazzled by the sun on the white tracery of the lace.
I point at her lace and remark, ‘ Molto bello, il merletto .’
This remark invariably prompts a wide and toothless smile and the same retort spoken through a porcine snort of comical derision.
‘ Merletto. Si! I lacci. No! ’
This is her reference to my first meeting with her when, in searching for the word, I assumed laccio was lace. It was: a shoelace.
Today, as I walk, I open my letter, read it and memorize the contents. I also watch out for someone following me. Before I return to the car, I stand and survey the piazza, pausing to tie my shoelace. During this time, I cast an eye over the vehicles in the piazza. Most I know to be owned by locals. Those I do not recognize I momentarily study, committing their details to mind. This way I can ensure one does not follow me back to the town.
Satisfied I am safe – or at least prepared – I leave. I take several other precautions as well, but you are not to know of these. I cannot afford to give away every detail. It would not be circumspect.
On the way back to the town – a distance of some thirty-five kilometres – I watch to see if I am being tailed and, bit by bit, I shred the letter into the tiniest confetti and let it blow, a pinch at a time, out of the window.
The second bedroom in my apartment is a workroom. It is quite large, almost too large, for I prefer to work in enclosed surroundings. This preference is not good for my health, not with the kind of work I do, but I have become accustomed to it and so am inured to small rooms.
In Marseilles, I had to operate from what had once been a wine cellar. There was no ventilation at all except a grid high in the wall and a sort of flue rising from one corner. There was no natural light, which was awful. I strained my eyes for weeks in there, on just one job. The results were superb, possibly my best ever, but it ruined my eyesight and scoured my lungs. For months, I suffered from bronchitis and sore throats and was obliged to wear sunglasses, gradually lessening the density of the lenses until I could once more face raw daylight. It was hell. I thought I was finished. But I was not.
In Hong Kong, I rented a two-room flat in Kwun Tong, an industrial area near Kai Tak airport. The pollution was atrocious. It lay upon the district like the strata of leaves collecting in a pond. At ground level was offal, waste food, strips of rattan scaffolding ties, styrofoam fast-food containers, discarded plastic shoes, paper, filth. At first-floor level – in the building in which I rented my temporary workshop this was ironically termed the mezzanine – up to third or fourth, the air stank of diesel and petrol fumes. From there on up, the smell was predominantly carbon tetrachloride delicately impinged upon, depending on the direction of the stifling breeze, by burning sugar, sewage, melting plastic, textile dyes and frying fat. The floors below my own were occupied variously by a dyeing works, a toy manufacturer, a fish-ball kitchen, a candy-maker, a dental laboratory making
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