Scoccimarro was an extraordinary being in the world of art collectors; a peasant in the literal sense of the word. Like his father and grandfather, he had provided meager and toilsome sustenance for his family by making olive oil, growing almonds, and keeping a few sheep for the production of romano cheese, which he made himself twice a year. Then providence had smiled. The Aga Khan had decided to put up a condominium development on the Strait of Messina, and Ugo Scoccimarro's rocky eleven acres on the coast near Scaletta Zanclea just happened to be the perfect spot for it. Smooth-talking representatives in suits and ties had appeared at Scoccimarro's decrepit stone farmhouse one day in 1967 to ask him what he wanted for the land. The flabbergasted, twenty-three-year-old Ugo got up his nerve and stammered out a demand for fifty times what he thought it was worth, then almost fainted when it was accepted on the spot; no arguments, no bargaining
He had slapped his forehead and grinned when he told me the story. "I could have asked for ten times more. " But it had been enough to start him on a remarkable career.
Ugo had turned out to be a shrewd businessman, putting his money first into country land, then into commercial developments in Catania, and finally into the production of an aperitif called Jazz!. This was one of those awful medicinal concoctions the Italians seem actually to enjoy. Made from olives and almonds, and based on a family recipe, it was an immediate success. Reluctantly, Ugo had moved to Milan to build his new factory; it was the only place he could find the technical skills he needed.
Some years ago he had gone to an auction and bought himself a ready-made art collection of twenty-five paintings, mostly of the Utrecht School, a group of seventeenth-century Dutch artists who had come to Rome as students and been heavily influenced by Caravaggio. Ugo had bought them as an investment, he said, but although they had quadrupled in value in nine years, he had never tried to sell one, as far as I knew, although he'd bought a few more. The truth of the matter, I thought, was that Ugo Scoccimarro, former tiller of the soil, was thrilled at being a gentleman art connoisseur, and saw little need to make any changes. The day I had asked him if he would lend some of his pictures to the exhibition, he had swelled before my eyes and practically floated away like a helium-filled balloon.
The reason I hadn't seen him during the reception, he explained now, was that he had just arrived. His train had been delayed for two hours before it ever got out of Milan. Knowing he was going to be late, he had eaten en route in the dining car. He was lucky to have made it at all.
The others clucked at his misfortune; he had missed a fine dinner. But I thought I knew better. Ugo Scoccimarro, like many a self-made man before him, was of several minds about his social position. On the one hand, he was pugnaciously proud of his peasant background. On the other, he was often desperately insecure. I knew him, for example, to be uneasy about his table manners. He was happiest with a napkin tied around his neck, a tumbler of wine at his elbow, and a plate of pasta in front of him (which he preferred to eat with the help of a spoon), and he went to considerable lengths to avoid dining among the gentry. I didn't doubt that his missing dinner was premeditated.
He grinned warmly at me, his brown teeth as square and sturdy as the painted ones on a German nutcracker. "Ah, Cristoforo, I'm glad to see you." He spoke Italian with a broad Sicilian accent that I had seen lesser men sneer at behind their hands. "My train doesn't leave until after midnight. Let's go and drink a brandy somewhere."
I was ready for bed, not brandy, but what could I do? Ugo had made a four-hour round-trip just to see me. Besides, after an evening of Di Vecchio's acerbic opinions and the disembodied locutions of Doctor Luca, his robust, down-to-earth conversation would be a relief.
"Fine," I said. I gestured toward the upstairs bar, where some of the others were already heading. "Why don't—"
"No, no." He squeezed my arm and drew me aside. "Somewhere away from all the gran signori."
Max overheard. "I hope that doesn't exclude me," he said in Italian.
Ugo clapped him on the back. "No, no, certainly not. Would I accuse you of being a gentleman?" He bellowed with laughter and I realized he too had tossed down a few glasses. "Come on," he said, "I know a place on Via d'Azeglio. Just the three of us. Old friends."
We spent almost an hour in the Bar Nepentha, where the woman at the piano serenaded us with "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," a Scott Joplin medley, and similar old Italian favorites. Most of what we talked about I don't recall (I'd had quite a bit myself by then), but I remember how happy Ugo was, telling us about the modern house he'd bought in Sicily on the slopes of Aci Castello, overlooking the Ionian Sea, a few miles from Catania. He was immensely relieved to have left Milan's genteel, cosmopolitan atmosphere, where he'd lived restlessly for seven years, a fish out of water.
"Ah, it's so beautiful there," he told us rapturously. Bellissimo, meraviglioso. "The air is clean, the people are real, a word means what it means. A man knows where he stands." He patted the back of my hand. "You have to come down and see. My pictures are in a wonderful room, all natural light from the north. You too, Massimiliano. Hey, why don't you open up a shop in Catania? Wide streets down there, not these little alleys. And no Communists around to look at you funny because you make a few lire."
Max laughed. "I know; just the Mafia. No, I'm glad for you, Ugo, but I like it right here."
He more than liked it. He had fallen in love with northern Italy on his first visit, and for fifteen years had dreamed and planned until he could move there. Now, as far as I knew, he never planned to leave, an Italianophile to the core. He had married a petite, black-haired woman from Faenza, but she had died of cancer about two years before. Max had been stunned with grief. I realized suddenly that this was the first time since then that he'd seemed anything like the old, jolly Max. "Come for a visit, then," Ugo persisted. "Next weekend! The two of you. You'll stay with me."
"Well, I can," I said. "I was going to come and see you anyway. We have to work out the final arrangements on the pictures you're lending. And I want to take another good look at that Boursse. You're still willing to let it go for sixty thousand dollars?"
Max almost choked on his grappa. "Ugo, you don't mean you're selling your Boursse for sixty thousand? I'll give you—"
Ugo chortled. "Always the businessman. No, Massimiliano, this is a special favor to Cristoforo. For you . ." He rolled up his eyes, pretending to calculate. "Maybe three hundred thousand?" He leaned back in his chair, shaking with laughter.
"Thanks a bunch," Max said in English, but he was smiling, too. Max had a big gap between his upper front teeth. When he grinned, which was often, he looked like a mustached, middle-aged Alfred E. Neuman, the What, me worry? kid on the cover of Mad magazine.
"You'll really come?" Ugo said to me. He looked delighted.
"Of course. I've already checked the schedule to Catania. There's an Alisarda flight that leaves at noon on Saturday and arrives about two. How would that be? Could you have someone meet me at the airport?"