“A garden designer?”
“Yes, a really odd guy — he refused to drive a car, or use any vehicle, actually, even a bike; he always walked everywhere, in these worn-out sandals. He came every morning — not at seven like you, but around noon — and spent a few hours conferring orders on his Senegalese assistant. He wanted to make a minimal garden — or at least that’s what he said. He spent most of his day traveling from one place to another, but he maintained that he came up with his ideas while walking. He was like one of those little creatures that live inside shells, at the beach … what are they called?”
“Hermit crabs,” says Receding Hairline icily.
“Right, exactly, a hermit crab. Because he carried an enormous backpack that he never put down.”
“I’ve heard about him,” I say. “His name is Astoldi, right?”
“That’s the guy. And the oddest thing is that before becoming a garden designer he was a doctor.”
“A doctor? I didn’t know that.”
“An orthopedist, I think. He said he was fed up with looking after animals, and that plants were more interesting.” She snickers.
“Why didn’t he finish the garden?”
“Well, after two weeks the Senegalese guy dumped him and found a nursing job in the city.”
Receding Hairline looks down toward his shoes and shakes his head.
Her face goes dark. “Now we really should go,” she says.
After they went out, the maître d’ stepped forward, and I asked to use the bathroom; usually the toilets are reserved for customers, but I didn’t care whether he said yes or no. Anxiety and torment showed in his eyes: I could see that years of experience had taught him to refuse, but he was trying to smother his objections. Maybe he couldn’t say no to me — apparently I was friendly with the regular customers. With a look of defeat, he directed me to a corridor lined in red: “Last door on the left.” Then he had a flash of inspiration: “Can I prepare a table for you? At this time of night we can offer a nice plate of linguine alla puttanesca …”
I admire people who really know how to do their jobs. I looked him in the eye to let him know that he had me pegged, that I would rise to his bait: “Of course, the linguine will be fine,” I murmured.
The only other time I had come to the Renals’ in the dark had been more than a month previously, the night they’d invited me to dinner. This time the scene was already different at the entry arch: two great torches were hooked to the pilasters, and three attendants, new faces, were checking the guests’ names against a list. The whole driveway was studded with torches, and before you got to the plane-tree tunnel, two other attendants had you park in a field where other guests’ cars were already slumbering beneath the starry sky. The parking area was tightly packed, and lingering between the Mercedeses and BMWs were shadowy figures in jackets and ties — chauffeurs; the occasional cigarette lighter flared up to illuminate their lips and nostrils. As I walked through the darkness, I kicked a little white terrier by mistake, and he ran off yelping. I was reminded of the story about wild dogs invading the estate; during the whole month of work we hadn’t seen any dogs, and Rossi hadn’t spoken to me about it again, but maybe he was concerned about his guests’ safety: he had an army of attendants on duty.
Anticipating that not everyone would want to make the long walk up the driveway to the villa, they had provided vehicles: a pair of funny little three-wheel cars with wicker seats for the ladies, the elderly, the lazy, and the obese. I rode in one with a middle-aged couple; we joked about riding in it, and then we traded wisecracks with two other groups who were going up on foot — the men proud of their strength, the women wobbling on their heels and regretting that they hadn’t accepted a ride. We got out by the greenhouse. The villa seemed less austere, its lines softened. Its spikiness was masked by the night and by the torch flames that cast leaping curves and spirals onto the walls.
I head up the knoll to look for Rossi and thank him for inviting me, but when I get to the top, I instantly wish I were elsewhere. Many faces turn toward me and look me up and down, and many backs of heads remain indifferent to my arrival; there are too many people here crowded together, and I feel like roaring and tearing someone to shreds. Like this waitress, for example, who approaches with a tray of champagne flutes but no intention of offering one to me. She asks me if I need anything, because otherwise I should wait down below. At first I don’t understand, and some guests look at me blankly, neutrally. “There is a possible upside, though,” remarks someone behind me, “the man is solid, he’s there.”
I say that I’m looking for Mr. Rossi so I can thank him for inviting me, that I’m Claudio Fratta and I designed the new garden (gesturing toward the far side of the house).
The waitress flushes, blurts an apology, and flees. I’m left without any champagne. For a moment the crowd looks like a gigantic tree full of forking branches, and you think that the only way to explore it is by passing from one person to another, from one conversation to another, mapping it with the agility of a clever monkey — not like the elephant you are, with great gray cylindrical legs, unbudgeable blocks of reinforced concrete. “We have to be realistic about it: he’s not completely on the right side,” says a guest. Someone has attached two halogen floodlights near the second-floor windows, and the blinding white beam flattens all the guests to the ground, making halos of their hair and casting dark shadows across their eyes.
I go around to the back of the house, slalom between the flaming terra-cotta pots of citronella, brush past the buffet — this time they pulled out all the stops, but I ate dinner anyway before coming, to be on the safe side. At the far end of the terrace are a bunch of heads standing high above the rest, and for an instant I wonder whether they’re all members of a very tall family, but that’s because I forgot about the dais set up for the presentation of the book: the twins built it over the last few days. And I finally see Rossi, signing copies of Alfredo Renal’s book; I’ve already been given a complimentary copy. I don’t approach; Elisabetta must be next to him, blocked by some guests’ backs: I see only her hand resting on her husband’s shoulder.
After the longest five minutes of the evening, Elisabetta steps away, and I manage to approach. Rossi greets me, smiling. “How elegant!”
I just look at him.
“Why are you making that face?” He says that he wasn’t poking fun at me, that I’m the other star of the evening, apart from the book itself. “Do you know how many guests have already told me they want to meet you?”
No, I don’t know.
“I took the liberty of displaying your project, down there—”
I turn around, incredulous, and see a cluster of people studying the blueprint for the garden I designed for the bank’s data center: it’s standing on a large easel like a painter’s unfinished picture.
Strengthened by a few Bellinis mixed by the bartender, I spent half an hour describing the details of the plantings and paving and rocks and lighting; I don’t generally like to talk about my ideas, not even with clients, but I would have revealed my most important professional secrets if these people had asked me to. I went on talking and drinking, casually reaching out to take a glass from the tray each time a waitress came near; I must have had ten or twelve. I was beginning to feel like a mangy old bear performing at a town fair (in his childhood, my grandfather looked forward to the moment when the itinerant bear tamer would say, “Do what the mountain bears do,” and the beast would obediently, wearily stand upright) when Elisabetta Renal appeared before me, shining like a figure in a dream, like Cinderella at the ball — wearing a dress of red silk I would never forget, with a black shawl covering her bare back and shoulders — and took me by the hand, saying she was rescuing me from the curious throng because the risotto was being served.