The Lord of All He Surveyed
(Easter Sunday)
The architect was the lord of all he surveyed.
It seemed to me that our little piazza, which on the map is not designated as a piazza at all but, depending on the direction from which you view it, either the wider beginning or end of our street, was just about all the architect surveyed, day in and day out. In all the time I have lived in my flat (now more than five years), it seemed he rarely took a vacation. At most, the sound of his voice would disappear for a week or so in August. Otherwise he was in the office 5 or 6 days a week. Even on Sundays, when he wasn’t working and none of his staff was around, he might go to the office to check on things or use it to park his motorcycle.
His apartment, on the first floor, with a window overlooking the street, was just opposite his ground floor office. I live right between, at a 90-degree angle to both, in a third building. In the middle of the two nice residential buildings where he lived and worked there are five or six official parking spaces available to the general public. At any given time, the architect managed to control at least three for his personal fleet. When he had to go somewhere with one of his cars or SUV, he would park another diagonally to keep the vacated space for himself, whether for just a few hours or for the whole day.
I got used to, but never stopped resenting, the noise of his vehicles’ engines revving morning, noon or night while he and one of his staff played musical cars, pulling vehicles in or out and re-parking others so he could claim the maximum amount of space for himself.
One morning one of his spaces was strangely vacant and a woman not from our area unwittingly parked her car in it. One of the architect’s staff came out of the office and courteously asked her to vacate, which she promptly did. It was, after all, the architect’s space, even if he didn’t own it.
When the weather was warm enough, which in Rome can be a good three seasons a year, the architect liked to work with his office door wide open.
Ours is a neighborhood of historical interest. Although our street is quieter, at least by day, than some of the adjacent ones, tourists stroll the byways and bums and the generally aimless wander and loiter. Every so often someone who had no business with the architect would just walk right into his office for a look around. When this happened the architect, yelling at the top of his lungs, would insult the person, tell him to get out and threaten to call the police.
Rome is not the kind of city where people randomly leave their doors open so, besides the opportunity to have more air enter the premises in addition to the ventilation available through the three gated windows, what was he thinking?
I have a metal gate so I can keep my door wide open with the gate locked for fresh air. Intruders don’t enter my flat for a look around uninvited. Every so often an aimless male wanderer might gaze through my locked gate into the living room and ask me if I “need anything.” Do I need anything? What a loaded question! Yes, I need, but I am a connoisseur. And a connoisseur is what I need.
The architect certainly had a temper. More than once I heard him raging violently at someone on the street, perhaps because that person had parked his car too close to one of the architect’s vehicles, or for some other reason. Before it registered with me that the voice belonged to the architect, my first impulse was to call the police.
One afternoon I heard him yelling violently and at length at his little grandson just a few feet from my door. The architect kept repeating, “You know what you’ve done, Valerio! You know what you’ve done!” What could the poor darling have possibly done to merit such an outburst? At his tender age of three or four little Valerio had no idea what he’d done.
The architect’s was the kind of rage that could have brought him to a state of apoplexy.
With his office door wide open it was easier for his numerous collaborators to come and go and for the architect to step out to talk on his cell phone in our little non-piazza. He never had to yell to make his voice heard, and I could hear every word he spoke while he was chatting on his cell whether my door was open or closed.
When the architect would get too close to my door during one of his innumerable daily conversations I got into the habit of turning up the volume of my television or stereo, not just to drown out his voice but to make him keep his distance.
He could chat on his cell phone in front of his own door. Why did he have to stand in front of mine?
By the time I developed this tactic he and I were no longer on speaking terms. Since the apartment I moved into had long been vacant, he had gotten into the habit of parking one of his vehicles too close to what is now my door. The over-proximity was more a question of inches than of feet, but I have to be able to enter and exit without turning sideways or holding my breath. With or without shopping bags. With or without a cat in a carrier going to or coming from the vet.
To describe myself as plumpish would be cute. It would also be an understatement. I am so much more, much more than two feet on a scale would indicate.
One day soon after I moved in the architect brought his tape measure out to gauge the distance between his car and my door. He measured from the chassis. I then brought out my own tape measure and measured from the car’s protruding door handle. He was too close.
He and I had a few shouting matches about this over the next several weeks and if he was firm about his preferences, so was I. He got the message. From then on he kept his cars at a proper distance, but he never spoke to me again. Not even a perfunctory “buongiorno,” which in Italy is considered the minimum level of civility among neighbors.
The architect was a good-looking man, about my age, not too tall or too short for his trim physique, with a short grey beard and hair. He often smoked those Tuscan-style cigarillos some men are so fond of waving around in their mouth, as if they were extensions of their virility. His face brought to mind the famous Boldini portrait of Giuseppe Verdi, minus the top hat and with a shorter nose.
Women of my age and with a temperament were of no interest to him. He preferred younger and less challenging. When Danuta, my tall, firm-bodied Polish cleaning girl, would arrive in the afternoon in her tight jeans, short t-shirt that revealed an ample section of midriff and silken blonde hair waving in the wind, he would call her an endearing “piccola” (“little girl”) and invite her for a coffee. Little did he know that Danuta, who has spent 13 years of her youth in Rome breaking her back cleaning homes from early morning to late evening six and seven days a week, also had quite a temperament. Danuta would always decline his invitations because her romantic interests were focused elsewhere. But she developed a friendship with Gilda, the architect’s sweet Romanian cleaning girl, and learned, minus the spicy details, that the architect had an active romantic life and enjoyed playing the field. Always with younger women.
When I visited New York for a month two winters ago to see Meli and the baby, Danuta had the keys and came to care for the cats everyday. She told me the architect inquired about me frequently during my absence.
About six or seven weeks ago it took me a day or two to realize I missed the architect’s voice and that a few of his cars were no longer parked in those spaces he so jealously protected.
His apartment window was still open and I saw Gilda going back and forth between his office and flat doing her chores.
I thought the architect might be on vacation or away on business, but Gilda told me he was at home resting, and that tests had been performed. At his daughter’s request Gilda was sleeping over at his flat so she could tend to him night and day. Not a good sign.
The weather was unseasonably mild for most of February and March and his apartment window overlooking the street remained wide open all day long. Toward the end of March the weather turned abruptly chilly and one afternoon when I came home from work I saw the shutters to the window had been closed. They have remained closed since then.
When I saw Gilda some days later I inquired about the architect. She hesitated a moment, then told me the architect had died ten days earlier, at home. That same day they had taken his body to the church in the piazza for the funeral. That was the day they closed the shutters. I never heard a thing.
The architect had been diagnosed with an incurable tumor and in less than six weeks his fate was sealed. Gone, just like that.
I expressed my sincere condolences to Gilda even though I knew the architect didn’t like me.
I am sure the architect had sides to his character beyond those I was able to observe in our one-note relations. Sometimes in the evening he and some young woman would linger at the window leaning on the sill to chat and observe the street life below. Several thick candle stumps always lined the sill, and a composition of shiny, brightly colored Christmas tree balls hung perpetually beneath his beamed ceiling. Maybe he kept those ornaments in the room for his grandchildren’s delight. Maybe they will preserve the memory of those joyful red and gold spheres always in their heart.
Requiescat in pace, caro architetto.
