The American by Martin Booth Read Free Book Online Page B

observer.
    There is no bar in sight. If there were one there, it would bring its owner many riches, and it surprises me no wily entrepreneur has recognized the potential. It would also present to me a perfect vantage point from which I could inspect the crowds and assess any possible threat. Yet it is inconceivable that I could be entirely safe in such a place of teeming onlookers. What I required as soon as I came to live in this region was a spot I could approach cautiously, like a tiger returning to its kill, aware there may be a hunter in a machan in the trees who has been waiting, patiently.
    And so, whenever I drive out to Mopolino, I always park my little Citroën 2CV by the end tree in the line, walking to the bar on the left of the piazza. I sit at the same table every time, order the same refreshment – an espresso and a glass of iced water. The patron, who is not quite as old as the postmaster, knows me by now and I am accepted as a regular, if taciturn, visitor.
    I do not call always on the same day of the week, nor do I call always at the same hour: so rigid a timetable would invite problems.
    For a while, I sip my coffee and behold the slow pace of village life unfolding. There is a farmer who arrives in a cart pulled by a tubby pony. The cart is made from the truck-bed of a Fiat pickup, with wooden shafts from a gig many decades older. They are intricately carved with leaf designs, as much a work of aesthetic art as the rest of the cart is one of ingenuity. The wheels are adapted from those of a heavy lorry and have bald pneumatic Pirelli tyres, half inflated. There are a number of rowdy teenage boys who zoom into the piazza upon mopeds, their engines and voices echoing momentarily off the walls. There is a rich man with a Mercedes-Benz sedan who drives to the post office and leaves his vehicle in the centre of the thoroughfare while he does his business: he cares not a jot that he holds up the daily meat delivery to the butcher’s shop. There are also two very pretty young girls who drink coffee at the other bar, their laughter light yet simultaneously serious with the concerns of their youth.
    I wait for up to an hour. If there is nothing to alarm me, I go smartly across to the post office.
    ‘ Buon giorno ,’ I say.
    The postmaster grunts his reply, jutting his chin. It is his way of asking what I want, although he is well aware. It is always the same. I buy no stamps and seldom post a letter.
    ‘ Il fermo posta? ’ I enquire.
    He turns to a rack of pigeonholes behind a sack of mail hanging in a metal frame like an old person’s walking aid. I wonder if, when the day’s collection has been made, he borrows the framework to see himself home.
    From one pigeonhole he draws a bundle of general delivery envelopes held together by an elastic band. Some have been there for weeks, months even. They are the relics of love affairs turned sour, petty crimes abandoned or long since carried out, deals reneged upon and tourists long since passed by on their restless itineraries. They are a sad comment upon the feckless, shifting, unfeeling character of human nature.
    Deftly, like a teller counting through a thick wad of banknotes, he flicks through the mail. At the end, he stops and repeats the process until he comes to my letter. There is always only the one. This he extracts with thin, wasted fingers and tosses on to the counter with an incomprehensible grunt. He knows me well by now, no longer asking for identification. I put one hundred lire in change upon the counter by way of payment or gratuity. With his bony fingers he scoops the coins across the counter and into the palm of his hand.
    Leaving the post office, I do not go directly to my little car. I walk around the village first. The streets are so placid, so cool in the shade, the cobbles smooth and hard underfoot, the windows shuttered against the heat of the day. By some of the doorways sleeping dogs lie prone, too bushed by the heat to bother to growl