The Ice-Cream Makers (18 page)

Victor Larssen slid a stack of sheets towards me. ‘I hope they're of use to you,' he said. And then, ‘That image of a hand tumbling in the night sky, appearing to hold the moon. I think it's phenomenal.'

He laughed. Larssen didn't have Heiman's boyish charm, but he did have the same cast-iron faith in poetry. Without it, life was less beautiful for him, too.

We talked about the poets I mentored, and about Robert Berendsen. The two men used to write for the same university paper. Then Larssen shook my hand and escorted me to the door of his office. He didn't invite me for a drink or a bite to eat in a nearby restaurant, the way Heiman had often done. When we got to know each other better, perhaps. We scheduled another appointment and I was to send him the journal proofs.

Standing on the footpath outside the World Poetry offices, I looked over to the ice-cream parlour. It was November. The awning had been folded away and it was darker inside than out. A note had been stuck to the window of the door: ‘Back in March!' It was in my mother's handwriting and included a drawing of a small sun. In the old days Luca and I got to do that. Luca drew a sun and I drew a sun. So we wouldn't fight.

I stood there for quite a while, not trying to suppress my thoughts.
Let them come
, a rebellious voice inside me said.
Come on then! I can handle you!
And so they came; they besieged me. All the thoughts and the questions, the memories, the images. Had it snowed in Venas yet? What did the kitchen smell of? I saw my parents sitting at the table with Luca. I saw my chair. What was Sophia doing? Was she walking around the village, was she looking at the warm lights behind the windows? March was still a very long way off. But not for an ice-cream maker. March came closer every day.

That evening I translated Patrick Lane's poem in bed. The ice that had melted in the bucket and the water that was thrown away. The severed hand on the river bed like a ‘dark blue spider sleeping'. And then the question: ‘What do you do with the pieces of yourself you lose?'

Like Sophia Loren's Buttocks

The following spring, Sophia stood in the ice-cream parlour. She wore her long, blonde hair in a thick braid down her back and held a
spatola
in her hand. She served the customers, together with my mother. Beppi made coffee and waited on the tables outside. Luca was in the kitchen, boiling milk and churning scandalously thick ice-cream. There were four again.

It had happened the previous winter, or the one before. Luca never told me. He was still not talking to me. The fact that he had won Sophia and she had taken my place in the ice-cream parlour made no difference to him. Yet he failed to suppress a smile when, in late February, I walked into the parlour and our eyes met. I had already spotted Sophia. I had seen her right away, even before my hand had reached the doorknob, through the glass my mother was cleaning, past her blue apron, behind my father who was polishing the espresso machine with a cloth. There she was. It was unbelievable, yet perfectly natural at the same time. She was holding a mop and greeted me with a kiss on the cheek.

‘Hello, brother-in-law,' she said with a smile.

I spied Luca through the small window in the kitchen door and he too was smiling, but it was a sardonic smile, like that of a boxer who sees his opponent sprawled on the canvas.

They were cleaning, making final preparations before re-opening, perhaps as early as the next day.

‘It will stay dry,' my mother said, sounding pleased. ‘Sunny spells this afternoon, with temperatures rising later in the week. The wind is moderate, southwest.'

I knew it. Spring was in the air.

My father made me an espresso. ‘Have a taste,' he said. ‘I connected the machine this morning. The beans are freshly ground.'

I took a sip. It was only warmish because the machine hadn't heated up properly yet, which made the coffee a touch sour.

‘Nice,' I said, ‘but there's so little of it. I can see the bottom of the cup.'

There was no bucket of water for me, but I did get a hug. I could feel his stubble scratching my cheek, and mine his. On the first day of the season, there was no resentment. It would come after a few weeks, when the ice-cream machines were churning non-stop, the espresso machine was wheezing, and my father's joints were creaking. He would start cursing me as he walked back and forth between terrace and parlour for the umpteenth time, suddenly visualising me in a chair with a book of poetry in my hands — a vision in the blazing sun.

He attached a double portafilter to the espresso machine and pressed the button. Two caramel-coloured jets gushed into the pre-heated cups. It would take exactly twenty-six seconds, not a second shorter and not a breath longer.

For most ice-cream makers, coffee was just a sideline. They sold it in the morning or used it to attract customers on rainy days, and of course it was nice that they could drink proper espresso themselves. But ice-cream was their livelihood. For many it was a passion, or even more than that: some ice-cream makers couldn't stop talking about their trade. It continued in Italy in winter. Endless conversations in Bar Posta about vertical and horizontal ice-cream makers, about the ideal temperature, about proportions; discussions that often carried over to the kitchen table. It drove some wives to distraction.

My father simply withdrew into his basement in winter, to his treasure trove of screwdrivers and sanders. He rarely talked about ice-cream, but when the subject was coffee he liked to get involved. Other ice-cream makers often talked about smells. They praised the extraordinary aroma of their coffee: chocolate, cinnamon, nutmeg, cedar. One ice-cream maker even claimed that his espresso smelled of the colouring pencils of his childhood.

My father swore by a percolation time of twenty-six seconds. Aromas were unimportant to him, hogwash. ‘A good espresso smells of espresso,' was his opinion, ‘the way yoghurt ice tastes of yoghurt.'

He tried to convince other ice-cream makers of the ideal percolation time he had established after years of experimentation.

‘Why not twenty-eight seconds?' an ice-cream maker from Vodo had once asked him teasingly. ‘Or twenty-four?'

‘Twenty-eight seconds is far too long,' my father replied, deadly serious. ‘It makes the espresso bitter, because the roasting notes are dominant. After twenty-four seconds the espresso is sour and watery. The coffee hasn't had enough extraction time.'

‘What about twenty-three seconds, Beppi?'

‘At twenty-three seconds there's a risk of the cup exploding.'

‘Twenty-six seconds per cup, you say?' another ice-cream maker remarked, sounding as if he had just made a difficult calculation. ‘I haven't got that much time.'

‘What's the rush?' Beppi replied. ‘Ice doesn't melt at minus fifteen.'

‘But the customers walk away when they have to wait too long.'

‘Let them walk away.'

The other ice-cream makers frowned at my father.

Perhaps it was an escape, a way of withdrawing every so often. My father could hide behind the Faema E61, behind its gleaming hood, behind the steam taps and manometers. Twenty-six seconds per cup. Atomic time.

As a bitter old man, stranded in Venas di Cadore, my father would admit, ‘At first I only hated the ice-cream, but then I started hating the people buying the ice-cream, too.'

When exactly the loathing had started and when it assumed an extremely rare form of misanthropy is hard to say. My father had never wanted to be an ice-cream maker in the first place; he never had a vocation for it. The fact is that as Luca and I grew older and began to make the ice-cream, Beppi spent less and less time in the kitchen. After I went to university and Luca took over the ice-cream parlour, my father often had to help out, but my brother was the one who was in charge of the ice-cream.

The machine ground to a halt. The espressos were ready.

‘For you and your brother,' my father said.

I picked up the two cups and took them through to the kitchen.

‘Right,' was the first thing I said to my brother. ‘So you're engaged.'

He said nothing. He didn't even look at me. He looked at the tiled floor and listened to the Cattabriga, to the scraper blade moving back and forth, going
slll
,
slll
,
slll
. A good ice-cream maker doesn't have to peek inside the cylinder; he can tell by the sound of the machine when his ice is ready. ‘It's like a marriage,' an old ice-cream maker from Tai di Cadore had said in Bar Posta once. He was tipsy, but not quite drunk. ‘I know the ice and the ice knows me,' he said. ‘It talks to me.' The other ice-cream makers, their eyes equally bloodshot, all nodded.

We were silent and downed our espressos at the same time.

Maybe there was nothing to talk about. What had happened couldn't have happened any other way. I was the eldest, I was the one who would have inherited the ice-cream parlour had I not renounced it. Luca, on the other hand, had accepted it and had received Sophia as a bonus. It made sense. He needed her. I didn't. What more was there to say?

There were no other subjects for discussion, and my brother must have realised it. Our lives had become too different. I read, I wrote, I edited. I had meetings, ate baguettes and brie with poets, and attended book launches. He worked sixteen hours a day, churning ice-cream, selling it, cleaning the machines, and then sleeping like a log at night. The ice-cream parlour was his whole world; mine began where it ended.

Slll, slll, slll.

Luca switched off the machine and picked up the
spatolone
. His thumb closed around the metal handle. He leaned over the open cylinder and straightened up again. The left corner of his mouth was a little higher than the right one — you couldn't quite call it a smile. It was what he had expected. It was good.

He had made vanilla ice-cream. It dripped off the large spoon and into the metal container like cement.

Luca saw me looking, like my great-grandfather's brothers and sisters had looked at his ice-cream, like everybody looks at ice-cream. What could be better? Do you know anyone who doesn't like ice-cream? Who doesn't feel happy at the sight of an ice-cream parlour? The cone that takes us back to childhood, the cardboard cup we've all stirred with a flat plastic spoon until we ended up with a new colour and flavour. Are you ever too old for ice-cream? Outside Venezia stands a giant cone with three scoops: strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate. The thing is made of polyester and filled with polystyrene, but I've seen plenty of toddlers waddle over to try and lick it. They won't remember it when they're older, but the longing will never go away.

Luca approached me with the metal container. The ice-cream didn't move in sync with his steps. It was soft yet firm.

‘Like Sophia Loren's buttocks in
Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
,' my father was to say after tasting it.

My brother held up a spoon. I looked into his Kalamata eyes. He returned my gaze. Then I opened my mouth and he fed me his ice-cream. The texture was unbelievably fine and smooth, velvety and soft. The millions of tiny ice crystals in the thick cream formed the backbone of the ice-cream, even though they constituted only a fraction of the overall volume. The air bubbles that had been locked in during the churning had produced a lighter consistency, but not a brittle one — you could almost chew the creamy ice. And then it melted and my eyes involuntarily closed. It felt like floating, the way you're briefly suspended from everything when you kiss a girl. Luca had improved the recipe, perfected it. The structure was creamier, the flavour richer, and the vanilla evenly distributed across the ice-cream. I swallowed and opened my eyes. His gaze had never once left my face. The sardonic smile had gone. Both corners of his mouth were equally high now. He knew what I knew. I had helped him by doing nothing, by being absent, by not coming back. That's how he had won the most beautiful girl in the village. He couldn't say it. His ice-cream was tasked with the job.

That afternoon the five of us sat around the dining table on the first floor. My mother had made pasta — spaghetti with tomatoes, garlic, capers, and anchovies. There was a bottle of red wine on the table. It was like a Saturday in the mountains.

Sophia came down from the attic after changing her clothes. We all looked at her and saw a field full of daffodils. She had started wearing her mother's dresses, the way Luca had stepped into my father's work gear. I glanced at her tanned legs and wondered whether my brother had touched them this morning. She twirled her fork in the spaghetti and took a bite without splattering her dress.

My mother couldn't help herself and talked about the weather. On the radio she had heard that it was going to be seventeen degrees tomorrow. ‘It's never been that warm on the first day,' she said with a twinkle in her eye.

Beppi told us that one year the temperature had been ten below zero when they arrived back in Rotterdam. ‘The icicles were hanging from the lampposts. You could skate on the Westersingel.'

‘Had Giovanni and Luca already been born?' Sophia asked.

‘Giovanni, yes,' my mother replied. ‘But not Luca. He was still in the womb.'