It happens often. I get a song stuck in my head and it clings to my brainwaves as if they were the only source of energy in the world. The other day, I found myself singing the theme song from Roberto Benigni’s La tigre e la neve, a film I watched some years ago and didn’t even like then. When I say singing the theme song’, I mean humming the one line that had somehow crept into my mind. It was the residual memory of Tom Waits crooning >You can never hold back spring’.
In my efforts to rid myself of the lone lyric, I tried singing it in various genres, adopting the lavender voice of a jazz club singer, a bit of sweet home Alabama and the closest I could come to Pavarotti and friends. No luck-the lyric was stuck.
It was actually quite appropriate, of course. I was in Florence for the day and the city was flaunting its sunny skies with the recriminating playfulness of a lover who doesn’t believe it’s really over. Aren’t you sorry you left me?’ she seemed to say.
I could take it. It was the first time in six months that I wasn’t cold. Florence could flaunt all the weather she wanted. It was wonderful. I’d spent the winter in Venice battling with its merciless humidity. Its damp settles on your shoulders like an invisible seaweed shawl and makes mammals doubt their status as warm-blooded animals.
I was walking down via del Corso, deliciously conscious of not being an amphibian, when I heard a voice calling to me from behind.
>Linda?’
I turned to find a man I didn’t immediately recognize. Do you remember me?’ he asked. I’m Natale. We met last year in the kitchen’.
>That’s right!’ I nodded. It had been an intellectual party’ where loosely tied acquaintances had spent the night walking around in shoes for the new season. On the whole, the guests had been far too smart for the likes of us. Thus, we’d joined a small, boisterous group crowding by the stove. His theory was that most of the real action happens where the food originates. I was just trying to avoid the sitting room’s white leather lounge chairs and the sudsless mind-bath you were forced to take if you sat there.
>Long time no see. What have you been up to?’ he asked.
>Actually, I’ve moved to Venice’.
>Ah si? Bella Venezia. Do you like it?’
The question was common and unfair. That’s like asking me if I love my mother. I love her and she drives me crazy’.
>Sounds like a healthy relationship’, he laughed.
>It is. Except for the horrible weather and the utter lack of trees’.
Natale knew the city well and we talked about high tide and low tide and the consequent importance of lunar cycles on the Venetian psyche. Whether the moon is full or waning, the boats find a reason not to run and everyone slow gets very hurried and nervous. Fog is frequent and an equally valid cause for delayed services or total island abandonment. On most days, you can slice the fog as if it were sponge cake and eat it instead of breakfast.
>Venezia is beautiful though’, Natale sighed with a longing that made me feel the weight of my complaints. I read a book by the architect, Carlo Scarpa’, he told me. He says that Venice is a forest, but the trees are under water instead of above it. They built the city on logs and the people who live there have the same sense of direction you need when you live in the woods. North, south, west and east become obsolete reference points and you find your way by instinct. You walk until you reach a clearing-which is essentially a piazza.’
>Cool. I never thought of it that way’, I mused. It’s the fatto bello della settimana’.
>The what?’
>Never mind. Can I borrow the thought?’
>It’s not really mine, but I’m sure Mr. Scarpa won’t mind. You want to get a coffee before you go?’
>Yes, outdoors please’.
He smiled again and I was happy. A man named Christmas was speaking to me of trees, and I am living on top of a forest. A marvellous upside-down, underwater forest. Florence was lovely and the day believed in sunshine. And you can never hold back spring.
