https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07JKFNCDG
Chapter 1
George and I
I had known George, just in
the summer of 1979, in a little snack
bar, in the beginning of my London stay. A snack-cafe not so far from
Piccadilly Circus, where they made a slightly drinkable coffee. I used to go
there, because it was the only place where the coffee was served in the small,
classical, Italian cups, and even if it was served with no cream, it was still
better than that watered black soap that almost all barmen sell off for coffee
in England.
The snack-bar premises were in a large rectangular room. On the right of the entry there was the counter with the coffee-machine, while both on the left and the opposite wall, in front of the entry-door, there was a wood bench, lined in brown colored plastics and, straight above, lined in the identical way, a narrow shelf, plenty of sugar-bowls and ashtrays.
The left wall, for the whole length of the bench, beginning from the shelf and
finishing to the originally white-painted ceiling, was made of a thick
transparent glass that, giving brightness to the place, allowed the visitors to
enjoy a wide outside sight where, just in front, was well visible the entrance
of a theatre with an ample and luxurious atrium. It was there that George seemed to stare up his look, over the round
glasses (like John Lennon’s, I had thought).
His olive complexion, the chestnut hair and the
black moustaches didn't make him certainly look like a probable Queen‘s
subject, but I questioned him, this not less, in English. Also because, after
all we were in London. What other idiom was I supposed to speak?
He burst into laughter, hearing my question. Not immediately, but after turning his head to look at me, with a funny expression on his face, while with my hands I repeated my request for fire, rubbing, at the same time, my right forefinger on the palm of the left hand.
After lighting his own cigarette, as I stood close and steady, much more
interdict than angry, because of his crazy laughing, he told me in a strongly
stressed, though smooth, Italian language:
“Sorry for laughing, but Italian people do make notice of them, when they
speak English. You come from Rome, don’t you?” -, he suddenly added,
smiling with satisfaction to my sad, affirmative answer.
The place, beside the two of us and a girl sitting on the other side of the
bench, was empty. The barkeeper, behind the counter, was preparing a great copy
of sandwiches, with cheese and tomatoes, lettuce and meats and a few others
with all four ingredients together, according to the best English taste.
“And you, where do you come from?” - I asked him in some annoyed
tone for that reference to the Italian’s accent and particularly to that of the
Romans, whose noble descendants I am still proud to belong.
-” I am not Italian” - he answered to me with peaceful voice “but I have lived quite a lot of years in Italy. So I know your customs quite well, and also your accent” -, concluded laughing again tastefully.
This time his laughing, however, didn't upset me at all. Those few words had
been enough to make my anger fade away; or maybe I was just only glad to talk
to someone without squeezing my brain to translate my thoughts from Italian
into English language.
To recognize nationalities through the English speaking accents, was only one
of the so many eccentric aspects of George’s personality, as I had the
opportunity to discover thereafter.
But what struck me mostly among them, determining the consolidate of our
friendship, was his passion, shared by me, for the esoteric philosophies.
Actually ‘till then, I had reputed them exclusive knowledge of the eastern
cultures, while George, rightly in the period we met, was studying at one
(whose study he had to introduce me, later on), that he granted to the
Huichols, a direct descending people of the ancient pre-Colombian populations
that in the present state, according to what at that time he told me, were
still living in the north western mountains of Mexico.
...to be continued...
