That London summer 1979 had exceptionally been long and mild (London
whether, at middle August, it is usually already cold). Such a whether allowed
me to make profitably the ice cream sale. We sold them to the passer-bys,
leaned out in the street with a freezing machine “Carpigiani” that, in the
evening, after the sale, we located inside a shop of souvenirs along the Oxford
Street. Working together had contributed to strengthen our knowledge and we
became so good friends.
Of George I appreciated the self-confidence that showed in the practical and
small things of everyday’s needs, as for instance knowing how to cook rather
than to be skilful in the use of English language. This assurance of his,
nevertheless, was oddly conjugated with his strenuous internal search that
seemed finalized to understand the deepest sense of our life on the earth. That
after all was the main reason which had pushed me in to London town.
These things I had realized through the great discourses that, alternate to long silences, we had along that time.
George was rather a reserved man, who didn't love very much to speak of
himself, at least not in direct and explicit manner. Neither he seemed very
interested to pick up the alien confidences.
He apparently gave the impression to have something to hide or have run
away from someone he needed to forget, in a city where also a celebrity would
pass unnoticed. But after a short time, I had realized that his silences, his
reservation, his misanthropy were together the fruit of a shyness and the
result of a reflexive and deep character, projected towards a spiritual search
that, absorbing big part of his energies, detached him from the material things
of daily life, except those strictly necessary for living through.
The search of an ideal world, through dimensions and experiences untied
from the normalcy and the usualness of everyday life, had been soon the point
of contact and more important welding in our relationship. Furthermore, apart
all this, I had found on him a disinterested support, without which my London
adventure would have soon ended up. Then the summer, suddenly ended, and slowly
but surely, also vanished the savings put aside in the ice cream season.
to be continued...
