L'UOMO
L’uomo, the man, has a pair of binoculars trained on him in the apartment block opposite. He started doing this after it became impossible for him to phone him. For some time, his son had been refusing to speak to him. Then he changed city. The man had contacted his son’s mother, the woman with whom he had brought him into the world. She is much younger than him. She had been merciful and told him that their boy had married and moved to Milan, where he worked in a pastry shop. Which pastry shop? The woman fell silent, put on her coat, and before leaving him at the table in the bar, she told him, “It’s on the street with the posh stores.” The man asked the yellow pages switchboard which was the street with the posh stores. He didn’t have the internet; he’s 81 years old. The operator informed him that the street might be Via Montenapoleone. The man noted down the street name, picked up his bag and filled it with a couple of rags. Then he got a taxi to the station, where he asked a girl for some help and she gave him a hand. The journey lasted six and a half hours. When the man arrived, he asked a taxi to take him to Via Montenapoleone. He got there, walked along the street and found three pastry shops. He entered the first one and asked if Giuliano Malaguti worked there. At the till they replied that there was no Giuliano Malaguti on their staff. In the second pastry shop they told him that Giuliano Malaguti was in the kitchen at the back, and he couldn’t be disturbed. The man waited in the street until his son came out of the pastry shop in the evening. He followed him and managed to catch the same bus and take a good look at him. He had put on weight, and he looked over 40. He saw where his son lived.There was a hotel nearby on the opposite side of the r oad.
That’s where the man is now. He took a room on the fourth floor, reckoning that it was the only room with a clear view of one of his son’s windows. He bought a pair of binoculars from a hunting shop in the old city centre. Now he is looking at him, and he sees that his son’s eyes are shaped like his own. For this reason he is happy.
Convey to Giuliano Malaguti: for this and other reasons, your father was happy.