Vita

Naples, Italy, 1994

Alessio Bertucci was lying on his bed trying to make sense of why this was all happening to him.

His thoughts wandered to his childhood days. From the start, he had had a rough life. His father, Signor Bertucci,  then an upcoming businessman, had ditched his mother even before he was born, and thus he had entered this world as an unwanted bastard.

His mother did petty jobs to sustain both of them but it meant that he had to be content living in a dingy rented place for most of his childhood. He had loved school. Meeting new students and teachers had fascinated him. And he had been labelled exceptionally brilliant by his teachers at the local high school. Just as he thought that his life was heading somewhere, his mother had suffered a massive heart attack and passed away a few months later.

With no one left to take care of him, at the age of 12, he had entered the construction business, as a worker at an Asbestos factory nearby. Having neither kith nor kin turned out to be an advantage. While the rest of the workers would leave the factory by 5, he would work for long hours till his body could take it no more. It didn't go unnoticed. The engineer who was handling the site made him a regular and he soon moved to a much bigger factory near the Senese Clavey Hills.

For 20 years he had worked there , and though he gave his best, he hadn't saved much. He had a love for the Chianti red wine , homemade from the finest Sangiovese grape. Every Friday evening, he would leave early and settle down with his bottle of red wine and enter a world of his own.

After those 20 long years, a time came when the factory was no longer profitable. Asbestos was being banned throught the world and in Europe in particular, the laws had become very stringent. So the owner had decided to close the factory.

With no formal education and no experience in anything except the Asbestos industry, he was at a loss on what to do next. He took the first bus which came to the bus stop.

That was how, on a bright sunny morning, he found himself at Naples. He was charmed by what he saw. There were ancient churches, castles, palaces, piazzas and museums each with its own architecture and history which left him spellbound. He did not know that he was at the cradle of civilization where the Greek had merged with the Roman, the Normans had shared the throne with the Iberians and the Bourbons. It had been at the forefront of Renaissance as well as a stronghold of Mussolini. With its rich and diverse history, culture and its natural beauty, Naples enthralled him. He felt that the shut down of the factory had indeed been a blessing in disguise.

He now wanted to live. He wanted to make up for the years he had wasted. And as if, in  full fledged agreement of Coelho's words, when he wanted something, all the universe seemed to conspire in helping him achieve. He had run into the engineer who had given him a job 20 years ago and the engineer was happy to give him a job in one of his new construction projects.

Alessio had shown a keen interest in the various architectural styles and spent many an evening in deep conversation with the designers on how to implement the designs.

It was in the August of 1988 that he first saw her. He had come to attend an art festival at the Museo di Capodimonte, which contained one of the world's best collection of art pieces. The festival also featured an Art exhibit by amateur artists. One painting immediately drew his attention.

It was a finely crafted piece with the Senese Clavey Hills in the background, and a shirtless worker working in a factory on its foothills while sipping a bottle of red wine. He bought the piece. For three times its original price.

It was signed Gianna. He loved the name. The lady was thanking him profusely for being her first customer. He hardly heard anything. The radiant face, the soft brown eyes, the full bosom, the slender waist, the flowery skirt, the fruity perfume made her look almost divine. He went off, without speaking a word. Alessio & Gianna. Seemed like a match made in heaven.

He came back the next day. All her paintings were portrayals of reality which transformed the existing into the exalted. He bought more of them. He spoke to her that day. She had just graduated from Art School and was trying to make it big as an artist. He asked her out.

She encouraged him to take his interest in Architecture to the next level.  She listened to his stories about his childhood. She told him about the history of Naples. She bought a fashionable coat for him. She showed him the choicest of restaurants. She laughed like a child. She smiled like a woman.

To celebrate the 1000 year anniversary of the entry of Normans into Naples, the council had voted to construct a magnificent monument which would be opened during Maggio dei Monumenti. There was a contest to choose the design for the structure  and all the city's famous architects considered winning it as a matter of pride. She egged him to submit his design. He laughed it off. She prevailed over him. He wanted to design something which paid tribute to the legacy of the Normans while being in sync with the rest of the architecture in the city. He submitted his design through one of his friends, Signor Cavallo, who was an architect.

The results were announced. Alessio's design had won. He was surprised. Everyone was surprised. She was happy.

Signor Cavallo approached him saying that if Alessio would take care of designing in detail, he would take care of the other procedures required  for registering a company, hiring workers, managing the flow of funds. Alessio accepted. And they started the project.

He was on a holiday in Venice. With her. At the home of the world famous Venetian paintings, at the birthplace of symphony, at the city of waterways, in a gondola under a starlit sky, they exchanged rings.

The project was going along well. It was almost half a decade since he had met her. She told him that she was expecting a baby. He was thrilled.

Gianna had to go to Rome to attend a family function. He had his work and couldn't accompany her. He bid goodbye and continued watching as her bus disappeared into the distance.

The next morning he received communication from the Polizia di Stato saying that the bus in which his wife was travelling had met with a freak accident and had fallen off the mountainside into the valley.

He refused to meet anyone. He asked Signor Cavallo to take care of the project and shut himself in his room. He stayed there for days. Days became weeks, weeks became months.

It was 1994. Six months had passed since the accident and he went to his office to discuss the progress of the project as it was due in a couple of months. To his surprise, he saw that the signboard outside no more mentioned his name. It bore only the name of Signor Cavallo. He tried to go in but was stopped by the security guards who refused to let him in. He later got to know that Cavallo had transferred the ownership to himself with approval from the trustees.

He walked back home. He looked at his face in the mirror. He looked weary and sick. He coughed and spat out blood. The coughing went from bad to worse over the next few months.

Finally, he visited a doctor. He was diagnosed with a terminal case of lung cancer. 20 years of working with Asbestos had shown its effect. The doctor gave him only a few more months.

He got up and walked to the front gate. He saw a craggy unkempt man who looked very similar to him walking past. A dog was barking at him. The man was looking nervously at the dog. He started to run. The dog bounded after him. As the dog's teeth were almost on the man's flesh, there was a blood curdling scream.

Alessio woke up with perspiration all over his body. Gianna had also woken up. She was asking him what had happened. God, it had been an extremely scary dream. He hugged her tight and went back to sleep.

The next week Gianna went into labour. He took her to the hospital and waited anxiously. Leonardo had come into this world.

The time for the  Maggio dei Monumenti had come. The monument was ready to be unveiled. Alessio and Cavallo were sitting on the dias sharing the same stage with the most prominent architects of the era and with luminaries from all over the world.

The monument received rave reviews and Alessio & Cavallo were offered several prominent projects. Alessio decided that it was time to explore hitherto unseen lands. He accepted an offer from the royal family of Spain to design a monument which would pay tribute to the empire of Aragon.

Alessio took Gianna to her favourite restaurant in Naples one last time. The next day they would set sail to Barcelona on a cruise ship. It shall be a new beginning.

The craggy unkempt man regained consciousness as the dog's sharp teeth sunk into his flesh. He started running and fell face forward on the road. He dragged himself up, picked up a rock and continued running.

The next morning, the body was lying in a pool of blood.

Alessio and Gianna in a gondola at Venice