The Edge of the Horizon

11

When you reach the top of Via della Salita Vecchia the town thins out into the hinterland, settles down into a dull plain that the ramparts of the hills would never have led you to suspect. Here the lava-flow of cement hasn’t arrived yet and buildings put up in the twenties — the ones the bombs spared — are still standing: small villas built in a fanciful, petit-bourgeois Deco which, over the years, time’s patina has managed one way or another to ennoble; and then more modest houses, surrounded by walls and vegetable patches, with a few tufts of yellow reeds near the fences, as though this were already the country. The main road is lined by two rows of identical two-story terraced houses with outside brick staircases and tiny windows. They were put up under Fascism. This area was planned as a residential suburb for the clerical staffs of municipal boards, the bureaucrats, members of the less important professions. What the place has preserved of that period and world is the formality, the sadness. Yet there is something charming in the landscape: there’s a small square with a fountain, some flowerbeds, a few rusty swings, a bench where two old ladies with their shopping bags are chatting. And this meager, inert charm makes the place feel almost unreal: likewise improbable, perhaps non-existent, is the thing he is looking for. F. Poerio, Tailor, Via Cadorna 15. That’s what the telephone directory says. The dead man’s jacket is an old tweed with leather patches on the elbows. It could be ten years old, maybe fifteen. It’s too insignificant a clue to lead to anything. And then who knows whether it’s the same tailor. Perhaps there are other Poerios working as tailors in other cities in Italy.

And meanwhile he walks along Via R. Cadorna, a narrow avenue lined with lime trees. The houses here are small, detached, two-story villas preserving vestiges of the wealth of a bygone age. Many of them could do with a fresh coat of paint on walls and shutters, their scanty gardens show signs of neglect and washing has been hung out to dry from some of the windows. Number fifteen is a house with a wrought-iron fence which has been taken over by wild ivies. The entrance is sheltered by a little porch, likewise wrought-iron and of vaguely oriental design. A glass nameplate says: Poerio, Tailor. The letters, once gold, are sandy now and spotted with little stains, like an old mirror.

Signor Poerio has a warm smile and glasses with thick lenses that make his eyes small and distant. He seems protected by an indestructible candor; it must be his age, his sense of already being a part of the past. The glass door opens on a largish room decorated in an old pink color with narrow windows and a pattern of vine leaves painted along the ceiling moulding. The furniture is basic to the room’s function: a nineteenth-century sofa, a stool with a Viennese wicker seat, a tailor’s workbench in one corner. And then there are the mannequins, a few busts upright on poles left standing here and there about the room in no particular order. And for a moment Spino imagines that they are Poerio’s old customers, presences from the past who’ve transformed themselves into wooden mannequins for old time’s sake. Among them are some which do look like real people, with pink plaster faces that have turned almost brown and small white peelings on their cheekbones or noses. They are men with square jaws and short sideburns, plaster hairstyles imitating the Brylcreem look, thin lips and rather languid eyes. Poerio shows Spino some catalogues to help him choose a model. They must be catalogues from the sixties. The trousers are narrow and the jacket lapels long and pointed. He pauses a moment over one of the less ridiculous, more discreet models, then arranges the dead man’s jacket on a mannequin and has the tailor look at it. If he could make him one like this, what does he reckon? Poerio considers, he’s puzzled, twists his mouth wrily. “It’s a sports jacket,” he says doubtfully, “I don’t know if it would be right for the kind of suit you’re after.” Spino agrees. Still, the old jacket has such a perfect cut that it wouldn’t look out of place as a regular suit either. He shows the tailor the name tag inside, sewn onto the pocket. Poerio has no trouble recognizing it. It’s his tag, though straight off he can’t remember anything about the jacket. It’s an old jacket, he has put together so many jackets in his time….

Spino says he appreciates that, but with a bit of effort could he remember something, that is, find the invoice… an old accounts register maybe? Poerio thinks about it. He has taken a flap of the jacket between forefinger and thumb and strokes the fabric thoughtfully. One thing he is sure of, he made it in the sixties, absolutely no doubt about that, it was part of a small roll of cloth, he remembers it perfectly, a remnant that cost him next to nothing because it was a warehouse leftover and the supplier wanted to get rid of it. Poerio now seems a little suspicious, he’s not sure what Spino wants of him. “Are you from the police?” he asks. All of a sudden he’s turned wary, obviously he’s afraid of saying something that might harm him.

Spino tries to reassure him somehow: no, he says, he really does want a suit, there’s nothing to worry about, on the contrary, he’d like to put down a deposit right away; and then he mumbles a strange explanation. It’s pretty contrived and Poerio doesn’t seem at all convinced. Still, he says he’s willing to help, as far as he can. He does still have his little file of past customers, although many must be dead. To be honest he closed the shop eight years back, he laid off his apprentices and retired. There was no reason for keeping the business going anymore.

“Well then, let’s see… let’s see,” he whispers, leafing mechanically through blocks of receipts. “This one is ’59, but there are a few orders from 1960 as well…” He reads them carefully, holding the blocks a few inches from his nose. He’s taken his glasses off and his eyes are childlike. “This is it, I think,” he announces with a certain satisfaction. “‘Jacket in real tweed.’ Yes, it must be this one.” He pauses a moment. “‘Guglielmo Faldini, Accountant, Tirrenica, Via della Dogana 15 (red).’” He lifts his eyes from the receipt and puts his glasses back on. He says that actually now he’s thought about it he doesn’t feel up to making a suit. His eyesight’s so bad he can’t even thread a needle. And then he wouldn’t be able to make the kind of suits people are wearing these days.