No. 8 in the series Tuesday’s Torrent.
Photograph courtesy of Tim Corbeel.
Children often grow up to forget that their parents—regardless of their intentions—were unreliable narrators for the facts of life.
Aix-en-Provence, a small town in southern France, was built around the dual identity: a town of water, a town of art. A visitor to France felt he or she had somehow ended up in Aix, as it is often referred by the local residents, even if he or she had prepared for a trip to ensure not missing out on this sun-drenched and easygoing hometown of Paul Cézanne.
Cours Mirabeau, one of the most famous streets in town, lined with green trees and cafes hosts a flea market on Sundays. On either side of the road built in the 17th century, in the place of the former ramparts, the leading families of the nobility built elegant homes to show off their success, sometimes ostentatiously. With richly decorated frontages on the Cours side, and shared hidden gardens opening on to a parallel street, this architectural style created remarkable urban unity.
Composed of the Saint-Sauveur market town and the City of the Counts is the oldest part of the center of Aix known as Old Town. Some of the smaller streets in Old Town have kept their evocative names, such as the rue Esquicho-coudo, a narrow passage dating from the middle ages. Ruins of the old medieval ramparts may also be seen right at the top of the rue Gaston de Saporta. On Mondays the local residents take advantage of the missing crowd from Sundays.
It was on one such small street in Old Town where Lucas, who carried his mother’s features well and at the age of nine had yet to show any similarities to the father, accompanied his father for a stroll on Monday afternoons.
Every Monday afternoon, without exception, Lucas and his father would come across the corner where a man in a blue hat, purple shirt, and pink socks sat, eating his meal laid out in several containers. The wall behind him held a collage of several murals. His bike always parked next to him, as if ready for a painter to put on canvas itself.
Lucas’s father—not much for dialogue—would share his so called “facts of life” with Lucas during these Monday walks.
“Enzo Ferrari never intended to produce road cars when he formed Scuderia Ferrari,” Luca’s father told him one afternoon.
Lucas tried to listen as he contemplated why the man in the purple shirt always had, at least what appeared to him, a “picnic” out on the side of the street, and why his mother had said there were “things only his father could teach him” when she had sent him away to spend his summer with his father.
“Ferrari prepared, and successfully raced, various drivers in Alfa Romeo cars until 1938, when he was hired by Alfa Romeo to head their motor racing department,” the father stated.
He continued, “Alpha Romeo has competed successfully in many different categories of motorsport, including Grand Prix motor racing, Formula One, sportscar racing, touring car racing and rallies. They have competed both as a constructor and an engine supplier. The first racing car was made in 1913, three years after the foundation of A.L.F.A., the 40-60HP had 6 liter straight-4 engine. Alfa Romeo quickly gained a good name in motorsport and gave a sporty image to the whole marque.”
Lucas wondered and shared aloud, “I am thinking this is not the same Romeo, like Juliet’s Romeo?”
His father stopped in his tracks. He then turned around and looked at Lucas and said, “What good is your question? You think this would be the same Romeo as the piss poor tale by some gay man that no one even knows if he actually wrote? Let me tell you a fact of life son, your questions determine the answers which can determine your life. You got that?”
Lucas nodded.
They decided to sit on a bench from where they could still view the murals on the wall in front of which the man in the purple shirt enjoyed his meal, seated on the floor next to the wall.
“In 1941, Alfa Romeo was confiscated by the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini as part of the Axis Powers’ war effort. Enzo Ferrari’s division was small enough to be unaffected by this.”
Lucas, uninterested, nodded. He couldn’t help but indulge his fascination with the enriching colors splashed into images as a mural on the wall.
“What you get out of that?”
“I think the paintings are complex even if about simple things,” Lucas replied.
“What?”
“You asked what I was thinking?”
“I asked you what you understood about Ferrari’s division being too small!” his father exclaimed. And then laughed. The kind of laugh boys don’t forget easily.
“I worry about you, you know,” mumbled Lucas’s father.
Two women passed by, one smiled at Lucas, the other didn’t even notice him.
“And then came along Ferruccio Elio Arturo Lamborghini, the industrialist. In 1958 Lamborghini traveled to Maranello to buy a Ferrari 250GT, a two-seat coupé with a body designed by coachbuilder Pininfarina. He went on to own several more over the years, including a Scaglietti-designed 250 SWB Berlinetta and a 250GT 2+2 four-seater. Lamborghini thought Ferrari’s cars were good, but too noisy and rough to be proper road cars, categorizing them as repurposed track cars with poorly-built interiors.”
Lucas tried again. He listened intently: this had to be the information only his father could tell him as his mother had mentioned. He was overcome with anxiety however given he had already forgotten who Alfa Romeo was.
“Who was Romeo again?” Lucas thought this was the right question.
“One year away and that mother of yours has allowed you to turn into an idiot. Let me tell you something else Lucas, if you want to succeed in anything in life, you must remember no one is going to tell you the obvious twice. I didn’t even tell you much about Alpha Romeo. My father made me research everything under the sun about Alpha Romeo when I was your age.”
Lucas’s father didn’t mention and Lucas would learn a few years later, prior to his mother marrying for the third time, that his father was raised in an orphanage.
The longer Lucas stared at the mural on the wall and the man—possibly homeless or in love with the moment—eating his lunch without once looking up, the less anxious he felt to remember his father’s words.
“Lamborghini’s mechanical know-how led him to enter the business of tractor manufacturing in 1948, when he founded Lamborghini Trattori. Isn’t that something? Fact of life: you gotta make something of yourself, son.”
Lucas contemplated if one needed crayons or color pencils to draw the mural.
“After successfully modifying one of his personally-owned Ferrari 250GTs to outperform stock models, Lamborghini gained the impetus to pursue an automobile manufacturing venture of his own, aiming to create the perfect touring car that he felt no one could build for him.”
Lucas didn’t know that this moment would mark the beginning of his fascination and repulsion to art.
“Lamborghini found that Ferrari’s cars were equipped with inferior clutches, and required continuous trips for rebuilds. Lamborghini brought his misgivings to Enzo Ferrari’s attention, but was dismissed by the notoriously pride-filled Modenan—the capital of engines.“
“Now. Let’s get you some dinner,” Lucas’s father said cheerily. They got up from the bench to walk away from the wall with the mural and the man in the purple shirt. Lucas turned around to look at the mural one more time. His father noticed and commented, “Oh that—don’t even bother looking at it. Tomorrow I am going to take you to a real art museum.” And he laid his hand over his son’s shoulder—removing it quickly—and continued on about the craft of a good race car.
Lucas would barely remember this afternoon when he was twenty-five years old only to dismiss his entire childhood with his father as a counterfeit memory. A father, he concluded, who knew only about Ferraris and Lamborghinis, and nothing about art, history, or the world.
Children recall their past—regardless of the accuracy—as an equally unreliable narrative.
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Beautiful story….one can connect with Lucas, as well with the father…both in two different worlds, but at the same time making an effort to stay connected with each other also, sadly so many fathers are unable to see the point a child is trying to make…because that’s how their childhood was ignored. It requires a lot of consciousness—mindfulness to break the cycle….
What I often like most about these sketches is the spaces that are left blank, and how the details provided, like a Chinese painting draw you towards empty space. The mind wanders towards what is left unsaid. I wonder if, in time, the son will realize that what the father was saying really had as little to do with cars as Ferraris & Lamborghinis as this story did.