Opening up new spaces, jamming the crowbar into the crack and pitching all one’s power and might to open it up. Actually the work of years. It might even take us years to become aware of the crack. We try to ignore it. Turn a blind eye. The crack – the evidence of that ‘old’ event.
Reading the Florentine writer Vasco Pratolini’s short story Lo Sgombero – The Removal – only to discover that the streets he names are part of the maze of tiny streets in the area of Piazza della Signoria. In other words five or ten minutes away. A grandmother and her grandson are under an eviction order. Grandmother resists and they are forced to live in the midst of the building work initiated by the new owners. If she continues to resist the compensation money will be withdrawn and they will still be thrown out. The bailiffs have already taken most of their furniture. Salvation comes in the form of one of the bricklayers who knows of a room available in a nearby street. She remains reluctant, the people there are not like the people she is familiar with, rougher, lower down the social scale. Eventually she is persuaded that she has little choice and they load their few pieces of furniture and other possessions on to a hand cart which the grandson proceeds to push out of via de’ Magazzini and then takes the via de’ Gondi downhill in which he starts to lose control of the cart. He just about manages the turn into via dei Leoni but then on the turn into via del Corno, the site of their new home, where the left wheel jams and the cart is upturned. People around come to their rescue – their new neighbours!
The story is delightful, written from the grandson’s viewpoint, sensitive to the pain and hardship and bad luck of life? It was fun to wander down from S. Lorenzo and view the scene. The streets essentially remain the same. The stables he mentions have gone as are the urinals. Stables are turned into garages. In the photo can be seen an immaculately restored early Fiat 500. It is outside a garage in which there are other Fiat 500s and Vintage Vespas. I assume these are all available for hire.
A new generation comes along and opens up new possibilities.
