by Stefania Zamagni, translated into English by Ruth Stephens
Chapter 7 – The Poppy Field
It’s amazing how everything is the same, and yet different.
Fabrizio is back in his home town of Bologna. He recognises all the places – the shops and the buildings. But it all seems smaller than he had remembered.
All the friends and relatives he’s visited have been delighted to see him. His girlfriend, Dominique, loves the scenery, and never tires of seeing new places. She has even learnt a bit of Italian, and enjoys practising it with everyone she meets.
It has been a good visit. It’s almost time to leave for Paris again. But first, there is something Fabrizio feels he has to do.
He wants to see Marianna’s gallery.
He doesn’t know if he will have the courage to go in and see her, but he wants at least to see the place again.
As he leaves the house and walks in the direction of the gallery, he can feel his heart beginning to beat faster.
He turns the final street corner and there it is, the large window with several paintings on display.
But the gallery seems to have changed. Maybe the business hasn’t been going so well lately? It looks a bit run down. It’s lost the air of luxury it once had.
Fabrizio stops to observe the gallery from the other side of the street. He can see Marianna inside, talking to a client.
An elderly couple are sitting on a bench just beside him. He can’t help overhearing their conversation. They are talking about Marianna:
“When you think how well the gallery was doing before. And now, it’s almost bankrupt!”
“It was inevitable when the daughter argued with her father. She lost his money, his contacts and her family’s support.
So she had to start all over again, and build a completely new network of clients and artists.”
“Yes, it’s not surprising that she’s in debt. The art world is ruthless.”
“But they say if she were to sell that lovely painting she has in the entrance, she could solve all her money problems!”
“She’d never do that. The painting has a sentimental value for her. It was the cause of the dispute with her father. She keeps it there, at the entrance, so that she will see it every day.”
Fabrizio is curious.
He hadn’t heard that Marianna had defied her father. It’s news to him that she had, in the end, left home.
It can’t have been easy for her, to make her own life, without help from her family.
From where he is standing, he can’t see which painting the elderly couple were speaking of so.
As an artist himself, he’s naturally curious.
He crosses the street and approaches the gallery to get a better look.
He might even go in and say ‘Hello’ to Marianna, as an old friend.
When he reaches the door, he can see the painting.
As the old couple said, it’s in the best position in the gallery, right near the door where everyone can see it.
It’s a painting of a field, bathed in sunlight and covered with hundreds of poppies.
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