Source: BOMB, No. 10 (Fall, 1984), p. 52 Published by: New Art Publications Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40425261 . Accessed: 29/03/2014 09:29 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . New Art Publications is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to BOMB. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 182.178.169.33 on Sat, 29 Mar 2014 09:29:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions storm there have been no noticeable interruptions from other diners. We have had the long room pretty much to ourselves except for the annoying solicitations of waiters. Taking such pride in their profession, they want to be noticed. And why not? One tried to push his zuppa anglaise on us. No thanks. My enjoyment of the evening grows as I purpose- ly postpone that final moment of triumph when I shall force him into an overt response. After the ex- cellent fruit, one more item to jack up the bill. To make the evening more mellow. A digestivo, the tangy-sweet pale green liquor di Certosa. Perfetto. No doubt he would prefer a pint of bitter at this point, but we are doing things my way. I drink his off with gusto. At last the time is ripe. I call out "II conto . . . il conto, per favore. "My voice seems a trifle too loud in that long room with its confections of plaster and table linen and silver cruets for this and that. The stupid little man sets down the round silver tray with the bill in front of me, just as I had ex- pected - since I had done all the ordering. 1 look up in perfect feigned surprise and meet his eye, saying, "Oh, but the man in the apple-green tie will pay." "Ma signore, "he whispers, "you have ordered two of everything. However, no other person has been with you all evening. It is you who are wear- ing a green tie." Anselm Kiefer, Innenraum, 1981, Oil, paper, canvas 113 x 122". Courtesy Mary Boone Gallery deepening shadbws. Mon frre . . . with that crip- pled face smiling perpetually. Let us walk, then, in- to that shadowed place under the eternally crumbl- ing arches. I do so like these ruined buildings, overgrown, crumbled, semi-deserted yet still somehow functioning. They remind me increasing- ly of something familiar that is necessary for me to figure out. Physical forms of my own uninhabited abandoned life. Chiuso per ristauro. Molto pericoloso. The lighting in the Ristorante Bixio is dim, ab- sorbed by the cream-pink plaster walls. I make cer- tain that we are seated so that he is opposite the pierglass. The long windows are dull grey, darken- ed by a long-awaited sudden thunderstorm. I am situated at his left, to avoid the necessity of con- stant eye-contact and to afford the opportunity of sidewise glances as often and as subtly as I wish in- to the glass which gives a full frontal image of him without his noticing my gaze. His mobile face un- dulates on the surface of the mirror. We are seated in the long dining room, rec- tangular, high-ceilinged, the first partakers of the evening. Due to the largeness of the space and the dimness of the light it is difficult to see, to focus. On inspection, every form seems to hold a mystery of being, of being half-there and half-becoming or fading away from the eye's fixation. What is it that gives the sensation of familiarity? Across the broad boulevard now obscured by sheets of grey rain sits the Castello Visconteo, self-absorbed and unmind- ful of its present vulnerability. Time has dried up its moat that no rainstorm can fill; the four-lane boulevard now traces the foundations of its once- protective wall. Leonardo stayed there, during his work on the Duomo, as he did in Vigevano and in the Castello Sforza, when he made his erratic visits to della Grazie to paint his Last Supper, when not tying golden knots and intertwining branches in the Sala di Asse, making nature's forms so other- worldly in that bastion of civilization. For his patrons, "II Moro" and Bea d'Est, they loved nature's fruits, as did he. Perhaps it is the break in the weather, or my new-found sense of mastery. At any rate, my ap- petite is excellent. He, however, has toyed with his food all evening; the disapproving waiters remove plate after plate of his cold food. I could have eaten his portion as well, and would have except for my innate sense of decorum. Per dolce, I order bowls of large ripe mulberries smothered in cream. And continue to discourse on what I have learned of Leonardo, his generous patrons, his pretty pupils, his varied talents and interests, his many magnifi- cent works, unfinished for the most part yet perfect in their mystery of half-being. His bicycle, even. And his dreams of flight. The evening grows late and my partner remains sullen. Perhaps due to the 52 This content downloaded from 182.178.169.33 on Sat, 29 Mar 2014 09:29:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions