It was a late afternoon when my father returned home from work and said: “I saw a house, it is for sale, let us have a look at it. I think we should buy it.”
The following Saturday we took the streetcar up to the end, and then climbed onto a bus. From the area not yet known as Little Italy, it took us more than an hour to arrive at Jane and Chalkfarm, where we got off, crossed the street, and walked down for no more than five minutes. The street had on both sides a sequence of semi-detached houses, with a green space in the front and parking space on the side. There were no fences, just some trees that would soon bloom. A few cars could be seen on the sides. It was cold and there was no one outside. We arrived at number 32 Chalkfarm. My father knocked on the door and a man younger than him appeared in the doorway and invited us in.
The owner showed us the house, which was on one floor, with three rooms, a bath-room, and a small kitchen. Then we went down to the basement, which was still unfin-ished. It was getting dark, and the lights were turned on. We went out the side door to the back of the house. It was impossible to see the grandeur through the darkness. I was a few steps ahead of my father and realized I had my old boots wet. I stepped back and told him, who smiled and replied, “We will have good tomatoes.“
Since arriving from Italy, my family had rented a small apartment. During the first six years we had slept in the same room, shared a bathroom with the owner of the house, with the use of one room as a kitchen. We also got permission to use the telephone, and occasionally I could watch TV with the owner’s children. My parents did not know English, so they did not join us.
Another six years passed before, due to a series of conditions, my father decided to take the big step of buying the house. This choice was made with the worry of the mortgage. The first one for my family.
Why this inexplicable step?
Well, after more than a dozen moves, we had learned that we could be thrown out the door because the rental apartment was needed by the landlord, or because the house was being sold. In addition, my parents were thinking about my need to have a room of my own where I could sleep and study late, without someone turning their nose up at the electricity consumption.
For these reasons and others, home ownership became necessary. It was not before that time because my father wanted to help me study and going to university cost money.
Together we found ways to support the choice. I went to work every summer and during the Christmas vacations, in addition to scholarships and a student loan. With the latter I paid for my education, while with the rest I helped my parents buy a house. This sense of joint help gave my father the courage to take the step, deciding to buy the house. As a down payment, he put everything he had in the bank, representing fifty percent of the sale price. On the appointed day, we moved the few things we had and moved into our house.
Since we did not have much to furnish the house, the space called the living/dining room seemed bare and empty. The real estate agent, who had emigrated from Popoli, told my father that he would give him a sofa and a companion chair. When he arrived, the room still looked empty. A coffee table was needed that we could not afford, not necessarily to drink coffee but to fill the still empty space. The traditional coffee table.
I was already studying architecture in college and had an idea.
Since the school had a carpentry shop, thinking of using its machinery, what I needed was wood. To get it, I asked my father, who worked in a lumber yard and could get the necessary wood at no cost. To convince him, I told him that I would build a coffee table in the school. Dad liked the idea and agreed to help me.
I sketched out the concept of the table in a sketch, found out the type and amount of wood needed, and turned it into a ‘working drawing’.
The dimensions of the wooden pieces were designed to make them transportable in the bus from dad’s workplace to home. As an aspiring architect, I wanted this table to be functional, to make an aesthetic statement, and to be assembled without fasteners.
Once my father brought home the wooden pieces neatly packed with ropes, I took the load by bus to school. I went to the workshop instructor and got permission to use the machinery. After a few hours of class, the table elements were ready to be assembled.
A rectangular top, with four cut slots, two slots on one corner and two on the opposite corner, nicely finished and painted; the other two corners were as if floating, and it had four thin legs. It balanced properly on the floor. The workshop instructor added two felt pads under each wooden leg. The coffee table was ready to be taken home like a child after birth.
I brought it home on March 5, on dad’s birthday, and surprised him. I assembled the pieces and put the table in the center of the room. It looked like a star. My mother, who knew, had made, in the meantime, a crocheted doily to put on top, as was the custom in her hometown.
That same evening, the real estate agent came by to see how things were going and, knowing it was my father’s birthday, brought a gift. They sat one on the couch and the other in the chair, admiring the table designed and built by me as I went down to the basement to get a couple of beers.
I handed each beer and after they took a sip, the agent placed the beer on the corner that seemed to float in space. At that moment the table tipped, and his beer fell on the floor.
After an initial moment of surprise, the situation became comical, and we laughed. Compared to the premise, the table had maintained its aesthetic statement and light-ness, but the lack of support on the corners floating in space had made it…land.
I cleaned up the mess, straightened the table, and my father said, “Please go get an-other beer for him.“
I went and got another beer, removed the cap, and handed it to the agent. He drank a little and could not stop himself from putting the bottle back on the usual corner. This time my father, always proud of me, promptly put his hand on the other floating corner and told the agent to put the beer bottle down and be careful.
The table remained steady and up.
Now that my father knew ‘the secret,’ whenever someone came to visit him, he always kept that corner floating in space. I did not know that that memorable evening would be the subject of conversation, a few years later, with the architect Louis Khan in Venice.
