V
During Gian-Luca’s two years at the shop, he learnt about all sorts of things. England was busily fighting the Boers, so Gian-Luca learnt a little about war, and a little about Death, from hearsay. The Boer War in no way affected his people, it scarcely even touched their trade; but into Old Compton Street there crept a sense of sadness—Rosa was constantly wiping her eyes for the mothers she did not know. He learnt about Teresa, and in place of his love there grew up an aloof respect. He saw her as she was when she stood at the helm, hardheaded, closefisted, fearless in business, with a kind of genius for affairs. He learnt about Fabio; about his little fears, his weariness, his sense of growing old, the pains in his back that made him think of God, that God who was part of the pains in his back, but never quite a part of Fabio. And Gian-Luca, very young, very strong, and very gallant as he seized the long knife and sliced the salame, began to pity Fabio and, in pitying, despised him—as is sometimes the way of youth.
All his life he had seen packing-cases arrive, and had often watched Fabio unpack them. But never before had he quite understood the full significance of all those large cases, that now arrived in their hundreds. There were certainly more than there used to be, and this fact was rather exciting; for in each was a smell or a series of smells, a taste or a series of tastes. Every case contained something that someone would eat, an astonishing quantity when seen all together, and this meant that the whole world was always hungry—incredibly hungry, preposterously hungry, ready and eager to consume every morsel that Teresa and her kind could produce. He found this thought amusing; he would look at a cheese and begin to speculate about it: “I wonder who you will go to,” he would think; “I wonder whose palate you will tickle.” He visualized millions of red, gaping caverns, into which must be poured something pleasing to the taste. “We are right who take up this business,” he would think; “they could never get on without us!” And then there would come a sense of secureness, he would feel less alone in the world.