Broken Hearts On Boulevard Unirii novel Chapter 1

It was four o'clock one sunny afternoon in the ancient Tuscan city of Arezzo when the four of us met; Elia, Claudio, Fabrizio and me, Giorgio - all close friends. The meeting took place in Caffé Dei Costanti, which was just below my apartment and located a few steps away from the Basilica of San Francesco.

It was not just any old meeting, nor was it a business meeting. It was at this location that we had been meeting for nearly thirty years.

For us, Dei Costanti was not just a coffee shop; it was an institution. It was like entering a library or a museum, where you immediately lower your voice and pay homage to the place and its visitors. This had been true of the place since 1805.

The large open spaces, domed ceilings, marble-tiled floor with diagonal stripes of white, brown and black, and antique furniture; all these caused you to even use the lavatories with utmost respect.

At first we hugged, then were remained standing for a while, talking and laughing excitedly. We found a table outside and sat down. Our conversation immediately turned to our childhood memories and the mischief we had caused. We laughed a lot. Claudio and Fabrizio smoked, and I occasionally stole a cigarette from one of them. Three of us had an espresso while one ordered just plain mineral water.

Claudio, the loudmouth in the group, signaled to the waitress to come over to our table. Per favore,[ Italian: "Please"] can we have two more regular espressos and one ristretto," he asked, while giving her a friendly wink.

Che bella gnocca[ Italian slang: What a beauty], she must be new here."

The noise of the passersby on the pedestrian zone was very loud, as our table was actually located there, so we decided to move inside the café. We chose a quiet and remote corner inside the wine-tasting room, so as not to disturb the other guests.

"Whom we are missing now is Il nostro dottore del culo,[ Vulgar Italian: "Our ass doctor" proctologist]" one of them remarked with noticeable nostalgia. 

"What about the Romanian? Should we ask him if it suits him for all of us to come to visit him?"

"And the fool from Australia, do we not have to invite him? Who knows if he will come at all?"

"I would prefer it if he doesn't come," I answered.

"Too bad we don't have a friend in New York. I would gladly go there," growled Claudio, impatient and irritated from not being able to smoke inside.

Although our lives took different directions when we became adolescents, we still saw each other as much as possible. In the late sixties when each household had its own telephone, that became our main mode of contact, although we would meet from time to time and update each other.

Claudio Rossi grew up in Madonna di Mezza Strada, a small village in the province of Arezzo and went to the same school as Fabrizio Conti. Claudio was raised by his grandmother, as his parents lived and worked in Germany. They came twice a year to visit him. When he was fifteen, his parents were killed in a train accident while on their way to Italy. Claudio received a substantial compensation package from the train company.

At age eighteen, when he finished his high-school studies, his grandmother became ill and died. She bequeathed to him her one-story house, which was situated on a small plot of land.

Claudio continued his studies at the University of Siena, where he graduated in architecture. While at university he met Tiziana. After she got pregnant they decided to get married and had two sons, Marco and Dino, one year apart. Claudio got a job working for the City of Arezzo in the Department of planning and Construction, where he worked for about thirty years. Tiziana was a stay-at-home mom raising their children until they left home. The younger of their two sons got married and recently had a daughter. Claudio and Tiziana lived in the house that he inherited from his grandmother, which they renovated a few years ago.

Fabrizio was the eldest of the three children of Guiseppe and Giuseppina Conti, who lived in the historic center of Arezzo, not far from Caffé Dei Costanti, which of course existed already.

Fabrizio had a brother Giulio who was a year younger than he was, and a sister Matilda who was two years his junior.