Amarcord

Back in 2012, I moved to Boston to do a postdoc in molecular biology. That year I met a professional violinist turned economist.

I'm not going to go into why he made the transition from bard to banker, that's not my story, but I will tell you how I met him.

G (the capitalist artist) was the son of U, a very good friend of my father's. U had told my father that his son was moving to New York, and taking advantage of the situation, they were going to take a trip along the East Coast, including Boston. My father mentioned that his second daughter worked in that city. My father is a great host and of course he understands that his offspring follow suit, whether we like it or not. “Not another word! When you get there, Ana will take you out to dinner.” All this planning happened without warning, without me having any say in the matter, while I worked 12 hours a day from Monday to Saturday trying to make my experiments work. You can imagine how much I wanted to go out to dinner with complete strangers with the little free time I had left. But the fact is that, being my father's daughter, I am also a great hostess, and reluctantly I changed my uniform of T-shirt and trainers for a blouse and shoes (the trousers were the same), I put some eyeliner on and went to meet them.

After just ten minutes of relaxed conversation, the kind that is had between people with good taste, good manners and the understanding that life should be taken as it comes, I couldn't help thinking that it was just as well I had agreed to come. I wouldn't have missed meeting these genuinely interesting people for the world.

The thing is that G and I liked each other, feeling that friendliness that people with good taste, good manners and the understanding that life should be taken as it comes share, without romantic pretensions of any kind. When he found out that I had moved to New York, with my postdoc job and my hellish schedule in tow, he sent me a message inviting me to dinner with some friends of his at a very ‘in’ Korean barbecue in Midtown Manhattan. I accepted without thinking, and then I realised that it was a good thing it was the beginning of the month, because my bank account would only stretch to pay for dinner at a chic place, although I might have to spend the rest of the month eating mashed potatoes¹. My fairy godmother, who is very clever, must have whispered in my ear not to wear jeans, that it would be better to wear a dress and high heels. I took the most elegant thing I had in my wardrobe— a green dress from Zara that, despite its origin, was quite nice, and a pair of high-heeled sandals—I put some eyeliner on and I went to meet G's friends. There were six of us, because G was accompanied by two banker friends, the cardiologist sister of one of them and a friend of hers whose profession I don't recall but who left an indelible mark on me, that of the certainty of being in the presence of the most posh woman I had ever had the pleasure of meeting. I have to admit that had I been invited to a gathering like that in my twenties I would have had a terrible time, because I didn't get rid of my insecurities until I was in my early thirties. As luck would have it, I sat down to dinner with them in the 34th year of my existence, after having struggled in many places and coming to the conclusion that I am beautiful and intelligent and that elegance begins with a well-furnished head, a critical spirit and having read a lot, especially fiction². So today I can say that sharing a table with such economically privileged people was not only interesting, but also a lot of fun.

I'm not going to bore you with the details, just tell you that if you can go to a Korean barbecue, don't hesitate, the food is exquisite. In this restaurant the solid stone tables had a little grill right in the middle and we cooked our own meat and vegetables. An exceptional culinary experience. From the conversation I remember that at a certain point G was talking about needing a recommendation to be admitted to a very exclusive club in Manhattan (I think it was in Soho) of which the cardiologist was a member. The conversation turned into a kind of competition about which club in Manhattan was the coolest, and I was there, silent, listening, thoroughly entertained. Seeing that I had been quiet for ten minutes, one of the bankers, who of course couldn't see the label on my dress or the numbers on my account, asked me what I thought, to which I couldn't resist answering with a huge smile that almost broke into laughter- "I belong to a very exclusive club that happens to be free. The library. Unfortunately, we don't have a swimming pool there, but it has many branches all over New York. I can write letters of recommendation for all of you." I must have said it with the graciousness of one who doesn't feel sorry for herself because the whole table started to laugh, the carefree laughter of those who feel at ease. We finished dinner and went for a few drinks at one of those bars where they serve classic cocktails and play insufferable music. I have to say that G paid for my dinner and drinks with the discreet elegance and generosity of a gentleman who expects nothing in return.

Every time I remember that dinner I also remember Samantha's image at the Soho club in that legendary episode of Sex and the City.

G had a wide range of tastes and eclectic friends, and on another occasion he invited me for a few beers in a bar in Greenwich with another friend of his, this time a professional pianist who earned extra money tuning the grand pianos of the Upper West Side jet set. This time I brought my friend CL who was visiting, and we turned up in jeans and trainers, and I have to say that we blended in perfectly with the atmosphere. There's nothing like knowing what to wear for every occasion (thanks mum for that extra bit of education you gave us). The beer was good, the music better, and the conversation, once again, very interesting. It was there that I discovered, from two musicians who knew what they were talking about, that a good performer does not pour their feelings on the music score. They gut it with surgical precision to begin and end each note with mathematical exactitude, and that is how they manage to make their audience burst into tears or have their soul shudder with feelings that no words could ever express. That was when I began to understand how difficult it is to be a true artist.

That was the last time I saw G in person. We didn't meet up again, he was working more than ever, and I was trying to finish my project against the clock so I could move to Sweden on schedule. On the other hand, it's also possible that we moved in very different circles, he in the clubs of Soho, I in the library of East 67th Street.

I lost track of him a long time ago; but I have to say that since that occasion in Boston, every time someone proposes going for dinner with complete strangers, no matter how much I feel like staying in my slippers and my stay-at-home tracksuit bottoms, I always put on a blouse and a pair of shoes, skirt or trousers, and I put on some eyeliner to go wherever destiny takes me.

1. The postdoc salary is derisory. I survived in New York because my rent was subsidized by the center I worked for.

2. It is strange how women who know their virtues are not as appreciated as those who go through life with that charm characterized by innocence about their talents. The difference often lies, not in the fact that there are candid women who do not know they are beautiful or smart, but that they know it but affect a calculated ignorance.