Free Better Than Fiction 2 by Lonely Planet

lively philosophy graduate from the publisher’s local office, and presents with the right mix of realism, anarchy and hope.
    ‘When’s our appointment?’ I ask.
    ‘What appointment?’ she smiles.
    It remains a commando mission. Chiara has met Nanda before, and as we hunker down to strategize over coffee, shepulls a few more tales from the archive of Nanda’s stubbornness, caprice, intelligence, and charm. And she repeatedly calls a local number, one we’re assured is Nanda’s, but there’s no answer. Meanwhile information filters in that says the number connects to an apartment just around the corner – which must be the one Nanda is in the process of leaving.
    Coffee turns into prosecco until the number finally answers. Its not Nanda but another lady, an assistant or friend, who says Nanda may or may not see us – but we can approach the apartment and take our chances. We walk to the address and try the bell, but no one comes. The building is an elegant low-rise over a gated garage with a restaurant built in alongside it. After loitering around the gate for a while, we retreat for more drinks and try the phone again.
    Prosecco turns into grappa. Night begins to fall.
    As a final shot within the hours of decency, we return to the darkened building and ring the bell. This time a lady comes to the gate and lets us in. Just like that, as if she’s always there, and always lets callers in. She says Nanda is upstairs, and leads us to an apartment stacked high with boxes and furnishings. In one central room, once the living room, a sofa and an armchair still sit in place. And from deep in the armchair a pair of eyes sparkle up. They follow Chiara and me to the sofa. Behind the eyes a small round woman begins to smile. Her hair is short, still brunette, framing a Genoese face with the beaming cheeks and handsome radiance of a boy on the cover of a raisin box. She watches me for a few moments, then says in English, ‘Take off your clothes.’
    I grin. She beams. At eighty-five she has not only the face but the mischief of a schoolboy. Chiara, realising she’s sat between urchins, flaps at me not to do it. She later tells me Nanda hasused the gambit before, that it was a trick, because someone once actually undressed and she wasn’t impressed. More playful gambits follow, and I roll with them until Nanda leans from her chair to say that she’s read my book. That she loves it. This is the Mario Puzo moment I would’ve undressed for. In the buzz that follows, she invites us to invite her to dinner at the trattoria downstairs. Chiara and I take an arm each and manoeuvre her down to the place, settling at a large wooden table and ordering red wine. Nanda sits facing me, scrutinising. She wants to know about me, but my brief history – recent move to a forest in Ireland, upbringing in Mexico City, father running projects out of New York – makes her stop me.
    ‘Do you keep animals, in this forest?’
    ‘Not as in livestock. But there are creatures around the house, foxes and such. There’s even a fox who comes to be fed every night.’
    ‘And your father died in New York?’
    ‘He didn’t die there. Though he was treated for a time there, when he fell ill.’
    ‘Foxes, New York,’ her eyes glisten over my face. ‘Listen to me: if you’re going to write like this, you mustn’t face the world as yourself. You need a figura . If you show them yourself, they’ll destroy you!’
    ‘But part of the soul of this work is that it’s the first really honest thing I’ve done,’ I say. ‘It’s not in that spirit to hide.’
    ‘No, no,’ she says. ‘Don’t show them yourself. Look at Hemingway, look at all his friends. Those were deeply strange men. If anyone knew how they really were, they would’ve destroyed them. Deeply strange, all those boys. Do you think they would’ve survived without their figura ? I was imprisoned for some of their ideas. Imprisoned three times, under fascism. And let me tell you