The shop was located in a side street, not a very important one.
It was impossible not to see, from afar, the sign which Akim had chosen for his store: a long banner, almost a flag, of a slightly faded yellow, hanging down from above.
On the banner, in orange letters, the store name: After the Rain.
Even when the weather was bad, the flag waved gently, maybe due to the street being rather narrow, which prevented the wind from flowing into, to its great disappointment.
Hardly in, if you looked around, what most surprised you were the immense assortment of colors, which seemed to overlap, till they overflowed from the shelves which went up to the ceiling, on the three walls. Whoever would enter for the first time, would wonder, astonished, what kind of merchandise could lead to that multicolored confusion. But regular customers knew the reason quite well. After the Rain was one of those rare shops where one could find any kind of kite, from the simplest one to the most unusual, in a wide choice of colors.
From the classic kites with a bamboo frame, to the most up-dated, supported by mobile frames with bent tails; up to those multistoreyed, with long side ribbons, capable of remaining in the air for an exceptionally long time.
The simple kites were rather easy to handle, while others required a great deal of skill, which one acquired with years of passionate training. Some kites were born to ascend higher and higher, up to where the clouds, if you were to look upwards, seemed to speed so fast in the wind that they caused a slight bewilderment. And there were also kites with their nose and their tail as sharp as arrows, capable of performing the most sudden manoeuvres, kites which loved to compete with the wind, as did the sea swallows. Akim explained to his customers that it was not just a matter of form, size or materials. Each kite had to face the changeable moods of the wind or, better said, of the wind at different altitudes.
A leading role, furthermore, was played by the kite’s colors. Every hue, every shade, by reflecting the light in different ways, could influence the kite behaviour and its speed.
Akim designed and put together his kites by himself, in the back of his shop.
Sometimes, distinguished gentlemen came and visited his shop, with rolls of drawings. They wanted a kite made according to their own ideas and, in those cases, their discussion would go on for hours, with Akim on one side of the counter and the gentleman on the other.
Akim was a patient man.
He would listen to the gentlemen’s arguments, bending his head to one side, as he used to do when he did not completely agree.
While working he used to wear a white smock, covered with colored stains, which made him look like one of his kites. He had a white mop and a face which time had furrowed with a cobweb of wrinkles. But when the sun, coming from the window, lit up his eyes, they turned limpid as those of a child, and as azure as the ribbons of some kites. Many years ago, Akim had chosen the name of his shop.
He had thought that, at times, after the rain, a rainbow appears, and that’s the best moment to fly a kite. If it manages to reach the rainbow, it would absorb its colors and, in competitions, it would become almost unbeatable.
When stars, up there, started to grow dim, Akim knew it was time for him to go out.
Not that this happened every day.
In winter, when cold was biting, or when his mind was still occupied by a new kite design, he preferred to stay at home.
The operation he devoted himself to, in fact, required an open, clear mind. Just before dawn, when the world seems still in the dark, but if you were to look over there you could make out a faint glimmer of light. It’s then that dreams mill around in the heart of men sleeping the sweetest sleep, the one before awakening.
At daybreak dreams would fade away, and men often would not even remember them. Dreams, in fact, prefer to reappear in other places, and to creep about surreptitiously, unexpectedly. Akim had thought it over for a long time, and had wondered whether it would be possible to catch one of the dreams when they leave men to go back into the shadows.
A great sensitiveness would have been required not to frighten them. But, who knows? Maybe dreams could be read inside men’s hearts: if so, perhaps one would allow him to catch it. Lost in these thoughts, one morning, a little before dawn, he had lurked in the garden of a two-storied house. It was a simple house, but refined by tall green shutters and a balcony on which wistaria stood out from ochre walls. But nothing had happened, neither then, nor in the following days.
However, one evening, while he was working on a new kite which could maybe have more chances to catch the rainbow, it crossed his mind that he should probably discover where that house dwellers slept. To find out was not easy but, at last, he managed to do it.
From then on he started waiting, without moving, in that garden.
He would reach out with one hand, his palm turned up, and wait.
And one fine April day, when the wind seemed to bring a hint of warmth even before dawn, he felt
something alight on his hand.
It was something very light, vague, iridescent. Something so gentle that he was almost frightened.
He closed his hand cautiously and put it away slowly, with care, into his velvet shoulder-bag.
Since then it had happened again, although not frequently. When he reached home, Akim used to hide the bag in the back of his shop, along with the rolls of mousseline de soie, sheets of rice-paper and the drawings files. Against a wall was a roll of parchment and, on a blue lacquered piece of furniture, were some books bound in red leather, looking as colored brush-strokes. And there were also bowls of mastic of different gradations, peacock feathers, gilded wood sticks, pink and turquoise ribbons, camel hair, Indian ink, Arabic rubber, greaseproof paper, silver thread, cakes of wax. And furthermore cotton wool foam, sand paper, brushes of all sizes, gutta-percha.
Right in front, lined up, small colored tubes, standing at attention as small soldiers.
On the walls one could see winds maps, and watercolors of kites gliding in high skies with white clouds fading away on the horizon. When a ray of sunlight came in from the glass wall in the back, the dust in the air turned golden and, maybe due to the many and varied things, maybe due to the overwhelming amazement, one got the impression of being in a secluded and enchanted place.
Obviously, Akim had wondered wether it would have been possible to find out the contents of the dreams he was catching.
He had however noticed that only their glimmer changed, meaning that the iridescence of some dreams was stronger. But that was it. Perhaps, some were even lighter than others, but it would have been difficult to say. When he thought that he had enough dreams, he wondered what he could do with them.He was convinced that they were happy dreams , they were iridescent, were they not ? like those of which one says: “I had a wonderfull dream” . If so, it would have been nice to give them away as a present.
That’s why he started to secretly put them into the packets of the clients he liked more, or the ones dearer to him, such as some children, who used to enter his shop slightly frightened, and stare at kites with their eyes opened wide.
He also put a dream in the packet of Kapoor, a child whose head hardly reached the counter, a tiny tot, in other words, who used to come to his shop frequently, and look and look again at kites.
Sometimes it happened that some clients would talk to Akim about some of their dreams, if they remembered them. Akim would then take a special pleasure since, as he had supposed, almost always they had been beautiful dreams, although some were rather strange ones. But dreams are often strange, are they not ?
For the last few weeks, the town had been very lively. The local Kite Museum received more visitors each day. Telescopes started to come into sight on terraces which looked out onto the meadows to watch the training.
The steps leading to the river - so wide that the opposite shore could hardly be seen - had already been closed to the public, in order to place the jury stand.
Every year, in fact, during the last three days of spring, the International Kite Games took place, and a great crowd of enthusiasts from everywhere gathered. The Games had a great prestige since they had originated many years ago, when kites were still made quite roughly. At that time nobody used to take the trouble to study the wind psychology, the effects of color or the superiority of certain kinds of gutta-percha, not to mention the connection between rainbows and kite acrobatics, something which had only recently been demonstrated. During all spring the competitors who were children, boys, but some grown-ups too, had trained often and at length on the meadows which ran along the river.
Lately, some little girls started competing, blonde girls, as all the girls in the Kingdom were, who at once were shown to possess a special skill, especially in the acrobatics trials, where a particular sensitivity was required, more than a firm hand. The Games included contests of endurance, acrobatics, height, flight in couple and grazing flight. There were also, obviously, prescribed figures, and a minimum flight time of seven minutes and fifteen seconds.
To decide the score, the jury considered the grace as well as the harmony of manoeuvres.
The most coveted trophy, the Crystal Kite, a sculpture which had remained the same since the Games started, was awarded to the winner of each contest. What most worried competitors was the wind. How strong would it be ? From which direction would it blow ? Wether at high altitude it would blow in gusts or not .
For this reason, during the days before the competitions, everybody turned to the method he considered more sound to foresee the wind’s behaviour. Some would scan birds flights, some would try to ascertain how high the smoke from chimnies rose. Others tried to interpret the shadows on the moon.
The wind, of course, waiting for orders, was the only one to keep quiet.
He knew that his duty was to follow instructions, and that man’s attempt to foresee what would happen was useless , since he himself did not know.
That year, in fact, something unexpected had happened.
The wind of the city had been ordered to give a hand to the sea-wind since, due to some upsetting in the unfathomed deep, waves had grown bigger than the size allowed to them, and it had been necessary to call them to order. The opening day, after the usual three trumpet blasts, with the dignitaries strutting about in their new uniforms, the Games were declared opened.
But to everyone’s surprise the wind, usually ever present, some years stronger, some years weaker, seemed absolutely absent. Disappeared.
What should they do?
The Foreman, after conferring with the jurymen, decided to put off for a day the opening of the Games, hoping that the wind would turn up. But that same evening he realized that the wind had no intention of coming and, without wind, goodbye to the Games.
It was then decided to ask the most erudite scholars of High Studies on wind behaviour, experts in wind psychology, professors who knew all wind statistics.
The majority of people, instead, turned to wizards who, it was said, were able to entice the wind with their magic arts.
Even four red-tail monkeys were brought in, since it was believed that they could rouse the wind’s curiosity with their somersaults, and get him back. Something of these measures must have worked since the following day a gentle breeze - let’s not call it wind - started to blow off the river to the north.
The jurymen availed themselves of the opportunity to start the first contests, those for children eight to twelve years old at once.
Kapoor was ten years old, and it was his first experience with a kite. To tell the truth, during the former months he had practised at length with the kite he had bought from Akim’s. It had costed him all his savings.
After getting it out of its case, he admired the long light-blue tails and the yellow nose. “This will remind you - Akim had told him - to always fly it with its nose against the wind”. When Kapoor stepped into the meadow, that little wind which was there immediately spotted him, realized that he was a novice, and decided to give him a hand.
Kapoor had fastened the long kite string to his wrist, afraid that a gust of wind could steal it. He took a long run-up and then he threw it, its nose against the wind, as Akim had recommended.
And, to everybody’s surprise, the kite zoomed - it seemed that also the kite was taking a run-up - and started climbing, higher and higher, the light-blue tails tight and the long silver ribbons glittering in the sun. Everybody stood up watching dumfounded since no other kite, up to then, had risen so high, the wind being so gentle. But, in the meanwhile, the ball of string, which Kapoor was holding in his hand, was unrolling faster and faster until it ended.
He tried to follow the kite, running on the meadows along the river, aware of the crowd cheering almost without hearing it.
Then, after leaping over a bush, he fell headlong onto the ground. He tried to get up off the ground, but he had hardly managed to get one knee up when the kite, all of a sudden, zoomed again, and this time Kapoor fell on his back.
He hit his head against a stone, saw the world go round, and closed his eyes.
Somehow Kapoor realized that the string was still tied to his wrist and that the kite was still flying upwards.
He noticed, amazed, that he was hanging in space, at a great altitude. He looked down. He had just finished flying over the river and he could now see in front of him a range of hills covered by woods which were dark green, in some places interspersed by rusted spots.
He could not make out any house but only, now and then, some trails of smoke which rose slowly fading away in the azure sky. And yet he was not afraid. The string was waving slightly and, although it was so thin, made him feel tranquil, safe. In the distance beyond the hills he saw indistinctly some mountains summits shrouded in a mist that the sun had not yet succeeded in dispelling.
He wondered how he could land. But, as if in reply, the kite started to loose height, slowly.
Just then, in a large valley where the fog seemed thicker, a big city came into sight. It must have been quite big, since he could not make out its limits.
He landed gently in a meadow. He was certain he was in the suburbs, since he could see many buildings. Carrying his kite under his arm, he made his way in their direction.
Something struck him at once. All buildings were covered with a grey patina, in some cases just slightly clearer.
That was the color the inhabitants of that city preferred, apparently. Grey were doors and windows, grey were shutters and street lamps. He noticed that all buildings were equally square, and all equally unadorned. Not a column, not a capital, not the slightest decoration coluld he see.
Fountains were just openings in the pavement, from which jets of water gushed, all at the same height. A queer city, Kapoor thought while passing a crowded street, with a lot of traffic. And yet every sound was muffled. Nobody who passed by him uttered a single word. Everybody appeared absorbed in deep thoughts.
Nubirya - but Kapoor could not know it yet - was quite an important city, at the border of the Kingdom. The residents devoted themselves entirely to what they called - incorrectly - the Sciences, namely mathematics, astronomy, physics, numerical analysis, geometry.
That was why they had seemed immersed in thoughts. Actually, even when walking, they made complex calculations and reasoned deeply.
Any operation, any subject, any object was studied at length, be it roads or furniture, pencil sharpeners or lighting, candies or buildings. The analysis were updated and revised over and over again, in search of the utmost functionality, of the perfect formula.
Before going out, everybody would evaluate the shortest route to reach one’s destination. And maybe that’s why, sometimes, terrible traffic jams would ensue. As a matter of fact, by dint of calculating the shortest route, many people ended up turning into the same street.
Some flyovers, moreover, had a strange course: they would bend, rise, come down, go back, for no obvious reason. 7
But there was a reason. The point was that no calculation or thinking, even the deepest ones, could take into account what was up to the stars or depended on the ups and downs of life.
For instance, it had never been possible to estimate the quantity of rain that would fall, how many people would be happy to-morrow, how many swallows would come next spring, how many love letters would be written, or to foresee if one would ever succeed in finding the keys, the eye-glasses, the pencil, the phone, which had gotten lost, perhaps in a black hole. Furthermore, due to the exceptional number of calculations, some of them ended up by being wrong. And that was the reason why some building walls were slant, or why some gardens found themselves in the middle of some streets.
On the other hand, nothing could be done about it. Calculations were calculations, experts would state. Kapoor, after a while, felt a slight uneasiness. In addition, he was hungry.
Evening was approaching, and he remembered that, since that morning, he had not eaten a thing. He looked around in search of an ice-cream parlour. An ice-cream was, in fact, what he most would have liked , actually a strawberry flavored one.
He saw an ice-cream shop on the corner. He entered and, whispering very quietly - since all around him there was absolute silence - he ordered an ice-cream cone. “Strawberry”, he specified or, if that was not available, “a lemon one”.
The woman behind the counter looked at him in amazement. “I’m sorry , she said , grey-raspberry ice-cream only”.
Kapoor left, and the uneasiness he had felt turned into a sadness which, as a wave, rose up and seized his entire soul.
He felt a great longing for his home and for his friends. He tied the kite to his wrist and started running on the street unconcerned by the traffic, as fast as he could. Then he raised the kite and he threw it with its nose high against the wind.
The kite gained height, steadily, rising above the blanket of smog and carried Kapoor beyond the clouds. Any melancholy, any sadness had disappeared.
Kapoor looked at the mountains which came up to him, their tops pink in the sunset, while down below the first evening shadows were falling.
He thought, with an intense happiness, that in a short while he would eat a big strawberry ice-cream.
Paolo Altamura
Milan, June 2004