The Ice-Cream Makers Read Online Free PDF Page B

jam. The family ate it spread on thick slices of bread. The glass jars were kept in the cellar.
    Giuseppe asked for three jars. His mother gave him five, her whole supply.
    In the early morning light he headed up into the mountains, on his back the large basket he used for carrying hay down from the steepest slopes in summer. It was a warm, sunny day, but he kept going until he heard snow crunching beneath his shoes. He was now two thousand metres up the Antelao, the King of the Dolomites. Much higher up, on the north face of the pyramid-shaped peak, were two glaciers, sparkling in the sun like a jewelled necklace. Giuseppe took the basket from his back and began digging. He was the only one for miles, the sound ricocheting off the rocks. It didn’t feel like harvesting, it felt like theft. He was stealing snow from the king.
    Maria Grazia saw him return from the mountains, the straw basket with snow on his back. It had been months since she saw him last. His shoulders were broader, his bare forearms muscular. As he got closer, she also saw the look in his dark-blue eyes. It was a bashful, somewhat enigmatic look, which reminded her why she was in love with him and not with any of the other men who ogled her.
    He had noticed her, looking young and ravishing. There’s a kind of beauty that entrances, that transports you. It was her arched upper lip, her dark eyes, and the curves of her body, which her clothes failed to conceal. All together an outrageous promise. At the same time her skin retained the pallor of winter, lending it something almost sacred.
    Giuseppe glanced at her very briefly. Fall under my spell , her dark eyes appeared to be saying. Then he rushed inside, feeling he had got away, but he knew it was out there waiting for him. The beauty that eclipses all else.
    He broke eggs and separated the yolks from the whites. To the yolks he added the sugar he had bought from Tiziano De Lorenzo, a merchant who had been to Argentina and America. De Lorenzo was the son of a pioneer and had a broken nose. The world glimpsed from a hot-air balloon was small to him. The salt that must be added to the snow came from his stores, too.
    Giuseppe whisked the egg yolks and the sugar until the mixture was nearly white. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing, just followed Massimiliano’s instructions to the letter. Slowly add the milk to the egg mixture and bring to a simmer . It was hard to do everything slowly — he wanted to do everything really fast. In his mind’s eye he was already spinning the hand wheel and tasting his own ice-cream. His very first ice-cream.
    He opened his mother’s jars and tipped their contents into the milk mixture, spooning out the remains. He couldn’t resist licking the spoon. His tastebuds were spinning the wheel of his imagination. For one brief moment he was back up Enrico Zangrando’s tree.
    Leave everything to cool . In the meantime he crumbled the snow into the wooden barrel and added the salt. Giuseppe and his ice-cream machine were in the cellar of the house. He had locked the door to the staircase, not wanting to be disturbed, but he knew his brothers and sisters were waiting impatiently upstairs.
    The moment arrived. He poured the cooled mixture into the cylinder lined with snow, reached for the handle, and began turning the wooden wheel slowly, yet barely able to wait for the end result. The recipe had specified the proportion of water, sugar, and fruit, so he could only hope that his mother’s jam met the requirements. Then again, Massimiliano had also told him to experiment.
    He turned the hand wheel faster. One floor up, his little sister was lying on the wooden floor. ‘Hurry,’ she shouted. ‘Listen.’ They all lay down on the floor with their right ear to the wooden boards. Hearing their big brother churning brought the wheel of their imagination in motion, too.
    â€˜He’s making ice-cream,’ one of the girls