CHAPTER 13. THE SCHOOL ALBUM

April 13, 1938.

"Now look here," said twelve-year-old Alparo Ambrosini to eleven-year-old Ferruccio Lamborghini, as he hastily turned another page of his school drawing album. At that moment, they were in a drab classroom in a provincial Italian school.

The sunlight streaming in through the window seemed to purposefully illuminate this particular object, the school album—a material where, with the help of paints, various children's thoughts, feelings, and emotions were formally defined.

"A herd of bulls..." Ferruccio said thoughtfully, and immediately added with a certain indescribably inspired feeling, "But why do you always draw things that our teacher doesn't tell us to? Where in your school album is a vase, a flower, a castle, or your own home? And because of this disobedience, despite the certain elegance of your drawings, you constantly get the lowest grades in our class..."

"I draw as I want and whatever I desire—something calls me to it... adults call a similar feeling and emotion... 'intuition.' Perhaps it's when I'm doing this that the rudiments of a formed personality are beginning to emerge in me..."

"Or an incorrigible rebel, because where you see a manifestation of your character and the formation of a personality, our teacher sees rebellion and an attempt to break the already very shaky boundaries of discipline..."

"Who knows, only our future will answer that question... Don't get distracted, Ferruccio, look at the album... Picturesque fields! The owner of the herd, also the shepherd, is leading his herd of bulls to the butcher, for sale or for slaughter... As he walks past places that are monotonous in their beauty, he remembers how he wandered here as a boy and how his father, like him now, also led a herd to the butcher... He also remembers how his herd was still young and weak... He would bring them there, to the watering hole... a little further on, he would lead them into the shade cast by the crowns of old trees... He was a kind of universal beacon for this herd, leading them through the darkness, like Moses leading the people entrusted to him through desert roads—he made sure that none of them strayed from their path: he led them, promising them peace and light, a beautiful world order, as well as a prosperous future that did not belong to them and was entirely connected only with the will of their master..."

"Those heads look too much like human ones..."

"You've figured out my idea... now you'll understand the next drawing... here it is... wait a second... let me turn the page... Here! The exact same field—it's the same one! Instead of bulls, there are people on it, many people... deceased, killed in battle! They trustingly followed their shepherd, striving to lose his trail and his face—they would have gone anywhere with him, even to the ends of the earth. Yes, he promised them peace, but now they are here, dead... And here's the next drawing... the same field, but there is no one there anymore—neither people, nor bulls, nor a shepherd: where the shepherd once led his herd, where people were killed and spared, where death and life reigned, now the harmony of absolute chaos ruled—on the field where there was once scarlet blood, now grew blue flowers..."

"You draw well, Alparo, and your thoughts are also extremely complex..."

"I'm not the only one, Ferruccio—I know many who draw the same way, and sometimes even better... But my father says that there will soon be a war, a big war, and that not everyone will survive it—what do you think, Ferruccio, will you and I survive the war? Or will our talents, like the talents of many other children, perish in the abyss of the coming hell?"

"I don't know, Alparo... I don't know... I'm afraid to think about it... I heard them say that hell is seen by those who have made a deal with the devil, but if hell is to be on earth, as your father says, it turns out that it will be created by people, not the devil... And what is depicted next in your album?"

"Next?... Next I depicted all kinds of mechanisms, like tractors, trucks, and airplanes..."

"Will you show me?"

"Of course! In my mind, I see these mechanisms as perfect, without flaws, but when I draw them, I realize that they are not at all what I see them as—that's because I still lack the skill and talent... to transfer them from my mind into my school album..."

"And why don't you draw animals the way we are assigned, but instead draw them in your own way, not like everyone else?"

"You know, Ferruccio... I see them as living beings... Just think! How unique a living creature is, it is like a whole Universe for itself... it is created and exists only once, and its life, like a thread, can easily break for any reason whatsoever—an exactly the same life and an exactly the same creature will never exist again, and therefore, both in life and in my drawings, I respectfully treat their uniqueness and coexist with them in processes that, one way or another, influence my and their destiny, our and their stories, our shared history... This is by no means something supernatural, but the most explainable and definable thing... The album! How many times has it helped me! When I felt bad, this album always saved me—I would smear its snow-white spaces with my thoughts and feelings! I have a goal—to cover all 366 pages of this album with my images and stories! And so, on days when I feel bad, when I am alone, when everyone despises me, when I think that it's all over, I just turn another page of my album and draw on—and when I feel good, I do the same, because good and bad emotions are fleeting, but the path and the goal are eternal! Even when our family moved, even when I went to different schools and met different people, my album, and consequently my goal, was always with me—nothing could destroy it, of course, except for what could destroy my sober mind and the clarity of my consciousness..."