Umberto Eco’s Intern

I walked up to him across the lawn of the stable, near the old red barn, and shook his hand. And Umberto Eco replied “You talk too much. In the car you were gossiping and gossiping with that man.” Then he looked away, but in a manner that said he didn’t mind me. He would tell me more soon, I knew.
I don’t know what Umberto Eco sounds or looks. In this dream he spoke a broken English but with a clean American accent, not Italian; he was wearing a brown corduroy professorial jacket that, if I had seen the elbows, probably had patches on them. Under that, an aged and checkered off-white shirt with red grid lines. And green pants, I believe. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and he appeared to me with the face of the distinguished though weathered actor James Cromwell, with a bit of Paul Newman.
We’d spent a long autumn drive in one of those extended Nissan / Toyota passenger vans. Eco had sat in the passenger seat; myself and another man, who I can’t recall despite my ‘gossiping’ with, beside me. I could see the top of Eco’s head and part of his bushy left eyebrow from my position at the back but little more. But I knew I had to talk to him. I wanted to be his pupil, his intern. That was the real reason I was on this field trip. I wanted to learn…I’m not sure what. Philosophy I suppose. Signs. Meaning.
Farm in the Berkshires by user parl on Flickr.