Dirk van Weelden

There she is!

Under this shiny, tailored coat is the Olivetti Lettera 22. Looked for that one for years. Somebody presented one as a gift, but it turned out to be irreparably damaged. Somebody else loaned me one and now I have one of those Italian beauties for myself. And a completely spotless one at that.

This morning, at the train station of Driebergen-Zeist a burly guy in his forties stepped up to me, wearing a winter coat in which patches of red, purple, green and yellow were to be found. Crew cut and a hard, dry hand. André. His wife Caroline had put his mother’s typewriter up for sale at an auction site. From an equally alarmingly green shopping bag he produced the famous canvas bag with leather handles. On a table in the railway diner was a pristine Lettera 22. No rust or dirt anywhere. Its insides shone as if it had arrived a week ago from Ivrea near Milan and was delivered at the Ruys company. A metal Ruys logo was tacked onto the hood.

It looks great, I said. Yes, replied André, it was always in some cupboard upstairs. She never used it again.

He watched with a frown as I moved the carriage left and right, fidlled with the margins and checked the tab function. It was as if he witnessed somebody operating a typewriter for the first time in his life. He seemed very relieved I was happy with the typewriter and paid him.

On the train back I realized I should have asked André since when exactly his mother never used the typewriter again. At graduation? Since her wedding day? Her retirement? The move to a new home? At home I could find out that my Italian purchase was manufactured in 1954. Apart from a shiny new looking dust cover it came with an oblong grey box. Inside was a brush on a long handle. On the lid it said: Olivetti.

Amsterdam was cold and grey. I walked home from the tram stop, in my hand, gently swinging, was the most stylish portable typewriter of the fifties. I imagined myself sitting in a hotel lobby at a long table, reworking notes from a notebook into a long letter to a friend. Lettera, after all, means ‘letter’ in Italian.