La Superba (39 page)

23.

They were dark days. The winter hung like a gray horsehair blanket over the inhospitable city. Day and night were one in my apartment on the ground floor of the narrow Vico Alabardieri. If I'd closed the shutters, it wouldn't have made the slightest difference. I had to go out. But I didn't want to. I'd go out into the night where the same ghosts roamed as in my darkest thoughts. The alleyways were printed in black on a black background on the map of the city. I would lose my way again, my head sunk deep
into the black collar of my long black coat. I would disappear like a crow in a coalmine, like a gravedigger in his own catacombs.

During the nine-month-long summer, the half-light in my house had felt like a pleasant chill. But during the three months of winter, which seemed to last three times as long, it was a tomb. The walls are so thick that my mobile doesn't have a signal inside. I can forget about Internet. I have to go out for all those things. And that's not a problem: in the summer, it's exactly what I want to do. I toddle drowsily in my pajamas into the alleys to drink coffee and read the paper. I shower at the sight of fountains. I clean my teeth with the smiles of random passersby. But in wintertime, I sit there with the knowledge that it isn't much better outside than it is in.

I pressed the buttons on my phone out of boredom. No messages. I was in an isolation cell, an isolation cell whose key was in my own keeping, in a Siberian prison camp without fences. I was my own prison guard. I could free myself whenever I wanted and escape into the vast expanses of the dark winter. After a while, I'd return to my cell on my own, my tail between my legs, if I hadn't succumbed under the weight of the night in the meantime, or been torn apart by the bears and wolves of my doubts.

I had to go out. I put on my coat and pulled my iron door firmly shut behind me and locked it with my big, authentic Genoese key. I had to go some-fucking-where to drink strong fucking coffee. Fuck the winter.

When I was outside, my mobile beeped. I had a message. “
Ciao, grando uomo! Come sta? Io vengo per vistare te presto, nel caso che per tu va bene! Va tutto ben! Sono anche imperanda Italiano! Io desidero stare con tu! A presto alora!
” With a fat blonde smiley. The world record
for grammatical mistakes in a single SMS was suddenly hanging on a thread. It was Inge, my German translator. She messaged me a specific time of arrival.

24.

The weather was bleak. The wet snow had melted into a kind of inconstant drizzle that was slapped into your face by the strong wind like a wet tea towel. Deeply unpleasant.

“Maestro.” I only had a two-euro coin. I gave it to him anyway. I was in a kind of defeatist mood, if such a mood exists. Water was seeping through the wooden planks. The wood creaked. Sooner or later we'd sink. Two euros more or less wouldn't make any difference.

“Why don't you go back, maestro?”

I looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean, Salvatore?”

“Why don't you return to the north where your friends are?”

“My friends are here.”

“Where?”

“Don't be so rude. You're my friend.” I smiled.

“Could you lend me fifty euros perhaps?”

“I've just given you two euros.”

“Exactly.”

“Exactly what? What do you mean, Salvatore?”

“You never give two euros. The fact you're doing it now means something. Because everything has a meaning. Without a meaning, everything would be pointless. And since that would be pointless, it can't be true.
Quod erat demonstrandum
. What do you think of that, maestro?”

“You could be a medieval philosopher, Salvatore.”

“I was once.”

“When?”

“Are you putting me on? In the Middle Ages.”

“How long have you been here, Salvatore?”

“Oh maestro! Time is long and memory is short. For me it's all about what I find in my cap: florins, euros, pieces of silver, emergency currency, francs from the mountains, francs from over the mountains, Vatican scudos, Neapolitan or Sicilian piastras, soldi, denari, sesini, ducati, grana, tornesi, cavalla, Sardinian centesimi, florins from Tuscany, Lombardy, or Venice, quattrini, paoli, Austro-Hungarian guilders, pounds, kreuzers, crowns, and marks, just as long as they're round and shiny. I've been here as long as the rats, and I'll be here until the last rat jumps ship for some better place. Just get used to it, maestro. You're my customer. I will find you wherever you are in every era. But I'll always give you a good price. Because like you said, you're a friend.”

“And the fact I just gave you two euros, what do you think that means?”

“But, maestro, it's not that difficult. A question of deduction. In theory it might mean that you're generous, but you're not, because you've never given me that much before. It could mean that I've done you a favor or that I've changed in some way you like, but that's not the case. We hadn't seen each other for a long time until bumping into each other two days ago, and I change more slowly than the centuries. So there's just one possibility left: you have changed. And I've always seen you in this city as a confident, successful man. And because you've necessarily changed, you're
no longer that.
Quod erat demonstrandum
. The fact you've given me two euros today means that things are not going well for you. And that's the reason I'm asking why you don't go back north.”

“What would I do there? Escape you?”

“You wouldn't be able to, maestro. I'd find you wherever you were. You don't have to go to any trouble. Just call it all part of the service. You're my customer.”

25.

I remembered her as a big blonde, not exactly slender, but in her own way impressive and, most of all, present, like a woman with the power to fill silences and cavities with the engorging plumpness of her obvious northern appearance. When I saw her again at the specific time of arrival she'd texted me, I was shocked. It could be that, unlike the previous time she'd arrived, I wasn't really in the mood to be hospitable to luscious forms or forms of any other kind, but she stormed toward my halfhearted welcome hug like a cow toward an open gate. She was enormous. Maybe she'd gotten bigger in the meantime. Or maybe as a result of a summer full of calligraphic, wafer-thin scooter girls I'd forgotten how to see her as an attractive woman. In any case, in my eyes she looked like a blonde mountain with bulges that were in theory in more or less the right places. As she kissed me elaborately in the station, I saw pity in the eyes of my fellow city dwellers. It made me feel embarrassed.

“Ciao,” she said, much too loudly. “Are we going to your house or shall we get drunk on your little square first?” She laughed
much too exuberantly. “I know already,” she said. “First, a few drinks. Come on. I know you. I know what you want. I'll take you to your little square. I think I still know the way.”

I needed a stiff drink, she was right about that. But the way she charged through my city on her overly fat and overly confident legs, rolling her wheelie case noisily behind her, deflated my enthusiasm even further. Every paving stone covers an ancient, well hidden secret that we might whisper about one day when the wine is full, the evening quiet, and the stars favorably positioned. Two or three fragile stories lie on every street corner. Anyone with the courage to admit it will meet the tenuous old ghosts. Anyone living here will lay their ear from time to time to one of the gray, crumbling housefronts and focus on the weak echo of voices from the past. They don't always say what we want to hear, that's true. And it's not always easy to understand them. But that's why you listen harder. And when you listen really well, you can hear the old walls creaking as they rearrange the labyrinth bit by bit at night. You can hear alleys twisting and the palazzi sighing if you know how to listen and if you listen to the minimal echo of the almost inaudible footsteps within a porcelain grotto.

And she charged cheerfully through all of that on her fat legs. “Nice weather, though. It's much worse back home. Ooh, I do fancy a Negroni. It's great to see you again. Come here and give me a big kiss.”

We walked down from the station to Via di Pré. It wouldn't be the route I'd have chosen in these circumstances at this time of day, but she was leading the way. This was Africa. If I French kissed a blonde mountain of that size in this quarter dominated by black,
frustrated, jealous Muslims, I might not make it out alive. “I'm so happy to be back in Genoa, too. It's all so wonderful here.” She should be counting her blessings that she hadn't been robbed, raped, and sold as a white slave to the Bey of Tunis by now. A fair amount of money could exchange hands for a woman as massive and blonde as she. “It almost feels a bit dangerous here. I'm glad I'm with you. Give me a kiss. Come on, give me a kiss.” I saw the shining teeth in hungry faces. Knives glittered. Someone spat blood. “It's so nice here!”

26.

We reached Piazza delle Erbe. Miraculously, we were still alive and in possession of all of our limbs. She wasn't impressed. She ordered a Negroni. “
Allora
!” she shouted. The barmaid discreetly whispered in my ear, was it OK? I gestured subtly that it was and that I'd pay.

Within half an hour she was blind drunk. “
Va bene
!” she screamed. I cautiously suggested that now might be a good time to go home. She was tired, I suggested. Perhaps she needed to rest after the long journey. After that she could freshen up and we could go for another drink. Or maybe she simply preferred to turn in for the night. That wasn't a problem. Tomorrow was another day, I assured her. “
Va bene
!” she said, ordering another Negroni.

I'd invited a couple of my Genoese friends to add luster to the occasion of her return. They'd been courteous enough to invite us to their house for a simple dinner. I told her this, and asked whether
she was happy with the invitation. She wasn't obliged to go or anything. I'd understand perfectly if she preferred to get an early night. My friends would also fully understand.

“
Va bene
!”

She asked what time we had to be there. I said they were coming to pick us up. It would be an honor for them to partake of a little aperitif with us before going to their house.

“
Va bene
!”

And in the meantime, I'd already bought wine,
fave
, and salami. My friends were taking care of the main course and the dessert. She didn't need to worry about a thing.

“
Va bene
!”

But perhaps it was advisable to lie down for an hour beforehand. Recover a bit from the journey. Perhaps sober up a little before dinner. There was plenty of time for that; she didn't have to worry in the slightest. And I'd come and fetch her. She didn't have to think about a thing.

“
Va bene
!”

But she didn't go. And that evening as we carefully peeled the
fave
and attractively draped the special salami in delicate, thin slices on a fragile plate and poured the whispering wine into beautifully designed goblets, one of my female friends cautiously asked her in polished English what she thought of the poetry of contradictions in Genoa's ancient labyrinth.

“
Va bene
!” she cried with a slice of sausage in her mouth. “
Va molto
,
molto bene
!”

27.

That night I barely slept a wink. After I'd pushed her, staggering and swaying, wheelie case and all, through the alleyways and hauled her up Vico Vegetti to my house on Vico Alabardieri, I was full of hope that in all her enormity she would fall asleep like a log as soon as her spinning head hit the pillow, after which I could tranquilly search for a strip, shred, or crack of available space on the mattress where I could hide with the sheets over my head. But the opposite was true. As soon as she'd stumblingly, topplingly undressed and was lying in my bed with her scandalous blonde thighs and tits, she spotted me next to her and seemed to awaken. Or some kind of demon awoke in her. She bit my arm, hit my belly, and grabbed my cock like a builder reaching for his tools.

“Well,” she said. “Well. There you are at last. Did I misbehave at your friends' party? I hope so, I certainly meant to.” She began to laugh hysterically. “Do you know what's so funny? I've suddenly realized that I'm lying here with a famous poet's cock in my hand!” She laughed even louder. “At least, one who used to be famous.” She began to kiss me wildly. She tried to ram her tongue behind my epiglottis. Survival instinct made me fight back with my tongue. “See! You like it, don't you? Tell me you missed me. Say it!” Her tongue made it impossible for me to say anything. “You know what the funniest thing is?” I'd long lost my sense of humor—there was nothing funny, let alone funn
iest
. “Maybe you think I misbehaved with your friends this evening, but that was just the start. Tonight I'm going to show you what real misbehavior looks like, you mark my words.” She rammed a finger
up my ass. I screamed. “Yes, scream away. I know you like it. My lovely transvestite. Scream away. Yes. Like that. Like that. Yes. Yes.”

At last she fell asleep. She turned onto her side, taking all the covers with her. I was cold, and carefully tried to pull back some covers. But that woke her up, and then she began again. When she finally fell asleep a second time and confiscated all of the covers again, I resigned myself, shivering, to my fate. I lay on my back and looked up at the ceiling. I was cold. I tried to move as little as possible for fear of waking her up again. I shivered. It felt like I'd been raped.

28.

“I'm going for a coffee.” She was completely blonde, freshly showered, awake and cheerful. I felt shattered. “And after that I'm going to go for a little walk. But you can stay in bed, darling. But will I see you again before I leave? I'll text you where I am.”