La Superba (12 page)

She looked at me in astonishment. Then she began to laugh. “With that girl from the Bar of Mirrors you've been out with twice?” She roared with laughter. “You only see the exterior. I've already told you that, haven't I? You live in your dreams.”

34.

A few days later she took the initiative. Just before closing time, she brought me my last Negroni, and with a conspicuous gesture laid a folded-up napkin under it as a coaster, and winked. I unfolded the napkin. “Tomorrow evening, 9.30pm at Gloglo on Piazza Lavagna. X.” She looked at me via the mirrors. I blew her a kiss to show that I was confirming the date.

We dined on the terrace and talked. She wanted to know everything about my country. I didn't feel like talking about it but enjoyed the fact that she was hanging on my every word. And before we knew it, it was half past one. The waiter brought the bill. They were closing.

“Should we maybe go somewhere else?” I asked.

“It's late,” she said.

“You can sleep at mine, if you like. I live just near here.”

I almost jumped out of my skin. Had I really said that? Yes, I'd really said that. The echo of my words hung like an accusation in her painful silence. Or something like that. Even my style gave
away my despair. In a panic, I tried to come up with something that would undo my words, but my thoughts raced too fast for me to be able to think.

“Alright,” she said. “But let's go now, then.”

I felt like I'd landed in my own fantasies. I was walking with the most beautiful girl in Genoa on my arm through the deserted nighttime streets to my apartment on Vico Alabardieri. This was Italy, my new country. I was wearing an Italian suit and Italian shoes and I was walking with an Italian girl through Italian streets to my Italian house. We'd spoken Italian all evening. I had seduced her in Italian. I regretted the fact that it was so late there was no one around to see us together. I would have preferred jubilant masses. On either side of the red carpet. Applauding us and clapping loudly. She smiles haughtily in her white dress as rose petals rain down on us.

I lit a candle and opened a bottle of wine. “So you live here,” she said. “Nice.” She almost seemed shy in what were for her unfamiliar surroundings. She was more beautiful than ever by candlelight. We drank a single glass and then she blew out the candle. “Come. Let's go to bed.”

She undressed. It was a sacred moment that I can hardly describe. In the silvery-white moonlight that fell through the windows, I saw the breathtaking curves that I had so often imagined. She was like a nymph, like the goddess Diana herself, bathing in her own silvery light. I couldn't believe that the most beautiful girl in Genoa was standing naked before me in my own home. Every thought of sex evaporated. She was too sacrosanct for that. My only desire was to worship her. She lay down next to me and I worshipped her with my hands. I stroked her even more gently
than the moonlight. And then I felt her wounds. They were on her elbow, her wrist and her ankle. They had almost healed and were virtually invisible. But I could feel them. I remembered the quest Cinzia had given me. Her first commission had brought me luck. The reason I was lying there was thanks to having found the Mandragola. I asked her what had happened.

“What do you mean?”

“Your injuries. I still remember you waiting on me with a bandage and red antiseptic streaks. You can't see anything anymore, but I can feel them. What happened?”

She went rigid.

“Did I say something wrong? I'm sorry. It was only a question. I was curious. But it's not important. Leave it.”

“I was bitten by rats,” she said I laughed. “I don't believe you.”

She stood up. I tried to stop her.

“What are you doing?”

“Let go of me.”

She began to get dressed again.

“I changed my mind, I'm going home.”

She slammed the door behind her with a loud crash.

35.

But she cannot escape me. She's a waitress, after all. She works in a public place. The next day I went to the Bar of Mirrors for my aperitif. Even before I could sit down, she came over to me. She gestured for me to follow her. We went into the porcelain grotto,
the small space where she prepared the
stuzzichini
. She closed the curtain behind us.

“Listen, Leonardo,” she whispered. “Promise you'll listen to me properly and won't interrupt. I'd rather you didn't come here for a while. Don't worry. It's not your fault. But I need some privacy. You have to give me some space. I need to think. So let's agree not to see each other for a while. Two or three weeks or so. There are enough other bars. Go to the Piazza delle Erbe. OK?”

I nodded.

“And you were right. Naturally you were right. Of course I wasn't bitten by rats. I will tell you the truth. I fell. Down the stairs. And it wasn't really an accident. He pushed me. Francesco. My boyfriend. I'm sure you've seen him around. I told him about you, about the interesting new customer I'd met who was always so well-mannered and polite and who always sat writing in his notebook. I told him I thought you were a poet. And then he got so jealous he pushed me down the stairs. It was a bit unfortunate that you reminded me of that last night. But you couldn't know. So I'm not blaming you at all.”

“And that's why you broke up with Francesco?”

She gave me a confused look. “What do you mean?” she said. “No, I didn't break up with him. He's still my boyfriend. It actually means that he really, really loves me. Getting so angry when I'm talking about another man that he can no longer control himself. He's a passionate man. Really different from you.”

“So why did you come home with me last night?”

“That's exactly what I want to think about. Go now.”

I understood. Oh my God, how I'd understood. How could
I have been so stupid? Of course she had a boyfriend. And now that boyfriend had a name, too. Francesco, the bastard. Of course she'd never leave him. If she managed to interpret domestic violence as proof of his love, what would it take to get her to leave him? I'd been living in my dreams. The dream that she could be mine. But Cinzia and the signora had been right. She was an Italian girl with a passionate Italian boyfriend, and she'd never be capable of taking the step toward a new life. She would always take the certainty of his heavy-handedness over the uncertain adventure of my hands that had stroked her more gently than the moonlight. Fine. This was it, then. I decided to cherish the night before as a precious memory and for the rest, forget about her.

36.

I'm sorry, my friend, that you haven't heard from me for a while. I'd taken a break from my pleasurable obligation of keeping you up to date, via these notes, on the vicissitudes of my life in the labyrinth of my new city in my new homeland, and my striving to force myself—by fulfilling this pleasurable obligation—to mine the crude ore from which I'd win the liquid, red-hot, precious metal that would stream, shine, and scorch as my next novel, in order to dedicate myself to an even more enjoyable task if possible, which for obvious reasons will have no impact on my book, if only because real people are involved, with real feelings, and a family with three small children and a jealous husband whom readers in my home country might know. Thematically, too, this short, piquant episode has no relevance to my novel, which, as
you will have understood, will have to focus on the big topical issue of immigration, whereby I will contrast my own successful expat lifestyle with the deplorable fate of all those poor fellows from Morocco and Senegal who got lost in these very same streets in their dreams of a better life and guaranteed wealth in Europe, and whom the authorities, who have declared a state of emergency, are exterminating like rats. The novel will also have to be about my own fantasy of making my long-cherished dream of a jealousy-inducing rich and carefree Mediterranean existence among true, authentic people who haven't yet unlearned the art of attributing importance only to the things that really matter: perfume, taste, elegance, and a natural, noble way of life. Italy, oh Italy. The balmy, humming summer's evening skies, pregnant with scooter girls, and the light-footed
opera buffa
of daily existence are perfectly isotonic with my soul. Being in this country has always felt like a process of osmosis, of my fusion with my natural habitat. The labyrinth of Centro Storico is just as much a metaphor for my dreams as it is the desperate fairy tale in which Rashid, Djiby, and others have lost themselves.

Genoa's old nickname is La Superba. You can interpret the name in two different ways and you understand this best when you approach the city from the south, across the sea. All of a sudden there she is: a beautiful piece of scenery with towering palazzi in a mountain basin. But while you are enjoying it, you realize that the pomp and glory form an impenetrable wall. She is beautiful and heartless. She's a whore who beckons but whom you can never make your own. She is alluring and reckless. She seduces and destroys. Like the rats lured into traps with poison
that tastes like honey. In that sense, Genoa, La Superba symbolizes Europe as a whole. Behind her impenetrable walls of border checks, asylum procedures, investigators, and forced expulsions, she lies there showing off her promise of new Mercedes and BMWs. Anyone managing to force their way in takes this as reason enough to believe they've achieved their dream. They're in paradise. The rest will follow as a matter of course. And then they'll wither away in a leaky two-room apartment with eleven of their countrymen and be exterminated like a rat.

That's what it should be about. And about the past. Seven score and ten years ago, millions of destitute, desperate Italians boarded ships in the ports of this very city, dreaming of a better life and guaranteed wealth in La Merica, as they called their wonderland on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. In the place from which millions once set sail, now millions are chased away like rats because they are doing exactly what their hosts did fifty and one hundred years previously: hope. That's what it should be about, for fuck's sake, and not about the trivialities I contemplated telling you.

Alright. Of course it also has to be about her, too. You're much too good a reader not to have picked that up from the first line I wrote to you. Of course it has to be about the most beautiful girl in Genoa, who, as befitting the most beautiful girl, works among mirrors. She is a fairy tale. I'm not sure which role I'm going to invent for her in my final work of art. It depends of course on future developments. If there are any future developments, which, to be honest, I seriously doubt. She was La Superba. And she was the fantasy in which I have gotten more and more lost. This was
another good reason for taking a break for a few days and devoting myself to a juicy reality. I'll tell you about it, my friend. But I'm presuming that you understand that I'm trusting you to keep to yourself what I'm about to tell you.

37.

The story actually began a few years ago. I was at one of those many compulsory literary parties in my homeland, which I always frequented with great displays of bravado and bluster and which I miss like a hole in the head. As I was standing there holding forth on an interesting topic among a group of jealous admirers and jealous rivals, a woman came up to me and introduced herself as my German translator. She was blonde and statuesque, slightly plump, but all in all pretty impressive. She'd just been asked to translate a selection of my poetry. I'd heard about it. Her name was Inge. Maybe I've mentioned her to you before.

After that first meeting we saw each other with some regularity to discuss her progress. Generally, I like to have as little contact with my translators as possible, but in her case it was a pleasure. I noticed—or perhaps just fantasized it—that she got dressed up especially for our meetings. Or in any case, she could have chosen to show off a less deeply-cut top at a work meeting with one of her authors. You could put it another way. In complete concordance with my poetics, she accentuated her excesses. On my part, I didn't have to make any effort at all. I'd already written all my poems. I didn't even have to spray my armpits to give her the idea that she had the right to flirt with me.

Last week she sent me an e-mail saying she'd like to talk to me because her translation was as good as finished. I replied by e-mail that it would be a great pleasure and that I was keen to see it, but that I was living in Genoa at present. She wrote back saying that, in that case, she'd come to Genoa. I said: OK. And then she came. She'd booked a flight to Milan–Malpensa and reserved a place on an intercity. She texted me a specific time of arrival.

She was married…is still married to an American agent who has been frequenting parties in my homeland with great displays of bravado and bluster since time immemorial and still hasn't been able to muster the decency to lose his all-American barbecue accent. He's a bastard. They have three small children. For form's sake, I'd taken an option in her name on a grimy hotel room in the Doria on Vico dei Garibaldi, the worst hotel in the neighborhood, which she'd certainly want to swap for another after the first night and then it would be a Saturday and all the hotels in the city would be fully booked. But the ruse was completely unnecessary. I waited for her at Palazzo Principe station at her specific time of arrival and she came running up to me in all her flamboyant, un-Italian blondeness. She embraced me like she never would have done in the fatherland, kissed me on the lips, and asked, “Is it a long way to your place?”

And I didn't have to make up the guest bed that night. She joined me in bed like a sumptuously shaped cloud. She smelled of the north, not of Genoa. I wanted her to undress, but she said I had to dance for her. She watched me as I stroked my own body tauntingly slowly. I looked in the mirror to see the way she was watching me as I watched myself like a pole dancer.
Then she said she wanted to see the most beautiful girl in Genoa. Then she said we should undress her together. She began to kiss her. I kissed her while she enjoyed my fantasy. We played with the girl in the mirrors for hours on end, the two of us, and we were given ourselves in return, as shining and clear as our own reflections.