Джанрико Карофильо - Rome Noir

“Nonsense.”

“No, seriously. I lied to you and I can’t forgive myself.”

“It’s true, but for that precise reason you can’t withdraw.”

I didn’t understand.

“You see, if you withdraw now I’ll be forced to have your dick cut off by one of the girls.” He stared at me for a few seconds, then: “I was joking, obviously.” But he didn’t have the tone of someone who was joking. I tried to show a hint of a smile. We played. Every so often I glanced at the other two, but they gave no sign of having understood what Yichang had said, and he hadn’t uttered a single word in Chinese. I had a lot of ugly thoughts. I think it was then that I began to use my brain again, a little. However, I promptly got into another one of my usual messes.

Incredible to say, but I had started winning again. Yichang didn’t seem at all disturbed by this. In fact, he began to make some jokes and he told a story about the origins of Rome, as if nothing had happened. I felt tremendously embarrassed and wanted to contribute to the conversation. Since I was short of subjects, I had this bright idea of recounting the strange dream I’d had the night before.

Yichang listened attentively but said nothing. He continued to lose. When we stopped playing he was down by almost three hundred euros. It wasn’t much compared to the two hundred thousand I owed him, but at least it was something. He took his notebook and updated it, saying that we would see each other the following night at the usual time.

I don’t know if it had something to do with telling Yichang my dream, but the following night there was something new. Sitting to one side, near our table, was a girl. Yichang introduced her. Her name was Yin. Like all the girls in the Forbidden City, she was very pretty. I didn’t remember having seen her before, but that didn’t mean much. Ever since I had thrown myself body and soul into cards, I had stopped paying particular attention to what happened on the stage.

Yichang said that she was there to serve us. He asked if I had anything against it. All this was rather odd. Usually, when we finished our beers we raised a finger and immediately more were brought. Our needs were always limited to this. I didn’t see how this girl could serve us. But could I make an objection?

The first few nights slid by smooth as glass. I continued to win big. I had recouped almost half my debt. Within two weeks I found myself ahead by a hundred euros. From the stable to the stars.

“You see, Yin brings you good luck,” Yichang said every so often, smiling in that strange way he had on those nights. And when Yichang made these remarks, Yin smiled too, staring at me with a look full of meaning.

I shielded myself, embarrassed. I had discovered that I was not at all immune to Yin’s charm. She was beautiful, but there was something else. I don’t know how to explain it. Maybe it was the fact that she sat near our table the whole time without saying anything. She didn’t even bring us the beers, as I had imagined she would. She was just a presence. She seemed to be there only to be looked at, and, indeed, I looked at her. I couldn’t help giving her furtive glances. And every time I did so, I found that her eyes were on me.

I felt good. I was winning, and having a girl gaze at me the whole time made me feel... how to put it? Stronger, more of a man.

The cards had extinguished in me any desire, and so it had been an eternity since I’d been with a woman. But now it was different. I felt reborn and was beginning to have thoughts about Yin.

This didn’t escape Yichang. At the end of one night, in Yin’s presence, he said, “Why don’t you take her home?”

I pretended not to understand.

“Yes, you should celebrate. You’ve started winning again. You’re ahead by seven hundred euros. It’s a whim you can satisfy. I’ve seen how you look at her, what do you think? And I bet Yin wouldn’t mind. Right, Yin?”

Yin smiled without saying anything, as always.

I, however, felt different. I told you, I felt as if I’d been reborn. So the words came out of my mouth by themselves: “You would really come with me?” Only an idiot would ask a whore a question like that.

She nodded her head yes and I brought her home. We made love all day, heedless of the heat and the sweat. At sunset we went out. I asked her if she wanted to have breakfast with me. She nodded. What did I expect her to say? We didn’t speak. We only gazed into each other’s eyes as we ate. We had no need for words, we felt satisfied. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t use the plural. It was I who felt satisfied. She had simply done what she was paid for — something I began to forget, despite the fact that I had always boasted that I knew how things worked at the Forbidden City.

The fact that I’d paid nothing so far had its weight. I supposedly had seven hundred euros available. Yichang scrupulously noted my winnings in his famous notebook, but he had not yet given me a cent and I hadn’t found the courage to ask him for anything. How could I demand that he pay me after what had happened?

Nor did Yin demand anything. When I raised the subject she shook her head and said, smiling, “Me know you many money Yichang. Me not care. Me like you.” I was struck by hearing her speak in the broken English of Asians. I realized that until then I had never heard the sound of her voice. A sound that I would not hear again for a long time. We stayed together. It became a kind of routine. I played, I won some euros, I said goodbye to Yichang and went home with Yin. We made love and then watched television or simply lay on the bed. Without ever saying anything. Or rather: It was she who didn’t open her mouth. I sometimes did. For example, I made comments on the heat or asked if she felt like something to eat. Sometimes I mentioned that I liked her. Whatever I said to her, Yin nodded her head yes. Which didn’t bother me. In fact, I found it relaxing and, in a strange way, I began to fall in love with her. I say strange because I knew nothing about Yin. Where she came from, how old she was, what went on in her head.

In time I began to make grandiose speeches after we made love. I talked to her about myself, about how my life had been and how I would have liked it to be. I told her my opinion on all kinds of things. If there was something after death, if I believed in God or extraterrestrials. Ideas. She seemed to listen because from time to time she nodded. But the truth is that deep down it wasn’t so important whether she really listened. Otherwise I wouldn’t have spoken in Italian. What the fuck, the only words I had heard her say were “Me not care. Me like you.” There was a serious probability that she understood nothing.

One day I felt in a particularly romantic vein and told her the dream. I don’t know why, but it came to mind. Suddenly, I realized that after that absurd dream my life had changed. I had begun to win and I had met her. Maybe dreams had a meaning after all. She nodded yes without saying anything. She didn’t seem at all moved by the fact that the girl in the dream was dead. A detail that I noted only later.

Some more weeks passed during which everything seemed to keep running smooth as glass. I was becoming richer and richer, if only in Yichang’s notebook. Sex with Yin was fantastic and every day I was more in love with her. I was convinced that she felt the same, because from the beginning she had never asked me to pay her. In my screwed-up brain I had conceived the idea that her “Me like you” was worth more than “Me know you many money Yinchang.”

Until one night, after months had gone by, she decided to open her mouth, and she did it to ask for money. In her broken English she said that, between one fuck and another, I owed her something like fifty thousand euros. If I considered the request in purely virtual terms there was nothing to worry about. According to Yichang’s notebook I was nearly a millionaire. But in my pocket I had barely a hundred euros and my bank account wasn’t much better off.