Erik Pethersen - The Ball

I asked her one day what benefits those three little bottles had and Maddalena told me about some plant extracts that have a positive influence on emotional imbalances, worries and health in general: one for sleep disorders, one for social anxiety and the other to overcome grief, if I am not wrong. After the explanation, I lost some interest in the exact use of the products and now I am amused at this daily ritual, repeated in the same way every morning when she arrives at her office. However, I noticed the colour of the bottles are continuously changed, which led me to think that even the distress these magical extracts are used for, can change quite frequently.

I scroll through the search results with little enthusiasm while, always out of the corner of my eye, I see her busy carrying out the second preparatory action leading up to the beginning of the working day: the extension and compression of the piston of the chair, until reaching the optimal distance between the seat and the floor. I straighten my back a little, I think I have never changed the height of my chair: a long time ago I had placed it in a position that suited to my height, and that was it.

«Lavinia, can’t you see that you too get a back pain sitting on these armchairs? You want to straighten up now: your bones have taken on a wrong posture and it will be difficult to get them straight back» Maddalena suddenly stammers.

I turn to her and look at her beige turtleneck sweater, paired with oversized hazel pants and a pair of hard to define brown shoes.

«Actually, Maddalena, I have no back pain: I have just straightened up a little because I was hunching my back under the weight of the useless research I am doing» I reply to her, looking at her with a smile.

«So, you were just teasing me because I can’t get the chair in the right position?»

«No, I was looking for someone for a lease, I wasn’t really watching you» I reply calmly. «Do you need a hand to get yourself sorted?»

«I don’t need help, I just want no one to keep moving the position of my chair.»

I watch her slender legs, which can be seen under the deformed trousers, not at all comparable to Serena’s, dangling from a height about forty centimetres higher than mine. «Now you seem a little too high to me: don’t you think you should lower it a little?»

«Yes, that’s a bit too much, but I can’t move if I pull the lever.» I get up and walk to Maddalena.

«By moving this upward, won’t you lower it down?» I ask, pointing to the lever on the right of the seat.

«No, look» replies Maddalena, shaking the metal bar.

«Strange. Sorry: try to pull it while I push you down.»

Maddalena pulls the lever, I grab her two armrests and push her towards the ground.

«Enough, that’s fine.»

«So, you’re okay?»

«Yes» she replies. «Aren’t you cold in that sweater there, Lavinia?» she then adds looking at me up and down.

«No, it’s always hot in here» I retort, as I sit back at my seat.

«Maybe, I’m still cold in this sweater. Besides, all that flesh well in sight, are you sure it’s okay?»

«Okay for what?» I ask turning to her.

«I don’t know, I wouldn’t go around like that all naked.»

«I have only my wrists and ten centimetres of forearms uncovered and the sweater is just slightly open around my neck: I don’t feel like I’m that naked.»

The next time, do it by yourself, I won’t help you anymore, poor psycho-depressed bitch, I think as I start scrolling the page again to look for a suitable company to grant a lease out of the usual paths. In fact, the disturbing individual told me in secret that all his cars, including his wife’s, are underwritten with the financial companies of the car manufacturers and he wants to avoid documents of new cars his spouse is not aware of, lying around the house. What he said sounded a bit confused at first, then it turned out to be quite clear: he wants to sign a finance lease for a car that will not be used by him, his wife, or by a person who his wife would like to meet. I scroll down the page again and arrive around the eightieth result. I go back to the initial search field and add, next to the term leasing, the words intermediary registration.

The first result now shows the name of a company that sounds completely unknown to me: I click and find myself on the registration form in the reserved area of a company whose name is incomprehensible and difficult to pronounce. I scroll down, I click and I am on a registration form of the restricted area of a company with an incomprehensible and unpronounceable registered name.

I scroll down, I click on FAQ, I run through the first trivial questions with the relative predictable answers and at the bottom of the page, I find out that in order to register as an intermediary or mediator, it’s enough to fill in the electronic form seen on the previous page, attaching the Chamber of Commerce registration and the identity document of the owner of the individual company that is about to register or that of the legal representative. With this type of access, the following FAQ grants the possibility of requesting contracts for one’s own customers and their complete management through the appropriate online website, getting rid of all the paperwork, according to the last timely response to the precise final question.

I smile staring at the screen, save the address in my favourites and I think I will submit the matter to Teresa as soon as I get the opportunity to see her.

It’s 10:35 am: I’m going, otherwise I will never get back.

I have to collect all the checks for the story of the unlucky building. It was Amedeo who brought them here, those people from that hateful company: since he began to hang out with them, his career as an agent has plummeted.

The idea he had about four years ago of starting off his own business was really appreciable. He had freed himself from the real estate agency for which he had worked for some time. At the beginning he had sold a few offices quite easily on behalf of some considerable companies and then he had begun to deal with several residential properties: some sales had allowed him to evaluate with some satisfaction the path taken and to look positively at the future of his sole proprietorship.

Then, I think I remember between 2014 and 2015, Ciapper arrived, with that cursed tower: twenty floors of offices to be rented, according to the phrase that I was told so many times, at prices suitable for the prestigious property. According to Amedeo, the building was well done as for the way it looked and for the purpose it had been built, but the required standards bordered on madness and, as he said some time ago sarcastically, before isolating himself in a depressive silence, no one could understand the choice of the name, Banano, which caused potential customers some sort of bewilderment, lexical as well as geographical: it reminded of a tree not really widespread in the Brescia area.

After getting the exclusivity for the office lease mediation, Amedeo not only did not make any deal, but he did not even get interested people to visit the offices: only a strange voluntary association, some time ago, wanted to visit the building to rent part of a floor, without then follow-up their visit. As the months went by, which then turned into years, he managed, with great difficulty, to convince Ciapper people to give up the exclusive and unsuccessful leasing idea and to put the offices up for sale too.

However, the change in the contract did not change the interest of the market in the building. So, what is the moral of the story? For Amedeo, the whole affair has turned into a real fixation. On numerous occasions, I tried to get him out of his deteriorating state of mind, but I always got the same answer: «We have to place all of that fucking Banano».