Ilja Pfeijffer - La Superba

“I’m getting married, too.”

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.