Ilja Pfeijffer - La Superba

A week later we see the same couple again. The third ruin they visited is possibly their favorite. Alright, it didn’t have a roof. And all in all, there weren’t really any walls. But they’d always fancied rebuilding to completely fit their own taste, with Ligurian slate and marble from Carrara. And just look at that view. Yes, they dare say this in front of the camera — it was the place of their dreams. They’d fallen in love. They dared to say that out loud for the first time, too. Wasn’t this a lovely start to a new life? Let’s face it. The asking price of three hundred thou’ was a little over their budget, but you might never get a chance like this again. As their friend the real estate agent had said, “You only live once.” As far as they were concerned that was spot on.

Meanwhile, they showed footage of them sitting in their terraced house in the drizzly north, doing sums at the kitchen table. Whichever way they add things up, three hundred thousand is still too much. And then you have the building costs on top. He tells her it would be an irresponsible move. She tells him he’s doing the sums wrong because he also has to add on her own ceramics studio and factor in that she can sell to the local inhabitants. And they’ll turn the scullery with the large terrace into a trattoria. Their friend the real estate agent told them last time that there was nothing at all for miles and miles in that region. So there’s a gap in the market for a trattoria, certainly in combination with her studio. You’ll be able to serve your own local dishes on self-designed, self-fired plates. “And of course my designs will be totally inspired by the local surroundings. Did you see the look on the real estate agent’s face when I said that? Run through the numbers again, love, we’re talking about our dreams here. I mean, love, look out of the window. It’s raining. It’s been raining for weeks. It’s been raining all our lives. It’s now or never. We’ve been talking about it for so long, you know that.”

In the next episode we’ve moved on a few months. The trucks full of Ligurian slate are arriving. But it’s a different kind than they ordered. The man and the woman say in individual in-depth interviews that they consider this a personal failure. They’d made clear arrangements and now everything is going to have to be re-delivered. This means a delay of a fortnight, maybe even a month. And what are they going to do about the limestone ornaments? They’re supposed to be arriving in two weeks. Are they going to have to put them in storage somewhere? They can’t afford that. They couldn’t afford any delays, either. This had already cost much more than they’d ever intended. The trattoria had to open this summer. But if it carried on like this, they wouldn’t be ready until after the peak season.

And when the bill arrives for the wrong slate that was delivered, the shit hits the fan. Of course they’re not paying it. But there seems to be some kind of clause in the contract that makes them obliged, according to national laws, which have to do with recently changed legislation concerning the use of certain registered sustainable materials, to pay for the wrongly delivered slate. Their hands are in their hair. The friend, the real estate agent, hasn’t been answering the phone for days. The trucks with marble from Carrara are expected tomorrow. But there’s also been a potential miscommunication there because, unlike they’d agreed, the delivery date hasn’t been confirmed by telephone, and it’s so damn difficult to make arrangements in this fucking country where no one speaks a goddamn word of English.

Next there are problems with the sewerage permit, but they can’t read the local regulations. And while the neighbor claims right of way across their idyllic terrace, there’s a reassessment of the property taxes. There’s also a problem with the permit for the water pipes. They’d chosen the cheapest option but hadn’t realized that the more expensive company had a certain edge in the region, by ill-gotten means. The mayor of the village refuses to understand their problem. They suspect he’s being paid by the more expensive company. They live for months with designer copper taps that they had shipped from France but that don’t work. The opening of the trattoria has to be put back by a year as a result. They will go on to win their court case, but it will take months. Their attorney is talking years. But that would mean even higher legal costs than they’d already feared.

The only thing missing is for the two of them to fall out. This is covered in detail in the final episode. We see him back in his drizzle-drenched house in the north. Unpaid bills lie on the kitchen table in front of him. As he talks about everything that has happened, his eyes fill with tears. She is still there. She fiddles forlornly with a stunted vine. She uses her skinny sandaled foot to spin her pottery wheel. She doesn’t have any contact with the locals. The trattoria never opened. “He was scared and backed out,” she says. “And now he’s refusing to pay even my maintenance allowance. How am I supposed to survive? From my pots? He has to be kidding.”

11.

There are two kinds of women: those who are just there, and others who make a grand entrance. And the second kind can also be divided into two categories: those who set foot on the terrace to conquer it, and those who haughtily beg to be conquered. She fell into this last category.

She was unbelievable. I sat there gawking at her, open-mouthed, my friend, I swear, and I swear I wasn’t the only one. It was outside the Bar of Mirrors. At first I didn’t notice much around me; I was beetling away at these notes that I send you with some regularity to keep you up to date on my trials and tribulations in my new home country. It’s a ritual I’ve become highly attached to because even intense experiences stick better in the mind when you share them with a dear friend. I can only be grateful to you for that.

But she was unbelievable. Or did I already say that? She gave flamboyancy a bad name. She was tall, almost taller than I, had long dark hair, hot pants, and legs, that added together would, amount to several meters. She was sitting on her own at a table, smoking strong cigarettes and drinking cocktails. And she was old. Certainly over fifty. And that meant something. Anyone dressing so shamelessly at that age had done so deliberately. She was up for anything. She reeked of availability. She was suffused with desperation between her thighs. And squeezed under her elegant silk designer blouse were the two biggest tits you or I have ever seen. I’m not kidding. Footballs. It was almost vulgar. It was more than vulgar. And she smiled along so innocently, like a schoolgirl. But she was fifty. At least. Fifty-five was also a possibility.

I drank my Negroni at another table and cast salacious looks at her from time to time. When she looked back, I pretended to be busy writing this letter to you. And when I looked again, she looked away haughtily. And when she nevertheless had another look, I described her haughtily.

But that’s how things often go. I’d never be telling you this story if there weren’t a sequel. You know that. You know me. Brace yourself.

A few days later I saw her again at the Bar of Mirrors. She was in the company of the signora, what’s her name again, the signora from Part One who explained to me that appearances don’t matter in Genoa and that it was regrettable that women in these parts had traditionally ruled the roost. What’s her name again? Franca. Exactly. Thank you. Franca Mancinelli. I hadn’t seen her for ages. I greeted her. She invited me to sit with them and introduced me.

Her name turned out to be Monia. A strange, unusual name I didn’t understand at first because I’d never heard it before. Maybe I’d even made it up. Since she looked like someone who had invented herself, the name suited her well. Out of admiration, I introduced myself as Ilja rather than Leonardo, which induced some confusion in the signora. Monia smiled.