Ilja Pfeijffer - La Superba

13.

And the worst was yet to come. Because now we were standing on the street. I asked Monia where she lived. She didn’t answer. I asked her again. She looked at me with large, staring eyes. Then it occurred to me that she could no longer remember her own address. She fell over. I helped her get up again. Moroccan gang members had noticed us and began to take an interest. We had to get out of here. I slapped Monia in the face. “Where do you live?” She opened her eyes even wider. “That way,” she said. Alright, that way. I gave her a shove and she ricocheted through the narrow alleyways like a pinball. In any case, we were on our way. In any case, we’d gotten away.

At last it turned out she lived in Via Chiabrera, just next to Piazza San Lorenzo. All things considered, as the crow flies, from Palazzo Spinola to there, if you know the way — and I most certainly do know the way — the easiest way, Via San Luca to Piazza Banchi and then Via Canneto Il Curto and then up a bit along Via San Lorenzo and then turn right about halfway, all things considered, at a casual walking speed, it’s five minutes at the most. It took us two hours. When things were going well, she walked four paces ahead of me with one clacking and one squelching shoe, and when things weren’t going well, I had to scrape her off the gray pavement over and over again.

But when we finally reached her front door, we weren’t home free yet. She said she lived on the top floor, that there was no lift, and handed me her keys. The moment for me to say my polite farewells hadn’t yet arrived. She clearly wouldn’t have stood a chance on all those marble stairs without me. I had to support her, watch out for stumbles, and sometimes actually carry her.

And all that time, I was filled with strange, evil thoughts. It had frequently occurred to me how easy it would be to rob her. She seemed rich. She dressed rich. She trusted me at least in so much as she had been entrusted to me. No one would ever know. She couldn’t even remember her own address, let alone be capable of telling the police the next day who had brought her home. Of course I didn’t rob her, but the idea was exciting.

It was long way up. After I’d unlocked the front door with her keys, we encountered another three cast-iron portcullises. I wondered whether they were intended to keep thieves out or her inside and prevent her from disgracing herself in the city.

When we finally got inside, she began to French kiss me frantically. I tasted the sour flavor of her vomit. She collapsed onto her bed. “Undress me, Ilja Leonardo. I can’t undress myself. I’m too in love with you to undress myself. Or maybe I’m not. Hang on.” She hiccupped. She began to screech with laughter. Then she began to cry. And all of a sudden she seemed wide awake. She stared at me, eyes wide open. “I want you,” she said. She swallowed something. “I want you to fuck me like a dirty, filthy, stinking whore because I am a dirty, filthy, stinking whore.” And before I could thank her for her hospitality, she said, “Shove your fat, filthy cock between my tits. I beg you, I beg you, let me be your whore, please.” She began to cry again. And then she began to laugh again. She tugged at my fly so violently, I had to open it myself. “Fuck me,” she said. This was easier said than done. “I’m a filthy, dirty, stinking, smelly whore,” she said. Well, with all due respect, that was the problem. “Spread your legs,” I said to gain time. Groaning, she spread her legs. It looked so disgusting my dick shriveled. To conceal my discomfort, I began to lick her. That was a mistake. She tasted of sour piss and rotting fish. I almost threw up. But she screamed with pleasure. She sounded as erotic as a burglar alarm. When I was at the point of vomiting, I jerked off as quickly as I could over her enormous tits. Before she’d finished trying to lick it off, I had my clothes back on. “Ilja Leonardo,” she called, “I want all your cocks between all my tits and in all my asses and cunts forevermore. Come back!”

I threw up on the street. The fishmonger’s was already open.

14.

But I may have found an investor.

“Then she’ll guarantee a hundred,” Walter said. “And she can pay off the other half in installments if she wants. With two hundred we’re in because I reckon Pierluigi’s hopeless. If we want to open after the summer, we have to act now. Then we’ll open with your new play about Italian emigrants. With her money, we can make it really spectacular, with a real ship’s forecastle on the stage. I saw something like that in Heidelberg once. With real water, too. There’s some kind of chemical salt solution. Then it really smells of the sea. And we’ll invite your musicians and put them on a raft. And we’ll have it sink in the final scene, not really of course, but you can suggest that really well with smoke machines, together with those special lights you have sunk into the stage. Alright, it’ll cost a bit, mainly because you have to make everything waterproof. But I know a technician in Madrid who is specializes in that. We’ll fly him in. I could give him a call. I’ll call him right away.”

“Walter.”

“Alright. I know, I’m getting ahead of myself. But that’s just my enthusiasm talking. It’s how I’ve always managed to get things done. But you’re right. Let’s do some realistic math. How much has she promised you?”

“She wasn’t in any state to say anything, let alone promise anything.”

“But you said she’s rich. That’s the point. If you just do your work and keep on ploughing and spraying that fertile vegetable plot…”

“Don’t talk like that, Walter.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t like it.”

“Just keep on digging away at it, you know, and in a month we’ll be raising the curtains on our first premiere.”

“Maybe we should talk to the council first, Walter.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve got the impression that Pierluigi is trying to sell us something that doesn’t belong to him.”

“Of course he is. I’m not stupid, Ilja. We’re in Italy. But we’ll pay with her money, won’t we? What’s her name again? Nadia?”

“Monia.”

“What difference does it make? Everyone screws everyone else here. How long have you been here? I’ve been here long enough to know more than you that everyone here screws everyone else. Are you really that naive, or are you trying to weasel your way out of it? Be honest with me. I have to know. Either I can go further with you or I can’t. Either we get a theater or we don’t. Say the word. Our friendship won’t be affected. Yes or no?”

“I’m not trying to weasel my way out of anything, Walter.”

“See.”

15.

Monia kept calling me. She also sent text messages the whole time with all kinds of suggestive X’s. When I returned her calls, she invited me to the opera. I had to go out shopping with her first, though. She insisted on it. She said it ten times. I had to dress properly for the opera. She’d do that, too, but she couldn’t show her face with a person dressed like some old bumpkin from the Low Countries, naturally I’d understand that. Even my summer suit, which I’d bought right in all my recklessness after arriving in Genoa when I was still under the illusion that I had money, was too casual for the opera and certainly too shabby for the company of a women who over-dressed flamboyantly even to just drink an aperitif in a bar. And it was a great opportunity to obtain a really handsome Italian suit at her expense. I’d been wanting one for a long time.

It was a boiling hot day. She took me to a chic shop on Via XX Settembre. She consulted the shop assistant. I could hardly understand a lick of the details they were discussing. Finally they chose something together from the rack. It was a stunning Mafia suit with wide lapels that could also be worn as a tuxedo. I had to try that on. It was important to get an idea of whether it would suit me. I didn’t have to worry about the exact fit. Everything would be properly fitted later, of course.