by Anna Premoli
*
An hour later I am rested, washed, perfumed and dressed casual. Deliberately casual: I’m wearing a pair of black jeans, a scoop-necked grey sweater and my black leather boots. Not the aggro ones, the more reassuring pair. This is still a business trip and not a holiday, so I left the studs, piercings and all the rest at home. I didn’t want to scare Iris.
The real problem is that it’s bloody cold in Amsterdam and it keeps drizzling, so if you want to go out you basically have to dress up as the Michelin man. The more layers you have, the more hope there is that you won’t freeze to death.
When I open the door of my room, I find Ari standing there, fist clenched and hand suspended in mid air.
“I was just about to knock,” he says with a smile. He’s wearing jeans, a light blue shirt and a dark blue sweater. The boy obviously loves classic style. “Come on, smell me,” he invites, bending down and proffering his long neck. It doesn’t escape my notice he has shaved again and that his skin is now glowing temptingly.
“There’s no need for you to bend down, it smells like you’ve showered in aftershave,” I say, waving my hands in the air to bat away the aroma. “I could smell you from half a mile off.”
“Let’s say I didn’t like your criticism so I preferred not to run any risks.”
“It wasn’t a criticism. And anyway, after running around all day, I was pretty smelly myself. Maybe even more smelly than you,” I say, to reassure him and massage his ego.
He beams at me happily. What the hell is the DNA of these people who are always so stubbornly cheerful made of? Marzipan or something?
“Anyway, where shall we go for dinner?”
“Wherever you want to go. But no spliffs,” I order categorically.
Ari laughs as we walk down the hotel corridor and head towards the exit.
“You, Ms. Studs and Piercings, are all talk and no action,” he says with conviction.
“What do you mean?”
“That you’re way less alternative than you want us to believe. You walk around acting like someone who walks on the wild side and who never has to ask twice, and then you get scared by a bit of pot and a half-naked dancer in a shop window...” he teases.
“They’re not dancers, Bertha - they’re prostitutes.”
“Oh dear, how scandalous! It’s not as if there weren’t any in Milan. No, my dear, you are a conservative at heart, despite all your efforts to make us think otherwise.”
“Me, conservative? Bertha, travel really messes with your head...”
“You don’t fool me, I’m onto you now!”
And then we suddenly stop, shivering, as soon as we put our noses outside the main entrance of the hotel. If nothing else, it has stopped raining, which is already a small miracle, but the temperature is extremely unwelcoming. The kind of thing that makes you miss Milan.
The centre of Amsterdam, though, is just the way I imagined it: a postcard come to life, with flocks of people whizzing by on bicycles. Our hotel is in central Dam square, the pulsing heart of the city, which to be honest is a bit of a luxury given that we’re only lowly interns.
It’s late March, but it’s still gloves and hats weather. Ari, who like a typical man pretends not to feel the cold, stuffs his hands into his pockets.
“So, do we just wander randomly about until we see something we like the look of?” I ask him.
“Good idea. But let’s wander towards the red light district,” he replies with a grin.
“God, you’re obsessed... It’s like you’ve never seen a half-naked woman.”
“And how do you know that I have?” he asks teasingly.
I look at him with very little conviction. “You, Bertha, have seen plenty of half-naked women. And done more than just look at them, I would imagine...” I add.
“What exactly are you accusing me of?” he pretends to be offended.
“You and that phone of yours... who knows what’s the heck all those girls say to you…” I’m referring referring to the messages he continuously receives. He thinks he’s being discreet, but I’ve noticed.
“Ah, just boring stuff,” he says vaguely.
Sure, of course.
“No sexy selfies, then?”
Teasing Ari could quite easily become one of my favourite hobbies. It’s fun because he never gets offended, which is practically a miracle seeing the way people always seem to get the hump over the smallest thing nowadays.
“Wouldn’t you like to know...” Then he comes over to me and puts his arm around my shoulders. I look up in alarm. “Relax! I swear, I’ve got no bad intentions in mind,” he says, pointing to a bistro with his other hand. “What do you think of that place?”
“Anywhere’s fine with me, as long as we get out of this cold,” I confess.
Ari drags me with him and soon we are seated at a small table. They even light a candle. I’m leaning forward to blow it out when he stops me with a threatening look. “What are you doing?”
“Oh come on, no, not a candlelit dinner, please...”
“Why, is dinner in the dark better?” he asks sarcastically. Now that he mentions it, the restaurant lights are very dim, which means the candle has a function that isn’t purely romantic.
“Ok, you’re right,” I concede.
“What?” he exclaims, sounding shocked. “Could you please repeat that last sentence?”
“Hey, I have no problem admitting it the rare occasions it actually happens”. I start laughing and he joins in. “Instead of gloating, why don’t you remind me of what they eat here, you idiot?”
He hands me a menu and starts studying his carefully. “Soups, potatoes, herring,” he reads quickly. “Ah, and omelettes with various cheeses.”
“They sound nicer than the first three you mentioned.”
“Yeah, they do.”
We end up ordering a giant omelette with a side of french fries and a mug of beer each. I’m not crazy about beer, but you can’t say that you went to Holland and drank water, you’d look like a total loser.
When the beer arrives, we sit for a moment in front of each other, with the candle illuminating us, in a strange silence. Romanticism has never done much for me, and the atmosphere in here is way too intimate. Not knowing how to behave, I grab a piece of bread and pretend to nibble on it.
“So what does your boyfriend do?” Ari asks me.
A damn crumb sticks in the middle of my throat, forcing me to down a mouthful of beer to remedy the situation. After regaining control, I look him in the face. “Why do you care?”
He looks relaxed, but it’s hard to tell if he actually is or if he’s just particularly good at pretending. “I don’t know... Just a way of making conversation, like any other. I could have asked you about your family or about your boyfriend, and I decided to start with him.”
“Because you’re nosey...”
“A little,” he admits. “If I had a girlfriend, wouldn’t you be curious?”
Of course I would. And of course I’m never going to tell him that.
“Err, no, I don’t think so.”
He doesn’t believe it for a moment and shakes his head with a laugh. “You’re almost making me doubt that he exists,” he teased. “Is he an imaginary boyfriend?”
“No, Bertha. He exists. His name is Filippo, he is the same age as us and we’ve been together for seven years,” I say, summing up in a few words the main facts. Which aren’t much.
For a moment he seems surprised. “Wow. You’ve been together a long time... But he doesn’t live in Milan,” he deduces correctly.
“No, he’s from Verona, my hometown. We met when I was still in high school.”
“And then you came to study in Milan and he stayed at home, right?”
“Yes. Fil has other interests. He’s not an academic.” I try to look calm while I say it, but Ari must notice a trace of something, because his expression grows intense.
“In the sense that he doesn’t understand why is it important for you?
” he asks, leaning forward. Up close, his eyes look really big and all too expressive, and the flame seems to animate the thousand golden specks contained in his irises.
“Bertha, I almost preferred you when you were in a coma on the plane...”
Ari bursts out laughing. “Yes, I’m sure you did! When I’m in that state, I’d happily be talked into giving away everything I own. Not that there’s much, just in case you get the wrong ideas.”
“I have to wait for you to inherit, then,” I joke. “Okay, fine – let’s meet up again in a few years.”
It doesn’t escape me that he doesn’t deny having something to inherit. It is obvious that he comes from a wealthy family. So wealthy that not even my mother would have anything to object to, and she likes objecting to pretty much everything.
Ari isn’t exactly a guy who flaunts it the way I’d thought the night they introduced us, but my childhood and then the Bocconi have taught me to recognize people who come from a certain type of background. There are the nouveau riche and then there are people like Ariberto Castelli, who has an innate class which cannot be bought. As much as my mother might kill herself trying, it will all have been in vain.
“Nobody changes the subject the way you do,” he says.
“Bertha, if I’d really wanted to change the subject, I would have started asking you questions about your private life. Something like ‘why don’t you have a serious girlfriend?’”
“I had one in the last year of high school,” he confesses.
“And then?” I urge him to continue.
“Then it’s ended.”
“Bertha, you suck at telling stories. Where’s the pathos?”
Ari takes a sip of beer and looks at me. “Sorry, there’s no drama: we went to study in two different cities and we just... drifted apart.”
“How obvious,” I say with annoyance. “I don’t understand why a long-distance relationship is such a big problem for men: if two people love each other they could be separated by entire continents and still love each other.”
Ari blinks in amazement and me. “Ms. Spikes, do you perhaps mean to tell me that you are not only a traditionalist but that you are also a romantic?” He bursts out laughing and carries on laughing for quite a while.
“Bertha, they’re all staring at us!” I say, but he clearly couldn’t care less and continues undaunted.
“Oh my God, a romantic...” he mutters to himself.
“Don’t you dare even say that word about me!” I order him, raising my index finger intimidatingly. But he grabs my hand and lowers it back to the table, covering it with his huge palm. And whether I want to admit it or not, my treacherous heart skips a beat or two.
“Look, it’s not a bad thing,” he continues to tease me. “And if it makes you feel better, I’m afraid I’m one too.”
I give him a very unimpressed look. “Hah, right...”
“Really,” he exclaims theatrically, “I’m a poor romantic.”
“Sure, wrapped in an expensive tailored shirt.”
“Something tells me that deep down you actually quite like my shirts,” he says with a wink.
“Bertha...”
“Yes, Ms. Spikes?”
For a moment we sit there motionless staring at each other. I start worriedly asking myself when exactly we started to be friends. Because Ari is right: he is really getting to know me. He picked up on small nuances, collected a series of clues and knew how to put them together. In short, he started speaking my language. But what really worries me is the realisation that you don’t get onto the wavelength of a person as complicated as me just by chance. No, you have to want it. You have to make a commitment. You have to care.
I’m on the verge of saying something silly or provoking as usual when the waiter appears before us with our orders. And fortunately, once we start tucking in, the conversation turns less serious again - because we both realised that for a moment we’d gone too far.
*
Sometimes I wonder why I can’t seem to do anything about my masochistic impulses, because it’s obvious that a girl with a bit of self-respect would have managed to think up an acceptable excuse for not coming down to the red light district.
“We’ve got plenty of choice,” Ari is saying enthusiastically while he Googles the hidden wonders of Amsterdam’s red-light district on his phone. Well, I say hidden...
“I can’t wait,” I mutter resentfully. Unfortunately I’ve always had trouble not keeping my promises. Ari pays no attention to my tone and continues to read. “Brothels, sex clubs with strippers and lap dances, sex shops, sex museums... You look like the kind of cultured, open-minded young woman who wouldn’t mind a trip to a sex museum,” he teases.
“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Immensely...” he confirms with a laugh. “So, what do you fancy?”
“You do realise that making me go with you while you visit hookers is a bit... how can I put it... excessive?” I ask in disgust. “I mean, even for you?”
Ari looks up from his phone and grows serious again for a moment. “We’re only here to have a look around, misery guts,” he says. “I certainly don’t have to pay for company.” And I believe him, because with his looks he probably only has to snap his fingers. Except with me.
I puff in annoyance. “Okay then, the museum it is. That sounds like the least bad option.”
He immediately consults his tour guide. “The erotic museum or the sex museum?” he asks as if he were asking me to choose between the MOMA and the Met.
“I’m almost afraid to ask, but what’s the difference?” My inner nerd-who-always-wants-to-know-stuff never sleeps, even when she’d be well advised to turn a blind eye. Or two of them…
Ari bursts out laughing. “I haven’t got the faintest idea! We just go into the first one that we find!” His idea seems pretty logical to me, so we set off along the streets of the red light district, which is packed with more tourists than Piazza Duomo in Milan during the fashion season. I swear, there are even families with children. What the hell happened to those normal families who used to take their kids to Eurodisney?!
“Looks like some people have more liberal parents than us,” he comments with amusement.
“Hmmmm. As far as I’m concerned, this is one time when a stricter upbringing wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
“I’m not buying it: your piercings are a clear example of a desire for rebellion.”
“What, are you trying to psychoanalyse me now?”
“I thought I might as well seeing as I’ve got a bit of time on my hands...”
“Well in theory you shouldn’t have. You have a demanding job and a thesis to write,” I remind him. There are days when I barely have time to breathe.
“It’s all about optimization,” he replies with a mocking smile. “If you’re a good girl, maybe I’ll teach you one day.”
He knows very well that I hate it when he does that. And especially when he thinks he’s being funny.
After passing various windows containing women in various states of undress, we arrive at the Sex Museum, known to its friends as the “Temple of Venus”. And in fact a huge Venus awaits us at the entrance, along with Mata Hari and Marilyn Monroe complete with a fluttering skirt. But just when I’m starting to relax and think that all things considered this place is not so outrageous after all, two enormous plastic phalluses pop up.
“This is... wow,” I say, trying to keep a straight face.
“You do realise that they’re not life size, right?” jokes Ari.
“What’s the matter, you feeling a bit intimidated?” I tease him. “Don’t worry, size doesn’t matter! Although actually, now I come to think of it... no, that’s not true - size does matter, size matters a lot!”
He shakes his head, but then comes up with a very effective way to get his revenge: completely out of nowhere he throws his arms around me, shouts “Smile!” and snaps a ridiculous selfie of the two of us in front of one of the two
giant phalluses.
Oh. My. God!
“Bertha!” I shout in shock. “Cancel that selfie immediately!” I grab at his phone, but Ari has such flipping long arms that when he holds it up in the air I’ve got no chance of getting it off him.
“I think I’ll use this picture as the screensaver for my PC at work...” he mocks me.
What can I say? If I’d been in his place, I would have threatened the same thing. It’s a certified fact at this point – we share the same perverse sense of humour.
“Ha ha... Sure, why not?” I say, trying to keep calm and not let his provocations get to me.
“Or I could put it as my profile pic on WhatsApp. What do you reckon?”
I try to remain silent, but I just can’t – it’s not in my nature. “I reckon that it’s a bad idea, you idiot!” I snap. “Come on, hand over your phone!”
“God, you’re so aggressive... I’m almost afraid,” he chuckles. “I don’t usually give in to intimidation. Why don’t you try ‘please’?”
“Bertha, you’ve just taken a picture that is, to say the least, pretty compromising. Stop messing around...”
“Ok, ok,” he says sounding conciliatory, “I have a proposal for you: let’s take a normal photo. No porn. But in return, you have to smile.”
“I practically never smile, everybody knows that.”
“I don’t believe that nonsense for a minute: I bet you laugh your head off when nobody’s looking.”
I peer at him doubtfully. How does he know?
“So, the photo?” he asks.
“Ok, but the first one has to disappear.”
He rolls his eyes then puts his arm around me, rests his head on my shoulder and takes a picture that is surprisingly... normal. We look like a couple of people having fun. Satisfied with the result, he puts the phone away and drags me off to visit the various rooms, where in addition to the collection of weird photographs and confusing objects there are also sound effects: in fact, each room has its own soundtrack of erotic sighs and orgasmic groans.
“Is this thing supposed to be a turn on? Because to me it just seems funny,” I confess.
“Yeah, I definitely get the feeling the aim is to amuse rather than get you all hot and bothered,” he agrees as we pass a wall covered in absurd vintage dirty photos.