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.
While they continued their conversation, I could observe both of them close up under the pretext of being interested in the topic of conversation. It was fascinating to realize that, objectively seen, both of them were approximately the same age but had totally different ideas about it. The signora was wearing a long white linen dress, too, but that was only because it was August and unbearably hot. She looked well-groomed and elegant, no one could take offense at her, but the dress didn’t suit her one bit. She had the body of a potato. But the time she worried about such trivialities was decades behind her. She was an authentic potato. She was the ideal granny. She would never forget a birthday and would always find an appropriate, original, and sensible gift. She was direct in speech, didn’t mince her words, and in her carefree, uninhibited way of formulating things, she was sometimes very amusing.
Monia happened to be wearing a long white linen dress too, but the cut was so elegantly and exaggeratedly simple that it was clear it must have been so elegantly and exaggeratedly simply designed by someone with a name, and that it had probably cost a fortune. It fell perfectly over her scandalous body. A nonchalant slit displayed the long arabesque of her climbable legs. She kept herself nipped in with memories of her perfect figure. And her décolleté was downright criminal. You could see from the wrinkles on her breasts that they were real, although many a porn actress would furiously call the plastic surgeon at the sight of her.
She had a very unusual way of talking. She formulated her sentences with exaggerated care, like someone who was trying too hard to hide the fact that she were drunk. That was probably the case. She tried to sip her cocktails chicly, but sometimes she forgot and accidentally downed her glass in one gulp, after which she ordered a new one, not forgetting all the forms of politeness Italian is so rich in. And all this time she kept her eyes as wide open as possible, as though she wanted to insinuate a facelift.
“Ilja Leonardo,” she said, “I have always wanted to meet a famous poet. And this, itself already invaluable, privilege comes at not an inopportune moment for me, as tomorrow I have the great pleasure of having been invited to a simple dinner by two acquaintances whose lifestyle is characterized by a fervent interest in art and poetry. Consequently it would be rather felicitous to find myself in a position of being able to boost my dubious reputation by making a good impression with an artistic dining companion.”
She got up and wandered haughtily into the labyrinth with the exaggerated firm tread of a person trying to hide her drunkenness. The signora shook her head. Though I thought I had a dinner date, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure of it.
12.
Monia’s friends lived right next to Palazzo Spinola. It’s one of those places where old and new Genoa overlap in an improbable manner. Centuries ago, this was one of the most aristocratic neighborhoods of the city, where noble ladies lay sighing under high ceilings, hoping feverishly that Genoa might finally lose a war and that the invasion of brutal soldiers with bayonets and barbaric passions would arrive. Some of them are still lying there behind their exquisite paneling. Some of them still sigh in the shimmering heat of the midday hour that brings old spirits back to life. Meanwhile, the neighborhood has been flooded with Moroccan scum, whores, and human traffickers. But history melts away in the heat. What was still the future five centuries ago is now the memory of yesterday’s dreams. Everything has changed but nothing has changed. The sharks and fallen women of yesteryear are still here. The streets sweat. The age-old walls drip with damp. High heels click on the cobblestones. Rats dart away. The night groans.
Monia’s friends were almost irritatingly civilized. We were received in the drawing room, where we were invited to sit on antique furniture that was so conspicuously antique that you didn’t dare settle your full weight on it. Fortunately, we were expected to stand up again almost immediately to admire the collection of paintings. This was an examination. I was lucky enough to recognize a Flemish master. I was rewarded with a minuscule aperitif of something pricelessly exclusive. Once we’d savored that, we were directed to the dining room, where there were more paintings to admire, as well as the table silver. I felt more and more uncomfortable, as though I were trapped in a porcelain grotto. But Monia seemed to feel at home in this environment, even though she gave the impression during the starters of trying to hide the fact that she was well on her way to being drunk. I seemed to be the only one who noticed.
“My friend Ilja Leonardo is a poet,” Monia said.
“What kinds of things does he write, then?” the lady of the house asked.
“Poems,” Monia said.
The main course was Ligurian-style rabbit with potatoes and olives. An exclusive red wine was served with it. And I had reached my limit with the whole show. Controverting all the rules of etiquette, I grabbed the bottle of red from the table to top off my glass. It meant I’d never be invited here again, but all the better. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect. They enjoyed my uncouth behavior. I was probably the first person in five centuries to break the iron laws of courtesy in their house. I was a poet, wasn’t I? I’d nicely proved it with this sudden act. Laughing, they put six bottles on the table. Monia seemed even more delighted about this than I was.
And gradually the mood changed, but
in a way that made me feel increasingly uneasy. The conversation became unmistakably less formal and soon reached a level that almost made me miss the earlier formalities. The word “libertine” occurred to me, and that’s not a word that ever occurs to me. Because let’s face it, what does that word mean to us—seasoned modern perverts that we are, grunting pigs wallowing voluptuously in the filth of a degenerate world. “Libertine” is to us what “naughty” is to a spent streetwalker. But I was in a different world than the one you and I feel at home in. Here the decline of morals was a traditional and pre-planned part of a successful soiree. And that was why there was an unsettling charge to it.
The lady of the house began to turn more and more emphatically toward her husband even before the dessert, whereby Monia and I automatically became a kind of couple. I didn’t know how to handle the situation. After dessert we were invited to partake of a digestif in the study. It was a room that had been closed up to that point and which turned out to house a wonderful collection of pornography. Rare nineteenth-century picture books, antique figurines of Priapus, a Greek vase with a representation of a symposium, and an impressive collection of stereoscopic photographs and viewers. The lady of the house went to slip into something more comfortable for the digestif. She came back wearing exquisite lingerie.
Monia involuntarily saved the day. She was so drunk by now that denial was pointless. She took off her shoes with a lot of wiggling, fell over, but landed by chance, more or less, on the chaise lounge, upon which she immediately fell asleep. When the lady of the house shook her awake, she grabbed one of her pumps, groaning, and began to vomit into it. This was a signal to me that it was time to leave.
But that was a whole song and dance, too. Although I was prepared to take to my heels in a scandalously cowardly fashion, I still had just enough decency left to realize that I was expected to take Monia home. I managed, with the help of the gentleman of the house, to get both her empty shoe as well as her puked-in shoe onto her fishnetted feet. We hoisted her upright and pushed her into the lift. In the meantime, I said my goodbyes to the lady and gentleman of the house. “Well,” they said, “we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other.”
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, I
lja. 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.
La Superba Page 19