La Superba. Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer

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      ISBN: 978-1-941920-23-7 (ebook)

      LIBRARY OF CONGRESS: 2015960718

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      COVER DESIGN AND TYPESETTING

      Anna Zylicz · annazylicz.com

      Text set in Bembo, a typeface modeled on those cut by Francesco Griffo for Aldo Manuzio’s printing of De Aetna in 1495 in Venice.

      DISTRIBUTED BY

      Consortium Book Sales & Distribution · (800)-283-3572 · cbsd.com

       Contents

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PART ONE

       The Most Beautiful Girl in Genoa

      FIRST INTERMEZZO

       We All Live in a Yellow Submarine

      PART TWO

       The Theater Elsewhere

      SECOND INTERMEZZO

       Fatou Yo

      PART THREE

       The Most Beautiful Girl in Genoa (Reprise)

       A Zena a prende ma a non rende

       PART ONE

       The Most Beautiful Girl in Genoa

      1.

      The most beautiful girl in Genoa works in the Bar of Mirrors. She is neatly dressed like all the girls who work there. She also has a boyfriend who drops in on her from time to time at work. He uses hair gel and wears a sleeveless t-shirt with SOHO on it. He’s an asshole. Sometimes I watch them in the mirrors, kissing secretly in the cubbyhole where she prepares the small dishes they serve free with the aperitif.

      This morning on the Via della Maddelena I saw someone who’d been mugged. “Al ladro!” he shouted. “Al ladro!” Then a boy came running round the corner. The man chased after him. He was wearing a white vest and he had a fat face and a fat belly. He looked like an honest man who’d learned to work hard for paltry pay from a young age. The boy ran uphill, to the Via Garibaldi, past the sundial and then carried on climbing, up the steps of the Salita San Francesco. The fat man who had been mugged didn’t stand a chance.

      Later I sat drinking on the Piazza delle Erbe. It’s an unusual kind of place, evening just happens there without me having to organize anything. The little orange tables belong to the Bar Berto, the oldest pub on the square, famous for its aperitif. The white tables belong to the nameless trattoria where it’s impossible to eat without a booking. The red and yellow tables belong to various cafés and behind them there’s another terrace, a little lower down. I can look up the names if you’re interested. I was sitting at a blue table on the upper part of the square, looking out onto Bar Berto’s terrace. The blue tables belong to Threegaio, set up by three homosexuals who brainstormed for days on end and still couldn’t come up with a better name than that. I was drinking Vermentino from the Golfo di Tigullio. An impressive looking she-man wearing very dark sunglasses was sitting on a bar stool in front of the building. It was a reassuring sight, she was always there. Street musicians. Rose sellers. And then she spoke to me, “There’s something feminine about you.” She ran her fingers through my hair like a man claiming something as his own. “What’s your name?” Her voice was like a dockworker’s. “Don’t worry, I know. I’ll call you Giulia.”

      That night there was a short but violent thunderstorm. I was on my way home when it started. I sheltered in an arcade. It had an official name I noticed later: Archivolto Mongiardino. The black sky lit up green. I’d never seen anything like it. The rain clattered down like two cast iron portcullises on either side of the vault. After a few minutes it stopped.

      But the streetlights had gone out. In the alleys barely penetrated by daylight, a medieval darkness reigned. My house wasn’t far. I could find it by feeling my way, I was sure. Yes, the street went upwards here. This had to be Vico Vegetti. To my left and right, I felt scaffolding. That was right. There were renovations here. And then I almost tripped over something. A wooden beam or something similar. That’s what it felt like. Dangerous leaving something like that lying around in the СКАЧАТЬ