“Oh, my God,” muttered Fausto. “Okay, I’ll resume training.”
“Fausto, I ask you again what is happening. What have you done instead of training?”
“Well, nothing. I thought the training was useless since I was out of the playing team…”
“Come on, Fausto. Why are you fooling me? I know how it goes… Who’s the girl?”
Fausto realized that the best thing was confirming his father’s suspicions, avoiding more risky investigations.
“Well… Yes, I’ve been wasting my time with a girl I like. But it didn’t work and made me feel even more depressed. But now I’ll get better, Dad. I promise you!”
“Okay. I know it’s difficult at your age with girls. It is too soon. Try to stay calm, or you’ll only make things worse. In two or three years everything will change, champion!”
“Two, three years? Hmm, already better than four or five, as Mummy said!”
“Ah, that’s your concern? Don’t worry, mothers are always jealous of their champions.”
Fausto laughed. He really felt relieved after that conversation.
“Okay, now let’s have dinner,” said his father rising on foot. “And I want to see you working hard and back to normal from tomorrow! Okay?”
“I promise you, Dad.”
*
Professor Merlino was a hoary old man, thin as a dry twig and with a strong southern accent.
He was also a heavy smoker, addicted to his cigarettes, something that puzzled Fausto but worried his wife, being that the professor had survived two heart attacks in the last ten years.
Nonetheless, Merlino still smoked his light and slim cigarettes voluptuously. When Fausto was sitting beside him at the sturdy and ample wooden table of his study, trying to solve a math exercise, he could distinctly hear the crackling of the tiny tobacco flakes burning when Merlino greedily dragged on a just-lit cigarette.
The time he was allowed to solve an exercise was the same that the professor would take to smoke a cigarette. That, in Merlino’s opinion, was adequate to the difficulty of his math exercises.
After extinguishing his cigarette, if Fausto had solved the problem, Merlino would check the solution. Otherwise, he would help him gently, offering clues, and encouraging him when he stumbled in the right idea.
His wife looked like a fat maid always wearing cloth slippers. From time to time she opened the study door and peered inside to check if the professor had a lit cigarette, and guess how much he had already smoked, based on the thickness of the smoke hovering in the air and the amount of ash and butts in the ashtray.
Whenever what she saw worried her, she pronounced a passionate rebuke.
To avoid this humiliating waste of time, Professor Merlino always kept the room’s window open. Then, when the ashtray seemed too full, he emptied it on a used paper sheet and enveloped the cigarette butts with it. This yielded a poison ball adorned by elegant formulas.
After that, he would lean out of the window, looking downwards. The apartment was on the second floor, and right under the study window, there was a wastebasket, one of those cylindrical boxes applied to a short metal pole, without a cover and with a black plastic bag fixed inside it to ease the trash removal.
Professor Merlino would aim at it carefully and then would smile merrily if he had hit the target. Otherwise, he would just turn his head aside with a disappointed smirk.
Observing him during those procedures, the thought of how a supposedly light addiction had the power to push such an elderly and wise man to behave like a child always struck Fausto.
Merlino was a knowledgeable mathematician, and to his sharp mind, Fausto’s math was nothing more than a silly game.
What appeared to Fausto a complex problem, would loosen all his knots at Merlino’s first touch and would unwind on the paper as an elementary chain of simple truths written in his tidy calligraphy.
As a result, with his firm and gentle guide, Fausto quickly caught up.
At the third lesson, Fausto had a surprise. When Merlino’s wife let him inside the study, two students were sitting at the table with the professor.
One was Red, and the second a young girl, likely a classmate of Red.
Fausto thought immediately that she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen in his life.
Professor Merlino made him sit at his left, as usual, while the two were at his right. “Would you be so kind as to wait a few minutes while we finish discussing an exercise?” he asked.
“Sure, professor,” Fausto replied, more than happy for that lucky chance.
So, they continued discussing their problem, while Fausto couldn’t avoid admiring the girl.
She was glowing, had a beautifully shaped lean body, bright black hair perfectly styled, and enchanting features with a full mouth, a small straight nose pointing upwards, and lovely eyes. Like Red, she wore elegant clothes.
Last and most surprising fact, she seemed to emanate an intoxicating perfume that could overcome the barrier of tobacco smell surrounding Merlino, hitting him as the sweetest weapon.
Red, who talked to Merlino with his usual overcharged kindness, glanced at Fausto from time to time. Fausto was sure Red had noticed his attraction for the girl, but he didn’t care, he couldn’t avoid staring at her.
They were discussing a weird problem, in which the unknown variables to calculate were named as u and v.
Fausto, in that early stage of his studies, hadn’t ever imagined that a variable could be something different from the ordinary, omnipresent, x. He dreamed, conjuring images from those exotic names.
The u, with its rounded, elegant shape represented the girl, while the v, with its different elegance made of sharp angles, stood for Red.
They were a great couple, and he felt envious of their luck. But he was glad for Red: his capability to show up with such a refined, beautiful girl had surprised him.
In a few minutes, they came to the end of their discussion, and the two students stood up, thanking the professor.
When the girl walked to the study door following Red, Fausto could confirm his genuine admiration.
Red, with a smile, said hello to him before closing the door at his back.
Fausto realized they now would enjoy their time together before going back home. Lucky them, thought Fausto, while Merlino produced one of his performances with the ashtray, before starting with him.
At the end of the lesson, Fausto descended the stairs two steps at a time trying to keep the rhythm of a song he was singing. He would run home to finish his homework.
But, out in the street, he bumped again into Red together with his beauty. They appeared to be walking by chance right there, in the opposite direction.
“Hey, Fausto,” said Red stopping with the girl in front of him. “Wait, a minute! This is my cousin, Ambra.”
Fausto, surprised of that lucky chance, that didn’t look casual at all, greeted the girl with a broad smile.
Fausto thought that if the beauty was Red’s cousin, then he had a chance!
“I told Ambra what you did to help me last week, and she wanted to know you,” said Red. Then he added with a mocking grin, “Hmm…she likes strong soccer players and even more those who are boxing, you know? I will let you have a walk together. Me, I must go home.”
And he walked away with another smirk.
What was going on? Red wanted to pay him a favor because of his gratefulness? Or, it was the girl’s initiative, as he had said?
Who cares, thought Fausto. For sure I won’t miss the chance!
Then he offered her his hand. “Hi, Ambra, I’m pleased to meet you,” he started, trying to control his voice.
The girl shook his hand. Fausto wondered what he would have to say now, while the seconds ticked away, stressing his silence.
“I’d like to invite you for a king-sized ice cream,” he eventually said with a large smile. “A new place has opened near the market square, and their ice creams are delicious. It’s crowded
all day! If you wish, while we walk, we can talk.”
Ambra smiled. “It’s a wonderful idea, Fausto! Let’s go! I have just half an hour, then I must go back home, but it’s better than nothing for today.”
They walked away together, hand in hand, and Fausto felt as if he was floating. Then something soft and lightweight hit him on the head.
They were still under Merlino’s window, right near the wastebasket. The professor had failed to hit the target.
Fausto and Ambra laughed and walked away, telling each other of his childish attempts to dodge his wife’s efforts to save his life.
Professor Merlino remained for a while at the window, looking at them walking away along the sidewalk, and then crossing the road hand in hand and laughing.
Despite the wrong shot, he was smiling.
*
One year later, Fausto went with Ambra and Red to Merlino’s funeral. They still remembered with gratitude Merlino’s lightweight ability in unleashing their wit over math riddles. The professor had never quit smoking, and the final heart attack had come. He’d gone out the way he wanted to.
During the funeral service, Fausto recalled the many things that had happened since his last lesson in Merlino's study.
The blessing of Ambra’s closeness had turned him a man.
Others hadn’t been as lucky.
Esther’s parents had discovered her addiction and had sent her to rehab. After two months, she’d escaped and had disappeared.
One week later, the police had found her dead body inside an abandoned building near the railway, a dirty place that homeless dropouts and irregular immigrants used as a shelter. She had been raped by three men before dying of an overdose. A terrifying end.
Esther’s boyfriend of one year before, Lou, had a grim destiny, too.
The police had arrested him upon the accusation of selling drugs and minor robberies. He was a repeat offender, and they’d kept him in prison, in wait for an urgent trial.
But the prison guards had found him dead before he could appear in court. Lou had apparently hanged himself with a thick electric wire; nobody knew how he got it.
Fausto thought Fair had hired someone to kill Lou, fearing Lou might make an agreement with the public prosecutor to frame him in exchange for a penalty discount.
But, besides all that shit, another thing really troubled Fausto: the total lack of news about Fair.
This meant Fair was still free to wreck hopes and lives with his filthy business. Fausto felt every day madder against Fair. Fair had crushed him one time.
Standing in the cemetery, while the professor’s coffin descended in the grave hole, Fausto swore he would settle the bill with Fair.
2. Lost Discovery
Someone may say in the end that this story does not turn out to be as meaningful as it seems to promise, appearing overall an almost pointless narration. It is somewhat like circumnavigating the nowhere island: at the end of the lap, one finds themselves back at the initial point, but there's no island in sight anymore.
However, it is reasonable to say without offense to anybody that what happens here shouldn’t appear more pointless than most episodes of our lives.
With that said, we may start our story, with the humblest excuses to the big thinkers, the epochal leaders, and all those always aware of what they do and for which goal.
*
That day, I had two sandwiches and a coffee for lunch at a bar in the commerce center. After eating, I remained seated, going through the local newspaper with the usual sense of dissatisfaction. The national news reported that the economy was steady, and I was sick and tired with all that bullshit.
Last year in this same period, the redemption rate of my cold calls to customers was about seven percent. This year, I’d just recorded a five-percent success rate, despite a ten-percent increase in visits and calls.
Meaning: I was breaking my ass as never before only to gain less than ever. Even my older, most loyal customers had adopted an overly cautious mindset about investments and reduced their purchase volume consequently.
I had to wait two hours before my next appointment with a corporate customer whose offices were just some blocks away from my place of meditation.
I was nervous, and I knew I couldn’t relax because the growing distaste for my job and the annoyance with the whole economic situation were sickening me.
For the last eight months, I had wondered how to escape that trap, but I felt like an illiterate child in front of a vast poem.
*
Some nights before, Matteo and I went looking for fun in a music bar managed by Brazilian people.
Matteo was the local Area Manager of the Services Business Unit in my company.
We became friends at a course on Team Management Skills, an epic breakup of balls, overcharged with cheap psychology that we had the misfortune to serve together, two years previously.
The place, I mean the Brazilian bar, not the course classroom, was a spot where a person was apt to meet beautiful girls coming from different parts of the world.
That night, we stumbled upon a group of lovely Spanish-speaking girls, more than friendly, who said they were in town for a short period, looking for a job.
It was plain they were there seeking those special friends who could help them earn easy money with the oldest art and, possibly, have hospitality.
They said they didn’t need permission to stay in Italy since they were Spanish, and therefore, European citizens.
One of them, Paloma, was small but cute. She had a lovely round face framed by silky hair of glossy black, which enlightened her skin. Her eyes had a sort of oriental shape and threw around a smart, enigmatic glance.
As it already happened to me sometimes, since I was a tall man still in my thirties, the small girl seemed to have a preference for me. She questioned me, in a seamless casual way, about my job and my personal relations.
I gave the answers I supposed nearer to her wishes, which also happened to be the nearest to the truth. So, after a while, I managed to get her phone number, promising to invite her for dinner one evening.
Now, I had the idea of calling her, hoping she could relieve me from the daunting perspective of the two empty hours of pondering things before my next appointment.
*
“Hi, I’m Alessandro, how are you?”
“Hello, Alessandro, what a surprise! I’m fine, and you?”
“Perfectly fine! But I’d feel better if I could see you now. Are you free?”
My approach could be a winning candidate at an impoliteness contest, but I imagined I could afford it.
“Right now?”
“Yes, if I’m not disturbing you,” I said shamelessly.
“I’m perfectly free, no problem. I’ll be glad to meet you!”
Then she gave me her address. I wasn’t surprised because I knew a girl like Paloma wasn’t here to waste any opportunity, or whatever resembled it. Like me.
Paloma lived in an apartment of the historical center of the town, where all buildings are of ancient stone, and marble fountains have cheered the squares in centuries with their murmuring sprinkles.
At the door, Paloma allowed me in with a radiant smile, and I realized it was the first time I could see her in full light. I was in front of a lovely, elegant girl, who made me recall the category of refined persons I couldn’t avoid falling in love with, in my younger days.
The apartment, she said, belonged to a girlfriend who was traveling at the moment. It was a ground floor apartment, and the light from outside was scarce, but it had an antique dignity, and the furniture had a hint of elegance.
I was surprised to see that she was alone in the apartment. I had imagined she lived there with, at least, another girl to share the expenses. But, in a minute, I had the chance to realize how above such ordinary concerns she was.
She led me directly to her bedroom and put her arms around my shoulders, squeezing her breasts to my chest.
I hugged her willi
ngly and lifted her gently from the floor to kiss her on the lips.
In less than a minute, we were on the bed, and while she was gently kissing my bulge, I saw she had by far more talents than I had imagined. The smart look I had caught in her eyes that night was now naked of any mystery.
She was soft and sweet like whipped cream, and a hot lover. Soon, she groaned and then surged to gasp out loud in pleasure.
Our love fight went on without the slightest hesitation, and we crossed the edge of the climax with a sudden burst.
“Ooh, my God! It’s been perfect, perfect,” she murmured with the trembling voice of someone who hadn’t yet recovered from a ravishing emotion.
I kept quiet, but I thought precisely the same thing. I also thought that the chance of achieving such perfection in a desperate attempt to escape from post-lunch angst attach was likely comparable to winning the national lottery.
Paloma had been a miraculous discovery.
After we had rested for a few minutes while caressing each other, Paloma took my hand, pulled me up, and took me into the small bathroom coupled to the bedroom where she washed me gently before taking care of herself.
Back in the bedroom, she put on her stockings, stretching her lovely legs in front of me. “You’re the only one I’ve treated like this since I arrived in Italy,” she said.
I admired her dressing performance without speaking and put on my clothes. As I did so, her phone rang, and she answered it, whispering, “Yes, I’m here.”
At that point, all things considered, I feared she would present me a hefty bill.
I was wrong because she pushed me gently toward the door.
“You are such an elegant man,” she said, “and also a good lover. We will talk next time of what you can do to help me. For now, just consider that I will have to leave this apartment soon, and this is my main concern at the moment.”
Five Urban Stories Page 4
