Carmen Covito

Tales from the Web

translated by Ercole Guidi

Author's Edition

But Who's Landed on the Moon?

I am peeping through a hole in the hedge. Not easy, with these twigs that tend to snap out barbed-wire-like, headed for your eyes. Poor pruning. The biggest problem, the knees, however, has resolved itself: I've had no perception of them for a half hour now. Good. The insensitivity helps me focus onto the house. Little villa, I should say. It is precisely that type of residential crap that developers call "villetta": two levels above ground plus in-ground garage with adjoining family room. Birch trees at the outside. Yet Lisa is not to blame. She is not responsible for the spotlights on the lawn and the satellite antenna dished out over the roof as... Finally! Here she comes. The armoured door has opened and there she is, here, three meters between us and I'm giving in to emotion and loosing my balance and thorning my face and... A close call. Creaking of rotula like a gunshot in the stillness. Yet she hasn't noticed. It is the moon, she is staring at. Come'n, bella, a little closer, bow that sweet little head of yours, yes, this way, come, two more steps, but, come on now! How can you not notice anything? Right over there, between Doc and Bashful, where Sleepy is supposed to be, don't you see the soil has been freshly turned, all black? She has. She has picked up the flier already. She is orienting it toward the beam of a spotligh. "Lawn Dwarf Liberation Council" reads the large print, I should thus see a sudden reaction, unless this girl has come up so badly that... She is laughing! Thank God she is laughing. I am relieved. The lump of apprehension which had began pumping a nagging acid reflux up my throat has now loosened. Peppers cumino style. With a corner of my mind I repeat to myself I should put an end to certain heavy experimentations: what business do I have with learning new summer Thai recipes at my age, and for supper, then! They were good, though. And I really enjoyed creeping under the gap in the hedge, before, with my little camping hoe recovered from the toolshed of my youth memories...

"Come'n, papà, come on out, I know you're here somewhere."

Out I come. That is, I am slowly beginning to streighten myself holding on against the plaster dwarf which I adroitly delivered from the lawn of my former wife's new husband, a Northern League boor full of end-of-season-sale pretensions, and loaded, also, it seems, the celtic industrialotto, that if I had his money I'd know how to use it in style, all of it, but I realize this could never be the case, for on my Junior High professor salary I do not evade taxes, I... God my back! Up, with caution, plenty of caution... Even Lisa could be said a memory of my youth, I suppose. Or almost: when I gave in to the idea of generating her I was getting on for thirty... all right, thirty-five. She is sixteen, now. And that despicable mother of hers says that if she let me see her any time longer, I would end up corrupting her. Me! I've lost a whole afternoon over that stupid educational flier which my bambina is now waving before my eyes, whispering: "Papà, you are a complete moron. What if someone else had stepped out in my place? And what does this mean here, 'we of the small people are strugglining for an aesthetic ecology', uh? "

" 'struggling' it was: a mistype, that is." I murmur to her in response, "and anyway at this hour, in the garden, there is always only you."

"Spying, are we now? Always, when?"

"It's been three days", I confess, placing the little dwarf back on its spot. "And I'm not spying, it is only that the other day I happened to be in the neighbourhood and, well, you had such a little face... melancholically romantic, I mean. Something wrong with your date?"

"Why don't you ever mind your own case?" says my daugther, and she seems quasi seriously upset, but then, given that arguing in a whisper is practically impossible and if we don't hold our voice down to a whisper those over there in the house will hear us, we end up seated next to one another on the damp grass. Idyllic picture of father and daughter in harmony on a english-lumbard little lawn. Perfectly silent. On the other hand, if Lisa had told me, sort of that her date was a two-headed, HIV positive drug addict with no degree, all I could do is smile and try to convince her that, perhaps, that would not be the best of all choices. Thank God she is all home and shool instead (Business Administration Technical Junior High, what can you do), and she is diligent, obedient, respectful of the rules and... Distraught by the thought that I was about to add "banal", I lift my head, I see the grand chunk of moon hanging above us and I start talking nonsense.

"I was there, you know? July 20, 1969. The Apollo 11. When Buzz Aldrin was there in the landing module Eagle and commander Armstrong had had his stroll on the Moon, with that fine rhetorical phrase, "that's one small step for a man, a giant leap for mankind", you should have seen what times those were, even with us in the country, in that sickening provincial inertia, that after a couple of years I came up north to teach, it really looked as if everything was going to be different, everything, and, you know, even that first step outside our old world was, well, in its own way, a revolution. And that is why we'd weep at seeing a man, all alone, clumsy, sealed in his million-dollar protective suit as if in the armour of a wandering knight, hopping up there... What am I talking about? Lisa, there were two of them: for Buzz followed Neil Armstrong, and even if the snapshots do not reveal the faces as the caps reflect the light, that close to the american flag planted on the Moon is indeed him, and, you do figure that human footprint printed in the lunar dust, don't you? I prefer the frame of Armstrong on the staircase, it is more documental, but the footprint has grown into the strongest image, more symbolic, cause it doesn't matter whether it is the first's or the second's...

"No one ever recalls that on the Apollo 11 there was a third man, but I do. His name was Michael Collins, he was the pilot of the mother-ship Columbia, he orbited the whole time: the Moon, he could only circle about, he, as I circled about my life... But this, to Lisa, I cannot say. "Terrific that endless night in front of the TV awaiting the connection with Houston" I tell her instead, "that Ruggero Orlando, and that other character, what was he called, Tito Stagno! From the studio in Rome, they just couldn't agree, "he did touch down", "he did not touch down yet", "He touched down, I assure you!", and well, it has been material to the history of our century: we didn't manage to put fancy in power, but we did manage to send a couple of Americans to the Moon..."

"But if it was a whole big hoax", says Lisa.

"What?"

"An act, was it not? Like Auschwitz. There is nothing true. They have done just the same with that alleged descent on the Moon. You and those other boneheads in front of the screen have let yourselves in, with the astronauts, while they were in a TV studio somewhere in America. That's what mamma's husband says, he knows, he has found a video at the newsstand that explains everything."

I must have remained with my mouth open for too long, for Lisa looks now concerned and then whispers to me gently: "I'll snatch it from him tomorrow and I'll lend it to ya, OK?"

I couldn't help not doing it. Exerting an extreme violence onto myself, battling away all of my profoundest convictions, with the death in my heart and the roar of rocket engines in the brain, I slapped her. And I began to yell at the top of my voice: "We shall see! I'm seeing my attorney tomorrow! I'm going to appeal to the Juvenile Court! All needs doing all over again! Criminals! Nazis! My daughter's education rests with me!"

No, not this time. I won't give up this time. No pasarán. I caved in on everything, always more, down the years I renounced as if it were nothing my political role as a male, my social role as a Junior High progressive teacher, my old expectations, dignity. Yet now, as the villa of the evasor suddenly bursts with lights turning into the space ship of Indipendence Day, I scream my "enough" and I refuse to back off: I, to those over there, I'm not going to hand over the Moon. No, not another holocaust. For Godsake.

Bi-Sex Plus One

Come with me. I am any woman's Dream Man and I am yours, your Principe Azzurro (1) for your moments of leisure. Yes, you may call me Azzurro , it's more casual and goes huge with the color of my eyes, you know, that blue so particular that the tanned skin makes clearer, unleashing fascinating icy transparencies. Yet I shall never be cold, with you. The only shivers you'll ever feel with me will be glittering inside of you from the casual contact - so masterly so - of my fingers, unwilling, or perhaps not, upon an innocent part of your body, a shoulder, the ear, the nape, the root of your naked back or, indifferently, the back of the hand. This, the first time. Then, when I shall have taken off my shades to kiss you... Oh yes, I'm a little short-sighted, just that tiny bit to confer myself a certain scholarly tone and to convince you, right from the start, that this bronze statue of glistening muscles is no empty shell. I know that a woman, nowadays, is not fulfilled by the surface. And I will dare open to you the depths of my thoughts, my soul, I shall pull out for you, or my guts, if a more realistic me is what you'd rather pick. I shall be sentimental and endearing. Yet if need be you'll find a pair of wide shoulders on which to rest upon, a firm character, as my admirable biceps. I am 6 foot tall, I do sports yet I don't fancy bringing it up that often. My belly is flat, my buttocks firm: the curve of my back shall serve you as a docile saddle if you'd want to strip me naked and ride. Then, pretending to be freasky, I shall overturn you while you laugh and scream in feigned horror and push away my forehead, which is taking position onto the soft cushion of your pubis, with both hands, and all the while you hold me back knotting your fingers to my hair, driving me. I shall be skillful. I'll be out of control for a long time. Deal?

Second Level: for him

Hi! My name is Donna (2), I am the doll of your dreams. See my tits? Hot stuff, my little kitty, real stuff, no silicon, and this size five is all yours, for the numero uno stallion of Miss Superpussy, come'n, come try me out now, I'm here, waiting for you... Oh no, please, don't do it, I'm only a little girl, I've never done it with anyone before, and even if you are so resolute and attractive, no, no, I couldn't, not this way, not here... the lingerie I love is rustling and expensive, I go nuts for laces and little strings and the silk that slides over the hot skin... I teach math, all I'm wearing is a drop of fragrance and stiletto heels, big bad chum, got the message? Nonsense, oh, what a bunch of crap! I am your little aunt, I'm gonna put you to bed, now, and, while I take off my pants, I'm gonna tell you the fable of Cappuccetto Azzurro (3) ... Azzurro, my love, help! Where are you? Come fetch me away! I am a very efficient secretary, I'm a cow, I'm a lady, I'm your tart, I'm a nun, enough, what do you want with me? I cannot take it anymore, this is me and it's Azzurro, I want, I want Azzurro, I want Azzurro...

Universal Games, internal message: from Roberto Piras to Magda Colombo

You ugly moron, see what you've done to me? Up to five minutes ago the Donna worked great, and now she's going ape, she is talking nonsense, she's even invoking the help of your Principe Azzurro of my ass... Correction: I am the idiot, letting an incompetent programmer stick her nose into MY part of the project. Come over immediately and, whatever you put in my computer, get it off!

Robbie The Sardman

Universal Games, internal message: from Magda Colombo to Roberto Piras

Are you out of your mind? I didn't put anything in your computer. If my Azzurro works and your Donna doesn't, then you are the incompetent programmer. And unfair, too. The simple fact that we had dinner together a couple of times does not entitle you to insult a colleague of the same level.

Maga Magdò

Universal Games, internal message: from Roberto Piras to Magda Colombo

All right, all right, I'm taking back the "ugly moron". You're gorgeous. But please, Magda, if this damn "Bi-Sex" is not ready for the after tomorrow meeting, our asses are gonna be on the line, so drop by my office and take a look, won't you? Donna looks really screwed up, and, ok, perhaps you may find a clou as to what I did wrong.

Robbie The Sardman

P.S. - And you call that a "dinner", what happened the other night?

Universal Games, internal message: from Magda Colombo to Roberto Piras

What do you know! I had no suspect you'd turn out to be the world champ of pants-downpulling. Or better, I should have suspected it from the speed with which you pulled down your pants the other night. Apologies accepted: you're right, instead of arguing via internal email we'd better fix the work asap. I'll be over as soon as I'm through here.

Maga Magdò

P.S. You're right about the "dinner", also. I think the technical term is "heavy petting".

PP.SS. Hey! I have a half idea as to what the glitch with Donna might be. You must have given her too many parameters. Typical with you guys: you don't know what you're looking for, and we have to come up with a number of feminine models so that you can choose. No wonder that, afterwards, one goes bananas and sticks with the first reasonable and civilized man that comes at hand. I'm coming right now.

Strictly reserved to the management of Universal Games Ltd. Subject: psyco-relational analysis on the compatibility of male and female programmers in the construction of a video game for adult couples

Yesterday, May 25, 1999, I happily concluded my observations upon the two subjects involved in the "Bi-Sex" experiment. I respectfully point out that I should be granted a bonus as these observations have protracted well beyond office hours. As an inspector on the verge of retirement, I also feel the obligation to state over again that the idea of having two good programmers work on a bogus project with the sole intent of verifying their productivity is particularly stupid; I hear that colleague Gerace, the mastermind of this incredible waste, believes he can offset the losses by putting the "Bi-Sex" videogame into production, on the evenctuality of which please allow me to voice my strongest dissent: the latest market researches show in fact that no average couple would buy a videogame in which he or she could interact with, respectively, the ideal woman and man. Both, a real man and woman, I mean, would feel gelous and humiliated, a condition which my humble person has had the way to explore, ah me, in far back experiences with certain somewhat exuberant ladies: it doesn't turn on a bit. Unless our respectable company should not choose to be dragged into the sado-maso bracket of the market by the stupidity of young Gerace, which hypothesis I refuse to consider: it is hardly productive. However, the two subjects, Piras and Colombo, met at 15:00 hrs in Piras' office and got on like a house on fire in perfecting the feminine part of that useless videogame. From what I could gather, the so called "Donna" had contracted a virus which Colombo denominated "self-consciousness"; a virus which, to quote Piras, "had made her fall in love like a fool with", please excuse my expression, "that asshole of Azzurro ". The issue has been resolved in roughly fortyfive minutes. Then the two programmers, as always unaware of being under constant observation, went on to celebrate in a lively and, I dare say, emotional manner untill 10 minutes before midnight, at which point they fell asleep exausted on the floor, and so did I in the observation cubicle. As I awoke I swiftly cleansed the room of the inevitable organic fluids which the observation had forced me to spread about, but I couldn't do anything for the trousers of my quasi new grey suit, for which I'm asking myself whether I should be entitled to a refund for the laundry bill. For the time being I am enclosing the video and audio takes, from which it can be gathered that sexual relations between programmers do not impair the efficiency of their work but only, if at all, the physical endurance of the senior inspectors. To clear any doubts and moved only by my total dedication to the company's interests I, as of now, declare myself available to replicate the experiment with a second couple of programmers (her, I'd like it blonde, if possible).

Gian Antonio Manin

Production Supervisor

NOTES

(1) Principe Azzurro: the Prince Charming of the fairy tales. The italian  expression - which would translate into Blue (Azzurro) Prince (Principe) - has been retained as the author plays with the word Azzurro in relation with the Dream Man's name and the color of his eyes.

(2) Donna: Italian for Woman.

(3) Cappuccetto Azzurro: translates into Blue Riding Hood, that is, a color variant of the Red Riding Hood from the fable.

The Cambise's Elixir

To the eyes of the neighbours, the standard day of Camilla Cambise is roughly as follows: at five past nine the power shutters of her small apartment, third floor, go up one after the other (there are two in all: bedroom and living room, as the small windows of little bathroom and kitchenette open onto the inside of a shaft, invisible), and for a half hour a little flow of rock music streams down the courtyard (Eurasia Hard-Rock Radio, hear the old bag? Her musical preferences don't square with her age, yet you must admit the volume is fairly low). Around nine thirty, nine forty, rain or shine, Mrs Cambise pops out the door of unit B, makes it across the courtyard and goes, humbly yet impeccably dressed in flowered apparel or austere black coat depending on the season, to buy the papers and to read them at the bar (Bar Ciro, habitually: but on tuesday, which is Ciro's closing day, she moves on to the Gran Caffè Roxane, a little dearer). Before retiring, Mrs Cambise was likely a teacher, or worked in a bank, perhaps, who knows, in any case she must have been a white collar, or she wouldn't be wasting all that cash on papers, would she?, and she wouldn't be divorced, or widow, or a spinster, or however so completely on her own as to be able to spend entire mornings always and only at the bar, where she sips her only coffee and a large glass of regular water. Now and then she lifts her reading glasses all the way up onto her hair (grey and poorly trimmed) to throw a glance about and address a wave of acknowledgment to the usual local faces, yet no one ever disturbs her. At ten past twelve, minute more or minute less, when the waitresses get ready for the hot sandwiches of the clerks' lunch break, Mrs Cambise considerately leaves the table, then she can be seen briefly at the Esselunga or the Chinese take-away or, more often, the "Golden Chicken" delicatessen, which does home delivery upon request. Then home she walks, with the small bags of her shopping and, unless she took the 5 p.m. downtown streetcar (for the movies? a play? a conference? Fact is, she goes out twice in a week, at the most), she is no longer to be seen about the courtyard or at the window or re-emerge in any way from her two room apartment until five past nine the next day: the only hints of her existence being occasional afternoon music attacks, promptly reduced to a lower volume, a lamp that goes on at twilight, then, as the evening slides into the night and a dull quiet sets in over the courtyard, the oddity of some chortling may crackle out from the accurately pulled curtains of her lounge. What'd she be laughing about all by herself, that one? True that from her window, until when, around three a.m., the annoying rustling of the electric motor signals the closing of the shutters, you can see the blueness from a video sip through: yet, for 6 months now, or seven, no one has heard, not even at the lowest volume, any audio from a movie or TV program whatsoever. Is Camilla Cambise playing the perfect tenant and passing her evenings with stereo earphones on her head?

That is it. Or almost. Camilla has been playing a videogame for six months, and it is doing it with the earphones on the head, for at first she was a little shy. All those little synthesized sounds, the twitterings, the skriekings, and most of all the thunders! They give her the jitters even now, for they always come in a flash, and Camilla laughs and pushes the earphones a millimeter aside from her ears, shaking slightly her head. She had started, on doctor's advise, with a shoot-all for playstation. It seemed indeed that those swift movements of the fingers and wrist on the joystick would be a panacea to retraining reflexes and hold up sclerosis: she had though felt uneasy in standing there and shoot at any minimal jerk on the screen. Once the mechanism had been grasped, there was no game. And besides, in forty years of honourable service with the Special Anti-Rabies Fuciliers and despite her three gold medals at the interforce games for Sharp Shooters, Camilla has never found in killing any fun. All those poor foxes, all those dogs with the foamy jaws and the dispirited eyes, and, at the time of the Great Epidemics, all those kids and the screaming girls... After the first two cases of rabied students, Camilla had asked herself why on earth her Command wouldn't replace the regular bullets with something not so lethal, and on the third she had gone so far as formally put forward the motion for restoring the sleeping shots that had been adopted for the case of a prized elephant from the zoo, but through the line of command the order had come down to her to quit beating about the bush and it had been explained to her, off the record, that any showing of sensitivity, no matter how comprehensible, would have been very calamitous: they were dealing with a stock of Political Rabies which was terribly contagious, helplessly virulent, untreatable. To destroy every infected head was a despicable necessity, directed to safeguarding the healthy part of the Country. It was then with a well placed sense of duty that Camilla had participated even in that campaign, but in the years that followed, as she got closer to the age of retirement, some traces of doubts made it to the surface again and, if they actually never did get to the point of making her finger tremble on the trigger they contaminated, at times, the precision of her shot to the extent of letting one or two foxes escape with only a wrinkle on their coat. Therefore, Camilla cannot enjoy taking out aliens and monsters in droves: too easy for her and, unfortunately, it makes her feel younger again. At the shop where she returned in the hope of exchanging the game with another, a polite salesman informed her that, once bought, she had to live with it: but why not consider a small supplemental investment and move on to the wider choice of games for PC? With a good machine, the grandson would have also learned to go beyond games. Camilla, niece to herself, laughed but caved in. And she hasn't regretted it: installed the computer, reviewed a few demos, she had soon come across this simulation game which, for six months, has been pleasantly keeping her tied up. It titles "If I Were God" and consists in the creation of a whole world. Not too large, in fact: the planet numbers only a couple of continents somewhat lost in the middle of the Total Ocean, a bit larger than a mid-sized island. Yet they are plenty to her. There is much to do!

At first, enchanted by the beauty of the naked landscapes, Camilla proceeded  slowly: very high cloudless skies were iridating with red and yellow reflections projected from the desert wastes, reflected the very deep blue of the lifeless waters. She watched, admiring the ability of the graphic designers and taking possession: she liked that world of polygons which, combined into fine textures, gave birth to crystalline and three-dimensional shapes. And it did not bother her that the only noises were a soft whistle of the wind and the cyclical breathing of the tides. It was almost unwillingly that she began gathering some macro-molecules, but then, you know, things take your hand and from proteins you soon get to the protozoans. Before she knew, she had found herself crowded with dinosaurs, and some mammals were already wandering about hiding in the bushes. Time to streighten things up and start playing for real.

"If I Were God" - which in the most popular versions can be found as the "Popoulous" or else "Civilization", and that substantially it is not so different a game from the widely known "Sim City" - has the simple objective of creating from scratch a simulation of a better humanity: balanced, stable, harmonious, possibly just. In six months Camilla had already obtained some intriguing results on her major continent, which due to a certain bent for self-scourging she had named Volpizia: the human beings have here passed quickly beyond the phase of the tribal warfare and are developing a good tendency to cooperation. They have municipal federation, schools, theaters, efficient hospitals, gorgeous public parks populated with delightful foxes both of the red and of the silver breed. Every now and again some of the citizens still die of rabies, but only for reasons that Camilla finds graciously childish: a bloke, for example, has died because the others wouldn't let him decorate the Common Cafeteria with the spray-poem of his making (and which wasn't that bad at all). At Distopia, instead, the small continent wherein Camilla has her most audacious experiments going, the two neighbouring yet strictly separated populations of the Hermaphrodites and of the Amazons go along so great that they have invented, out of their own mind, the Distopic Sexual Olimpics, a fancyfull sport ritual which provides for the periodical and pacific encounter of all adult individuals, and makes Camilla laugh the most. In the matter of sex her experience isn't that wide: when you are a Sharp-Shooter, entertaining personal relations may prove difficult, for either men have already vanished or they are certainly looking for something else, and in her old age, from no to no, she has in fact found herself alone, wise and bitter, in the best possible conditions to stage the part of God, that is. Volpizia and Distopia are her daily revenge, her driving curiosity, her elixir to a full life. All the more now that, twice a week, Camilla has taken to frequent the meetings of a group of enthusiasts whom, with their diaries of creation under the arm, gather by the Pox Social Centre to compare their respective worlds. Every one of them, like her, carefully studies every morning the economic and political news so as to draw from them some general principles and apply the opposite to his peoples. Like her, every one knows that the simulation is but a pointless game, yet they get hot about it, argueing, exibiting the symptoms of a Political Rabies which appears attenuated and confused yet far from dead.

Camilla is very happy for having discovered "If I Were God" in time. In absence of this powerful antidote, characters like Mr Esposito, unemployed engineer, or like the forty-seven-year-old drop out student Emilio Zork, or like, well, practically all of her friends of the small group, would have appeared one day at a window and start shooting into the midst of their neighbours just like that. And none would have placed in a shot. But she.

Today, Love

Today, Wednesday, around three p.m., I realized I was attempting to talk to myself. Oh yes: the cell phone in my left hand, the desk phone receiver in the right, I had indeed uttered "hallo?" and I had stood there, in between the two microphones, a formal smile painted on my face. You couldn't hear a thing. I thought: "What do you know, I'm not home..." and as I was thinking it, I suddenly realized the absurdity. And I got excited. I let the cell phone drop on the desk; then, pulling myself back without taking my eyes off of it, I stretched out two fingers and turned it off. Dial Werner's number on the desk phone, right now. Even if he hasn't been my shrink since he converted to transcendental meditation and quit the profession, three months ago, I didn't know who else to turn to with this thing. But I found the number busy. So I sent him an urgent e-mail: "I'm going bananas, help". That, he would surely get. And in fact, less than ten minutes later, he returned my call.

"Giulia, dear, you should fall in love" said he at point blank, "it's the best cure."

Okay, I thought, the guy doesn't want to waste time on me, okay. However, even if he is no longer my shrink, I'm the one who's keeping his books, for free, and I'm the smartest and most expensive online chartered accountant on the spot, thus he couldn't get rid of me that easy.

"But please, Werner! Who do you want me to..."

"You're right" goes he, a little too hastily "So, my advise is that you keep a diaria (1), it's the second best cure."

"A diaria ?" I say foolishly. "But... you get a diaria when you go on a business trip, and I'm not going anywhere..."

"A diaria , precious: a diary in the feminine gender. Got it? Get yourself a notepad and write down everything. It works miracles."

"Write? By hand? But..."

"By pen. Get yourself a pen, too. Or pull one out of yourself, it'll be faster. And now excuse me, my nice big silly goose, but I'm here with a young diciple whom is impatient to begin the session of transcendental me..."

"...ditation" I completed automatically, perhaps the suspension points were not there though, and Werner had indeed meant "a session of me": just before the line had dropped, or he had hang up, you could hear like a little laugh followed by a muffled sharp scream. A young follower who cannot stand tickling, it must be. But Werner's transcendecencies were none of my concerns. I inserted the voice machine, the fax and the automated messenger, I fondled good by to my faithful, snoring computer, I wore my smog mask and the big protective glasses and off I was to the hypermarket on the corner. You must always run when crossing the road. It's safer. That is, at least, what the government guidelines recommend for the outdoors: me, thanks to my work which can be all done at home, I don't have much to do with the outside. Sure, I understand that with a lifestyle such as mine one runs the risk of being somewhat cut off... But Werner is wrong: as to love stories, I've had plenty already with my former husband: besides mine with him, there were all his affaires. Never did get where and how he'd meet all those other women.  After the separation, I've tried to get to know someone myself, via the Internet, and a couple of times I thought I did feel a little shiver, but then the story would run aground over the difficulties of setting up a meeting which wouldn't in all be virtual, for as far as I'm concerned I would even be ready to go all the way, but it only seemed fair that the suitor ought to take his chances first, with those four necessary steps: anyway, why the devil should I get on my feet to meet one whom is not willing to get on his ass for me?

Today, though, there was only one body in the street, not even so fresh, and no sharp shooter was firing from the roofs, neither on the way out, nor on the way back. Weird. The police must have suddenly become more effective, or perhaps the terrorists have gone on strike. It would be about time: the TV news say that people are tired of getting killed even on a low-pollution day. Indeed, it wasn't that bad outside today: soft beams of light pierced graciously the fog.

I made it to the check out in the hypermarket without being robbed or assaulted. And I have even found the pad and the pen.

Thursday

A call! It was only the daughter of my next door neighbour, yet receiving someone is anyway such an emotion that when Samarcanda - the poor kid's name is Samarcanda, perhaps that is why she has such a sad little face, as if crushed under a wealth of golden curls: in fact then she asked me whether, couldn't I please call her just Sam? - when Sam had thus stepped in, something foolish slipped out of my mouth: "Do I look neat?". To a little girl, imagine! And I had just changed for my candle-light dinner on my own. Yet in seeing her I recalled that Irene, Samarcanda's mum, is a fashion designer: I wouldn't want to make a bad impression.

"You're really cool: that skirt of yours is the end of the world, the holes are all in the right places, I swear."

She must have wanted to be kind: she wore a neo-nostalgic trendy little outfit, in an exquisite jute canvass with appliquès of synthetic potatoes. Yet she sounded sincere. Touched, rather: her lips were strangely trembling.

"Could I borrow a half hour of online-time?" she asked pleadingly, "because I must do my home work and I can't, because my electronic teacher has tilted out, because mum must have forgotten to pay the subscription, because mum is..." and at that point the gentle, well bread Sam turned into a sobbing octopus. She rolled herself on the floor stretching arms and legs everywhere. And kicking. I had my doing in trying and immobilize her and figure out what her yelling was all about. As it turns out, Irene has been gone for a week and hasn't shown up since. That explains all that quiet. The walls are all so thin that, usually, I can set my watch on the arguments of Irene and Sam: all they have to do is raise their voice a bit (and average of seven times a day) and I hear everything as if they had been right here next to me. Up until tonight the child had not been concerned because Irene had left her plenty of supplies and had even warned her to be good, not to open to anyone and, when she came back, she would be getting a nice surprise. I'm afraid the surprise, instead, is going to be a most unpleasant one. Even if I had seldom seen Irene, her voice used to keeping me company. I'll be missing it. And sure, she'll be missed above all by her daughter.

After she calmed down, we did her homework together. Not so reassuring: it was a research on the women in non-industrialized countries, and what didn't come out of the databases! Misery, diseases, natural disasters, men acting as owners forcing the women to be with women, with no social life, and with all those children starved to death... How more fortunate we are! To invite Sam for supper, all I had to do is double the dosage on my Perfect Chef's display. During and after the meal, the child hasn't stopped talking for a moment: she had gained confidence, so much so that she had even started nosing about my apartment in a rather indiscreet manner. When she saw this pad on the desk she yelled:

"But you've got the Fata Rifatta ?" (2)

"The what?"

She was referring to the picture on the cover: a sort of young top-model with enormous, perplexed eyes, the waist of a wasp, the wings of a midge, the legs long from here to there and in place of her tits two cones of an embarassing volume: the whole lot against the backdrop of a sky with candish colors. It must be some famous heroin from the animated cartoons, for my little guest seemed amazed, shocked, rather, that I had no idea as to who she was. I disappointed her. Especially when, attempting to regain positions, I ventured that this Fata Rifata , well, no doubt, she was pretty.

"But what Rifata! It's two tee!" Sam corrected me harshly. "Rifatta ! It's a Fata Rifatta, don't ya see? Are you dumm?" and, deciding that evidently I was stupid but recoverable, she started to tell me the entire cartoon, from when the fairy had yet her legs short and the small eyes, and on with a magics after another, that is, with a plastic surgery after another, that, I say, what brand of a magics is that? But as it turns out this fairy here produces instantaneous operations, with a stroke of her little magic wand, upon herself and on the other characters. Not the doll, said Sam: the doll of the Fata Rifatta , at the top of today's little girls wish list, the hottest selling item, it is not capable of transforming anything, she has one and she knows it, yet she likes her a lot because she's got a micro-recorder inside with various tapes of conversation and you can talk to her, and yada yada yada... When Sam finally left, I had to swallow two pills for the headache.

Friday

Worked all day. Helped Sam again in the homework. This time I didn't ask her for supper, though. Convened with myself that, if her mother doesn't show up by Monday, I will be footing her subscription with the electronic teacher: all time saved to myself.

Saturday

I see no hope for Irene anymore. Today I often caught myself with my ear toward the dividing wall and, at a certain point, concerned about the silence, I have even walked out on the little balcony (the two apartments open onto the same little balcony, which in theory is to be used to drying out the washing, but obviously no one ever uses it), I jumped over the low divider that cuts it into half and I peeped through the glasses of their door-window. Perhaps I felt some sense of guilt for not having let poor Sam talk and take it all out...There she was, all nice and quiet, playing with the doll.

In the afternoon, I heard her call her mum at the top of her voice, but she never got any response. I know what you feel when someone you love leaves you behind... If this diaria has to be good for something, well, then I have to put it down: I've never forgiven my ex husband for having faxed me his decision to leave me. He could at least have the guts of telling me over the phone. Not even that, instead: three lines to tell me that some transport company would pass by to collect his stuff and that was it, a letter from the lawyer was to follow, the chicken... But what am I whining about? Complaining doesn't help. There are no fairies in this world who can listen to you and come by to fix your existence. If Sam's mother has indeed been killed, as I assume, who's going to take care of the kid? I don't recall having seen or heard of any father, around. May be she's been conceived in a test-tube. Right. Well done, Irene. She wanted a daughter and she made one on her own, without the nuisance of irresponsible males who wear you out with their betrayals and then go pump themselves up with adventure elsewhere. I'm quasi positive that my ex has gone to one of those undeveloped countries "where the land has remained the land, the sea has remained the sea and the men have remained men" as the tourist ad goes: and where the women have remained brainless, I say. Yet you can't bring someone to the world and get killed as if it were nothing. No dear. I've made up my mind. I'll take care of the girl. And so much for the headache.

Sunday morning

I've had it with this useless diary. I have nothing to write about. Nothing to live on.

Sunday evening

Yes, instead! Damn, damn, damn! Calm down. Let's start from the beginning. While I was watching the famed telequiz Select your Victim!, a hell of a din broke out in the apartment next door. Sam was yelling "Go away!" and "I don't believe it!" and again "Go away!", and noises of things being smashed to pieces, like glasssware, or dishes, or ornaments tossed against the walls, perhaps toward someone. I thought I heard, in fact, a second voice. Irene must be back, I thought. All I did, therefore, is raise the volume of my TV a little. A normal argument between mother and daughter. Then, however, I could hear the door-window being slammed, and that was already not so normal. Then... behind the glass, on the little balcony, looking inside through my door-window, a man! I jumped on my feet, awfully alarmed. The fellow was lifting his fists to smash... no: to knock on my window. He didn't seem armed. He was gasping. He even said distinctively: "Giulia, I beg of you, let me in". How would he know my name, and what was he doing out there, on the balcony, with no respirator and no mask, that handsome and delicate young man? A little too delicate: his face was already beginning to get violaceous, he was suffocating, his big green eyes, or blue, were watering. In a surge of compassion and without considering the possible consequences, I opened the door-window and let him in. While the foreigner recovered form the intoxication, I studied him very closely. A little older than I would have thought at first. Mid thirties, I'd say. Slender, elegant. Not bad for a thief or a common, dummy attacker. And what was strange the most was that he seemed... no, not really as if I had known him already: but as if I had known him forever. That's why it didn't surprise me that much when, after recovering his breath and getting past a brief hysterical cry, he told me that, despite the appearances, he was my female neighbour, Irene, turned into... What did I think of "Ireneo"? A nice name for a male, uncommon: it means "man of peace". Yet Samarcanda had remained all frightened, she would not accept nor believe that she, that "he", that he had done it for her daughter, for her, only for her. Because, explained to me Ireneo, the most modern pedagogical theories condemn the exclusive relationship between a mother and a daughter: so long as she is very young, yes, it's fine, tenderness and maternal love and all, but not afterwards, a father is needed then. And in our times, with the difficulties in finding available paternal figures as opposed to the ease in changing aspect and sex... the idea had struck her, she confessed, while watching that series of animated cartoons that Sam likes so much. She thought she was doing the right thing, and now instead...

"Giulia, I did everything wrong."

"I don't know" I said, staring casually at the hand with which Irene - Ireneo! - was tormenting a gleaming lock of very short hair. A square hand, strong, solid. "Excuse me, but you... I mean, with this sex change... have you gone really... all the way?"

He jumped on his feet, stepped back and forth about the living room with the hands in the pockets of his pants, as if cogitative, or embarrassed. Then he stopped and smiled at me:

"Of course I have. Never liked things left half-done."

"There won't be any problems then... I mean... Sam will get used to it, you'll see. She will understand how lucky she is, having for a mother... I mean, for a father, so... brave and sensitive a person."

"Do you think so?" said he, touched.

"Oh, yes" I replied, and as I looked streight into his eyes - blue, they are blue and deep and more trustworthy than a mountain lake of other times - I felt in my chest a pounding of convulsive heartbeats, sweet and hard as a machine-gun-spray of confetti.

NOTES

(1) Diaria: it's the Italian for Travel Allowance, as the lady of our story (correctly) objects to the shrink. Yet playing with the word, the author makes the shrink use it (uncorrectly) as the feminine gender of the word Diario, that is, Diary.

(2) Fata Rifatta: would translate into Fairy Restored. The Italian expression has been retained as the author plays with the words when the little girls corrects the spelling of her host (...it's two Tee... )

Stand by me

I had already put on my white sweater and I was waiting on the terrace, in the dark, shivering in the ocean wind. That night was really some sight: skimming of long, raging waves, hurling itself onto the shore as if willing to gulp it down to then do the same with me. There was even a tongue, no, like a blade of moonlight which, filtering through a heap of black thick clouds, cut exactly midway the agitated surface. The backdrop for a thriller, and I felt in fact very flustered, yet happy. How quaint.

A swarming soared along my legs, as if many little creatures in line would be climbing on me... a lightening darted out of the clouds, then a thunder deafened me, I felt my hair crackle and stand on end on my nape, but sure, that's what it was: a summer thunderstorm coming my way. I squeezed myself in the sweater and I saddened: how funny I must have looked, in lonely trepidation, before the ocean, with my fan-like hair as a blonde aureole and the goose bumps on a kilometer of naked legs... For, naturally, I wore nothing under the sweater. Jack loved that habit of mine of not wearing any lingerie ! Even though it had been the very cause of the misunderstanding of May 19 that had kept us apart for a good six weeks. Poor Jack, I had embarassed him on the day of his birthday, but I thought I was doing the right thing, I had meant it to be a little extra present for him to see me there in that squeezed-flesh-colored outfit that glittered with six-thousand strass and seemed to be pleading "tear me to pieces, tear me apart"... I know, it was the wrong thing to do, it was foolish of me to undress myself that way for his official celebration, with hundreds of wild cameramen and his wife whom had carefully steered clear of me singing "Happy Birthday Mr President" with my little voice in love. The witch must have spilled her guts to him, after. And in fact from that day Jack had stopped calling, and whenever I called him he would never be there: "The President is in a meeting with the secret service, the President is in a meeting with the ballistic experts", holy, they didn't know what else to come up with to keep me away from him, the last time they went so far as tell me: "the President cannot be disturbed, he is about to decide whether or not to blow up the planet." I was on the brink of despair, and I must have really been out of myself if I asked them to tell the President that either he came to the phone or I was going to blow him up instead. As a matter of fact I had no intention of releasing my private diary to the press, but that's how we all were in the early sixties, we were convinced that atomic bombs were a great way to win a war even if you were never going to use them, so long as you could boast them. And indeed, Jack came to the phone right away, he apologized, he told me of his problems with his wife obsessing him, with the Cubans that robbed him of his sleep, with the Russians that were driving him crazy; bottom line, he was extremely sweet. I forgave him right there and then. I agreed I would wait until he'd find the moment to squeeze me in his agenda. Same spot, our romantic ocean retreat borrowed from the usual discreet friend. As to the when, he couldn't be more specific than a "very soon, dear". Therefore I, in my natural and a little rough on the more delicate skin wool sweater, on that late summer evening, I really felt engulfed in a shiver: I had been waiting for him for so long! And with the lightening and thunders from the upcoming thunderstorm I was even concerned about him. But then I heard the unmistakable noise of the chopper and heaved a good sigh of relief: Jack was safe and sound, he was landing on the portion of beach shielded by the trees behind the cottage, just like the other times. I saw the detail of marines in camouflage jump down and dash off in the darkness, good boys, always so discreet, having them around made me feel secure, too. With the heart in my throat for the joy, I ran inside. With my feet flying over the carpet, barely touching it, I dashed across the living room toward the door that was being opened, here he is!, at last!, my big handsome protective President with the Hollywood smile, the very wide shoulders... He seemed somewhat shorter, thinner, not so imposing, a little... younger? Damn my awful myopia: I had to be practically in his arms before I realized the guy wasn't Jack. It was Bob, his brother.

"But what are you doing here?" I asked him later, when I managed to take his balled up tie off my mouth, which beyond all else was chocking me for it wasn't pure silk but rayon, as they used then, and, for synthetic fibres, I've always had an allergy much ahead on my times, "And what about Jack? Where is he? When he finds out that you..."

"Calm down, sweety, Jack's not going to be mad" comes to me all cheeerful that fiend, giving me his best cheeky smile from above (to me it seemed rather the sneer of a shark, but when you see things upside down you can never bet on their significance, and I was still laying on the carpet while Bob had turned around and was retreating on four legs over me looking for God knows what, the pants, perhaps, therefore the smile was immediately replaced by a nice pair of blue eyes and then by his thick fringe of hair, so I had no way of going in-depth).

"What do you mean, he's not going to be mad?!" I jumped, "You... you... you come over and steal his lover to your brother and... mmmh" I managed to say, before Bob found what he was searching for and shoved it into my mouth in lieu of the tie (it wasn't the pants, it was the under-shirt, luckily, one hundred percent cotton). He turned around again, sat on my stomach and stared at me with those innocent-kid-like big eyes of his.

"Jack knows. Stop! Stop flinging about, there is no use in flinging, I get nervous at women that move and talk: I'll explain it all. He couldn't make it, there was a last minute hitch, the United nations, Vietnam, I'm not sure, something like that, and so he called me and said, 'Bobby, after all the time she has spent waiting for me it would be cruel leaving her alone in that empty cottage, I cannot do that, she is the finest woman in the world yet also the most insecure woman in the world, I don't want her to be hurt, I want her to know that I care for her, thus here comes your chance, Bobby. Do you think I don't know that you have a crash for her too? Then you go, tonight, go over and represent me, that's what Jack said to me, and I asked whether for 'representing him' he intended 'to represent him in full', and he said this was left entirely for you to decide."

"Mmmmh" I protested, and Bob laughed and released his hands, with the consequence that my throat became all a swarming, like of little worms, for the sudden resumption of the circulation.

"I know, I know and I apologize" said Bob, "actually, I'm afraid I was a little precipitous, but you must understand it's been a long time since I've been dreaming of... I lost my head the moment I saw you. What can I do to be forgiven?"

I tried to fling as much as I could and he finally got it, he said "Oh, how reckless of me! sorry, it's an old habit of mine with Ethel!", and not only he took the undershirt off my mouth but he also moved a bit from my diaphragm, so I managed to utter.

"Did he really say he didn't want to hurt me?"

"On my honor" said Bob raising two fingers in the sign of the boy scouts.

I smiled at him cautiously, then I coughed a good while to bide my time. I could not believe him. Yet he seemed truly sincere.

"And...?"

"And? Speak up, sugar, your voice is so hoarse, so exciting!"

"And... Jack didn't just say that, when he said that even you... well, you know, that thing of the crash..."

"That I'm in love with you? But, Marilyn!, how can you doubt it?! I'm madly in love with you! I love you to the point that, look, I could kill you."

The gentleman I am with now says there was nothing true. He says those two have always taken advantage of my want of human warmth, and the bottom line is, they have done me up like a salami. He says Jack has passed me on to his brother as I was becoming a concern to his career and the national security. He says that, if you also look at things from the other point of view, you must not forget that Bob was a shrewed lawyer: it wasn't certainly a problem for him to convince his older brother to pass him the toy instead of tossing it away at once, since there was that little issue of the diary to be tracked down.

"So then al least Bob loved me, and wanted me", I reply, and the gentleman I stick with now smiles at me and says with infinite affection: "Dear child, and who wouldn't want you? Marilyn Monroe, that's who you were, not a rag for the floor, when are you going to get it into your head? Everybody loves you now, and even when you were in the world you've been much loved. Not by those two, though, definitely not by those two."

"May be", I mutter frowning. "Yet with Jack and Bob you went down too strong if you ask me, the both of them killed... I may be too good, as you say, but you have been a little too vindicative."

And then he starts laughing and I have to put up for the millionth time with His preferred citation, of all the lines in my pictures, always the same, there he goes, I know, here he goes: "Nobody's perfect."

Untrue (and Fine)

The likely Story of Guido Gozzano and Signorina Felicita

In 1907 the "two legged thing called guidogozzano" was a frail, fair haired twenty- four-year-old with the ears sticking out a bit and the dropping shoulders. Everything had happened to him that year: the release of his first poem collection, the first exchanges of love letters with colleague Amalia Guglielminetti, the first serious attack of tuberculosis. The discovery of having the ailment of the previous century came to threaten his sense of humor: how was it that he himself, the anti-romantic par excellence, he who sang the first true rithm of the crisis of the Nineteen-hundred, was to die of a nineteenth-century ailment? For the shock his rhimes became sharper. He cut down on adjectives. He was now almost ready to write a beautiful poem. All he needed was a light push, so light as to lead him to take a step forward into desire, followed immediately by one backward into reality. And here is where I come in.

"Felicita, why are you hiding the magazines?" asked my father, apparently intent to exploring the bowl of his pipe. Dear dad. I could have re-decorated the living room under his nose and he wouldn't even blink, yet a rustle of paper would make his ear prick up. "Did you forget we are expecting somebody?", "Ah, yes: your friend from the city, the young promise of our literature...", "The avvocato, dad. Remember to address him as 'avvocato', and all the better if you ask him some legal advise on the estate.", "Better, is it? I don't know. Lawyer or poet, it remains an indiscretion to bother a guest with stories of... But what did you turn yourself into?!" He had raised his eyes and they were now widely open in so offensive an amazement that all of a sudden I felt very insecure: "We had agreed..." I mumbled. "have you forgotten? We are humble people in this house, we are, doing well, yet humble. And I dressed consequently... Don't you like my hairstyle?", "Ludicrous" he grumbled, and started stepping back and forth between the corintian sofa and the mirror. "This is all ridiculous. Damn you and your girl friends from Turin and damn myself I can never say no. Not that I give a damn about passing for an ignorant, thanks to you, but having to see my only daughter dressed as a servant and all proud of those dummy-like pigtails... taken as are from a Vermeer's interior, after all... But did you look at yourself? You're almost ugly, you have no appeal.", "That, I'm taking down" I said, frowning in contempt. Good: dad was becoming increasingly pedantic and careless with age, but he hadn't lost his memory. And in any case it would have been too late to step back now: they were ringing at the door, Maddalena was already on her way to see who it was, Guido Gozzano had arrived. I streightened my borrowed skirts and started toward him, still a little agitated.

Indeed, I had nothing to be concerned about: the scene was perfect. It was to be perfect for the whole month. The first day we showed him about the lounges (Odour of shade! Odour of past/Odour of desolated abandonment ...) and while he observed our door-top panels decorated with mythological themes we screamed that we surely would have liked to get rid of the old junk, refresh the house, but with the cost of renovation these days... and speaking of fresh, wouldn't the Avvocato fancy taking a stroll about the lawn, that is, in the garden? My father was impeccable in playing the boor and didn't spare him his whining upon the indolent factor and the praise upon the salad heads, yet he even surpassed me when he told him, on his own initiative, a complete popular serial on the how and why the aristocratic mansion would have come in the hands of our bourgeois family: that the last marchioness had ran away, that the scandal, and that the fruit of the sin, and the risky expenses, and the mortgages, and the great confusion of the real estate registry in that far back 1810... He bored him so well that when I opened the door and got before him with the tray and the laced doily and the unmatching coffee cups I certainly appeared as something to love, rather, I was. I was a wonderful blunder in the dark. (And I see the vermilion of your mouth anew/ so wide in laughing and drinking/ and the square face, with no eyebrows,/ all scattered with light freckles/ and the firm eyes, the sincere iris/ blue of a crockery blue...) I loved him, it's true. In a Gozzanian way. For him I have been silent entire afternoons, I smiled, I listened. Most of all he spoke of butterflies. And the Parnassius Apollo, and the Pieris Brassicae, and the Ornithoptera Pronomus... "You see, two opposite sides can be distinguished in the chrysalis: back and abdomen. On the abdomen you can see raised layers made and disposed as the bandages you find on mummies' heads: the back is dentated and crusty...", and I, behind, darning linen sheets, all content, reassuring, dumm. When I heard him praise with melancholical tones the hairy back of the Acherontia Atropos, a big butterfly vulgarly called the "Dead head", though, I decided we were too far into the twilight.

I got on my feet, innocently proposed to him to take cover and, from staircase to staircase, I dragged my prey into the attick. The sensitive Guido was impressed by the portrait of the ancient Marchioness. Indeed a valuable work, whether or not an Appiani's: it had been difficult to move it to the attick as my father strongly opposed it, yet that sumptuous neo-classic whiteness against the dark backdrop of the stored furnitures was to me a special effect one couldn't do without. I used it to whisper, with a very credible naïvety, some broken sentences on infant scares; covering my mouth I whispered that the Marchioness, at times, used to stepping out of the picture and walk along the corridors, and Guido smiled at me with re-affirmed superiority and turned his attention elsewhere. I had been right: with no make up, my resemblance with her, with the grand-grand-grand mother, wouldn't attract any attention. Yet the sense of triumph for that little deception framed in the large deception, led me to an excess. With the print depicting a laurel-crowned Torquato Tasso I went out of my way: no country girl would ever question why that gentleman was wearing a cherry branch on his head. Was I really demented? How could he not think that any of those new all too well what laurel was? I had given myself in! What I should have done, rather, was an appropriate comment on the spices that should go with the roast. But Guido didn't notice the mistake (and then, in fact, he quoted my phrase in the poem without realizing it wouldn't belong in there). He was moved, lost in a dream, meditation, or daydream. I had him. We again admired together "the autumn plain/ from the sixhundred attick, oval, / of thick little frames, where the plot/ of the glass deformed the panorama/ as an ancient unnatural enamel./ Untrue (and fine)..." and at that point we obviously talked about marriage, then they called us for dinner, and then, as always, came the Doctor and the Notary for the game of cards.

There were many of us, in my little scheme. Besides my father, practically all the big shots in the village had to be convinced to keep their mouth sealed about my graduation, and it had been hard, for in those times we educated women were very rare beasts, thus a quite prized subject of conversation. I had had the good venture of finding an ally in our pharmacist, whom, as he also wrote some verses now and again, was more than happy to get in the shoes of an artist, but I really think that not even him would grasp the scope or at least the sense of my cultural operation. I thus let anyone believe they were being nice with this just a little more elaborated whim of mine. Certainly, after a month of all that one-man-audience play, somebody began to give in: the Mayor decided to anticipate his annual trip and, claiming he had to check nearby fields and bushes, he left for London with his trunks of un-ironed shirts (three-hundred and sixty-five of them, plus one for the leap years: he claimed no laudries were as good as the British). But the bulk was now done. Phase two of my intervention on Guido involved only some finishing touches. I betrayed a few sympthoms of sentimentality, I was tedious and even too mawkish in exibiting the standard modesty of marriageable girls, then we gave him a masterly touch of vulgarity through the gossip of the kind pharmacist, when he told him of my meagre dowry and of the voices already heard in the village...

When Guido Gozzano left, we were all happy and appeased. Him, because he now had his most beautiful "unpicked rose" to look back to; us, because we couldn't put up with all that healthy life anymore. While I returned to my Poiret's little outfits and, as a possessed, began looking for the turkish smokes I had concealed too well, my father went back to compiling the forms to be sent to Vienna... For only a few are aware of it, but it was my father who supplied Sigmund Freud the base material for his clinical cases: that year he had been working on a relationship between creative writing and daydreaming, I believe. But that is a different story. When I got hold of the cigarettes, all I had to do is wait for the postcards from Mrs Guglielminetti. Amalia kept me posted as to Guido's progress better than a literary gazette, and in fact she sent me almost immediately a first version of my poem by Gozzano, which titled The Hypothesis, and it didn't impress us that much. We both knew the boy could do more than that, even though I must say that poor Amalia, with all her para-Dannunzian bursts and her liberty femme fatal large hats, wouldn't be making it any easier for him. Perhaps it was her I should have been taking care of instead of him. But even a Muse has limits: how can you inspire your best girl friend, the one you met at the college of the nuns, and was already getting on your nerves then? I was careful in keeping to myself that my interpretation of signorina Felicita had been modelled right upon Amalia, naturally within a completely upturned prospective. Sophysticated, her? Humble, me. Supercity type, her? And me, a country girl.

With hindsight, I can say it was the right choice to helping Guido, and that it wasn't that bad a vendetta on that pretentious Guglielminetti either. She is now a second class figure in literary history, a minor, somewhat fading author, while I stand tall with the immortality of the great. But this I know now. In 1909, when the beautiful poem Signorina Felicita had been ready and printed, at last, I had almost forgotten. I had other things to do. I was in Paris with my friend Valentine de Saint-Point, I kept my hair very short and I had completely lost my head after a very modern guy, very original, whom with my assistance had published a manifest full of energy... Dear my Marinetti! A little exalted, yet so good with public relations and onomatopoeias! "We want to glorify the war... the fine ideas for which to die and the scorn for the woman", said the Futurist Manifest, and Valentine was convinced that she was the woman. Poor deluded. Even if that ungrateful of Filippo Tommaso had never wanted to spill out names, it was none but me to inspire to him "The feverish insomnia, the running pace, the deadly jump, the slap and the punch" .

The Unmatched

Watching herself in the mirror for the Impeccability Check, Jo'Hanna discovered a little mark which the day before, she was certain, wasn't there. Dreadful sign. If the skin starts to defy the central laws, producing unauthorized decorations on its own, where will we end up? Fortunately the mark had materialized only on the left hand face, the one reserved, ever since, to the emotional creations of teenage girls: the colleagues at the office would have thought good old Jo'Hanna-34 was having problems in accepting the Passage to the Rational Age Group, and that would be the end of it. It would have been far worse had the mark compromised her right hand face or, God save Klarity!, even the middle one. The career advancements would go down the drain, and she would be rightly pushed all the way back to the beginner Level, for who could ever trust a Klarity official whom fell prey to irregular cutaneous manifestations? The exterior is exactly specular to the interior: even the Neutral kids know it, and that's all there is to it, thought Jo'Hanna scanning the surface of all her faces in concern, but no, there was only that one mark there, right on the nose of the left hand face... Odd shape: it looked like a black line followed by a sort of tiny curl, like the hint of a question mark...

Lost in her thoughts, Jo'Hanna lifted her fourth pair of arms to give a last fix to the complex pigtail architecture, already perfectly in order, which binds the three heads of every genuine Lady, restraining their natural propensity to wandering about on the long blue necks, and meanwhile, with the lower arms, it pealed off the last remnants of nocturnal skins, indifferent to the fact that, like every morning, her orderly Nocturnal Sexual Symbiont would fall on the ground with the remnants of the skins. Like every morning, feeling himself pulled out of his nice warm and feathered orifice, the Symbiont burst into tears with moans of despair. "Give it a cut, Elliot", said Jo'Hanna in irritation, "it's going to be only fourteen hours. And look, last night I noticed a halo of impurity on the lounge-module floor: instead of wasting time in telephatical gossiping with your little friends, try and be more carefull with cleaning, will you?". "But I love you" chirped the diminuitive Symbiont, as he was already beginning, obedient, to eat the skins scattered over the floor. Jo'Hanna squeezed herself in her multi-shoulders and, all naked up, she stepped out headed for her office, on the spaceship nineteenth floor.

There was the same hysterical atmosphere of the pre-invasion working days, with a quantity of Neutrals who were dashing on the incorporated roller-skates between the She-Officials' posts. Jo'Hanna started calmly toward her processing trestle. "By Klarity!" greeted her T'Nina, turning one head in obeisance. "Same to you" said Jo'Hanna, hesitant. Why on earth the colleague had greeted her by the right? Was then the mark that visible, that bad? Jo'Hanna brought instinctively a pair of hands over her left hand face. T'Nina took a better look at her and jumped down the trestle in a vortex of reaching hands: "You too? Even you? " she clucked, possessed by an incomprehensible emotion. Faces to faces with her, Jo'Hanna came to realize it at last: even T'Nina had the mark on the left hand nose, identical. That's why she had greeted her with the logarithmical head! To hide the Emotional one! They clucked together for a while, exchanging the necessary condolatory expressions, but, while they were still clucking, an Express Neutral approached with the call for an extraordinary Great Assembly of the She-Management Group. Jo'Hanna-34 and N'Tina-106 joined the line of She-Officials headed for the meeting module, and it was there and then that they discovered they were no exception. They all had the strange line and question-mark-shaped mark on the left hand face, everyone of them.

Very far from the Klarity Ladies' space-ship, 500 meters beneath the Frejus Tunnel, in the Planetary Situation Unit run in exacting collaboration by the United Nations and the Earthly Free Trading territories, a Chinese engineer looked at the watch and raised his thumb in an ancient conventional sign, giving Generala (1) Elizabeth Arpist the occasion to utter, for the first time in her life: "Ok, boys, here we are! Fetch the prisoner", as in the XX century war movies. A bunch of north-and-south Irish engineers pushed an armoured cage to the centre of the lounge. The Generala got up, streightened her skirt, reached the heavy hatch and in she went, without neglecting to ask softly: "May I come in?".

"Come in" grumbled the extra-terrestrial prisoner, crouched down as usual on the bottom of the cage. The Generala approached him from a half meter distance, bowed and warmly said: "Cigarette?".

The Klarity Symbiont shook his head in so depressed a refusal that the Generala caught herself into thinking again that, my gosh, that doubtlessly alien being, even though remarkably cute, was in all identical to a human male... that is, not really in all: given his obstinate inclination to tearing to pieces and devouring any type of clothing whenever you tried to cover him somehow, the Symbiont appeared endowed with a very normal genital equipment as to the shape, yet in the matter of size... off scale? Unheard of? Well, quite exagerated, to say the least. A young Senegalese marine from the Pan-african command who had recovered him alive from the spacecraft that had crashed on the Futa Gialon Range, had killed himself two hours later, officially as a consequence of the trauma of having to untangle him by axe from the huge corpse of a three headed, eight-arm blue giant; but Generala Arpist, knowing her men, suspected that the poor boy had killed himself out of sheer humiliation. She did not have such problems.

"So, Bill-Athos dear, how is it up there, uh? How is it going?"

"And how should I know."

"Come on, come on, don't be a baby. Wanna disappoint your friend Elliot? Wanna disappoint us, who have been so good to you?"

The prisoner lowered his head and mumbled: "What's the point? My Lady Ka'Rla has passed away, she is gone..."

The Generala grabbed him by the hair and gave it a good pull: "That's why you must cooperate, dick! You want us to deploy all of our weapons? You want the Ladies of the other Symbionts to die? You want our friend Elliot to become like you, an Unmatched?!"

"No, no!" screamed Bill-Athos horrified, and Generala Arpist afforded herself an internal little laugh. Perfectly manipulable, these male aliens, all it takes is a bit of psychology and they'd gulp down whatever rubbish a female tells them. Better yet, they were so naïve they couldn't hide anything, neither an emotion nor a confidential invasion scheme. Dealing with the females it would have been a completely different story; they were intelligent, determined, so much so they had even started to build up an internal consensus: in India, millions of fanatics were already crowding the temples preparing to receive the New Deities whom, they believed, would descent from heaven to benefit them, while any other moron would have seen that all those wanted to do, is come and play the Ladies also on the Earth, completely disarmed, unfortunately, after the conversion of the armies into, mind you, very useful EYAPPOs (Elementary Yoga Apnea Parachutable  Protective Organizations). But the Situation Unit was ready to push back forever into space the monstrous entities, taking advantage of the weak spots unveiled by the imprudent Bill-Athos and the precious help, even though not entirely voluntary, of the Rebellious Elliot Symbiont, head of a conspiracy which was coming at the right time.

"Go ahead" repeated the Generala, "you are in telepathic contact with your friend and he is in psycho-hormonal contact with his Lady, etcetera, so all you have to do now is tell me how things are going up there, come on."

"The She-Managers are in a meeting" whispered Bill-Athos, unwillingly. "They've found that the mark appeared on their Emotional face is indeed a microscopic inscription..."

"Microscopic to them!" burst out Generala Arpist, who deep down was a hot-tempered character (even though her rigorous training afforded her not to seem such: she had attended the prestigious Non-Peace College run by the She-Neo-Jesuits). "We are doing our best to project the message in as large a print as possible into the microcephalic mind of your friend of my ass, and those she-elephants don't even see it!"

"The She-Scientists are enlarging the inscription. They have called in the She-Linguists to interpret it."

The Generala relaxed and attempted a smile: "Very well! We can move on to phase two. Remember? Phase One: draw their attention to push them into meeting. Phase Two: attack and convince them! Impress this image well into your mind and transmit it to Elliot."

The alien took the note, looked at it and frowned in disgust.

"Mm... Are we certain this stuff will help explain the Ladies that we Symbionts have the right to a more affectionate treatment?"

"Positive!" said the Generala, "Rest assured, I swear it on my mum!" and, in the effort of appearing sincere and convincing, she went as far as kiss him.

In the meeting module of the Klarity She-Management Group Great Extraordinary Assembly, six-hundred and ninety heads turned abruptly toward Jo'Hanna-34. It had never occurred that an official would suddenly scream in such an unseemly way, with all her mouths: thus a resentful buzz started to spread among the trestles, further disturbing the report of She-Linguist An'Thonia and forcing the She-Weekly Delegate to pound by eight hands the little hammer on the presidential desk.

"As I was saying", went on An'Thonia throwing a pair of nasty looks to the screaming She-Official whom had meanwhile become silent and had taken a not so agreeable violaceous color, "the first part of the inscription in the standard earthly idiom is clear, and it may be read as 'I'm really sick', but the second part remains undecipherable. Literarly, it would stand for 'Wouldn't you have an aspirin?' something, in my opinion, completely senseless... Ah, but what now!"

Another triple cry had pierced the tense air of the meeting module, and a moment later there came another, and yet another, and in less than a minute over half the two-hundred and thirty She-Managers were, in sequence, screaming in terror, becoming silent and turning violaceous. "Silence!" pleaded the She-Weekly Delegate, then she screamed in terror, became silent and turned violaceous too. An horrendous image had presented itself in her Emotional mind, sliding immediately in the Harmonizing mind and showing thereafter in the Logarithmical mind which had quickly drawn the distressing deductions. As it turned out, something similar was happening to their whole lot. The last to go through the scream-silence-color turning sequence was She-Linguist An'Thonia, who was also the one that took the longest to recover form the shock. The She-Managers close to the stand of the She-Speakers could hear her mumble to herself, herself and herself: "I'm very sick, wouldn't you have an aspirin? I'm very sick, wouldn't you have three aspirin?"

After an animated debate it was found that all the She-Managers (two-hundred and thirtyone of them with the She-Weekly Delegate) had received in succession the same mental image, picturing a woman by the evident terrestrial typology, and a horribly contorted facial expression, a knife cutting into two halves the only head and, repeated all around, not only in earthly language but also in pure Klarinese, the caption "Migrane".

According to the ancient custom of having one demonstrate publicly what all already knew, the She-Manager who had received the image first was encharged with exposing the problem. Jo'Hanna-34, then, still a bit violaceous, especially around the lower orifice (which, even with the best officials, is the last to regain control) yet her foreheads tall before the Assembly and her voices firm, said: "We had no idea such a thing existed. We'll have to investigate as to the origin of the image. Now though, whoever has projected it into our mind, the important is that images never lie. The exterior is the interior. Consequently, this strange ailment is certainly typical of the planet we are about to conquer. Will it be contagious? Will it not? In any case, and considering the less favourable assumption, to keep on the safe side, our situation can be easily summarized in symbolic terms". With a gracefull about face she reached the blackboard, grabbed a bunch of chalk sticks and with a pair of hands she drew a head and a knife, while with the other six she drew three heads and three knives. Then she addressed the Assembly again and, using only the central voice, she asked solemnly: "For Klarity, are you prepared to take the chance?"

"No!" replied in chorus two-hundred and twentynine central voices (She-Linguist An'Thonia was still babbling in various uncertainty tones: "Wouldn't you have an aspirin?" and "wouldn't you have three aspirins?").

That's how it was that the Great Assembly of the Klarity Ladies, the sole species in the Galaxy who had never had neither three nor two nor one single headache, renounced to invade the Earth and any other planet subject to hosting that terrible disease. The weekly tabloid "Above and Beneath the Universe" reports that two-hundred and thirtyone little defectors led by Symbiont Elliot continued for several light-years to exchange telephatically congratulatory winks and elbows, all happy because, idle and awfully bored, their Ladies had spent most of the return journey well wrapped in their sleeping skins.

Down on the Earth, the shrewed Chief of Staff Generala Elizabeth Arpist became Generalissima and guest-starred in many TV talk shows where she brilliantly illustrated the theme "Is it true images never lie? No, not exactly". In well informed circles the voice goes that upon her recommendation, blown in a moment of fatigue in the ear of the EYAPPO's Tanker Division "Gay Power Endurance" Recreation Club director, even Bill-Athos the Unmatched was then able to enjoy a popularity which was likewise wide and deep, if not more.

NOTES

(1) Generala: the word is used as the feminine gender of General (which in Italian is also used in the feminine gender).

Bibliography

A writer and a translator, Carmen Covito was born in Castellammare di Stabia, Naples, Italy, in 1948. She lives and works in Milan. She is the author of the novels: "Plain and of a Certain Age" (La bruttina stagionata, Bompiani 1992, 1993 Bancarella Award), "Why do Hedgehogs Cross the Road" (Del perché i porcospini attraversano la strada, Bompiani 1995), "Welcome to This Environment" (Benvenuti in questo ambiente, Bompiani 1997). Some short stories not included in this collection have been published in the small volume "Skeletons Without a Closet" (Scheletri senza armadio, La Tartaruga 1997).

The web www.carmencovito.com, totally self-managed and produced, has been Online since 1997.

Table of Contents

But Who's Landed on the moon?

Bi-Sex Plus One

The Cambise's Elixir

Today, Love

Stand by me

Untrue (and fine)

The Unmatched

Bibliography