I-1
2142 Words
I
Sunday, 16th August 2020
Rah, rah-ah-ah-ah. Roma, roma-ma. Gaga, ooh-la-la.
Maybe I should change my cell phone ringtone, but Lady Gaga is a great artist.
«Hi Francesco ... Do you remember me?»
I wanted to, in fact I tried to forget that voice.
«Chiara?» I ask amazed.
«Yup. How are you?»
«Is ... is it really you?»
«And the job?» I do not answer.
«All is well at home?» she insists.
«How long do you want to go on like this?» I reply.
«I'm just trying to be nice.» I remain speechless.
Chiara urges: «How many years have passed: five, six?»
Only in films do they answer 9 years, 10 months, 12 days and, looking at the clock, 2 hours. I never wear a watch, it makes me anxious, but I see the slow-motion image of the last time again: she walks away without saying a word, I do not have the strength to stop her.
«I'd say ten, more or less.»
«So much? I do not believe it»
«Let's cut it short: what do you want?» I say with a gruff tone.
«To hear from a friend after a long time.»
«You will never be just a friend to me» I think, but the sentence comes out wrong: «We have never been friends.»
«Yet that time in Rome ...»
«Ah, was I with you? I was sure you were with another girl.» I joke.
«If you've been there with someone else I don't know, but I remember well when we were in that hotel and ...»
«You closed the door in my face!»
«I could not have done otherwise,» she justifies.
«Or you didn't want to.»
«Do we really have to dig up things that happened a century ago?»
«Forget it: it's better» I think.
I ask her: «Why did you call me?»
«It was you that day, while we were walking on the Lungarno, who told me:" If we don't see each other again, I will wait a maximum of ten years and then I turn to “C'è posta per te”.
«Just tomorrow I would have sent an email to De Filippi.»
She laughs, then suddenly becomes serious.
«I'd like to talk to you.»
«We are already doing it.»
«No. I mean in person.»
Sometimes I dreamed of seeing her again in Rome, where she had gone to live. When I went there for a conference or an exhibition, I also hoped to meet her like this, by chance; but Rome is big, too big.
«I don't have much time. I'm busy right now and… I'm not alone.»
«A woman?»
Actually it is my beloved cat: Pallino. He has finished all the meal of the evening and has just jumped on the bed: I never understood if he does it to thank me for the food or to ask for more. I caress him, he crouches beside me.
«Actually, the gender is masculine.»
«Have you changed your tastes?» jokes Chiara.
«By dint of being disappointed by women ...»
«Funny. However, if this is the case, we can see each other: there is no longer any danger.»
The danger exists and it is enormous. No other person upset me like her, from the first moment. I was at the Turkish customs, she approached smiling, holding out her hand to me.
I have known women, but none, absolutely none, had that smile. How many times I have thought with regret about that day, how many more I have cursed having met her.
«Don't make a fuss. When are you free?»
«Better to avoid.»
She does not give up and slowly articulates the words: «Important things have happened.»
I begin to caress Pallino on the belly: he likes him so much, sometimes.
«I don’t care.»
«Instead, I'm convinced ...»
«No.»
«Let's meet and then you will decide whether to help me.»
«Let's finish it here,» she interrupts.
«Give me the chance to ...»
Suddenly, I press the red button on my mobile phone and end the call.
«If he calls back, what shall I do? I won't answer, I let it ring,» I decide, but I keep checking my cell phone every minute. Uselessly.
«If it had been important, he would have called back. Anyway, it's better this way.» I try to convince myself.
«Come on Pallino, let's go to bed, we'll work tomorrow.»
Work ... What I do for a living is certainly not what I wanted to do.
I still remember the day I enrolled in Classical Literature. I loved history and Latin, but my dream was to become an archeologist like Indiana Jones; on the other hand, those of my generation grew up with his films. After a year of lessons, it was time to put what they had learned into practice: the department had organized an excavation campaign. I was excited, I couldn't wait to go in search of my Ark of the Covenant. When I left, I was not properly dressed like my idol: instead of a wide-brimmed hat, a white Nike hat I used for tennis and instead of a whip, a spade, normally used by my father for tomatoes in the vegetable garden. After the first day of excavation, I understood a couple of things: first of all, digging gets dirty, from head to toe. The second, closely related to the first, is that the shower is a luxury. We had it, God forbid, but only one for all. We were divided into three mixed dormitories, each of six people, with two bathrooms and, in fact, a single shower, operated by an old external water heater. Only the first three benefited from the hot water, the others, unless they were put off until the water heater was refilled, were forced to take a "refreshing" cold shower. The first day I became a knight and gave way to a student from Bologna, the second to one from Cosenza, the third I slipped first in the shower. Sleeping in mixed dormitories may seem “pleasant”, but the girls who took part in the excavations weren't American college students: no makeup, hair pulled back and dressed like those who work on the highway. They also talked like the workers of a construction site, and it gets worse: rather than take a cold shower, they postponed to ... a date to be decided.
We were in a remote location in the Marche hills and I had to clean up a plastered wall of a Roman domus: no rare artifact to discover, just a work-
operation. I found everything boring and when, with the umpteenth stroke of the spatula, I realized that I had inadvertently removed a piece of the Pompeian red plaster, I understood a third and fundamental thing: it is better to let the archaeologist's dig; then, if they find something interesting, we historians are responsible for interpreting it correctly. That was my first and only excavation campaign.
After graduating, I therefore chose to do a doctorate in history and philosophy, which was followed by the assignment of contract teaching in Roman history at the Faculty of Literature in Siena.
How did I end up working as a bank cashier as a university teacher?
Researcher at 27, associate professor at 35 and finally full professor at only 41! This is the brilliant and fast career of my "teacher", Professor Barbarino, certainly not mine. I, who remained a precarious teacher for years, was tired of being paid less than the faculty usher; moreover, what was to become the bank where I work, wanted the money from the loan every month to keep going.
After all, I am happy to have freed myself from the tyranny of the very illustrious, very clear professor and other hard-hitting titles piled up in his business card. And then the manager of the Siena branch where I work now is not bad: not knowing how to do it, he gives the employees a free hand, without getting too involved. Barbarino was not like that: he checked and corrected every line of the articles I wrote for scientific journals. But it was right: in the end he signed them!
But when ten years ago the esteemed Barbarino wrote to me that he had finally found the tomb of the emperor Julian, while continuing to work in a bank, I was catapulted back into that world. It was not so much the philosophical conception that fascinated me of the emperor surnamed the Apostate, but the desire to change the order of things: the attempt, destined to fail, to bring back the clock of time. Giuliano did not understand that the world he had longed for no longer existed and, perhaps, had never existed. Like many young people he was convinced that he could change everything, only to realize that he had not been able to change anything. He was an idealist, or rather a utopian, in short, someone like me.
Monday, 17th August 2020
«It's 7.04, it's time to get up,» repeats the audio clip I recorded on the tablet.
Still sleepy, I go down the stairs and make breakfast. Like every morning, coffee with milk, bread with raw ham and two rusks with orange jam. I like to keep myself "light".
I live in a small apartment in the centre: all over the world it is famous for the Palio, but Siena is fascinating for a thousand other peculiarities, to be discovered slowly. And then for me it's very convenient: five minutes on foot and I'm already at work.
As soon as I enter the branch, Vito, the colleague with me at the cashier, welcomes me: «I see you pensive this morning. Did your cat die?»
«Let's not joke about Pallino: he is the only person ... animal, in short, the only one who has remained faithful to me ... always.»
«So are they pains of love?»
We have been working side by side for a long time and Vito has not changed, indeed, if possible, he has gotten worse. On his f*******: profile he highlighted only one characteristic: "single". Writing like this is an invitation to say: "women over 40, over 50, over all, come forward".
Except that no one has come forward. He continues to live with his parents, who will by now be ninety years old, but they look after him like a child.
«Tell me about your lunch break. I have lasagna today. I'll let you taste them, even if, when heated in the microwave, they aren't as good as freshly made. »
«Does your mother cook early in the morning?»
«Of course: to make me find a fresh lunch.»
After all, Vito is nice, except when he takes moments of anger from him: his neck swells up, while his face and bald skin are colored like the breast of a robin in heat.
«Did you make the calls on the list?» Marco, the mortgage officer and Head of the Private Customer Line, asks me.
Marco is tall and thin, very tall and thin. He studied economics and banking and is one of the few colleagues who wanted to become a banker in his life.
«Not yet, but I have the list here,» he replies.
«Come on, come on, you can do it.»
I look at the list and I feel sick. A program cross-referenced a series of data and extrapolated the names of customers who “should” be interested in our new credit card.
«But in your opinion,» I turn to Vito, «if someone already has a card, why should he come to the branch, return it, ask for a new one and wait a month for it to arrive to be able to use it?»
«It's fantastic: it works online» urges Marco.
«Even the one from before,» Vito intervenes.
«Yup, but this one’s greater potential,» He insists. I look at him skeptically.
«For example?»
«Now I don't remember, the product sheet should be read.»
In the end, Marco comes to mind a “fundamental” feature: «It allows the customer to choose the secret code to use».
«Of course, technology is making great strides,» I said ironically.
She leans over the counter, as if to hug me. I get up, hold out my hand.
«How formal we are.»
«Won't you introduce me to your friend?» Vito says rising from his swivel chair.
Chiara is not tall, but he, even standing up, is shorter than her. She reaches out her hand.
«I do it by myself. My name is Chiara, I am an old friend of Francesco.»
«Pleasure. I'm Vito, head cashier.»
He fastens the button on his trousers; he usually leaves it open, hidden by the shirt he keeps out of his pants. Then he asks: "How do you know each other?»
«We met on a trip,» I try to cut it short.
- Writer
