Free For All the Gold in the World by Massimo Carlotto, Antony Shugaar Page B

was sucked into a story of old age and death, told with great delicacy. I sat there as the end titles scrolled past and was the last to leave. I leaned on my car and smoked a couple of cigarettes, immersed in memories of my early life, the life that ended the day I wound up in prison. For the umpteenth time I came to the conclusion that families are complicated and that everything becomes clear only when it’s too late. And then all you’re left with is time to waste on your regrets.
    â€œYou can’t change the past,” I muttered under my breath, pulling open the car door and rushing to slip the third CD prescribed by Catfish into the player:
El Diablo
, after the song of the same name by the Low Society Band. Mandy Lemons had a voice that could send shivers down your spine. I’d dreamed of seeing her live for years.
    The other nineteen tracks on the disk were all just as diabolical and bracing as the first, from Creole United’s zydeco to River of Gennargentu’s central Sardinian blues. The memories slipped from my mind.
El Diablo
had managed to persuade the past to grant me a truce.
    The street that Cinzia Donato had directed me to was located right behind the town’s main piazza; the number matched a small, two-story house squeezed between a bakery and a stationery shop.
    I was met at the door by a woman who looked to be about thirty-five, cute, in jeans and a white T-shirt, without a speck of makeup. She said her name was Marika but she hastened to explain that she’d been born and raised in Veneto.
    She led me to a living room whose furnishings were all new, with the exception of a ceiling lamp in Venetian-style crystal—the kind of thing that had been fashionable in the sixties. It clashed with the rest. It looked as if someone had forgotten to take it down.
    Cinzia Donato was sitting comfortably on the sofa. She greeted me with a half smile. “Darling,” she said to the mistress of the house, “tell my friend all about Fecchio.”
    Marika didn’t have to be asked twice. “Kevin comes to see me three or four times a month, always late at night. While we’re doing it he calls me Sabina, same as his wife, then he bursts into tears, calls her names because she took his children away from him, and holds me in his arms until he falls asleep.”
    A man in despair. The world was full of them. I shot a glance at the madam. “So?”
    â€œIf you have issues, you need to go to a specialist,” Cinzia snapped, “not to a whore who is, quite obviously, not a therapist. She’s a sex worker, a professional who gets paid by the hour, and what she offers is for entertainment purposes only. The fact is, you men are always trying to find a mother.”
    It crossed my mind that, in fact, you can’t sleep with your arms wrapped around your shrink, but I decided this was no time to venture into idle chitchat. “When’s the next time he’s coming?”
    â€œHe made an appointment for Thursday night at ten o’clock,” Marika replied.
    â€œI’d prefer it if he found me waiting for him instead of you,” I told her. “That way I can talk to him in peace and quiet.”
    â€œNot unless you fork over a thousand euros, which includes the income she’ll be foregoing and the temporary rental of the house, along with a guarantee that nothing unpleasant will happen,” Donato stated in a decisive tone. “We’re not interested in winding up in the papers. Bad publicity is no good for business.”
    â€œSo she works for you now?” I asked.
    â€œThe minute we started talking we hit it off,” Cinzia replied. “And after all, can’t you see how pretty she is? She’s perfect for my clientele.”
    Marika was radiant. In the end, we were all happy; we’d all gotten what we wanted.
    The madam told me goodbye and reminded me that now I owed her a big favor. That was true. We’d