Free La Superba by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer Page B

kind of nightclub.” “And where is it then?” “I’m not telling you. I’ll be working at the Caffè Letterario tomorrow. Come and let me know if you’ve found it.”
    Her handkerchief certainly came in handy. My first hunch was that it would be in the area around Maddalena, which has those kinds of little squares like Piazza della Lepre, Piazza delle Oche, and Piazza della Posta Vecchia—squares as big as a parking spot, which translocate mysteriously each night. There are tiny bars on them but they translocate, too. The art is to catch the streets during their nighttime displacements. But it happens inaudibly and very fast. Or very slowly. I’m still not sure about that. I walked in circles and squares around Palazzo Spinola, Vico della Rosa, Vico dietro il Coro della Chiesa die Santa Maddalena. These are places where the sun never shines. It was nighttime. The shadows had eaten upthe sun. The prostitutes and tourists had gone. The alleys were the domain of rats, pigeons, and pickpockets, as they almost always were. Witches hissed at me. A person I didn’t trust asked me for a light. A rogue roared with laughter in an alleyway.
    I went off to search the other side of the Via Luccoli, in Sestiere del Molo. I knew this neighborhood better but I realized that there could be streets between Via San Bernardo and the towers of the Embriaci that I didn’t know. It all goes uphill there toward Castello, to the architectural faculty and the Sant’Agostino cloisters, and I don’t like going uphill. So the Mandragola might very well be located there. These paths had not been trodden recently. Or if that wasn’t the case, they’d been shat upon by vermin even more recently. There was a tinkle of glass in the distance. Closer by there was screaming. I strayed until I happened upon the Piazza Sarzano, near the Metro. I hadn’t found the Mandragola. But in any case, I knew where I was again. And that wasn’t good. I don’t feel at home in this neighborhood. During the day Piazza Sarzono is too hot, and at night it’s deserted, while the alleys like Via Ravecca are populated by distrustful elderly Genoese who don’t want to have anything to do with foreigners, not even white ones.
    â€œHow’s business, maestro?” It was Salvatore. I felt a two-euro coin in my pocket. But of course I didn’t give it to him. “Sorry, Salvatore.” He came up to me and whispered in my ear, “The man you were sitting on the terrace with yesterday is a Moroccan. Did you know that?” “So what?” He held his finger to his lips meaningfully and hobbled off on his good but purportedly bad legs.
    I knew how to get to the Cantine della Torre dei Embriaci. That’s a bar I’ll have to take you to sometime, my friend.It’s in the cellars of one of the medieval watchtowers. The space is amazingly big when you go in and renovated in the best possible taste, preserving all its authentic features. The owner is called Antonio. He’s in love with his own bar. If you’re there, it doesn’t matter whether it’s in the morning, afternoon, or evening, he’ll be busy improving his café by moving a halogen bulb or two just less than two millimeters to the left. Or to the right. When you go in it’s always empty. And if you cautiously ask Antonio whether he’s open as he stands on a bar stool tinkering with his light bulbs, he’ll say, “It was a madhouse.” Or he’ll say, “It was a madhouse yesterday.” Or, “It’s quiet now but tomorrow, pff…It’ll be a madhouse.” Then he’ll get down off his bar stool and ask what you want to drink. No, I’m saying it wrong. First he starts complaining about Italian laws, then he goes outside to smoke, then he comes back, and only then does he ask you what you want to drink. “A beer.” Wrong answer. He has sixty