that the city’s future is at stake. And that’s why nothing ever happens. A man wants to possess his wife, but if she wants to be possessed, he flees. It’s so tiring, waiting for the French. She stands at the open window. Far below in the alleyway there is loud laughing and joking in languages her husband won’t let her learn. She hears someone running away. She imagines he has one hand in the pocket of his trousers. She falls back onto her day bed with a sigh. She looks up at the ceiling painting.
We all know damned well where I was going. San Luca is at the end of Maddalena. I turned right there. I walked to Via del Campo. Just before the end, ten meters before the Porta dei Vacca, was Vico della Croce Bianca.
24.
This neighborhood is known as the Ghetto. The name is meant ironically, but even during the daytime, it takes courage to go there. It’s dusky all day in other alleys. Here it’s always night. It gives the appearance of being renovated. And it’s in dire need of that, which you realize the moment you set foot in the area. There’s no pavement and almost everything is crumbling or half-collapsed. But it’s not being renovated. For years, the narrow, tall, impassable streets have been covered in rusty scaffolding that has no other purpose than to deny all pedestrians even that tiny strip of blue sky.
If you look on the map, it’s a question of five or six small alleys: Vico della Croce Bianca, Vico del Campo, Vico di Untoria, Vico dei Fregoso, Vico degli Andorno, and perhaps Vico San Filipa. But the map isn’t quite right. There are also gaps between the walls, and toppled palazzi form new squares without a name. The rats are as big as lapdogs. They know their way around and take to their heels, just like the Moroccans who rub along the mildewed walls as skittish as ghosts. And everywhere I saw the same sticker that was stuck to the pipes on my house:
derattizzazione in corso
non toccare le esche
I still have to look up what that means.
The transvestites live here. The famous transvestites of Genoa that Fabrizio De André sung about as le graziose di Via del Campo. They are men in their fifties wearing high heels and fishnet stockings over their hairy legs, a sexy dress straining over their beer bellies, and a wig. They beckon you into their caverns with their stubble and their irresistible baritone voices, where, for a pittance, you can grapple with their self-made femininity. Muslims who may not deflower a woman before they’ve committed a terrorist attack eagerly do the rounds of the hairy asses on offer. A condom spurted full is worth four dead rats, and four dead rats are a meal. She doesn’t have any tits, her bra’s full of cotton wool, but if you pay extra, you can suck on them. And if you don’t pay, she’ll stab your eye out with one of her stilettos.
I heard a story: in the nineteen-sixties a real war waged in these alleyways. For three days. The harbor was full of American warships. An American marine had broken the explicitly worded rules and ventured into these streets one night. Into the Ghetto. He had fallen in love. To him, she was the most beautiful girl in Genoa. He had the blushing privilege of being able to shower her in cigarettes, chocolate, and fishnet stockings. He secretly wrote poems for her in his diary. It was the most wonderful night of his life. But exploring between her sticky thighs afterward, he discovered the truth. He felt betrayed, swore he would take revenge, and fetched his friends. Forty heavily armed marines invaded the Ghetto. And the transvestites fought back. Stilettos vs. night-vision binoculars. Boiling oil poured from the top floor. Fences falling as soon as the troops reformed. In the meantime, running across the rooftops and the rusty scaffolding. Diversionary tactics with fishnet stockings. And the street you came through, the one guaranteeing your retreat, suddenly doesn’t exist anymore because it seems to have been barricaded with a portcullis. They won. The transvestites won. The neighborhood was declared a no-go zone for American marines.
It’s a place that has an unusual pull on me. Probably partly due to that story. Or because it’s the place that is the furthest away from my fatherland. Or for other reasons. I don’t know. We’ll come back to the subject.
25.
Rashid was limping when I saw him again. He had a black eye as well.
“Come and sit down. I’ll order you a beer. Sorry about last time. And thank you. But what happened?”
“A disagreement,” he said.
“Did you go to the police?”
He tried to giggle but it made him cough, which clearly hurt his ribs.
“Are you here illegally?”
He stared into his beer.
“Sorry, Rashid. Perhaps you don’t feel like talking at all.”
“Could you order a few of those free appetizers for me maybe? What are they called again? Stuzzichini.”
“Of course.”
“Sorry to ask but there are some things here that a foreigner like you gets more easily than a foreigner like me.”
He ate like a dog. He ate like someone who hadn’t eaten for a week.
“I haven’t eaten for a week, Ilja.”
I ordered more free snacks for him under the pretext of ordering them for myself.
“And I’m privileged,” he said with his mouth full. “Can you imagine? Where I live, we live with eleven or nine or thirteen, it’s different every day. Two rooms. Nine hundred and eighty euros a month. Most of them are Moroccans like me. But there are also a few Senegalese. It’s even harder for them than it is for us. But they make it difficult for themselves, I have to say. I’m not a racist but those black people ruin it for all of us. I mean, I came here to work, Ilja. I’m an honest man. Tell me it’s true. I’m a good Muslim, even if I do have the occasional beer. But those blacks have a completely different mentality, you can’t do anything about it, it’s just like that. They steal. They even steal from their own housemates. And if you say anything about it, they kick the shit out of you and give you a black eye. They’re used to taking advantage of others. It’s not even their fault, really. It’s their culture. You have to respect that. You’ll agree with me about that, Ilja, that you have to respect their culture.”
I began to feel more and more uncomfortable about this conversation.
“But to return to your question,” Rashid said. “No.”
“Sorry, I lost the thread.”
“I’m not here illegally. I have a temporary residence permit. Not like those blacks. I have the right to be here. They arrive on rubber boats via Lampedusa, Malta, or the Canary Islands. I came here with a passport. I’m a skilled worker. I installed air-conditioning for work in Casablanca. I’m a good person, Ilja, do you understand?”
“And why did you come here?”
“Do you want an honest answer?”
“No.”
Rashid had to laugh and then cough and then his ribs hurt again. He slapped me on the back.
“Really, you’re my only friend here,” he said. “It’s quite an honor for a white man, me saying that, you should know that. Since you asked, I’ll give you a dishonest answer.”
He took a sip of his beer.
“I came here to write a book and not to earn money. I came here to gather inspiration and to enrich my life with new experiences, like being robbed and beaten by my own housemates, and I didn’t come here to survive. I got bored with my work in Casablanca. It was the same old. I came here to look for a new challenge. Like not even being able to get the most basic job with a name like mine. Here I’m a pariah. But it’s fascinating sharing a two-room apartment with nine or eleven or thirteen others, plus the rats. It makes me resourceful. It makes me creative. It keeps me on my toes.”
“I’m sorry, Rashid. I understand what you want to say. But why don’t you go back?”
“You don’t understand a thing, Ilja. I’ve already explained it to you. The first time we