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"... And on riding the donkey, there is God, the devil is elsewhere and has made his nest..."
Approaching an old alley, in Campo Pisan, close to home but not too much, on a day of coming and going, going into the alleys that make your mouth water, if it were possible to find a glass of that good stuff... Things to work on jumping over me... It seems to me now up until San Lorenzo, it seems to me... It's almost time for vespers...
"... By the fountain of the fields, in the stone house..."
The little house is set in a postcard-perfect spot and at times I go to read there, to stay calm and not be disturbed by anyone. You can only hear the noises of the houses, forks and knives, and the mothers yelling at their children... There's a smell of rotting fish, let me tell you, with the houses rising steeply everywhere around, a breakfast that comes straight from the sea, below you can see a bit of port and, finally, a piece of given sea.
Children playing, running, and singing, partly in Italian and partly in Arabic, but "O belin" they already say in Genoese.
"The sea mine, the sea, the sea, fatty seaweed from the sun of summer..."
I weave my way around a cart full of fruits driven by a Maghrebi and two cats with tails showing off with a little rat holding onto the tail, they play for a long time. I hold a hand for support in my eyes to brace for the impact of the sun and I am careful not to break an ankle in the cobblestone. On one side you can see, down below, the old fish market, what a place. It was there that De André and Pagani went, in eighty-three, with a Revox four-track to record the noises and the voices of the fishermen who shouted and the beauty of the fish to sell, on the stalls.
"... Anchovies and muscles from La Spezia... Friends, what stuff..."
In an instant everything changes and in a street you feel like you're in the three hundred, the next alley you find yourself in between two delis and two drug dealers with money in hand. You try to go faster and faster, you are already at San Giorgio, you feel the smell of cod from Sciamadda, better move on. At the corner of the Giustiniani opens up the world of today, arm in arm with the old one, so much so that the world stops to admire the fish on a stall and, nearby, in a hidden cart, a prostitute, with desperate eyes, sitting on a chair..."... Rotting bacon, mare's rope and salt..."
You hear everything being spoken, Arabic and Spanish, English and Calabrese, and all the languages have equal dignity. It seems to me that this is the dreamt world of De André, imperfect and even filthy, so different from his own, son of Arba, clean with Marseille soap and dirty with blood and sweat, how the world should have been and not how they show us on television...
We are in a place of words and looks, of cries and whispers, we are in the shadow of the world, and those with the skin don't say much, they know how to use more ways of loving and making themselves understood.
And the wall that you've leaned your neck against...
"... Faces made of fabric, those that prefer the low cloth..."
Then, if you cross San Lorenzo you find yourself in another kind of streets, and the closer you get to Campetto or Luccoli the more you realize that even in the old city there are differences, even the shops change and society divides even here, mixed and rich coexist, however, in the morning and evening, exchanging information at the time and critiquing Zena...
And there, behind you is the kingdom of pleasure, from Madaenn-a to Pré it is all a prostitute, of all colors, white, black, yellow, brown... and if you love them well not all are women, no, no, that one has a hint of a beard... but which Deborah, you call yourself Alfonso, all the more... let's move on... but belin, what a show... Even a two-year-old understands where the world is heading. "... And to this smell of the show and the little breasts, even the smallest take a breath..."
Finally down, we are in front of the ugliest constructions of the Aquarium, very modern, fancy, but they also serve, they bring money and tourists, and it is known that health without money is already half a disease... And this corner of port and streets has changed a lot, all clean and new that it seems shiny to all eyes, policemen and soldiers walking talking among themselves without much to do, young people on their phones and Africans full of all kinds of goodies.
And then there is you, who have been waiting for me for a quarter of an hour, belin sideways, you already understood that I took a long walk to see this belin of a place of the soul that is the old part of the city that I like the most.
But never as much as you please me, of course, and now I have to make amends.
"... To then lower Zena again, into its mouth of mothballs..."
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