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"... And God was left riding the donkey, the devil is in heaven and made a nest there..."
Leaning against an old wall, in Campo Pisano, near the sea but not too close, on a sunny day that comes and goes, with salt on the lips that makes you want to drink, if only it were possible to find a glass of something good... Work motivation, jump on me... I think I'm going down to San Lorenzo, I think... It's almost time to meet you...
"... At the dove fountain, in the stone house..."
The little square is set in a postcard place and sometimes I come here to read, to be quiet and not be disturbed by anyone... you can only hear the noises of the houses and the mothers scolding their children... there is a rotten fish smell, I kid you not, with houses behind eight or nine stories high and a descent that leads straight down to the Marina, below you see a bit of the harbor and, finally, a bit of the sea in front.
Children playing, chasing each other and singing, a bit in Italian and a bit in Arabic, but "O belin" they already say in Genoese.
"... My little one, mine, mine... Fat lips in the summer sun..."
I move aside dodging a cart full of scrap pushed by a Maghreb man and two cats wanting to have fun with a little mouse they hold by the tail, they play with it for quite a while. I keep my hand in front of my eyes to block the sun's glare and be careful not to sprain an ankle on the cobblestone. From a corner, down below, you can see the old fish market, now empty. It was there that De André and Pagani roamed, in eighty-three, with a four-track revox to record the noises and voices of fishmongers shouting the beauties of fish for sale, on the counters.
"... Anchovies and mussels from La Spezia... look at this stuff..."
From one moment to the next, everything changes, and in an alley, you seem to be in the thirteenth century; the next alley, you find yourself between two dealers and two addicts with money in hand. You try to go faster and quickly you're already at San Giorgio, you can smell the dried cod from Sciamadda, better to keep going. At the little corner of Giustiniani, the world of today opens up in front of you, arm in arm with the old one, lots of people stopping to look at the fish on a fishmonger's counter and, nearby, in a hidden alley, a prostitute, with desperate eyes, sitting on a step...
"... Master of the rotten rope of water and salt that binds us and leads us in a sea alley..."
You hear a bit of everything, Arabic and Spanish, English and Calabrian, and all languages have the same dignity. It really seems to me that this is the world dreamed of by De André, not perfect and even smelly, so different from his, a son of Albaro, clean with Marseille soap and dirty with blood and sweat, as the world should be and not as they show you on TV...
We're in a place of words and glances, of shouts and shoves, we're in the navel of the world, and skin colors don't mean so much; what's more important are the ways of looking and making yourself understood.
And the face you have attached to your neck.
"... Pickpocket faces, those who prefer the fin from the sea bass..."
If then, you cross San Lorenzo, you find yourself in another type of alley, and the closer you get to Campetto or Luccoli the more you realize that even in the old city, there are differences, the shops change too, and society is divided even here; poor and rich coexist, though, in the morning and evening, exchanging weather information and criticism of Genoa...
Here, behind, is the realm of pleasure, from Maddalena to Prè it's all a brothel, of all colors, white, black, yellow, tanned... and if you look well, not all of them are women, no, no, that one there has a trace of a beard... but what Deborah, Alfonso, if anything... let's move on... however, belin, what legs... Even a twelve-year-old boy turns, he's figured out where the world turns...
"... And to this swaying of thighs and breasts, which make even the little ones clamorous..."
End of the tour, we're in front of the hideous construction of the Aquarium, very modern, my goodness, but they're needed too, they bring money and tourists, and it's known that health without money is already half an illness... and this little corner of the harbor and alleys has changed a lot, everything clean and new, it seems they polish it at all hours, carabinieri and soldiers roam talking among themselves and with no desire to do anything, youth on the phone and Africans full of all kinds of goods.
And then there's you, who have been waiting for me for a quarter of an hour, really irritated, you already understood that I extended the tour to see this confounded place of the soul, which is the old part of my city, the one I like the most.
But never as much as I like you, of course, and now I have to be forgiven.
"... To be able to kiss Genoa again, on your naphthalene mouth..."
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