Tiburtina Noir Blues
by Francesca Mazzucato
Translated by Ann Goldstein
Tiburtina Station
A second-class station, a station to put up with, then cast off. So it seems to some: sticky with worn-out expectations, sickening with the sharp odors of sweat, unwashed skin, and rotting food. For me it was vital, I feel bound to this piece of the city, this place of shipwrecked souls, with its sudden drafts, perennial construction sites, gritty, dirty stone walls. You hear the echo of the street outside, only one sound lost among the many in this tangled skein of balustrades, platforms, asphalt, iron, stairs, sad shops, and tracks that end who knows where.
“Look at this crowd, what a mess, this station is a bordello, makes you sick, yes, let’s go sit down, let’s move away, there are Poles, Bulgarians, and Romanians lined up outside waiting for some bus or other, going back to their countries whose capital cities aren’t worth shit, cities that no one remembers, with names too crowded with consonants, they’re going home or to some other country for their deals, and I could say a few things about those deals, things you wouldn’t believe. Deals and relatives go together for the drifters of Tiburtina, but basically the whole world is home, don’t they say? Come on, sister, it’s what they say, it’s pure popular wisdom, pay attention to me, I’m well acquainted with them, these Bulgarians and Romanians, these human rejects running away from everything, who make sweet eyes at you, then become predators — they have a brutality inside, a brutality that they spew in your face, you can’t imagine the violence they inflict, I know it, I bear the marks, but you can’t imagine, sister.”
I don’t even try. I’ve never tried to put myself in someone else’s place, to think like others, and, lucky for me, life has coddled and protected me, it’s spared me the violence you’re talking about, life singled me out from birth, granted me privilege, inserted me among the elite, if it hadn’t would I be here? She’s following me, her high-heeled sandals, really hideous, are noisy and they attract the glances of some Sinhalese. One sticks out his tongue with a lascivious gesture, disgusting, and it’s better if they don’t even notice us. We should hurry. I try to camouflage myself; in the meantime we get to the bar and sit down.
“Let’s have something to drink while we wait, all right?”
“Yes, perfect, I’m thirsty, order some wine, what was I telling you? Damn, there’s gum stuck to my heel, disgusting, I paid fifteen euros for these sandals, to you, a lady, it won’t seem much, for me it was quite a sum, usually I buy shoes at a stall, from Biagio, who charges three euros a pair, four at most, one time I gave him a handjob in his van and he gave me three pairs, can you imagine what a stroke of luck? A simple, quick handjob, just a matter of holding it, not even that bad; he has a hairy stomach but he doesn’t smell, or make you do something you don’t want to. I gave him this handjob and I was all set with shoes for quite a while. Eh... certain kinds of luck don’t happen often. What were we saying? Yes, about these people here, these Bulgarians and Romanians, who now, if I understand it, can come and go without even showing their documents, Madonna, what a shithole politics is. Let them stay in their countries instead. Maybe in those countries, maybe there are even some nice things, but a person with her back to the wall, like me, doesn’t have much time or desire to think about nice things, a person like me, sister, doesn’t have the desire to feel tolerant, trying to understand is hard work, it’s a luxury, a privilege for the rich. For someone who’s alone, drifting, without ties, someone who lost her mother as a child and ended up with a goddamn drunkard of a father, nice things are a cigarette smoked with pleasure or a man who fucks you tenderly, or something like our meeting, sister, I mean it, or maybe something like Biagio and the shoes, those are the nice things, but I’m used to seeing garbage all around me, and these people are garbage. Don’t make a face, I’m not mean, but it’s easier to think of an enemy, to enjoy someone who seems worse off than you at that moment when solitude seizes you by the throat, gnaws at your guts, devours your insides. It’s been years since I’ve tried to hold onto something, to make a regular life, but I always end up skidding off track, something doesn’t work, it slips and slides away, it doesn’t go right, then I have to vent, that’s natural, and I have to unburden my mind, my thoughts. If you don’t they’re in danger of becoming a burden, you have no idea how certain thoughts can harass you, scream in your head, so I start observing those people and doing like everyone else, thinking of them as the enemy, shitty foreigners who come to steal our jobs and our opportunities, that’s how I see them... Instead I should see them as a mirror reflecting my puffy face, the dark circles under my eyes, because — you wouldn’t believe it — but I know I’m not so different, it’s only that I don’t admit it and never will, that’s all. It’s a shortcut and I take it; I hear the newspaper lady who, after pushing away a fat gypsy with a child in her hand and one at her neck, mutters, Disgusting, and if I think the same thing while I drink a glass of wine sitting on this uncomfortable chair, shooing off flies and intrusive glances, if I think the same thing I can delude myself that I’m not the totally marginalized person that I am.”
She points, raising herself slightly from the chair; her body gives off a fetid odor. I look at them through the window, lined up on one of the platforms, in groups, holding tight to suitcases like the ones people used in the ’70s. Some women are leaning against the wall at one of the side entrances to Tiburtina.
“With those packages, those old suitcases piled on top of each other, those boxes tied with string, they make me sick, and the ragged children, little tramps ready to stick their hands in your pocket or your purse. You get to hate them, it’s not out of meanness, sister, you agree? You know, you know better than me that to say a thing is good or bad is difficult, sometimes certain situations impose choices that go back and forth between good and bad, and then what the fuck are good and bad? Sometimes there’s not a big difference, right?”
When she speaks like that she scares me, but I know it won’t last long, luckily; sometimes I listen, sometimes I pretend because her speech is more like a disconnected muttering, anyone would think she’s a poor lunatic with heels that are too high and a confused mind, she eats her words or they’re incomprehensible because of the spaces between her teeth and her pale, cracked lips. Every so often she spits and a tiny drop of saliva lands near my motionless, clasped hands, or on the table; she notices, and dries it with her sleeve, then continues her monologue, which is repetitive, like a litany or maybe a prayer, an invocation, a lamentation. Something indefinable and strange, I would like to shut her up but I can’t. The truth is, she doesn’t want to talk to me but to everyone and no one, and anyone who can pretend to pay attention will do. Outside, the platform areas are blue, a blue lacerated by the colors and noises of the city buses and the long-distance buses that sometimes sit for a while, sometimes arrive quickly, pick up passengers, and leave. Evening is coming, a pink and blue sunset, dotted with the lights of the streetlamps and some advertising billboards. I don’t know if she’s noticed. She asks if she can have another drink, I nod to the waitress, who wipes her hands on her apron, brings a carafe of wine with two glasses, and rolls her eyes as if to say, When are you leaving? But it’s just 7:00 and the bar closes at 9:00, so she has to be patient. I know perfectly well that she’s irritating, her body and her manner are irritating, especially when she raises her voice and speeds up the rhythm of the litany, speaking like a psycho and making the other (very few) customers in the bar turn. I’m sure, in fact, that the waitress is disgusted, and since I’m with her I have the same effect, because that waitress can’t understand what in the world I’m doing in the company of this woman. She shouldn’t speculate, or feel irritation, or ask us why we’re together, all she has to do is bring the wine. All she has to do is take the money and bring back a handful of coins in change. That’s all.