I Am The Emperor. Stefano Conti

       Tuesday 20 July

      «Welcome back to work, had a nice holiday?» asks me the director, as soon as I enter the Montepulciano station branch.

      Well, yeah, I didn’t mention it yet: after finishing my professor contract at the University, I ended up working as a bank counter clerk. Not the best, but it’s a permanent contract at least!

      I didn’t tell anyone the real reasons of my trip, actually the two reasons: the research of the professor and the emperor.

      «All good… a bit tiring.»

      It is harder to get out of Vito Darino’s questions, he’s the cashier on the desk next to mine. As we say around here, “he’s a weird fish”: he’s generally quiet and gentle, but gets upset out of nothing, becoming all red, then purple and suddenly deflates. He is against the whole world, thinking no one understands a thing and, that’s the reason they get promoted, while he has always remained stuck. He claims to be single; I’d say more of a bachelor: he hasn’t had a girlfriend in ten years I think, always talking about women, but in a very misogyny way.

      «Did you have fun? Have you met any nice Turk darlings?» is his first question.

      «No, I just had some rest.» Couldn’t be falser.

      «I’ve also visited some touristic places.»

      «Where exactly have you been?» he insists.

      I try to remain vague: «Well… an archaeological site: you know it’s my passion».

      «Sure, sorry professor» he says ironically.

      «After all» I try to debate «it is the job I’ve been doing for ten years, before starting here.»

      Vito charges back again, fantasising about unreal erotic adventures: «So no women?»

      «What should I tell you: I will start chasing men then.»

      I found out that this is always a brilliant way to end the conversation.

      Once again, glued to my PC, I switch on my “autopilot” for the cash register routine. Some of the operations are long and boring, whilst others slip away lightly, as the clients do: as soon as I finish, I forget the account number along with the face that I had in front of me.

      That same evening, before leaving the bank, I receive an email from the Literature Faculty’s director:

       Dear colleagues,

       This is to inform you that the obsequies of our eminent professor Luigi Maria Barbarino, prematurely passed due to a tragic fatality, will be held on Thursday 22nd at 16.30, at Poppi’s abbey…

       Thursday 22 July

      Arezzo’s countryside is nothing like Siena’s. Around the Palio’s city you find so many to-good-to-be-real little villages and then the hills: endless, small and all with one only farmhouse surrounded by trees on top. In the Arezzo area all is flat, the crops less diversified: houses are not isolated and far, but one next to the other, leaving wide empty spaces in between. The roads as well are different: over there they go up and down, with many curves, humps and slopes, here there is just a long straight way, seemingly leading to nothing.

      At 15.00 I’m already in Poppi, and I take advantage to visit the magnificent series of frescos in the Guidi counts castle. This way I find out that, when he was young, Dante took part as a knight in the famous battle fought in the plane under the castle: I always figured the sommo poeta shut in his room imagining celestial worlds, I really can’t imagine him in an armour, piercing and cutting enemies’ throats.

      I walk down from the fortress to San Fedele’s abbey. While I admire its ashlar stone facade, two professors come along tailed by their disciples. Professor Alessandri comes towards me and offers his condolences; I thank him somehow perplexed: I am not a family member, but probably for them I am the closest one to Barbarino, as I’ve been his assistant for years. When three more researchers do the same, I answer like I was at an old aunt’s funeral, the one that you haven’t seen in years and that, on top of it all, wasn’t that nice either: «Thank you, thank you, unfortunately… that’s life.»

      Finally, his family arrives: I send everyone to them, and get inside the church. After some interesting insights mixed with banalities from the priest, it is the director’s turn to speak. He stands from the right-hand side group of benches; the ones where all professors are dying of heat in their jackets and duty suits. While the lecturer walks between the lines, the general thought is only one: that he finishes soon. The director, with a wide dramatic gesture, puts the tocco (a black squared academic cap, given to honour the departed professor) on the casket. Once he’s on the podium, he takes out of his breast pocket three sheets, unfolds and refolds them in a dramatic act, all with a half-smile such as to say: I prepared a speech, but I will be magnanimous and spare you by improvising. A shared relief sigh follows this act.

      «Dear colleagues, we are here reunited to represent the whole academic staff in expressing our participation to the heart-felt mourning of the family.»

      [Translated from the academic language it means: how can the staff care, if even his own family doesn’t? That’s why there is so few of us.]

      «We were all struck by the sudden and premature departure of our respected colleague…»

      [= We immediately rejoiced when the old baron, finally, croaked…]

      «His loss leaves a hole, in the staff, that will be very hard to fill.»

      [= I will certainly not replace him, but will use the chair funds to give a raise to my mistress]

      «The whole faculty commits, to the extent possible, to continue on his behalf his work in Turkey.»

      [= If I still get funding from the Turkish government, I’ll send one of my interns, otherwise we leave it all immediately]

      «I think it will be a proper tribute to organise annual symposiums in his memory…»

      [= With the remains of the PRIN funds that still are in his name and that I cannot put in my pocket, I will organise half a day of studies this year and never again]

      «Last, but not least, please allow me to express my deepest gratitude to Francesco Speri, who took back our dear departed.»

      [= Luckily, I found this idiot, otherwise I would have been the one flying over there in this terrible heat]

      «I wish for dear Francesco, as the professor did, to find his rightful place at the University…»

      [= If Barbarino didn’t do anything about him while he was alive, I will certainly not put my efforts into finding this guy a position…]

      «…and see his years of continuous and fruitful collaboration with dear Luigi finally recognised.»

      [= You were his slave for years, now that he’s dead you’re on your own!]

      «Thanks again to all of you for participating in such a great number.»

      [= Unfortunately, I had to be here, but I am jealous of those who went to the beach].

      With these emotional words we take our leave, moved, from the eminent Luigi Maria Barbarino.

      At the exit everyone says quick goodbyes and runs to their car: my “ex-colleagues” can’t wait to get back to their academical researches, that they are conducting between the port of Talamone and the Capalbio G beach club.