LITMIR.BIZ

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perils of his profession.

      Agatha fumbled around once again in her roomy handbag – the one which Enzo had so cleverly restored to her - in a quest to find her headscarf, and Emily followed her movements with glances of disapproval. Agatha always had to be searching for something or other! She just got confused so easily; and unfortunately this was getting worse as the years passed. Just watching her made Emily nervous, and with an inaudible sigh she turned to the tea-drinking Enzo:

      “We like your home town very much, except that the traffic is much too hectic, but......” At that moment Agatha dropped the open bag on the floor and its copious contents, including passport, cash, cheques, receipts, keys, make-up articles and tickets - everything but the proverbial kitchen sink - sailed out across the beautiful stone floor of the Capitoline Piazza. Enzo’s professional interest sparked into life and he stooped down quickly: He could at least then check out what was waiting for him in the near future, and while with his well-practised fingers he helped gather up all the bits and pieces, his eye fell upon a much leafed-through set of travel documents: Calais-Rome, and, on the next page, Rome-Venice. And then by boat from Venice to Mallorca. So when they leave Venice, they leave Italy....

      Enzo straightened up slowly and gave the bewildered and contrite Agatha back her belongings. And as he broke into a radiant smile showing his flawless teeth, his plan was already quite settled in his mind. He turned politely to Emily and picked up the thread of their conversation once again:

      “Rome is not my home city, Signora: I am just here for a short holiday. My home is La Serenissima, the city on the lagoon - Venice!”

      “No, really? What luck!” cried out Agatha. “ You must see us again, when you are in Venice!”

      “The young man will have better things to do in Venice, than visit two old ladies”, said Emily slightly defensively and she looked reprovingly at her friend. Agatha was always so impulsive. Actually, she had changed very little since the time when they had both been at boarding school together more than half a century ago. Agatha then had been a widely acknowledged enfant terrible and the terror of their dormitory.

      Enzo then saw his ship sailing away over the horizon, and answered hurriedly: “Oh no, Signora, it would be a real pleasure for me to meet you in Venice! I worked there for years as a guide. Now I only take my friends and acquaintances round the sights. I could show you the city: The Doge’s Palace, the Grand Canal, the Islands..”

      Emily, who had been eyeing him closely through her thick glasses, interrupted the flow of his speech: “What job do you do now, Signor......?”

      His tea, that disgusting brew, went down his throat the wrong way, and Enzo choked. He bowed slightly, while still sitting. “Enzo - Enzo Marrone!” He had translated his mother’s name into Italian without any pang of conscience. “What work do I do, do you mean?” Enzo put down his tea cup, coughed extravagantly again and continued: “I am a freelancer, doing market research - it’s interesting work actually.” Enzo leaned back. Once again he was pleased with his ability to give a rapid response. He hadn’t actually lied. Was he not in fact researching the market, persistently and thoroughly, with his finger on the pulse of civic life? And you could call his profession freelance, well yes, by God, that would be a very apt description of it: freelance just like any outlaw!

      Emily nodded a little uncertainly. She just couldn’t picture it in her own mind and, had Enzo been one of her former students, she would have advised him to go after a profession that was a bit more resilient. However you couldn’t apply British standards anyway to these people from the Continent, and that was even more the case with Italians, who were such a unique, hard to comprehend people, who were always fluctuating between extremes. A person would just make do with the fact that they are not devoting themselves to a too bizarre and extravagant lifestyle.

      Meanwhile, after further energetic excavations into the unfathomable depths of her handbag, Agatha brought to light a scrap of paper and a pencil and she scribbled zealously.

      “This is the address of our hotel in Rome,” she said, smiling guilelessly, and basically placing the rope into Enzo’s hand, which would then make it much less difficult for him to lead them where he wanted them, like a shepherd and his soft wooly lamb. For her un-English behaviour, and for showing a deplorable lack of reserve, she reaped a disapproving look from her friend and companion Emily.

      “It’s getting a little bit hot here, Agatha, don’t you think?” she said in a slightly raised voice and stood up. “I believe we’d be better off now going back to the hotel.” Emily was inclined to get away from the Capitoline, before Agatha, this scatterbrained philanthropist, invited the young Italian man back to their home in England. Agatha was capable of anything.

      Agatha took leave of Enzo with gracious respect and made her way quickly to the stone staircase. Even gratitude had its limits.

      Enzo waited for a while, still watching as the two English women called for a taxi at the foot of the stairs and were driven away in it, and then he whistled nonchalantly in the direction of the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. Immediately Luigi and Dante, the dog he was walking, came running across:

      “Why didn’t you take the bag? There must have ben a whole pile of money in it! I haven’t eaten anything yet today.” “Shut your mouth and stop annoying me,” Enzo interrupted him brusquely, while he gently ruffled the fur of the leaping, joyfully whining dog. “I have a plan, do you hear, a good plan which is going to lead to great things for both of us.”

      “What sort of plan, Enzo, enlighten me...”

      “Not yet,” Enzo snarled, “right now I need a Campari. I had to drink tea with them. Tea! Tea makes me sick.” He spat in a wide arc on to the star-decorated Piazza floor and ordered a double Campari without soda. When he saw Luigi’s hungry expression, he grumpily ordered him a Coke. The dog lay down under the small cafe table and promptly went to sleep.

      Early summer on the Via Appia, or the ordeal in a rental car

      Enzo had looked after the piece of paper with the hotel address on very well, and he kept his victims in his sights. He wanted to bump into them a couple more times in Rome, to make the transition to Venice seem easier and more natural. This fat and somewhat irksome matron obviously wouldn’t be wanting it, but he, Enzo, had made a decision and there were a thousand ways and means by which he could engineer a chance meeting.

      Ultimately Rome was a pretty small place, when you considered that all the foreigners tended to set out repeatedly for the same focal points of interest: the churches and the ancient monuments.

      Enzo sat on the steps of Santa Maria Maggiore, and kept watch over their hotel. The two old bats hadn’t been very ambitious these past few days. Perhaps they had fallen ill and were flying back to England prematurely? That would be the final straw. These foreigners just couldn’t take it. They had weak stomachs and intestines, which were affected by every little bit of dirt in their diet and every overdose of oil in their food. Enzo spat on the steps and, troubled, looked across at the hotel.

      Then, just at that moment, they emerged out of the front door: the thin, lively and (heavens be praised) extremely trusting one, with the one with the thick glasses trudging alongside. She was carrying a large umbrella - Madonna Mia! - and next she slowly lifted her head and gave a shortsighted look up to the heavens. How else was the sky going to be other than blue, he thought with contempt, and he ambled slowly down the steps.

      The two of them pattered up the street like two uncertain hens, and then they waved down a taxi. They were going to throw away all their lovely money - Enzo’s money - on these endless taxi journeys! He observed how Emily and Agatha chatted with the driver before they got in. Once they had driven away, Enzo ran quickly across to the old man who was loitering there on the pavement.

      “Did you hear where the two old ladies wanted to go?”

      “Let me have a think about it,” the old man said and he reached out a filthy palm. With reluctance

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