October 29th 2023
Lenin
I was too busy with the events of the Revolution, the creation of a new World. There was no time to remember that book. Magic was also a concept I should be ashamed of. Rasputin was believed to have caused the ruin of the monarchy, of the illustrious dynasty of the czars. It was not my intention to spread, within the institutions of the new order, the cancer of superstition. Also there was no time to worry about details. Beside the white soldiers who had managed to survive the battles, the civil war and the action of my police, Moscow was not the most pleasant city to live in either. I doubt that Stalin ever tried anything villainous against my person, but too many were interested to get ridden of me. On top of that my health problems had begun to emerge and I preferred to rely on modern medicine. Thus the book got forgotten. Perhaps I could trace its history if I were able to look in the inventory of the objects left in my possession at the time of my mummification. Given the current stand of things, I cannot properly use the word “death”, because I am feeling very well alive. With the additional feature of having acquired the respectable attitude of the petit bourgeoisie. I only hope not to become a bigot, but bigotry is in the XXI century a prerogative of green, inclusive and islamic leftists. Old grannies aren’t bigots anymore.
The art dealer
Once again Damien Hirst and once again Heni. Such a couple sounds in my mind like the devil, or at least a really clever alchemist who can transmute lead into gold. This time they are proposing nine hundred, nive-zero-zero, unique paintings, all of them signed by the hand of Damien Hirst. I can hardly understand how, thanks to his quick technique, he had managed to produce so many canvases in a few months, to cover them with a pattern of random colours and gestures coherent enough to be sold as flowers. Not to forget that flowers are valued as much as portraits, if not even more, by contemporary collectors. Damien Hirst managed to accomplish the miracle so well that I would even be tempted to spend some money on it. It's a pity that during the last months the art market has been so poor that I can now spare enough money only to pay the medical insurance by the end of the year. I have also received, during these days, the picture of the idealised portrait that Orit Fuchs has made of Vivid, her imaginary creature. A young lady that is daring enough to appear under a large pink hat, dressed with a hot red robe. The painting hangs in an attica somewhere in London, surrounded by expensive furniture and a fine art collection. I wish I were the owner.
The consultant
While walking around Zurich, my mind travels back to the time when my grandfather was serving in the Italian army, during the Great War. I met my granddad only a few times. I was a kid and he was really old, suffering the worst possible health conditions. He fought against asthma, but nothing stopped him to enthusiastically speak about his youth adventures. Especially those dating between the years 1918 and 1922, when he stayed in Greece with a contingent of the occupation forces, at the behest of the King of Rome. Had it not been for Ataturk, perhaps he would have stayed there, even longer; he could have even settled there. The main characters of his story were the Graf von Pazze, who gave him that copy of Heidi's book under mysterious circumstances, and the beautiful Elena, a Greek from Corfu. Their lingua franca was that of Dante and they were quite welcome in the small cafes all around the island. One evening, theGraf von Pazze came home totally drunk. Perhaps he had underestimated the power of the ouzo or was particularly anxious to receive the undivided attention of the beautiful Elena. The latter was actually much more similar to Penelope and, despite being at ease both with my Grandad and the Graf von Pazze, she never conceded her love to any of them. That evening, or night, the Austrian aristocrat knocked at my grandad door and gave him the book. It was so necessary that he would have taken care of it.
