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.I’m not educated like you, but I still have the right to ask: If Andreotti had dealings with the Mafia, does that mean I voted for the Mafia and didn’t realize it? Does that mean that the Mafia governed Italy for decades? Lately we’ve been hearing about that Northern League that’s doing its best to divide the country in two and found a new state, Padania.What country are we living in? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Madonna, help us!I hope Signor Amedeo comes back soon.Then you will discover the terrible mistake you’ve made.I tell you, this country is a wonderland.From now on I won’t be surprised if I hear someone say that Giulio Andreotti is Albanian or Pakistani or Filipino.Signor Amedeo is the only tenant who stops to talk to me.He always calls me Signora Benedetta and he avoids using the elevator because he respects my work, he knows how I struggle to keep things peaceful for the tenants.The disappearance of Signor Amedeo and the groundless accusation that he murdered the Gladiator make me long to leave Rome for my final return to Naples.Yes, that’s San Gennaro calling me! I’ll go to the church of San Domenico in Naples to pray for Signor Amedeo.SECOND WAILThursday February 4, 11:14 P.M.I tried unsuccessfully to convince Benedetta, the concierge, that Parviz isn’t Albanian, and that merci is a French word meaning “thank you” that is used, with the same meaning, in Iran.When I got home tonight she stopped me, as usual, and after a long tirade in which she kept repeating that I’m like her only son she advised me to stay away from the Albanian, saying, “That crook! He’s just going to cause you a ton of problems, because witnesses have seen him selling drugs in Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore while he’s pretending to feed the pigeons.” The police have arrested him several times, but she couldn’t understand why they release him right away.Tuesday June 4, 10:57 P.M.The morbid relationship that Benedetta has established with the elevator raises a lot of questions.This morning she was very angry with Parviz.She complained for a long time, saying that the Albanian, as she calls him, “wrecks the elevator” in order to get her fired from her job, on the pretext that she’s old and can’t look after the tenants.I promised to speak to Parviz to try and resolve this problem.I hate the elevator because it reminds me of a tomb.I hate confined spaces, except this bathroom.It’s my nest.Today I read an article about the hoopoe in the magazine Focus; apparently it’s the only bird that takes care of its needs in its nest! There’s another bird as mysterious as the hoopoe.It’s the crow, which showed Cain how to get rid of the corpse of his brother Abel by digging a pit.It’s said that this was the first murder on earth, so the crow is the first expert on burial in history.I am a special sort of crow.My mission is to bury bloodstained memories.Friday September 6, 10:35 P.M.Our neighbor Elisabetta’s dog has vanished.Tonight Benedetta asked me insistently the names of the countries where people eat dog.I answered that I don’t know, then she surprised me with a strange question: “Does your friend the Albanian eat dogs and cats?” I swore that Parviz has never in his entire life touched dog or cat! This old lady has a disarming naïveté.Wednesday November 17, 11:27 P.M.Today Benedetta revealed a very sensitive secret to me.She said in a low voice, in order not to be heard by anyone else: “The disappearance of the dog Valentino isn’t accidental.He was kidnapped by the Chinese children who play in the gardens in Piazza Vittorio! They hunt for cats and dogs the way our children chase butterflies.” Then she advised me to avoid Chinese restaurants because their favorite dish is made with dog.I restrained myself from bursting into laughter, said goodbye in a hurry, and ran up the stairs.As soon as I opened the door I started laughing like a lunatic.And then I had a brilliant idea.I wondered what would happen if I knocked on Elisabetta Fabiani’s door and said to her: “I’ve just come back from the Chinese restaurant next door, and I had rice with some delicious meat; when I was leaving I asked the restaurant owner what kind of meat I’d eaten and he said, ‘It’s from a dog we found one morning near our restaurant, he was wearing a collar that had “Valentino” written on it.’” I haven’t laughed so much for a long time.Anyway, I hope little Valentino comes back soon, so I’ll be able to listen to him wailing at night.Saturday January 7, 11:48 P.M.Benedetta usually complains about everything: the tenants in the building, the government, the businesses in Piazza Vittorio, how bad the health service is, the high price of medicine, taxes, rain, the immigrants.But today she talked to me about her son Gennaro, who’s unemployed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]