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wearing comfy, baggy holiday shorts. They looked like intelligent, wealthy people to me. No doubt they had a house in Dortmund and a delectable DVD collection in their designer shelving unit, a car with fancy wheel trims in the garage, and evening wear for their work’s New Year’s reception in their recessed wardrobe.
    In the Pré quarter, where Rashid lives along with the rest of Africa, every underprivileged illegal immigrant spends the first sixty euros he earns on a fake Rolex with imitation diamonds so that he can begin to fit in a little bit with the respectable Europeans, and those heirs of the wirtschaftswunder were just sitting there in their underwear. What kind of an impression do you think that made? And what do you think it means? What did they mean to say by this? If you’re on the beach by the Deiva Marina or at a campsite in Pieve Ligure I can understand it. But this was right in front of my view, on the most precious terrace in the city, in the shadow of centuries, in the historical center of Genoa, La Superba, the heart of the heartless one that had allowed them to penetrate to the roots of her pride. Does it mean they don’t understand or they don’t want to understand? Or are they sending out a special message? Like: We just happen to be on holiday here, nice to get away from all the stress, and that’s why we’re doing what we want, just having a lovely nice time being ourselves for those three weeks a year, you know. Or: Those Italians don’t know a thing, it’s just one bighip-hip-hooray beach from the Costa Brava to Alanya. Or is it actually intended as a status symbol dressing like that, does it mean you can permit yourselves to go on holiday without caring about anything whatsoever?
    â€œDon’t be fooled by appearances,” the signora said.
    â€œMy apologies, signora, I was distracted for a moment.”
    â€œHe looks like an unmade bed. He dresses as though he has shares in the illegal sewing shops in the Pré. It wouldn’t surprise me if he did. I must ask Ursula some time.”
    â€œWho are you talking about?”
    â€œUrsula Smeraldo. She has a countess in her family. By marriage, though. And just between you and me, she’s rather down on her luck, if you get my meaning. But we’re practically neighbors on the Via Giustiniani, and it would be strange if I didn’t greet her. What’s more, she knows what’s going on.”
    The tourists’ shamelessness reached a new low. They’d unfolded their map and asked the waitress where something was. They had the goddamn guts to speak to her! Probably about something ridiculous like the aquarium. She stood bent over their table for minutes on end, giving them all kinds of explanations. My waitress. She was sacred. No one can ask her the way to the aquarium in their underpants. She’s not allowed to reply, and certainly not so extensively and sweetly and prettily. Not so sweetly and prettily. Not so extensively. Not so bent over and so much in my line of vision it hurt.
    â€œI know about her, too.”
    I gave the signora an irritated look.
    â€œUrsula told me that Bernardo Massi broke up with his wife. But everyone knows that he’s powerful and important, that he’srich, I mean, even though he dresses like a tramp. Don’t be fooled by the exterior. Everything is hidden in Genoa. We don’t have any squares with fountains, no palazzi with fancy façades. All the gold and art treasures are hidden away behind incredibly thick walls of common gray limestone. A true businessman stashes away his fortune in an old sock and goes out onto the street wearing tatters in the hope of receiving alms. In Milan and Rome, everyone wants to show off everything, fare bella figura , with a flamboyant display of good taste and excess. In Genoa everyone understands that it doesn’t give you an advantage. To the contrary. The man who splashes his wealth about