Italian
The city is old. I should write ancient but here everything smells of irredeemable decay, like any Arab city scattered between the desert and the sea. The ruins of a lost war against time and bad politics besiege it. The buildings stand out against the sky, yellow and worn by the sun. The sea is there, as always. Blue and vast, indifferent to the city. Palermo doesn’t care. They have been looking at each other for centuries and neither has ever said anything interesting to the other.
PALERMO. I walk through the narrow streets in the morning. The stones are still cool, the shadows long. A man sells fish from a cart with rough, weathered hands. He doesn’t look up as I pass by. The silvery fish have cloudy eyes. Dead for hours, he sells them as if they were just caught. The tourists believe it. The people of Palermo know. No one says anything.
The Four Corners stand at the intersection. Four corners, four fountains, four seasons, four Spanish kings. The yellow stone is corroded by smog and time. People pass by without looking up. The statues of the kings stare into the void, dead for centuries, yet they continue to reign over an intersection where scooters zoom by, unaware of any traffic light.
The Ballarò market lives on noises. Men shout prices, women respond with veiled insults and smiles. A daily theater. The smell of blood mixes with lemons and spices. A skinned kid hangs from a hook, eyes open, perhaps surprised by the price the butcher asks.
I’m having a coffee in a tiny bar. Small cup, hot coffee, strong and bitter, with a burnt taste. The barista doesn’t smile, he doesn’t need to. The old men at the tables are silent, reading newspapers, waiting for the day to pass. They have been doing this for seventy years. They have become masters of waiting.
In the cathedral it’s cool and dark. The tombs of the kings. The cold marble. A woman prays in a side chapel, wielding a rosary like a weapon. Her head covered with a black handkerchief, she doesn’t look at me. Her business is with God, asking for a miracle. God stopped performing them in Palermo centuries ago. No one has dared to tell her.
The puppet theater is small. Behind a worn curtain, the puppeteers move the puppets that fight, die, and rise again. The children watch motionless. They cheer when the villain dies. They know the ending before the beginning. Like politicians who promise salvation, like projects never completed, like roads never repaired.
Lunch at a table on the street. Pasta with sardines and wild fennel. The elderly waiter brings bread and wine in silence. Hard and good bread, cold wine that smells of sun and flowers. Next to me, two men play cards without speaking. Friends for half a century, with nothing left to say. They know each other better than their wives. They know who cheats. They pretend not to know.
The oppressive afternoon heat takes your breath away, killing thoughts. Deserted streets, closed shutters. Even the dogs seek the shade. Only tourists wander in the heat, photographing buildings they will forget, buying Chinese souvenirs they will throw away, paying four times the right price thinking they are getting a good deal.
The Cove curves around the harbor. Blue, green, white boats rock on the water. Fishermen mend nets with ancient gestures, passed down from father to son. But their children will not follow this path. They will go north or abroad, returning at Christmas with strange accents and expensive gifts. The boats will end up sold to restaurants or abandoned to sink.
In the botanical garden, the trees are patriarchs. Giant Ficus with serpentine roots, tall and indifferent palms. Plants from different continents grow together, collected by an empire that has now disappeared. The guards sleep on plastic chairs. Signs prohibit touching. No one reads them.
The elderly populate the streets in the evening, sitting in front of the doors. They observe the women, who know they are being watched. An ancient dance. The elderly make comments, the women pretend not to hear. The comments never change. The women do, but the elderly do not notice.
At the Palazzo dei Normanni, the golden mosaics capture the light of the sunset. The Christ Pantocrator observes with stern eyes. He has seen Normans arrive, Arabs depart, Spaniards, Bourbons, Italians pass by. The gold remains, the eyes do not blink. The ticket price increases every year. Christ does not receive a percentage.
I drink wine in a small square as the night falls. Plastic chairs, uneven tables, and grease stains on the cobblestones. An old jar of unwanted olives, wrinkled, bitter, good. A cat watches from the doorway, not waiting for food, not needing it. It’s the fattest feline I’ve ever seen. Eats better than the tourists spending twenty euros on a plate of pasta alla norma.
In Kalsa, music filters through the windows. The buildings lean in as confidants. Some used to be palaces, now they display signs in unlikely English offering rooms to tourists, or remain abandoned with windows like empty eyes. Children play soccer against centuries-old walls. The ball bounces off ancient stones. The stones don’t care, neither do the children. They dream of being champions. No one dreams of restorations.
On the seafront, couples stroll. They don’t look at the sea, an eternal and taken-for-granted presence. The lights of the boats move on the black water. They go out, they come back. The city no longer depends on the sea. They are like old spouses with nothing left to say to each other.
Monte Pellegrino watches over the city. It was there for the Greeks, for the Phoenicians. They have disappeared, but the mountain remains. It will be there when Palermo no longer exists. Santa Rosalia inhabits the mountain, protects against the plague, but can do nothing against politicians.
In my room I open the window. The warm air carries smells of exhaust fumes and sea salt. Bells ring at intervals, marking quarters and hours as they have done for centuries. For the living, for the dead, for the passing of time, for Palermo. The tourists nearby complain about the noise. They don’t understand that the bells were here first, and will remain after.
In the morning the light is sharp, the sky an impossible blue. Pigeons flutter around the red domes built by the Arabs. Birds leave droppings on the monuments: their only architectural criticism.
I have breakfast with a cannolo. Sweet and fresh ricotta, crispy and oily crust. At the table next to me, an old man is eating the same dessert, maybe for fifty years. The cannolo remains unchanged, the man does not. Tourists take pictures instead of eating. The old man looks at them disdainfully. I share his outrage.
The fishmonger shouts out prices with a powerful voice. Her eyes read desires before they are expressed. Her hands weigh, cut, wrap. It has always been this way. No gloves, no electronic scale. The health inspector pretends not to see. She gives him fish on Fridays.
In abandoned gardens, lemons grow wild. Knotty trees, unripe fruits that no one picks. They survive because they are strong, like Palermo. Signs promise renovations with European funds for fifteen years. The lemons seem to smile at them.
The cobblestone street cuts through the center like a sword. Stones smoothed by centuries of steps. They do not protest. Steps come and go, the stones remain. Among piled up waste, scooters invade the pedestrian area. Pedestrians protest, but no one listens.
At the end of the road, a church awaits. Perhaps it was a mosque, even a temple before. The ancient columns remain while the gods change. People enter, pray, exit. The gods listen or ignore. The church does not judge, the offering box does, always empty. The priest complains, God is silent.
The puppeteer has gnarled hands, three centuries of tradition in his gestures. The marionettes dance, fight, die, and are reborn. The audience applauds the show that never changes. The son is studying economics in Rome. He will not return. The marionettes know, but they remain silent.
In the square, the boys play soccer until late at night. Dark bodies against the city lights. The ball flies from one to another in silence. The movements are as familiar as breaths. One has talent, an observer will take him away tomorrow. The square will remain, the game will continue without him.
An old woman shouts from the window. The boys ignore her. It’s part of the ritual. She knows they won’t listen, they know she will shout. Eighty-six years against sixteen. They loathe each other. They couldn’t exist without one another.
At midnight Palermo doesn’t sleep. The streets are crowded, families stroll, children run, the elderly observe. The city comes alive at night when the heat subsides. The wind carries the breath of the sea. Cars parked in triple rows block everything. The traffic wardens only see those parked correctly. Those are the ones they fine.
Tomorrow will be the same. The fish sold, the coffee drunk, the bells rung. The sea and the city, both old, both eternal, will ignore each other. As always.
