Laurenzo

Laurenzo’s garden was a patch of Mediterranean perfection. The grape vines curled around the pillars, cats dozed on tables and in a wall a cross had been carved by a stonemason who pre-dated King Charles II. In this sun-dappled arcadia I was the only guest. The Albanian flag flapped on a growing breeze on the citadel across the river but here in the morning in this golden garden nothing stirred, not even thoughts or desires.

Enter Laurenzo the proprietor – a small, neat, middle-aged man with a boyish sun-bronzed complexion devoid of worry lines. But he had grievances. He had told me the day before that his mother was in hospital recovering from a heart bypass.

“I go now to the hospital but what’s the point? Yesterday we ask for blood test at one and then it comes at nine and I say how long is this will we wait three days? Fucking hell Madonna!”

His squeaky voice rose and fell in Italian fluctuations. Like many Albanians he had lived in Italy.

“I say the doctor I think you are not a doctor and my cousin come to confirm bad diagnosis. Fifty-eight years old. Covid death. Another gone. It’s the fucking brain drain here Albania same story people go to Germany, England, Austria and never come back do you know what it’s like the taxes here? Que cazzo! Fuck!”

“It’s the mafia and the prime minister he go ‘Albania great, Albania great!’…But what is all this fucking cement we have to produce things. CEMENT, CEMENT, CEMENT! They build this new fucking promenade with cement and it should be stone look at my stone walls and floor these guys are fucking idiots…they take six metres from the inside of the river and four metres from the outside of the river and in 1961 it come up to the fucking window so they know the level of the water these assholes…ALBANIA ALBANIA they say…Jesus!…Is this correct?”

“No.”

 “Exactly!”

“It’s too fragile they want mix of cement and smooth stones at a $1 million per day and look at the fucking hospitals everything is bribe bribe bribe…you are a doctor you poke your head around the door and in your broken head this is…how you say? Doing a round? But then the family give you money and now the doctor is true doctor…what the fuck is this?”

I had never seen anyone so agitated in such a tranquil place. Laurenzo had grown up here and I pictured him as a toddler, crawling around this bountiful garden, unaware of what Albania had in store for him.

“At least you are on the quieter side of the river,” I proffered lamely.

“Ah!” He railed, his arms shooting upwards like a Flamenco dancer.

“People come this side to walk do the giro, giro, giro….walk along the promenade…it’s too fucking hot with this cement the fucking giro no?”

Laurenzo then very politely asked for the bill for my stay, which so far on my trip I’d been used to paying on check-out. It occurred to me the paltry amount I handed to him for this paradise was destined for the hands of a doctor who would smilingly accept such largesse to keep an old woman’s failing heart beating a little while longer.

I watched him cycle down the hill, and the garden was still again, but not tranquil.