Following my visit our relations became decidedly cordial – on my part at least. I went to great lengths to have some exceptionally fresh sea urchins brought in from Genoa. When I learned that they would arrive the following day I procured some Etna wine and farmer’s bread and nervously invited the senator to visit me in my tiny apartment. To my great relief he very happily accepted. I picked him up in my Fiat 508 and dragged him all the way to Via Peyron, which is something of a backwater. In the car he displayed some fear and no confidence whatsoever in my driving skills. ‘I know you now, Corbera; if we’re unlucky enough to encounter one of your abortions in a frock, you’re liable to turn your head and send us both smashing into the corner of a building.’ We met no skirted monstrosity worthy of note and arrived safely.

For the first time since I met him I saw the senator laugh – when we entered my bedroom. ‘So then, Corbera, this is the theatre of your vile exploits.’ He examined my few books. ‘Fine, fine. Perhaps you’re less ignorant than you seem. This one here,’ he added as he picked up a volume of Shakespeare, ‘this one here understood something. “A sea-change into something rich and strange.”¹ “What potions have I drunk of Siren tears?”’²

When the good Signora Carmagnola entered the drawing room carrying the tray of sea urchins, lemons, and the rest, the senator was ecstatic. ‘This was your idea? How did you know they are the thing I long for more than any other?’

‘You can safely enjoy them, Senator; this morning they were still in the Ligurian Sea.’

‘Yes, of course, your sort are always the same, slaves to your decadence, to your putrescence; your long, asinine ears always straining to make out the shuffling steps of Death. Poor devils! Thank you, Corbera, you’ve been a good famulus. It’s a shame they’re not from the sea down there, these urchins, that they haven’t been steeped in our algae; their spines have surely never drawn a drop of divine blood. You’ve done what was possible, certainly, but these urchins, having dozed on the cold reefs of Nervi or Arenzano, they’re almost boreal.’ It was clear that he was one of those Sicilians for whom the Ligurian Riviera – considered a tropical region by the Milanese – may as well be Iceland. The urchins, split in half, revealed their wounded, blood-red, strangely compartmentalized flesh. I’d never paid attention before now, but after the senator’s bizarre comparisons they really did seem like cross sections of who knows what delicate female organs. He consumed them avidly but without cheer, with a meditative, almost sorrowful air. He didn’t want to squeeze any lemon over them.

‘Your sort, always combining flavours! Sea urchins have to taste also like lemon, sugar also like chocolate, love also like paradise!’ When he finished he took a sip of wine and closed his eyes. After a bit I noticed, slipping from beneath his shriveled eyelids, two tears. He stood up and walked to the window, where he furtively dried his eyes. Then he turned. ‘Have you ever been to Augusta yourself, Corbera?’ I’d spent three months there as a recruit; during off-duty hours two or three of us would take a boat out on the transparent waters and explore the gulfs. After my answer he was silent; then, in an irritated voice: ‘And did you grunts ever arrive as far as the inland gulf past Punta Izzo, behind the hill overlooking the saltworks?’