The Ball

At the time, the story had intrigued me and for a certain and prolonged period I had taken the occasional habit of going to patrol the building, to check the progress made in the office leasing. In the evening, the lights on would be a good indication of active leasing. Days and then months went by, but the only light was coming from the big LED display placed vertically between the two floors of the building: Luxurious offices. Book your viewing. Nor have I ever seen any sign of life forms living on the top floor of the vertical building.

The building was mentioned again at the office sometime later. In order to implement the new strategy to reduce the expenses, the brothers decided to get rid of several companies which were part of Ciapper. So, the holding had been merged with the property management company. After only a few months, Banano rental estate had subsequently been turned into what the brothers had described as a luxurious residence on Lake Garda, but the notary deed seemed to conceal some unwritten agreement. As a matter of fact, in a short time, the property had gone back to its original owners: Banano rental estate had gone back again to Ciapper and the further transfer had effectively got my interest in the matter to fade away.

I go back to 2017 subfolder and I read Domenica’s notes: Ciapper Real Estate ltd settles to sell the whole estate to Ciapper ltd. I open the Chamber of Commerce reports, first the one related to one company, then the one related to the other company, which I find out they had already been saved up by Domenica and they had been done two days before: the two brothers appear as the only shareholders. I go back to my notes and I figure out that the price amounts at ten million and is paid by sixteen bank drafts. Pdf files are saved up in the same place and have been created half an hour ago: € 625.000 each, issued by six different banks. I close all the open documents and I postulate that the whole thing can look very much like the last dramatic transfer of Banano estate that went from a vegetative state to decay.

I realise that I have attached too much attention to this issue, prompted by the curiosity caused by this ill-famed property, and I get the land registry extracts from the familiar site. I compare the pdf file from fifteen months ago with the new one and I notice, scrolling down the pages, that the two documents are identical: always 42 offices, registered as category A/10 and to this day 126 parking spaces, identified as C/6 and C/7.

I click on the email icon and I press the enter button to send a new email. I select Domenica from the list of contacts and I write in the field subject: Land registry reports and in the field body: Everything unchanged. Attachments. Good luck with that.

1.2 LIFE - FIVE

At 2:40 pm there are still all the company settings up and statutory amendments to be registered, for a total of ten documents. In four hours, I should be able to complete my work, just keeping my eyes on the screen constantly, I think.

As for the company settings up, I just need to register the transfer of ownership and input all the company data, the company directors’, the statutory powers: everything. It is a hard task, not a bit creative. The modifications are quite simple: I just have to register the updated statute and input a small amount of data, let aside unfortunate circumstances that could get the company contract to be not just amended but completely altered.

I start with the settings up, I set a core of my brain on auto. I open the pdf file of the first document and I start inputting data in the document in every field of the form: name, registered office, activity and all further necessary information, according to the legal status implemented.

I have been working here at Alessandro’s firm for fourteen years now, however it is a temporary situation, as I often repeat to myself: I must do something in life, I can’t be idle, waiting to find my path. As a matter of fact, as soon as I finished university, my only goal was to start working right away.

Considering the historical period, I had completed my university studies, my father advised me against taking up something similar to what he was doing, building and selling properties, nor had he suggested to work with him. An opportunity that, when you think about it, I did not even take into consideration.

In the 80’s luxury properties located in winter tourist resorts in the north of Italy allowed him to achieve a considerable entrepreneurial success. So much so that our lifestyle was comfortable enough to raise two children, to own a house in the city and two winter and summer holiday homes around the province. My memories of that period, although blurred, are those of a wealthy family background: my mother looked after us kids and our father was often missing, or rather he was around construction sites. Around the mid 90’s, as I grew older, I remember that there was talk about winter tourist market saturation in mountain areas so that my father had to get some work around Lake Garda, in search of new buyers, people who loved the place so much during the summer break that they would consider buying a steady home on the lake shore: luxury homes or homes which would attract wealthy people only. Several German tourists, but also tourists coming from eastern Europe, especially from Russia, beside some Italians with huge assets to invest, no-one knew where that wealth was coming from. So, our standard of living became more than comfortable: my father was getting busier with signing deeds of sale and being less around construction sites; in the meantime, I was growing up, I completed my higher education and I enrolled on a Business Economics and Legislation course at university.

Since my teenage years, I have been always interested in the manufacturing world: to make something tangible, maybe to manufacture a mass-produced item, a real object replicable in a large number of specimen. Once I completed university I did not exactly how to start off a business. I went for a temporary job, connected to the sector I wanted to get into. A job in an established notary office could give me a good chance to keep a close eye on the business world from inside and learn to understand it, a good ground to make ideas germinate.

So here I am, lost in an endless sequence of stories concerning companies, settings up, mergers, liquidation settlements. Ideas for businesses, examples not to follow, models to draw inspiration from. Then also all the series of events which are not really concerning companies, countless stories of people and surrealistic stories, meanwhile time, my time, goes by faster and faster. Marlon goes around the world with his volunteer mates, my parents withdraw to Germany to renovate my deceased grandfather’s home, and I am still wondering what I want to do when I grow up.

I hope that some other core in my brain has finished filling in properly the form of the file, while I was getting lost in my thoughts. I check the whole thing: the data seem to be complete. Check. Amend. Check. Amend.

Almost all right.

Check. Amend. Check. Send. Filed.

I stare at the screen and I realize that if I focused a bit more instead of wandering off I could get this pain in the ass over and done with more quickly. I can’t though, I feel unfocused today.

New file, new company. Name, registered office, date of incorporation, corporate purpose, company directors, powers. Attachments.

Sign. Amend. Delete. Attach. Sign. Attach. Sign. Check. Amend. Check. Send.

In two years’ time, at least four companies out of six will already be gone. I should suggest to Alessandro to put in the liquidation fee too in the registration quotes, just to pre-empt the situation.

⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎

I can hear a light sound of rain and a quick glance out the window validates my perception.

Probably you will be able to see the rain now from the seventh floor too. Provided it will stay there, all day.

Here are now the Ciapper brothers going past my office and heading off to the deed of sale room: their faces are quite gloomy. They are tagged along by Domenica who is following them; after a few minutes I can hear the door of the room close, there beyond the wall of my burial recess.

I must file the documents, keep on filing. There are three company settings up still left. The first one I am taking care of at the moment, is a simple limit liability partnership so I should deal with that in just a few clicks.

This void, this emptiness, you can almost have it, you know; you can almost have it, you know; you don’t remember what you want1, a gloomy half neuronal processor pounds, in the meantime.

Received. Saved.

The one before last. This is a standard limited liability company: what a drag.

So, with two cores, I am wondering how I ended up here: stagnant, without a real reason nor any conviction about what I really wanted. With my two cores spinning fast, what is unclear is what I want now which I realize now, I just don’t know what it is. One thing is sure: I have never dreamed of having what I have in my life now.

I stare at the screen.

The human brain has no cores and multitasking does not suit human beings: keeping the mouse cursor halfway through the form, I realize that my prefrontal cortex is just sending confused ideas to an unspecified part of the brain; it is overloading my work memory with unnecessary stimuli, wasting precious brain resources which could be better used in order to finish up this wearisome task.

Probably that’s what the notary public means: I am gloomy because of my prefrontal cortex. Not just within myself. I am visibly sombre and trapped in the darkness. I am stuck in a pattern, like the grid’s answer slots of a crossword puzzle. Three across, still, motionless and sombre, six letters and it ends with N-D-O.

I move the mouse and finish off two fields, I scroll down, skipping the optional data, and an unspecified part of my brain states that the file is ready to be forwarded to the Chamber of Commerce.

Send. Amend. Send. Amend. Send. Screw you. Amend. Send. Filed.

This is the last one, the front part of my brain declares, before starting again to endlessly question myself as how my life could take this unchosen direction. My right hand stops again, stopping the mouse halfway down the bottom of the form. The idea overtakes the queuing working memory, elbowing through the newly set company data, and freeze every other scheduled thought, while waiting for the requested processing.

I stare at the monitor with my head leaning slightly forward and my eyes open wide. It’s because it was supposed to be a temporary solution, while waiting to do what I wanted. Why not taking up something else straight away, my PFC goes on undeterred, now that a preferential route has been discovered to overwhelm the other neuronal flows. Unless you have completed whatever, you can’t do anything else, so you can just do something for the time being. Just do it then and that’s it, don’t be a pain in the ass, the occipital lobe proclaimed annoyed.

I hear the door into the deed of sale room open, I blink a couple of times and I lean back on my armchair. Domenica says goodbye to the Ciapper brothers, goes past the door of my office and disappears in her office; Alessandro exchanges a few words with the enlightened businessmen whose faces are duller than before, taking them down the corridor.

«So we are back to the origins: Banano rental estate belongs to Ciapper again, the building company which built it. It has been owned by so many companies, poor building!» he utters.

«Yes, sure: dreadful!. It was the beginning of the end» the elder brother, one of the company directors, replies.

I shift the mouse, I press some buttons, I browse and attach the pdf file and I press enter: this is filed too.

No rectification? Where is the button really? I wondering about this while I save the receipt.

«Goodbye notary; have a nice evening, Miss» I hear in the distance.

She is not a Miss: she is married. Even if she wasn’t, Tamara is forty. In the 1800’s people used to say Miss: come on, get the hell out of here, you too Ciapper, you and your Banano estate.

1 Afterhours (artist), Padania (album title), Padania (track title), 2012 (year)

1.3 IMPULSES

1.3 IMPULSES - ONE

It is 5.00 pm and it is almost completely dark.

I stand up off my armchair and I look out the window, towards the street below. I am looking at the light off the lamppost: it looks as if it has stopped raining.

There are only the statutory changes to cover and all should be done for today in two hours. I linger on the uselessness of this present day which, once again, did not do anything for my existential condition as compared to the previous day; dazzling blue at the beginning and gloomier and gloomier as the hours go by, using this adjective that is now stuck in my mind.

I get back to my desk and get ready to work at the statutory changes.

«Brando, there you are» the notary said with a lively tone, storming into my office. «What are you up to?»

«I am just finishing off filing all the deeds related to the fifth week in 2017» I reply, turning around to the doorway.

«Are there many left still?»

«Only four.»

«Good. Do you remember, right, about the issue we need to talk about?»

«Yes, I think so. Come the evening, I must say I was starting to feel this emptiness in my day» I add a bit sarcastically. «Shall we talk about buying cars? Have you seen any interesting new models? Any restyling? Perhaps talking about that trackday I had mentioned to you?»

The notary is looking puzzled.

«In my opinion you should really try your red economy car on the track. If you like, I can show you the internet site, you can also book it online: €375 for the whole morning.»

«I am glad you are talking about trackday: I can sense you are at least less gloomy» the notary said. «Anyway, no, once again the trackday. Marisa: Mrs and Mr Pardoli...»

«That’s right: somehow it had completely slipped my mind» I am joking.

«Yes, Brando, sure. Please come over to me as soon as you are done with the statutory changes.»

«Alright. I am afraid it will not be that quick, notary.»

«It doesn’t matter, omnia tempus habent: tonight there will be a Provençal Tuesday at the Bistrot and I would pretty much like to miss it, or to get there late; so I am not going before 9:00pm.»

«How wonderful: a theme night. And French too: really awesome.»

«That’s right, Brando, really awesome. As a matter of fact, I want to enjoy the feeling of anticipation till the last moment» the notary says, turning around and taking a few steps. «And beyond» he adds, going off.

Changes... I am thinking, feeling a bit pissed off looking back at the screen. I type in the tax code, I retrieve the data from the Business Register, I attach the updated statute and I click on the button to change the data, starting from the new corporate purpose and putting in the few changes made. I am overwhelmed by a feeling of sickness, like vomit deep down my bowels.

Check, amend, send. Filed.

I press the button to call the notary on my phone.

«Excuse me, is that all the deeds for today, right? What are you doing? Can I pop over to talk about the slut, so that I take a break from all the filing?»

«Sure, Brando, we can confer right now.»

I come out of my office, turn right and I walk for a short distance and I get to Alessandro’s office.

«Here I am, ready to confer» I giggle.

I am sitting on the armchair in front of the notary’s desk which, looking at it more carefully, as that happened several times, it is not really a desk, it looks more like an old wooden table, with an uneven surface. It may date back 1700’s, or a similar period. Behind the desk, against the wall, I see a white bookcase which draws my attention: it is almost as high as the ceiling, five or six metre wide and it has seven shelves. Up above it, there are all the deeds of sale arranged chronologically, since the beginning of the notary’s career, they are facing the room in front, squeezed in elegant black volumes with a silk-screened spine with golden characters.

«So?» I venture to say.

«Just a moment» he says keeping his eyes on the screen.

«Tuesday, February 7th, 2017, Provençal night.»

«What a story!»

«It is the Facebook page of the Bistrot: look how beautiful it is. Pistou and ratatouille: the pictures are very good.»

I lean over the desk to look at the screen where the notary pointing to show me. «Are there photos taken by the chef today while making the food for tonight?»

«Yes, the chef is an all-round artist: from cooking to photography.»

«They are not bad at all, it’s a shame that you won’t be there. If you want to go right away, we can talk about it some other time. You can help your wife organise the evening» I try to suggest.

«Have a seat, Brando: we have been postponing this for weeks» he replies, with an almost peremptory tone.

«Right. Not always because of me, though.»

«True. I am fed up with this issue myself now.»

«Sorry, can you do a quick recap on the latest developments? I think I haven’t been there at the last two meetings.»

«Sure. The last two meetings were confidential, Brando.»

«Right, confidential.»

«Correct. Let’s recap the whole thing and let’s get to the latest sequence of events from a few weeks ago» the notary starts off. «Mr and Mrs Pardoli got married around 2001, more or less. Augusto Pardoli was married before to another woman, did you know that, didn’t you?»

«Yes, I got it while taking care of the deeds.»

«Good. He was born in 1950, so at the time of his second marriage, he was somewhere in his 50s.»

«On the other hand, Marisa is much younger than him, right notary?»

«Yes, I would say so. However, she must be now the same age he was at the time of the marriage. Let me check, I opened the last deed earlier on» the notary says shifting the mouse. «Yes, she was born in 1968: so, she is forty- nine. Right, she is three years younger than me, I remember now.»

«She looks quite well for her age, she looks five or six years younger.»

«Maybe so, Brando. However, I would say that it is not necessary to discover whether or how much the lady looks after her appearance.»

«Sure. Please go ahead.»

«As from the date of their wedding, Augusto has been constantly giving gifts to Marisa. At first they were cash donations, then he gave her the house where they live, and soon after the one on the lake. In the last few years, Marisa decided to take up a job, and I quote, because she was tired of being at home, doing nothing all day. That’s how the limited company was set up to run a retail footwear business: a shoe shop for ladies and gents.»

«Right...» I say feeling a little puzzled, trying to stimulate my neutrons in order to understand what the gender of the people buying shoes has got to do with the whole matter.

«At first the company belonged to the two of them: fifty fifty; that’s what Mr Pardoli said anyway, he could have helped her to run it with his experience in the business sector.»

«Just out of curiosity» I interrupt him «what is Mr Pardoli into? I don’t really think that any file connected to his business has ever been around the office.»

«I think he has a small company dealing with metal polishing. It belonged to his father, many years ago.»

«Right. Anyway, for all the donations and the other deeds, we always talk about small amounts of cash.»

«This is remarkable, Brando: I summed it all up. The cash donations that have been made so far amount to € 55.000. The two houses had a total market value of € 300.000, at the time of the donations, so I think that now it is less. The company had a capital of € 20.000 and each of the spouse had deposited €10.000. So, back then, there was no cash donation, let aside the fact that after a few months, Mr Pardoli gave his € 10.000 share to his wife» the notary explains firmly. He then looks away from me and stares at the screen, without saying a word.

«Thorough recap, thank you. This is broadly what we know, right?»

«I’d say so. What do you think about all these transactions?» Alessandro asks me looking back at me.

«I don’t think much about them. I have never understood why they got married under the regime of separation of property and then poor Augusto started to give his wife everything, despite our attempts to dissuade him. It is okay if we just talk about money, a money transfer would have been sufficient, on the other hand, it becomes a problem when people start donating properties, because selling it then can become an issue.»

«Why did you refer to Augusto as poor?»

«Well, Alessandro, I said that because he looks like a henpecked man, like many of the kind. She is much younger than him, he tries his best to hold on to her, giving her as much as he can put together. These situations are not usually created by logic: these decisions are not made using your head but using some other parts of your body.»

«Which ones, Brando?»

«I meant» I answer him back pausing for a while, «I don’t know, using your gut, I would say, not your head. We say that, don’t we?»

«True: using your gut. Why do you often refer to Marisa using that word...?»

«Well, notary. If I am not wrong, when I use that nickname, you immediately understand who I am talking about, right?»

«Sure.»

«There you go. That word suits the person in my opinion. It’s like when a person is very thin and people say that she or he is as thin as a rake» I reply, while the notary looks at me puzzled, not saying a word. «I’ll give you another example. Today the plump guy with a moustache, the guy from the virtual brothel, Newco Dating Ltd, looked a bit like Tom Sellek: I could start calling him like this if he was around the office a bit more often. You would understand who I am talking about, wouldn’t you?»

«It’s maybe because I have only seen him once, however, I don’t know whether I could easily match the actor to that face: I mean, the word used for Marisa goes straighter to the point. Have you got any more examples?»

«I don’t know. You don’t like rake. For instance...» I go on saying, keeping my voice down, «if I said that the peroxide blonde bush finishes work in ten minutes and at 6.00 pm on the dot this person will leave the office, who would you think of?»

«This is easy, but there is also some affection behind it all.»

«Yes, sure. There is affection too in the definition itself: it describes the person in two words.»

«Yes, you are right. Go ahead.»

I lift my hands towards my head, I rest my elbows on my knees and I run my fingers through my hair.

«I wouldn’t really know... it is like when we talk about a person as a mafioso to refer to someone who goes around with his shirt open and a golden cross dangling on his hairy chest; or addict, to someone who has a dull look and staggers through.»

«That’s okay but what I mean is... why do you think people understand when one talks about other people using these fanciful nicknames?»

«Probably because if you think about it they are not so fanciful...»

«Or else, the two speakers have a similar mentality, so a reference could be good between two people, but not with a third person. Right, Brando?»

«Sure. I believe there are different situations. For instance, I don’t know, I don’t think that the name Richard the Lionheart was created after a conversation between two people, I think that the whole community felt that way about him.»

«Probably we are digressing a little too much.»

«No, no, I take it as an ordinary discussion, Alessandro; if you wish, we could continue it down at the bar, holding a glass of wine so we can get more in tune with the various aspects of the topic.»