The days flew by and I was still winging it. I told Lucrezia that Joseph had given me a copy of his residence permit, it was downstairs and I’d bring it to her tomorrow. Meanwhile, she shouldn’t worry, it was in the kitchen with all the other important paperwork, and Joseph knew he had to sneak out the back door in the unhappy event of an inspection.
And as time went by, there was still no sign of a contract. Some of the staff were starting to grumble. One of the waitresses, after a particularly grueling dinner service, suggested we all go on strike. Michele worked himself up into a lather and went all union rep on us. I was against striking. I felt that the place was mine. I needed it as much as someone in love clings to a dream. But above all, the days were whizzing by and I was determined to keep my job, at least until September.
The general sense of disquiet was so evident that Lucrezia called a meeting with all the staff. We found ourselves sitting in a circle, with her in the middle urging us to be patient a little while longer, the contracts were on the way. While the others muttered, rolled their eyes, or pretended to send text messages, I was all ears. In a nutshell, she said, this venue was her home, but it was ours too, and we wouldn’t have a roof over our heads without her. She didn’t explain how or when she’d be getting the famous permits from the Rome City Council and legally taking over the venue. Nor did she enlighten us with any well-thought-out strategies for balancing the books and finally posting a profit, starting with the overdue bills for the concerts. All she talked about was her dream, which if we pulled together and worked as a team, with drive and determination, we could share. In the end, she put on a fairly creditable performance, transfiguring her self-indulgent palaver into something she believed to be substance. It was hard to tell if she knew how vacuous she sounded and that she had no chance whatsoever of putting any concrete plans into action or getting anyone to back them, and was relying on her own egocentricity and our understanding. A master of mendacity without a shred of embarrassment.
She was a seasoned politician in full campaign mode, a fine example of faith in the magic of words, the abracadabra, and the hey, presto! of our times. Lucrezia talked to her staff the way incumbents talk to constituents, acknowledging their needs and offering reassurances that their problems would be addressed and resolved because that was the right thing to do, there was no other option, right? Everyone would get a contract. Because the council would give us the venue. They would give it to us because we were working together as a team. Like many other restaurant owners, she made out that the business’s success depended entirely on the staff’s perseverance, and the contracts and everything else would follow as a matter of course.
It was just like Santa Claus when you’re a kid. You don’t need to meet him or talk to him to believe in Santa. They tell you a fat man in a red suit with a long white beard brings you presents. Therefore, if there are presents under the tree, then there has to be a fat man in a red suit with a long white beard who slides down the chimney on Christmas Eve with a big bag of toys. If there’s work, then there must be a business. And we were working, all right, working our asses off.
After she’d finished and even shed a few tears for good measure, we all got up and returned to our stations. She was right, after all.
Politicians can fool voters, and bosses can fool staff, but only up to a certain point. If they overdo it, voters tire of getting screwed by one politician and elect someone new to screw them. Michele was incensed and invited his uncle, the lawyer, to dinner. He arrived and said hello, without a word about how he had saved my ass three years earlier. No one believed that the contracts would ever materialize, and our wages, all under the table, were still overdue.
To keep the waiters and sous chefs happy, I gave up my own wages so they could be paid. Michele did the same. But after a couple of months, everyone’s wages were overdue, with Michele and me owed nearly €5,000 each. The term “labor dispute” started floating around. I didn’t like it. People talked about industrial action, and all it added up to for me was having coworkers I couldn’t count on when the going got tough. It meant having to go the extra mile to keep the wheels turning while I hatched my own plan to jump ship without drowning in the process. More like jumping from the frying pan into the fire, as usual, but I wanted at least to finish the season in peace.
Trying to put together a plan to get out with money in my pocket and a clear conscience made me nervous and taciturn. Michele, who already scored pretty low on the chattiness scale, virtually gave up talking altogether. As soon as service ended, he’d clean up his station quickly and then disappear. Most times I was the only one left to order supplies and close up, and the only other one who might stay back with me occasionally was Nicolò. This particular evening, I actually had to wait for him, keys in hand.
“Hey, Nicolò, get a move on, I wanna go home!” I yelled at the dining room door. He rushed in, still buttoning his shirt, and laying his backpack on the floor. Hearing the dull clink of glass on glass, I asked him to open the backpack. He asked why. I asked again. He opened it, and inside were three bottles of wine, including a bottle of Barolo Chinato.
“They’re not paying me, and they’re not giving me a contract, so I’m paying myself!” he said, not quite defiantly. I could tell he was uncomfortable.
“So I guess after you’ve taken the wine, you’re going to stop wanting to be paid, right?” I sighed. “And you think taking three bottles of wine will fix everything? Go put them back where you found them. Do it one more time, and I’ll send you packing.”
“What the fuck do you mean, Leo? Aren’t we friends? And you’re breaking my balls over three bottles of wine, when we’re not getting paid and God knows if they’ll ever actually hire us. People who live in glass houses and all that crap …”
“You want to know if I’ve ever swiped anything? Maybe I have. The problem isn’t that you’ve swiped something, Nicolò, but that you’ve stolen it from me. I do the food shopping, Michele and I are in charge of food costs. But the worst thing of all is that you got yourself caught red-handed. So either you’re a wise guy and you think that because you’re my friend I’ll let you get away with whatever the fuck you want, or you’re a dickhead. Two types of people I dislike working with.”
Nicolò put down the bottles and turned to go, mightily pissed off. “Whatever. See ya around, Chef,” he murmured as he walked away.
I couldn’t have felt more disappointed. I was losing control and I couldn’t afford to; I wasn’t ready to give up. What did it matter that Nicolò was the best waiter we had? If he didn’t respect his work, then he’d never respect me. And I would never be able to really, truly trust him. Friendship doesn’t come into the equation. I needed people I could trust.
The following day I told Lucrezia that I was letting Nicolò go, that I’d let him stay until Saturday but I wouldn’t be calling him back. She didn’t even ask me why and said it was fine.
Nicolò deleted my name from his contacts before leaving. Which I knew because he shoved his phone under my nose while I was checking the meat orders.
That night Michele informed me that he was leaving. His uncle was suing, and when I asked him why he wasn’t going to the union instead, he replied that that was what he wanted and that he was heading off to England to work.
William was waiting for me in front of the gate in the courtyard. He’d come and go, like grown-up kids who stop by every now and again to visit their elderly parents, telling them jack shit about their lives. I scratched him under the chin and he purred back. His fur was wiry and wild: He’d become one very big, badass cat. I felt ridiculously proud of him. We went up the stairs together.
“Hey.”
“Yo.”
“It’s happened again, Matte, I’m up shit creek. Wages overdue, people pissing me off, and the usual house of cards that’s come tumbling down.”
“So you must be used to it by now.”
“Yeah, but it’s just not normal.”
“What’s not normal?”
“That the same thing keeps happening over and over again.”
“I dunno. Sometimes it’s a matter of timing.”
“What …?”
“You say, ‘I want to quit the rat race,’ so you do, but then wham bam, you land in an even bigger rat race.”
“And so?”
“So it’s all normal.”
“You’re saying I should quit?”
“Sure, what else?”