The Apartment (Wait a Minute)

By Seagull Editions and Giuseppe Cristiano

The house is too large and the rent is too expensive for the protagonist of this story. And he goes from being the only inhabitant to the roommate of five other people, who are occasionally joined by strangers, friends of friends, who camp at his place for a few nights. Each of them has different characteristics. Each of them is a little bit eccentric.

The protagonist recounts in the first person some events that happened to him in the early nineties. He is an aspiring writer who does very little to achieve his goals. He is looking for temporary jobs to pay the bills and never manages to get his telephone line activated. Through his eyes and words, we discover the stories and desires of his roommates, who are initially described as inconclusive. Thus, we meet the Swedish Karin, with whom we begin an apparently idyllic relationship. Pasolo, a stone sculptor, about whom completely different stories are told. Then there are Massia, who is trying to be a musician, Jovanna and Corintia, who design clothes, Tiziana, who is perhaps Pasolo's sister or ex-girlfriend. And "Curt," a stranger, who always puts the protagonist in a bad mood even without saying anything.

In L'appartamento, Giuseppe Cristiano did not want to talk only about living together, about the oddities and misadventures of a group of people. It is a novel of confrontation with reality, in which not everything is as it really seems, because sometimes the truth imagined and described is only the fruit of one's own fears.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seagull Editions
• Release date: May 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215038369

Book preview

PROLOGUE

The flat was quite large and could have easily accommodated two or three tenants. But it is the prerogative of artists to tend to exaggerate and in the end, I had to get used to the small crowd of eccentric people who slowly began to occupy my living space.

I was happy to have arrived in the city. My clipboard was full of good intentions and maybe even good ideas, but everything started to go wrong from the very beginning.

For example, the first people I met were welcoming, several people wearing suits were doing everything they could to show me a certain level of professionalism, but underneath that welcomeness there was just classic office hypocrisy; full of fake smiles. That is exactly what I feared would happen.

I started writing for myself. It was a kind of daily diary. Quite banal, I know, but just to keep me busy. I started to write down a few episodes, things that happened to me, that I considered interesting or important.

Before Karin's arrival, most of my instincts were still repressed by my mundane routine: making coffee, buying the newspaper (or stealing it from the neighbour), taking a walk to clear my head, taking my lunch break, attending a business meeting from time to time, shopping, going home. It was always more or less like that every day. In fact, it was exactly like that.

At that time, I lived alone in the flat and then, in order of appearance, came Pasolo, Massia, and the Jovanna-Corintia couple. I had met Karin earlier. Or maybe not. Pasolo was already there when I met Karin.

But only now am I realizing that I haven't described the flat. It was the fourth floor of a dilapidated, but proud, downtown building. With a lift that strangely worked ten times out of ten. A quiet inner courtyard, too. On one side, the windows faced one of the city's main streets, which meant near constant traffic noise. On top of that, none of us had a car, so none of us were predisposed to even a modicum of, how shall I put it, empathy towards other drivers. But not having a car meant not having to worry about finding a parking space, which in that area could become a feat worthy of the Book of Records.

The house had only one entrance, always full of shoes; and two bathrooms, one of which was occupied by the Jovanna-Corintia couple.

The room that almost always had the door closed belonged to Pasolo. Then Massia lived in there too. In another room that was quite large, which sometimes became a sort of guest room and must have been conceived as a living room, Jo and Cori moved in.

The kitchen was cleaned according to shifts, so interpret that as you may. And then there was my room, further away from the others, not because I couldn't stand them, or at least not only because of that.

I’ll describe my room in more detail because it's probably the one I experienced the most in the whole house. Ah, there's a small detail that shouldn't be overlooked: Pasolo, the two girls, and I paid for almost the whole flat. The others, who slipped in from time to time, were almost always broke. So were we, but someone still had to put up the money for the rent.

I was talking about my room. Yes, there was a big double bed, which alone took up most of the space. A whole wall was covered with a big shelf for books, cassette tapes, and CDs. Then I had a table with a chair in front of the only window. On the floor I casually displayed two carpets I had acquired after they had been abandoned on the staircase by who knows.

I had found the flat thanks to a friend who worked for a publisher with whom I also collaborated.

My flat mates arrived later on, more or less as I am about to tell you.

PASOLO

1

I was alone in the park, working on my novel which, by the way, was not going well for me.

For me, the park in the centre of the city was the ideal place to spend my afternoons. My favourite spot was the pond surrounded by a semicircle of benches pelted with bird shit of all kinds. I loved to sit there for hours, thinking and brainstorming ideas, often in the company of a piece of bread and salami (Italian, of course: any other kind has no taste) and a 75-litre bottle of cheap red wine, or an almost always flat Coca Cola.

The birds kept shitting around and I kept writing that story that no one would ever publish, but in those days I still didn't know how it would go. 

That day, the wine was strangely good, and suddenly I remembered an important errand: paying the rent for the new flat. I had left the landlady a fairly high deposit and had also promised to do some work to tidy up the rooms. Nothing in particular, just things like painting the walls and other crap, which you can never find the time to do anyway. The truth is that, apart from the security deposit, I didn't have much else in my pocket at that time (not that I have money in my pocket now). The idea of handing over more money to that leech darkened all my thoughts and made me suddenly reconsider the taste of wine. It was a kind of revelation that opened my eyes: the wine was not good at all, in fact it was worthless. The idea of squandering money on disappointing things seemed very idiotic to me. But I took another sip, maybe two, and my temporary depression disappeared as it had come.

Those irresponsibilities of mine have never left me. Even now, when I think back to that moment, I can't help but smile. Not because I've never tried to change my taste, I still drink the same cheap wine.

I abandoned my manuscript and decided it was time to deal with the situation, i.e., to talk to the landlady and ask her for an extension. I went by the house and it turned out to be a good move. My request published in one of those free ad magazines (which I was using to look for a roommate) had been answered. And the answer was sitting right on the steps in front of the front door.

Hello. My name is Pasolo. I've come to see about the room.

Hi. It's not just a room. You see..."

He interrupted me, like he was in a hurry. It doesn't matter. Can I see it?

I nodded and let him in.

––––––––

I hoped my sixth sense wasn't right. I mean, I wasn't at all sure that the guy would be able to pay. And even if he was, I would have to pay that very day to get out of trouble with the owner.

It's a cool place. You can have a shitload of parties here. How much?

I told him.

Jesus Christ! Why would you take a place so expensive and so big? I mean, you're in it alone. What do you need all this space for? Even if you rent the room, it's still a shitload of space.

I was just about to tell him about how artists need space to work, and that it’s an interesting area, capable of great inspiration, and the houses like this were not easy to find because the rent was effected by the neighbourhood. But he was faster than me.

Yes, I'm in! I mean, I'll take the room. He pointed to the one closest to the front door. I understand you're staying in the other room. But there's a little problem.

––––––––

There, I said to myself, now he's giving me the story that he hasn't got the money in his pocket and can't pay right away, or something like that.

You see, I don't have the money on me and I can't pay right away.

But it didn't stop there. I have to see someone in about an hour. I'll be back with the money and my stuff, if that's not a problem for you?

Of course not. He’ll, run back and get the money, and everything's as good as solved, I thought. Instead I just told him that I didn't see any problem and that if anyone else came by I would say that the room was already occupied.

Instead of an hour, three hours passed, and I saw myself sinking deeper and deeper into shit. What the fuck had happened to that guy? Maybe he had realized that the rent was too high, but at least he could have warned me. I was almost on the verge of giving up on the idea of not being able to pay and having to leave the flat. I saw myself trudging towards the landlady's house. Then there was a knock at the door.

Hello. I came to drop off Pasolo's stuff. I'm his sister.

Yeah, okay, but the money? I would have, and maybe I should have, asked that girl right away. She wasn't even that bad. Okay, come on in. Can I make you a coffee?

Thanks, I'd love that.

She followed me into the kitchen. Can we smoke in here?

I nodded. But I don't smoke. I've given up, I said as she had already lit a cigarette without bothering to offer me one.

It's a nice house.

Thanks babe, I thought. Yes, and it's quite big too, but... I stopped just in time, because I realized I was about to give her the usual artist's joke, the same one I had intended to give her brother a few hours earlier. So, I changed the subject. "But what happened to your brother? He told me he'd be back in an hour with his stuff