Livorno

Livorno The communist uprising in Livorno was a serious menace to Italy because that army sent tanks, not big tanks but big enough in narrow streets At the railway station, I met a small woman with a big suitcase, I offered to carry it for her; little did I know she lived outside the town; it was a burdensome walk on unlit roads At the parvenue cafe, I met a woman I had seen before Short black hair of dubious gender (let them guess) sat drinking Pernod, smoking a cigarette that had the aroma of oriental express I must have seen her before. Was it in Monte Carlo? She beckoned to me to sit at her table I had a cold beer and smoked a Chesterfield and my arm was numb carrying the bloody suitcase for a woman who told me she was an actress going to Rome to star in an upcoming movie called La Strada years later Kristiansand, a town in Norway, was on a catering course I saw the film, yeah, it was the woman I had met in Livorno A sudden blackout that might have been caused by the Reds the cafe supplied candles, that on a night of uncertainty made the plaza romantic, the Monte Carlo woman had vanished, like a cigarette ad on the TV screen