The Ball. Erik Pethersen

please finalize it at the front office desk.»

      «Go to the entrance door where you can see something artificially fair» I say.

      «Pardon?» the plump version of Tom Sellek says, looking confused.

      «I meant that to make the payment you can go over to the girl sitting at the desk at the entrance.»

      «Right, okay, thank you. Goodbye» he answers a bit puzzled.

      The two of them walk off the room and down along the corridor.

      The notary turns to me, he looks at me and says: «Did you know Codogno, did you?»

      «No, never heard of it, I’ve got a better idea looking at Google Maps. Excuse me for not telling you in advance: I forgot. However, I thought I was ignorant not to know it, considering how casually the two of them were telling me about it.»

      «Don’t worry, Brando. I will check later on where this joyous town is located». «I’m off: my wife is waiting for me for lunch at the Bistrot. Yourself? Will you have your usual sad-looking bowl of tofu with cereals?» he says sarcastically.

      «Yes, something like that. See you later.»

      ⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎

      I am supposed to be gloomy and sombre more than usual, in his opinion, I ponder as I sit back at my desk. I don’t think so. I may be pensive, probably it is the fault of the blue glow. Sure: now I am blaming somebody I don’t even know.

      Sbandofin Facebook: search. No, they are not on Facebook. Sbandofin Linkedin: search. Nothing.

      Sbandofin, search for pictures: just our building taken from below, which is the only picture on their website. Nothing much: there doesn’t seem to be much on the internet apart from their website.

      My smartphone vibrates and lights up: Mutter. I scroll down with my finger on the display and I answer.

      «Hi Bra, how are you?»

      «Hi mum, wonderfully. Yourselves there, is everything okay? What are you doing today?»

      «All is well here. Nothing major: I am making the pizza dough for tonight’s celebrations, your father has gone to the canal. He went out at 7:30 this morning and I haven’t seen him since.»

      «You mean, nothing major for your standards but, just out of curiosity, what celebrations are on tonight?»

      «Here in Alberbhüttel it’s the Patron Saint’s Day. Last year we went there and found out that everyone cooks something and brings it to the square to share with the fellow villagers. We didn’t know and went down bare-handed. Between one tankard and another, at the end of the evening, they got us to promise to make pizza for everybody for the following year.»

      «That explains it all» I add. «I didn’t know anything about this lovely German celebration; it reminds me of San Faustino’s Day, with the difference that here we don’t share homemade food and knock it down less beer»

      «Yes, Brando, it is similar to San Faustino’s celebration. Here on the Kiel canal each town has its own annual festival and everyone puts in a lot of energy preparing their own festival. They are spread out through the months and the inhabitants of the neighbouring towns, come to other people’s celebrations, so the town square is overflooded with people coming from three or four towns. Beer flows in large quantities for sure.»

      «Some sort of an alcoholic exchange» I interrupt.

      «Just think that our neighbours, those who live in the other town at ten km from here, Beringfeld, have designed some sort of a beer distribution system to go with the pizza. Something done properly: they dug five metres deep and they run the pipes under the cobblestone. Every three metres they placed some kind of a yellow hydrant, which is a real tap as an actual fact.»

      «These Teutonic traditions don’t seem bad at all: I didn’t know that. Anyway, after one year, do these people still remember this, which was furthermore agreed upon after gulping down a few litres of beer?»

      «I told you: they care about that a lot. I have been asked more or less the same question for the last year or so by everybody I was bumping into. “Are you making pizza with pepperoni and frankfurters, right?“»

      «I see. So, the hype is virtually sky-high. Anyway, how many pizzas do you have to make? Isn’t dad helping you?»

      «Of course, he is!» she said. «Well, we are going to make some. We talked about that last night, to recap all the ingredients: we decided to make thirty-six.»

      «It sounds like a fair amount, bearing in mind that everybody else will bring something, I would say that thirty-six pizzas are enough» I reply. «It is hard work, though.»

      «I meant thirty-six metres, Brando.»

      «Woh» I reply a bit confused. «Is pizza measured by the metre in northern Germany?»

      «Yes, it seems to be. Even if you go to a pizzeria, the waiters consider it as a unit of measurement: if you ask for two capricciosa pizzas, they will bring you two metres of it, you don’t need to say anything else. So last night dad organized some bonfires in the garden. He marked six areas measuring 1m high and 7m length and put some big rocks he got at the canal all along their perimeters. At each corner, he drove a steel pole with a hole on top into the ground; then he got Birger to make some trays which are 6m long and 60cm wide. The trays have two steel bars at the far end which are slotted in the poles.»

      «Yes, mum, I am starting to get a better picture of the situation and I do realize that nothing much is happening there, today too. Sorry but how long are the poles? What are you going to put then on the six areas?» I ask staring at the wall beyond the screen. Then all of a sudden I felt enlightened. «Yes, of course! Six areas measuring six metres each equal to thirty-six metres of pizza: got it!»

      «Yes Brando, it is like military operations: everything is organized down to a tee. The poles are fifty centimetre high and the ovens will be overflowing with charcoal.»

      «Charcoal pizza. I see...» I can’t conceal my bewilderment. «You are going to need loads.»

      «Not too much, actually: we went to get it yesterday. We got one hundred ten-kilo bags.»

      «I guess all the ingredients have already been bought...»

      «Yesterday we bought flour, yeast and buffalo mozzarella cheese. Dad and Birger are going to buy Pepperoni, frankfurters and chili peppers on their way back.»

      «Right. Who is this guy, Birger?»

      «He is our new neighbour, didn’t I tell you about him? He bought the farmhouse just before ours: the one that had been up for sale for quite some time, at the entrance to the dirt road which leads to grandad’s farmhouse.»

      «I don’t recall you telling me» I answer deep in my thoughts. «Anyway, this Birger guy too has decided to withdraw from the world and isolate himself in that piece of German country land?»

      «We are not that isolated, Bra. Birger is working as a blacksmith and he does some lovely creations, like the trays for pizzas. I even brought him the iron maiden that I found in the lodge: he said he will get something beautiful out of it. Your father and I did not isolate ourselves from the world: we just need to get grandad’s house all set so that we can sell it.»

      «Sure, I know very well that you are not completely isolated, but the only thing is that grandad is dead two and a half years now. I am starting to think that you want to live there.»

      «That’s right. Bra, the house is hard to manage» my mum says softly.

      «Sorry… did you say the iron maiden?» I reply puzzled, thinking back about my mum’s words.

      «That’s right, grandad Bastian had loads of weird things down in the shed, did I not tell you?»

      «Yes, you did mention something about that but I did not realize that he had torture devices.

      «Who