The Maltese Manuscript (LSD, #6)

9. L'Ombelico Del Mondo

L'Ombelico Del Mondo

Valletta is a city like no other. Even with my painful muscles after this afternoon's beating, it's an authentic pleasure to walk around here, enjoying the view over the natural harbour, surrounded by ancient fortresses, antique churches, and the many other old buildings in the typical sand colour, decorated with palm trees and tropical birds. The sea and its eternal breeze are prominent, but its salty smell is just a minor element of the fragrance of food and flowers that changes after every corner. The blue sky and the fine February temperature invite you to spend some time with a drink on one of the many terraces, or with a book on one of the benches in the colourful squares and parks. We're not here to enjoy the view; we're on a mission, searching the number one of the Most Dangerous Criminals top 100 of Time for Crime Magazine, and to find him before he finds us.

"What are we going to do now?", Malik asks.

"Pick up our luggage and prepare ourselves for tonight's Art Gala. You received two invitations: one for you and one for me. I have a strong feeling that Mister El Bullít will be present there, ready to play a game of hide-and-seek with us. In the meantime, we can enjoy our walk through this magnificent city while we chat about the answer to Big Question #4: poetry or prose? Indeed, an appropriate topic to prepare for an Art Gala."

Malik's face grows cloudy: "Probably, that's the hardest question ever to answer. I have experience in both; I wrote «Precious Poetry» and «Noxious Secrets». Although I decided to make the switch from poetry to prose some time ago, I'm no longer sure I made the right choice. It's like you have to choose between the wife you've been happily married to all your life, and the lover that lights your fire like you've never experienced before."

"If you compare writing symbols on a piece of paper with sex, you've never had any decent sex, my friend."

"Or perhaps you've never experienced any decent writing, my friend. When people ask me to explain how it feels to write a novel, I always say: sex. The novel and I, we have such an intense relationship, so fulfilling, so erotic, that only the metaphor of sex comes close to describing it.

» It starts when we first meet. She's not more than an idea, an illusion, an innocent flirt, an attractive well-dressed smile with black hair in a sunny park. I don't have time to flirt, I have work to do, and I should spend my spare time with others. But she keeps me thinking, she keeps me awake at night and distracts my thought from work and hobbies. Slowly, she becomes an obsession. I want to know her better. I write down what I know about her, where she takes place, who she deals with, how she starts and how she ends. The foreplay. The fantasies. I begin having short dialogues with her. She excites me with her style, the tone of her voice, her word choice. And then... I can no longer resist. I want her. Irresistibly, I long to spend time with her. First, I forget about my work and neglect all my other tasks. All my energy and all my time, I dedicate to her, my novel, my love, and love is a verb rather than a noun, she wears me out, nights without sleep, entire weekends and far too many weeknights I work as hard as I can, to satisfy her and to satisfy myself, my thirst and hunger, and every word from her makes me horny for the climax, the final chapter, in which we, finally, become one, making all this hard work feel like a gigantic orgasm that lasts for three months. And when it's over, when I've read her and edited her for the last time, when I send her to the publisher, I shed one bitter tear and start with another novel, another flirt, even more promising than the love I leave behind.

» And then, there's writing poetry, which is like playing the strings of Frankenstein, an emotion that reduces having sex to a cheap second-hand experience. Novels and poems are organic entities; they grow as they go, like babies come alive as the result of making love. Difficultly, choosing between poetry or prose is like abandoning either your new lover or the wife you've been married with for so many years..."