It was an evening in April.
As soon as I got home, I noticed there was a message on my answering machine.
My friend Gabriele was asking me to go, the following day, to the home of one of the members of his band, so that he could talk to me about a matter which, judging from the tone of his voice, must have been rather close to his heart.
So I was to make my way to Leonardo’s house, located in ****, just a stone’s throw from the restaurant owned by our host.
I gladly accepted. After all, it might be a chance to see his band in action...
...the BENCH! (I had always found something genuinely endearing about these amateur musicians!).
I arrived slightly early, as was my habit, and, after listening for a few minutes to their latest CD (2nd Floor), I was able to talk to Gabriele in complete peace and quiet: it was four o’clock by then, and the members of the band had stopped playing so as not to disturb the neighbours, each of them turning instead to some activity of his own interest...
After briefly explaining the reason for his invitation, my friend had gone to sit in an armchair next to the sofa in the room where they usually rehearsed, and had begun strumming away—albeit with a certain degree of skill—on his electric guitar. I immediately realised that I could approach him for further explanations, and that I could also switch off his amplifier in order to turn on the stereo beside the fireplace and change the background music: I knew that in either case Gabriele would stop playing to answer my questions.
The conversation proved extremely interesting: according to my friend, I was supposed to help the band summon the famous GOD OF MUSIC (!), who, following a complex summoning ritual, would undoubtedly reward them with an enormously lucrative record contract (of whose proceeds I managed to claim a 30% share for myself: friendship is friendship, but there are limits...).
The procedure required to call upon this entity (whose existence I allowed myself to be persuaded of mainly by Gabriele’s unwavering insistence: he was not the sort of person who would ever have fallen for such stories unless there were some concrete evidence behind them...) consisted of two essential steps: obtaining three items, or “ingredients”, and placing them inside a container which, once closed, had to be filled with a certain quantity of water. I must admit that the whole story was beginning to acquire a certain charm! Finally, my friend revealed that he could remember only one of the items we needed to obtain: it was “an orange, sound-producing voodoo fetish capable of establishing contact with the afterlife”.
My conversation with Gabriele had also satisfied my curiosity concerning his abilities as a musician: in fact, far more than his own particular skills, it was his Fenix guitar that produced such a worthy accompaniment and never went out of tune during a performance, thanks to a set of radioactive, self-tuning, self-accompanying strings. My friend said he would be willing to part with them only in exchange for something that would be of some use to him.
Once our conversation was over, I promptly got to work.
A preliminary glance around the room revealed a key, rather unusually hanging from a coffee grinder on the mantelpiece, which I immediately took with me. Finding nothing else of interest, I moved on to the bathroom. There I promptly grabbed the bidet towel (obviously only after making sure it had just been changed and was therefore immaculate...) and continued my exploration towards the room with the refrigerator.
I immediately noticed a stone mug that was clearly out of place, and put it in my backpack in case it should prove useful. Behind the refrigerator I then spotted a curtain which, driven by my unfailing curiosity, I flung open in one swift movement: lying among flasks of excellent wine, I found a box of “Benchwarmers Puppy Buiscuits”. Unfortunately, the box stubbornly refused to open and, after countless attempts, I decided to leave it alone, at least for the time being.
At this point, all that remained was to open the refrigerator.
Alongside some extremely prestigious wines, it contained three objects that caught my attention and which I immediately took with me: an egg, a small bottle of water and a bottle containing an unusual drink (known as “Bench-Cola”), about which I decided to find out more.
I gently closed the refrigerator and made my way to another room, passing through the room where Gabriele was sitting (although I could just as easily have used my map and got there with a single gesture!). I had reached the computer room, where I found two more members of Bench: Marco, the bass player, busy using the PC, and the band’s singer, Fabrizio, who never took his eyes off a newspaper opened to the financial pages.
I decided to speak to both of them. I discovered that Bench-Cola (whose chemical composition was described to me in an interesting report) was Fabrizio’s latest invention. He was something of an ill-fated entrepreneur-inventor-investor who had landed himself in some trouble with one of his previous products, “Benchilla”—an extremely powerful camomile-based sleeping potion, of which Marco, when asked what he thought about Bench-Cola, kindly gave me a sachet.
More importantly, however, I learned about another ingredient required to summon the God of Music...
I would have to obtain the band’s complete discography (two CDs in all), and, again following Marco’s advice, I discovered that the man to ask was Francesco, the band’s drummer, renowned for being an orderly and punctual person.
I took my leave of the two and began examining the room. Among other things, I particularly noticed a screwdriver carelessly left on the table, which I immediately picked up, and a pewter-lidded mug that I was unable to open because the lid had been thoroughly glued shut. Finally, I spotted a door which turned out to be locked. I guessed that the key in my possession was the right one, and promptly used it.
The door opened onto a sort of small landing which, until that moment, had been absent from my map and was tastefully furnished. I decided not to climb the stairs, so as not to disturb the owners of the house, but I also noticed that I could conveniently open the doors of an elegant little cabinet at the far end beneath the staircase. Inside I found another item for my backpack: a rubber hose approximately two metres long.
I returned to the computer room, intending to go outside the house, but first realised that I could immediately make use of the screwdriver I had found earlier. I went back to the refrigerator room and exacted my revenge upon the box of dog biscuits!
From it I obtained a dog biscuit which, for the moment, seemed of little use, although at least it did not take up much room in my backpack.
At last, I could leave the house.
The weather outside was mild and suggested that summer would soon be upon us. The house looked pleasant from the outside as well, and I decided to investigate whether it might be possible to enter it through the main entrance. Before I could approach the gate, however, my curiosity was caught by a plastic bag lying not far away.
Inside the bag (which I did not hesitate to inspect—after all, absolutely anything might prove useful...) I found a tin of house paint and a scrap of paper. It was a bizarre shopping list, “invaded” by a number of possible purchases that were absurd to say the least, with one item prominently highlighted: “69, I’m a man without a scratch”, or something equally baffling.
On reading it more carefully, I realised that the list must belong to Gabriele and decided that, sooner or later, I would try to track down this mysterious “69” and give it to my friend in exchange for his set of strings.
By now, however, I was only a few steps from the gate, and decided to try to enter...
Impossible!
The presence of Goran, Leonardo’s dog, ensured that no stranger would be allowed to pass.
I immediately thought I could easily dispose of this latter-day Cerberus with the biscuit I had previously taken from the box, but my hopes were dashed: feeding him gave me far too little time to get safely past the “little puppy”, so I decided to wait and look for an alternative.
I thought for a moment, examining the contents of my backpack to see whether anything might prove useful. I realised that the time had come to test the effectiveness of Benchilla. I therefore poured the contents of the small bottle of water into the stone mug and added some of the water-soluble camomile from the sachet. All that remained was to dip the dog biscuit into it and throw it to the dog.
The effects of the doctored biscuit were immediate: the moment he swallowed it, the animal fell into a very deep sleep, leaving the way clear.
I was able to reach the balcony in front of the house where, near Goran’s kennel, I found a small orange toy that made a sound. Could this perhaps be the ingredient Gabriele had told me about?
I would only find out later.
I returned to the front of the house. Before proceeding, I decided to examine the report on Bench-Cola more carefully, considering the unusual properties of Fabrizio’s products. Looking in particular at the warnings at the bottom of the page, I noticed something that could work to my advantage: by combining the drink with the house paint I had recently found, I could produce an acid of incredible corrosive power!
So I tried mixing the two liquids.
A thick, bright-green substance, reminiscent of the colour of Martians or the special effects used in old science-fiction B-movies, began bubbling inside the bottle in my hands. It seemed wise to get rid of it as soon as possible, before the acid ate through the plastic and flooded my backpack, with disastrous consequences.
Fortunately, I already knew exactly how to use it.
I immediately returned to the computer room and tested the mixture on the mug I had left sealed on the table. I easily managed to unstick the pewter lid from the rim and gained access to its contents.
Inside was a key of a deep blue colour.
I took it, reasoning that anything hidden so carefully must surely be of some importance.
I then decided to return outside and continue my “investigation”.
I headed towards the restaurant forecourt. While walking along the path connecting the house to the forecourt, I ran into Francesco, Bench’s drummer. He was trying to get his motorcycle running again, and I kindly offered to help him: in return, he would give me a lift to his house, where I would surely find the CDs I was looking for.
Talking to Chicco (as he was commonly known), I learned that getting the bike started required somehow degreasing both the chain and the carburettor. As for the God of Music, he had nothing new to tell me.
I immediately tried to help our intrepid motorcyclist by giving him the towel from my backpack. Unfortunately, although perfectly serviceable as a rag, it was not enough on its own to solve the bike’s problems.
I took my leave, intending to find something more suitable, perhaps something I could combine with the towel. Before moving on, however, I picked up an empty fuel can lying on the other side of the path, near the drinking fountain.
Finally reaching the forecourt, I met Leonardo, one of the band’s two guitarists alongside Gabriele.
He was completely absorbed in trying to hit a golf ball with a 3-wood, practising his swing. Nevertheless, the moment I addressed him, he stopped what he was doing to speak to me.
From the conversation that followed, I discovered there was an extremely good reason to obtain Gabriele’s self-tuning strings: according to Leonardo, summoning the God of Music required a “highly radioactive element”!
My impatience to find the mysterious “69”, and thus obtain the set of strings from my friend, grew beyond measure.
Once our conversation was over, I stood still and surveyed the forecourt. First my attention rested on the restaurant building in the background; then I looked towards a car parked near the entrance. I decided to inspect both more closely...
No chance!
Leonardo—who had gone back to concentrating on his golf—would not allow me anywhere near the restaurant, since it was the restaurant’s closing day, and he would hear no argument.
I had to find a way of getting rid of him.
I thought for a moment.
I had always dreamed of playing a prank like this.
Using a vaguely provocative excuse, I challenged the unfortunate fellow to make the same shot with a shorter club and, during the few moments in which he turned his back on me to reach into his golf bag, I replaced the golf ball with the egg I had taken from the refrigerator.
I waited...
The impact was violent. The resulting spray spread rapidly over a radius of several metres, piercing the air of that April afternoon like sharp darts in some elaborate murder plot...
In short, poor Leonardo was soon covered in dripping fragments of egg and, consequently, forced to return home to wash himself and change his clothes.
The coast was clear.
I approached the car and noticed that, contrary to my expectations, it was unlocked. In particular, I could easily open the fuel flap and remove the petrol cap, and I immediately realised how useful this might be...
I now had everything I needed in my backpack to help Chicco properly. All I had to do was siphon some petrol from the car parked in the forecourt, inserting the rubber hose into the tank and transferring the fuel into the can I had collected earlier.
Once this was done, I put the towel into the can and, now soaked in petrol, handed it back to Chicco. This time a different problem emerged: our valiant motorcyclist could not reach the carburettor properly with the towel and needed something with which to push it farther inside.
I solved the problem immediately by handing him the screwdriver.
At last he was able to take me to his house, where I would collect Bench’s CDs, essential to the summoning ritual!
After a reckless and dangerous motorcycle ride, we reached our destination.
But the surprises were not over.
Perhaps I had failed to notice the sarcasm in Marco’s recommendation that I should ask Chicco for help. Whatever the case, Chicco proved to be anything but orderly, and his home resembled one of the most chaotic bazaars I could ever have imagined!
To cut a long story short, I shall merely say that I found the CDs inside a bread bin, which I discovered only after moving a cork dartboard inexplicably placed on top of the freezer!
What mattered, however, was that I had recovered one of the objects required by the summoning procedure.
After returning from Chicco’s house, I once again made my way towards the restaurant.
When I reached the entrance, I was hardly surprised to find the door locked. However, I did have a key with me, so I tried it: it was indeed the key that opened the restaurant.
I entered without hesitation.
The restaurant consisted of an entrance hall, a bar area, a dining room full of tables and, finally, another room on the upper floor. I promptly set to work.
I remained in the entrance area for a few minutes, overcome by a peculiar and unusual sensation: that of being able to move freely and undisturbed through a place that was normally crowded, but above all of wandering through a space which I had, ultimately, broken into and which under ordinary circumstances would have been foreign and inaccessible to me...
In short, the old morbid fascination of forbidden things!
In the end, however, all I did was take advantage of the situation to make a few illicit telephone calls. I was there for a reason—to help a friend—and I could not afford to waste time chatting or indulging in pointless distractions.
So I moved on to the bar.
Before me stood a vast assortment of the most common and familiar spirits, and I gave in to the impulse to rummage among them...
Among bottles of Amaro Luciano, Brucamenta and Amaro Taverna, one particularly interesting bottle emerged:
Vat 69!
69—of course!
How could I have forgotten the line from such a famous film: “only this is the whisky for a man without a scratch...”!
I realised that this was precisely the item highlighted on Gabriele’s shopping list. Very soon, then, I would be able to obtain another object useful for summoning the god.
Before returning to the rehearsal room, I finished exploring the restaurant. In the downstairs dining room I picked up a finely crafted wooden pepper mill from one of the tables. Upstairs, meanwhile, I discovered another locked door concealed behind some elegant curtains.
Naturally, I did not have the right key to open it, so I finally decided to return to the rehearsal room and give the Vat 69 to Gabriele.
I used the map, and in an instant found myself standing before my friend. Thanking me for procuring the excellent whisky, he handed over his set of radioactive strings as promised.
He then took his leave, explaining that he would shortly have to go away for “personal” reasons (to record an episode of Guiding Light, of which he was an absolutely fanatical devotee! Honestly, some people...), but that we would see each other again later, perhaps to celebrate the success of my mission.
Leonardo was also in the room, busy cleaning the last traces of egg from his 7-iron. Not without a certain feeling of guilt, I obtained reassurance from him that everything was fine after his earlier “accident”.
But this was no time for idle chatter.
I felt I was close to the solution, so I began thinking about what I actually still needed in order to begin the ritual for summoning the God of Music.
Let us recap.
I needed a “highly radioactive element”, and I had one: the Fenix strings.
I needed the product to be promoted, and I had that too: Bench’s CDs.
Finally, there was the “orange voodoo fetish”, which, with a little imagination, might correspond to the strange little toy I had found near the dog’s kennel—the so-called “popopopolpo”!
It was definitely worth a try!
I only had to identify a suitable container in which to place the ingredients and submerge them in water after closing it.
Come to think of it, I had encountered all sorts of containers during this adventure: mugs, boxes, kennels and many others...
But none seemed suitable.
I had to concentrate...
I had to reflect...
Think...
Of course!
The very place where I had always done my best thinking!
The toilet bowl was perfect for following the summoning procedure to the letter!
I ran to the bathroom, lifted the seat and began inserting the “ingredients”.
The popopopolpo gave its desperate cry one final time as it drowned in the calm sea of oblivion; then came the strings, followed by the CDs.
All that remained was to lower the seat, thus closing the “container”, and add water in the most natural manner possible in a bathroom...
I flushed the toilet and waited.
Nothing seemed to happen!
Perhaps something was wrong. Perhaps I had used the wrong ingredients...
There was nothing left to do but return to the members of the band and announce my failure.
I went back to the rehearsal room when...
...suddenly, an enormous gong rang out.
The earth abruptly began to tremble beneath my feet. For an instant the entire room seemed to fall prey to some dark, unnatural, superhuman, transcendent force...
From the amplifiers rose a mighty, resonant voice...
It was the GOD OF MUSIC!
Perhaps I had done it.
I had succeeded!
We immediately asked the divine entity who had come to our aid to grant Bench the record contract of their dreams...
...and I discovered that the matter was far from settled.
The god explained that he demanded something in return for his favour: a bottle of the most expensive wine in existence!
Having said this, the voice disappeared, once again causing the tremor that had accompanied its arrival, ready to reveal itself to us again only when we could produce the votive offering it demanded.
Clearly, it was not over.
What was I to do? Whom could I ask? And above all, how and where was I supposed to find this wine?
Leonardo was there with me, so naturally he was the first person I asked. Fortunately, I immediately received the answers I was looking for.
His family had possessed, for generations, one of the exceedingly rare bottles of BRUNETTO DI VALLE PIPERINA, an extraordinarily rare and precious wine—the most expensive wine in the world, precisely the one we needed.
There was, however, one slight inconvenience.
The Brunetto was hidden inside a vault specifically constructed to protect it from any would-be thief. Access was forbidden even to many members of the family—including Leonardo himself!
The guitarist could do nothing more than give me a key which, he assured me, would certainly prove useful in searching for the vault somewhere inside the restaurant building. He also warned me that I would undoubtedly encounter some complex security system, which could only be disabled by means of the mysterious CHEF’S SCEPTRE, whose appearance was unknown even to him.
That was all I had to go on. Asking the remaining members of the band yielded no further information.
Just as from the very beginning of this affair, I would have to carry on alone.
I returned to the restaurant, climbed to the upper floor and tried the key I had just received on the mysterious door concealed behind the curtains.
Success.
Beyond the door I found an elevator which inexorably carried me downwards, depositing me before a staircase that extended my descensio ad inferos still further...
I was now in the underground corridors of the building.
I followed them until I came face to face with a guard stationed before yet another door.
I tried to persuade him to let me through, but his sheer size and manner repeatedly discouraged me from pressing the matter. I would have to devise some way of making him abandon his post.
Once again I sought inspiration by examining the contents of my backpack, and my attention settled on two particular items.
Using the pepper mill simply to spray pepper at the guard did not seem sufficient; emptying the remaining Benchilla powder over him did not seem much of a solution either.
Then I had an idea.
Why not combine the two and see what effect a pepper-and-Benchilla mixture might have on the man?
I therefore filled the pepper mill with camomile and turned this newly improvised weapon against the impassive brute.
To this day I have no idea exactly what happened to him, although I trust he eventually recovered from the stomach cramps caused by inhaling that pernicious mixture.
Whatever the case, once again the road ahead was clear.
Predictably enough, the metal door that now constituted the only obstacle in my path was not going to open by itself.
I therefore examined it more carefully.
Beside it I noticed a strange mechanism and, just below, a large red button...
...which, at the slightest pressure, caused the door to fly open!
Unfortunately, beyond it lay a dense network of laser beams (which I attempted to touch, suffering severe burns to two fingertips!) evidently connected to the mechanism I had noticed earlier.
I realised that the time had come to make use of this blessed Chef’s Sceptre...
But what on earth could it be?
I was tempted to turn back when a rather far-fetched idea flashed through my mind.
After all, could the pepper mill I had just used not, in some way, resemble the sceptre of a gastronomic sovereign?
I tried inserting it into the opening in the mechanism and...
Done!
A sound most pleasing to my ears accompanied the shutdown of the laser system and the disappearance of the beams.
I could feel that I was nearly there.
I continued through the underground passages and descended an apparently endless series of steps (by now I was expecting to run into Charon, or perhaps Minos, so far below ground level had I descended...) until I finally reached an enclosed space surrounded on every side by a forest of wine bottles, doubtless of great prestige, stored down there to age.
Then I noticed a more brightly lit corner and hurried towards it.
I found myself facing yet another door—this one without so much as a handle.
Nearby I immediately noticed a wine rack standing apart from all the others, isolated beside the door. There had to be a reason for that...
At its base I picked up a strange bottle bearing a large “P” on its label.
I moved closer and collected the other bottles neatly arranged in the appropriate compartments, obtaining another three marked with the letters “O”, “E” and “N”.
Examining the rack carefully, I noticed that four compartments in particular stood out, being a different colour from the rest of the cabinet.
I randomly placed the four bottles I had just collected into these spaces and realised that I had to reproduce a particular arrangement so that the letters on the labels would spell some sort of “key” word.
After a few attempts, I understood that the word had to be:
OPEN
And that alone was enough to cause the nearby door suddenly to unlock!
I knew this was it.
At last, I had reached the vault...
I entered.
I found myself immersed in absolute darkness, unable either to proceed—although the sound of my footsteps suggested I was in a fairly confined space—or to turn back or consult my map.
I stood there in the darkness, as though trapped in some shadowy cavern, pondering how I might escape from the situation.
I began feeling along the walls in search of a light switch: first to the right, then to the left...
At last I found it, high up, directly in front of me.
The glow of a warm, intense, reddish light only heightened the atmosphere of revelation surrounding those moments...
It was there.
Right in front of me.
And it radiated an aura that possessed something almost mystical, the flavour of distant ages, of royal palaces, of courts, of History itself...
It was the BRUNETTO.
The legendary BRUNETTO DI VALLE PIPERINA!
Placed beneath the reddish lamp—which produced a peculiar kind of light, evidently designed not to disturb the ageing process of that precious nectar—it bore a sort of label around its neck.
There I recognised the date of the bottle:
1419!
Incredible!
Almost six centuries old!
For a moment, dumbfounded, I turned towards one corner of the small vault.
There I saw an ancient fifteenth-century illuminated manuscript, demonstrating that this particular bottle was one of the few survivors to have remained intact following the joust held in honour of Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence that very same year...
Extraordinary...
The volume even contained parchments taken from a far older manuscript, thanks to which I was able to trace the appearance of Brunetto wine—the BRUNECTUS VALLIS PIPERINAE—back to at least 1148!
And that was not all.
Beneath the illuminated manuscript lay a stiff folder which, to my enormous astonishment when I opened it, contained a series of prints faithfully reproducing—as a note inside duly explained—the originals of numerous works of art in which Brunetto itself was the true protagonist!
I was stunned to discover that the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the Mona Lisa, Leonardo’s Last Supper, as well as several other world-famous works of art, had in their original inspiration—before various acts of censorship and self-censorship—celebrated almost exclusively the greatness of Brunetto!
I could have remained there for hours, contemplating those works and the primordial source of their inspiration.
But I had a mission to complete...
Carrying the bottle with the utmost care, I returned to the rehearsal room.
There the story finally reached its conclusion—but not before I was forced, one last time, to choose between good and evil...