October 22nd 2023
Lenin
I am awakening under the shock of what I did in the past and what I have become. A mummy that can survive only thanks to the resemblance with an autocrat of the past. My admirers regard me as a genial thinker, but I see myself as a fraudster, who has sold for good the venom of a horrible ideology. Yet, it is as a mummy that I begin to understand the beauty of the world surrounding me, that I can activate my emotions by looking at the flowers who, in this warm Autumn, are still blossoming and giving their colours for free, to all those souls who can appreciate them. I wish I were able to locate Heidi's book and its new owner. While alive, I thought it would have been a legend. It was a member of the politburo, one whose names have been forgotten because he did not encounter the favour of my brother-in-crime Stalin. He approached me one evening and suggested that, if I had ever to die, to allow some physicians to mummify my body. When I replied that it was a brilliant idea, that the propaganda would have been made even more effective, after my death, the comrade revealed to me a deeper secret. A story made of magic, quite similar to the one of the golem. Perhaps that was the reason he was condemned to the capital punishment and his name erased from the history’s books. He gave me Heidi's book and asked me to sign it with my blood. That I did, without, without telling anyone and hiding the book in my cabinet.
The art dealer
One of my acquaintances has proposed to me the purchase of a splendid etching signed by David Hockney. It is a view of Paris, “Rue de Seine”, published in 1972. A delicate composition with a fishbowl, flowers and a window, from which it is slightly possible to perceive that outside lies the Vielle Lumiere, with its complex network of underground lines and the microcosmos of each arrondissement. There are similar works, also signed by Hockney, on the market, all of them quite pricey. During these days I find myself perchance in the French capital due to Paris plus, now under the universal brand of Art Basel. I hope that the large organisation will not be taken over by a woke CEO and become a new Disney. A channel to deny freedom of expression through the apparent effort of art professionals. The hypocrisy of the art world has been put nicely on evidence by one of the online marketplace. Indeed, while Israel is under the bombs of a criminal organisation and my artists in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv need to leave their ateliers to take shelter in the bunker, no Ai Wei Wei has pronounced a word to express his solidarity. The same geniuses that by Documenta take so much effort to undermine the reputation of the Israel democracy, cannot express themselves against Hamas, not a better organisation than the Bobby Sands’ one.
The consultant
I think it is the time to track in detail the history of my grandfather, who was a humble mechanic, or car driver, or truck driver, in his youth. He was born in Prague, in the ghetto, from a jewish family who had nothing more of their ancient traditions beside the name. To the best of my knowledge my grandfather never attended the synagogue, nor his parents. Under pretence of modernism, they perhaps did not believe in the Almighty anymore. PErhaps it was the way in which religion was taught to them, or the spirit of the time. My great-grandfather worked for the railways, I do not know anything about my great-grandmother or their ancestors. Coming back to the grandfather, I am aware that he was passionate about opera, he was an avid reader of any kind of newspaper and magazine, as well as of Encyclopedias. Those that the lower-middle class bought on a weekly basis because it was hard to afford the major editions, which were as expensive as an apartment in the workers' area. He was also a good mechanic and, when WWI disrupted the European frontiers, he was enrolled in the KK army. I forgot to explain that my grandfather’s mother was Italian, and for some reason he identified himself with the Mediterranean nation. He always said that he came from Milan and was born in Prague only because of a strange joke of his destiny. As many other Czech soldiers, he managed to disengage from the Central Powers to join a volunteer corps constituted mainly by Czech exiles, this time at the behest of the Italian King
