Читать книгу: «Loose End»

2. SO STRONG SO ALONE

In 1999, at the age of 24, I decided to move on. The seven criminal trials against me had ended. In my head I had only my life, my future. I had to leave behind a piece of the past, stay away from TV, from the spotlight of the public scene, because everything that talked about the history of the White One Gang, the trials, my private life, was annoying, it made me uncomfortable. It did not represent the real Eva, I was not the one told by the media to public opinion.

That parenthesis no longer belonged to me. I wanted oblivion to erase the stereotypical figure of the woman of the leader of the gang of murderous criminals, for all of them I was always and only Fabio Savi's ex-girlfriend.

It was time to try to fulfill the dreams I had cultivated since childhood. I had to find my "logic", my path, at least so my head and heart asked me, only in this way I would have had more hopes and more possibilities, because, up to that moment, the male figures in my life had transmitted me only traumas, illusions , betrayals and sufferings.

It was in 1999, during an evening with some friends, that I met the Neapolitan footwear entrepreneur, in his sixties, Franco. His company had gained a good chunk of the Italian market in the production and distribution of shoes. His strong points were the casual line, made in Alicante, Spain, and the "fashion" line conceived in a factory near Naples, which is also the headquarters of the company management. He gave me the opportunity to show him the designs in which I had tried my hand at imagining models of women's footwear to be proposed in the following season. He examined them carefully. He liked them and chose some, following his indisputable professionalism acquired through years of experience in the field.

His nephews, sons of the sisters, also worked with him. It was a constructive commitment that offered me the opportunity to travel. I felt fulfilled and satisfied. Franco treated me like a daughter, and played an important role in my maturation process, as a woman and as an entrepreneur. He took me to heart, introduced me to his family, his wife, his two daughters, all his collaborators and his friends.

He was aware of my story, learned from newspapers and televisions, but he was always very respectful of the decision to leave everything behind, he never asked me for anything with the intention of knowing or learning more. He was only interested that I could grow professionally, that I fit into society and that I was protected from the risks that a beautiful young and lonely girl can run, easy prey to the mechanisms that detach you from reality and from a sober lifestyle.

Franco was like a father, able to pass on the value of independence to me, to teach me the techniques of commerce, the management of work and private life. However, I did not imagine that disenchantment was, once again, around the corner.

I realized that his grandchildren, a few years older than me, did not have a correct commercial behavior. For example, they took an order for a thousand pairs of shoes from a wholesaler, but only invoiced eight hundred. They cashed the rest in black and the money ended up directly in their pockets. They did this for their own interests, to the detriment of the company. I told Franco about it, bringing him the evidence. He was upset.

He summoned his grandchildren, his was a family business, so there was a very high risk of creating irreparable fractures even between relatives. The two grandchildren were clear and uncompromising: "Either we go, or Eva goes! ".

I anticipated any answer from Franco, I thought about resolving the question that could have become very painful for him: "You don't have to decide anything, I've already decided. I'm leaving". I came out with regret, I didn't even give him time to reply. I went away forever, but already as I was leaving I was thinking within myself: "Eva you have to realize something of yours, exclusively yours".

For more than four years, from 1999 to 2003, I was a happy single, independent, without a man to break "boxes and plans". I didn't want to share anything with anyone in my private life anymore. The event, in some ways painful, which caused my exit from Franco's company and my consequent renunciation of the protective umbrella that he represented for me, convinced me that the time had come to become the absolute protagonist of every aspect of my life, while maintaining a good friendship with him.

Meanwhile, I felt more and more an active part of Italian society. In a country where everything had happened: society in crisis, terrorism, speculative finance, I saw a new world advancing. And it didn't seem so far away that I couldn't reach out and grab it.

I did not have to and did not want to depend on anyone anymore, neither on men, nor on a subordinate job, none of this, only on my working skills. I was not engaged, I did not want to get engaged and I would not do it until I felt the firm earth under my feet. I aspired to certainties that could materialize only through the creation of my own company, the possession of a home, a car of my own.

Not that I hadn't had any proposals or opportunities to bond emotionally to someone, but I rejected them with casual ease. I just felt a strong need to open up to myself, towards something that made me feel good. I was looking for a key to shoot, to run.

Once a friend told me: "In the practice of the ancient martial arts we learn how to return to the starting point, through the maturation that is reached with years and years of training.

This means that the first technique that we learned when we were young amateurs, after a journey made up of infinite challenges and fights, we are able to internalize it and execute it with the strength of a mountain and with the wisdom of an old Master ".

What was my first "technique" when, precisely as a "beardless", I ran away from home? That of working as a waitress in a bar-restaurant in Budapest. I felt great, important, satisfied and free behind that counter or serving between tables. Even washing dishes.

Here, that's how the light bulb went on! I was given the idea of going back to my starting point: quickly looking for and finding a place to set up a restaurant business. Do you want to compare Italian coffees and cappuccinos? And the food? I already imagined my creativity and my desire to design new things at the service of the people, perhaps with some hints of Hungarian and Romanian cuisine.

What to do? I dreamed of a restaurant bar, I wanted to serve people. I started researching and studying the procedures for acquiring a license. I quickly discovered that it was not easy in those years, to acquire a license for a diner bar already started, cost a lot, they all started with minimum requests of one hundred and fifty thousand euros. And who had so much money?!? Not to mention the other costs required to open a business of that type.

In front of my house, in Rome, there was a fruit and vegetable shop. The space was not very large, about 120 square meters. From the balcony I observed that very few people entered that shop. I often wondered how the owners managed to move forward. I therefore thought that it would not be difficult to convince the owners to rent or sell the business. I took the subject away, went in and asked: "Do you have any idea, if in the surroundings there is a commercial space for rent?". They replied that they knew nothing, that they hadn't heard anything or even seen any signs nearby. I insisted: "Not to be intrusive, excuse me if I'm direct, when does your contract expire? This space and also the position would be perfect for me". To sweeten the pot I added: "If you intend to sell, maybe you can agree on a small severance pay". But I was disappointed. Apparently there was no sale of the shop in their plans.

"No" they answered almost in unison. "We live on this. We have no intention of leaving." I think, above all I feel, that some events in our life, in particular those concerning the sphere of what we would like to happen, in affections as in work, in short, in existence, do not happen by chance.

Luck cannot always be a coincidence, I believe more in the power of thought and desires. And at that time at the top of the list of my projects, there perform a commercial activity: the project to open a bar restaurant, diner, in that area of Rome.

But the first concrete attempt to start laying the foundations did not go well. At least, so I thought. Yes, because after a few weeks, still looking out from the balcony of the house, I saw a van with the back door open, in front of the shop. They loaded the furniture and some boxes. The owners had given up: they no longer intended to continue their business. In my opinion they couldn't even cover their expenses because a supermarket had opened nearby.

It was an opportunity not to be missed. In perfect Eva style, I immediately got in touch with the owners of the walls, an elderly couple. He was really very nice, she was a witch. Man of other times, Calabrian. I told him: "I saw that they are leaving the place. I want to take it ".

Luck or coincidence? Here's what happened to me in those days. And then tell me if I didn't have a hand from heaven, which paved the way for me to realize my project, which was also my dream. Within those walls of that street there had never been a bar or even a restaurant.

I needed the license. I called the office in charge of the Municipality. Since the licenses were limited to each district, I asked if there was a free one close to the street that interested me. The employee replied that no, there was nothing available. I was upset but I didn't give up, I insisted on the phone. I convinced her to double check. "Wait, wait... please give me the number you are interested in... let me see something". I dictated the exact address again and, as if by magic, she replied: "You are lucky miss, because from number 700 to 780 the licenses are free!". It was now done, I obtained the license from the municipality without having to take it over from others, paying only the cost of the administrative documents. I rented the premises and contacted the Lazio Region to obtain the funding dedicated to female entrepreneurship, I had the requirements of Legislative Decree no. 185/2000. I had also enrolled in the training course for the food trade and the administration of food and drink to study and obtain the professional requirement.

After nine months, just like the time of a pregnancy and after an investment of two hundred thousand euros, I realized my secret wish: I inaugurated the bar, restaurant and diner, which, in a short time, became the flagship of food and bevarage of the area.

I had redone all the interiors: masonry, systems, kitchen, bathrooms, changing rooms, the living room, the furnishings, the graphics, in short, everything. I made a careful selection of staff based on the desire to do and the desire to grow. Things were going well, really well, I was happy. I started work in the morning at six and came home at midnight, shoulder to shoulder with my employees, we had made a good team.

It was tiring, but time wasn't wasted. After a year, the business was launched, the customers were numerous and, many of them, regulars.

I was finally in control of myself and everything that interested me: I had no partners, no boyfriends or husbands. Free and happy, I trusted only myself, I constantly monitored the work of my employees, I managed and planned my small business every day, I did not delegate anything to anyone. I had a camera system installed to keep everything safe and I took care of the customers, offering first class service every day, where the smile was never lacking. It was my thing and it worked great. The passion for work stimulated creativity and ideas.

During the weekends the place had also become a meeting place for the young people of the area, who then went to the center of Rome in the evening to the most attractive nightlife areas. I offered a wide choice of aperitifs and turned the bar into a pub by putting on lounge music and soft lighting. So in the end many of those guys stayed with me all evening. They preferred my place to raids in the center.

Many Romanian citizens also lived in that neighborhood. The community was large and strong. I contacted a Romanian cook and on Sundays I offered dishes of the typical cuisine of my country. They came to me in ever more numerous groups. I had to set the tables outside. To express the idea of the success of those Sundays based on Romanian cuisine: I bought whole pallets of beer, but they were never enough. Destiny, which is no coincidence, always knocks on your door when you least expect it, as if to remind you that it never abandons you. It is only a matter of understanding whether to accept it, to let oneself go into its arms or to resist: just a matter of choices. However, it was at the very peak of my success as a restaurateur, that the phone calls from friends who complained because they had lost track of me came in mercilessly. How to blame them. I was only thinking about work and I was no longer looking for them. One became more insistent than the others.

“Eva, you are gone, you didn't go out anymore. Since you have this place you are buried in there”. She was absolutely right. Relationships and, above all, friendships must be cultivated and maintained; they are good for the spirit if they are pure and sincere. So it was that I accepted her invitation to go out one evening: “Come on, next week let's meet, Tuesday they inaugurate a live music theater, come with me, I already have the invitations”. I went there coming directly from my restaurant, I had not even dressed in a fancy way, only pants and a shirt. The event was in Piazza dei Cinquecento; after just over an hour, I told my friend that I would leave, because the next morning I would open, as always, at six. Leaning against the wall there was a guy who was talking to the owner of the music theater. To reach the exit I was forced to pass between them. Referring to me, one of the two, the one leaning against the wall, said, making me hear him: “Here! You should invite girls like her”. Since I am a person of spirit, I retorted on the fly: “In fact, I was not invited, but my friend.” He, as they say in Rome, with a face like b... promptly replied: “But then I would like to invite you to dinner on Saturday...”. “If I remember you until that day, why not?!” I replied smiling as I handed him my business card. From the appearance and sophisticated clothing, he appeared to be a type full of himself. My reply had taken him by surprise and I took advantage, with a feminine touch, to take his clutch bag out of his jacket pocket. “Come and take it back if you want” I concluded smiling as I left.

The next day he was already at my place. Destiny or coincidence given that he was Biagio and that he will become my son's father?

Without warning he showed up at my bar-restaurant. It was around 6:30 pm. I wasn't there at that time, I went to the accountant. As I was returning, the phone rang, I pulled over the car to answer. It was an employee of mine: “Madam, there are two people here who are looking for you” I asked to talk with them. Biagio, amused and with a bold voice, said: “See?! I came to meet you, but if you want, since you're not there, see you next time... ". I could also have answered him: Okay come on, come back another day.

Instead: “Okay I'm coming back, but there are two of you, who is the other?”, he replied: “He is my friend. I've never come around here and without him I would surely got lost, I brought the human navigator ”as if he were talking about an imaginary place out of this world. He lived near Piazza del Risorgimento, vain and snobbish, he could not stoop to the periphery. What's wrong with the road that leads to the lake?

I was wondering while he was being funny. Anyway, I let the waiter come over and I suggested: “Offer them what they want, I'm on my way”. Biagio was inside with his friend. He had been accompanied by him, as he had told me on the phone, precisely so that he could act as a navigator: he had worked at Sip (now Telecom) and knew every corner of Rome and its hinterland.

The bartender, upon entering, told me that during the wait they had eaten half the counter: sweets, pastries, chocolates.

That day my story with Biagio actually began. I had started with a good-looking dude who never missed an opportunity to make me notice. Me, the loser who lived in the countryside, on the northern outskirts of the capital, he upper class who lived in the center, the beating heart of the metropolis: “I like to smell the stench of asphalt. All this green makes your head spin, too much oxygen”, he repeated like a broken record.

I would never have gone into Rome, in 50 square meters, leaving my beautiful house of 200 square meters, surrounded by nature. Moreover, I preferred to pay the mortgage and have my own apartment forever, rather than shell out the money for rent every month.

In the end he accepted: together yes, but at my place. It was really very tiring. Nothing suited him. Our tastes were very distant. “Why did you buy a house right here? And why did you decorate it this way? With all this stuff?”.

He liked extreme minimalism: a table, a sofa and a TV. He stood with his breath on my neck to change all the furniture. I did not even think of it remotely, every corner told of me, of the sacrifices I had had to face to give the house the image I dreamed of.

The pressures from him soon began to bother me, I could not tolerate the results of my sacrifices being questioned. “I sweated from my forehead to set up this house. And I don't think you've done much better than me”. However our story went on. Maybe it wasn't the best for me, but I wasn't bad with him. He was a smart, intelligent person with a law degree and work experience in the real estate sector. And then I wanted to become a mother: I became pregnant with a child that we both wanted and desired. Biagio was forty-four, had never married and was very close, perhaps too much, to his parents. For this reason he did not absolutely feel the need to become a father, but he strongly felt the need to give a grandson to mum and dad.

He had benefited all his life from the generosity of his parents, who now pressed him to have a grandchild and he wanted to please them.

In August 2003, 5 months pregnant, as always, I went to visit my parents, while Biagio was busy with his work. At that precise period he was following Saadi Gaddafi, a Perugia footballer, son of the Libyan dictator. His needs were very varied and he needed a legal consultant also for finding the accommodation that had to be suitable to host, on her arrival in Italy, his wife with all the trousseau of companions, dogs and bodyguards. After two weeks in Romania, I returned to Italy by plane.

At Fiumicino, at passport control, they stopped me. According to the border police, I could not have landed in Italy because, being a resident of Rome, I would have needed a work permit. An Italian-style bureaucratic puzzle. Or a spite to Eva Mikula, to the uncomfortable Eva Mikula. Those were the years in which Romanian citizens could enter freely and without a visa for a maximum stay of three months as tourists. I, who had been residing for 8 years and a company started with 8 employees, could not enter. They wanted to send me back to Romania. I called Biagio. He came running.

But they didn't even let us meet. I could only look at him through the windows. I didn't feel well. They only allowed me to take the medicines I needed for pregnancy out of the suitcase. I panicked: the next morning I was supposed to open the company. I imagined the employees waiting for me and the customers having breakfast sitting at the bar.

The next morning, at the change of shift, I tried again to explain the absurdity of what they were doing. I was finally able to get in touch with a lawyer experienced in the legislation relating to entry visas, in force at the time. It turned out that the mystery could have two reasons: total incompetence of the policemen or targeted fury on my name. To think badly... The law, in fact, established that the entry visa was mandatory only the first time for those who entered Italy for work reasons. Or for those who did not yet have an indefinite residence. The lawyer called the border police office. And they let me pass. With the sadness and bitterness of those who feel unwelcome. A woman pregnant with a child with an Italian father who had been paying taxes in Italy for years, forced to sleep on an airport bench. From Fiumicino I went directly to my restaurant bar. There was no time to feel sorry for myself.

A question tormented me: “How can I start a family and manage a business at that pace, with those hours?”. I was at a crossroads: family or work? Biagio did not like the idea that I ran a restaurant, that I worked in a bar-restaurant: “It is not an activity that suits you, an office would be more suitable; a more level job for you, instead of being among people who cannot speak and write, who come to have coffee with muddy construction shoes. You cannot be among these people”. I replied: “Those muddy people feed me.” “What does it mean?” Biagio retorted “Then get married to a butcher who has a lot of money, rather than a distinguished person”. I decided to sell the place.

Francesco was born, an infinite joy, I was finally a mother! My nature, however, could not bend, in fact after a month I was already pawing: I absolutely had to go back to doing something, to work, also because no kind of financial help came from the child's father and I still had the mortgage to pay. It can't really be said that he was the typical husband of the past: he out to work and to bring the sustenance for the family and his wife in the house to take care of the housework and the children.

So I began to ask myself questions. Basically I was thinking, “He's never okay with anything about me, he makes me feel out of place, inadequate”, so my self-esteem started to falter.