He told me to back up – the chandelier was in the garage. I backed up slowly, toward the house. It was almost dark, except for a hazy patch of light from the street. He unlocked the door, flicked the switch, and the neon light blinked once, then again, and glowed steady and cold. In the depths were some iron brackets. And cardboard boxes, lots of boxes. He pushed the nearest one over and pulled the chandelier halfway out. The chandelier was just like in the photo—all glass and bent tin roses—pink and yellow. It seemed ridiculous and touching at the same time. They began making such chandeliers at the end of the first decade of the last century and at first the roses were made of porcelain. I think they were produced up to and including the 60s, but at some point they replaced porcelain with tin. Around each of the roses were carved leaves, neatly painted in two green colors—darker and lighter. This one looked to be from the late thirties and forties, when it became expensive to buy real capodimonto roses. Capodimonto, the main Neapolitan mecca of all this porcelain horror—all these curls, saucer-cups, sculptures in the style of Louis….. And there are roses stuck everywhere. Delicate porcelain roses. Maybe Empress Maria Amalia, the ancestor of this nightmare, would have been dismayed by such transformations, but personally, the tin ones seemed fine to me. I like these kinds of things—semi-nonsensical, ridiculous, old-bourgeois.

But I digress. The chandelier was super—roses, leaves, crystal dangles. I took out my wallet, counted out seventy euros. He hid the money and suddenly started talking, confused and very fast. I didn’t understand a word. He repeated, pointing to the door:

“I want to show you something else, you’ll like it. Let’s go through there, it’s right next door. I think you’ll like it.”

It really was close by, just next door. He took a long time picking a key, and there was already some tension in his gestures, a deliberate carelessness, nervousness. Finally, the lock clicked, we entered, and he slapped on the switch, but the neon light didn’t come on, just flickered and clicked, like a cicada. At first I thought it was the same hangar as the one we’d just come out of, but I was wrong: it was the same only in width, but it was three times as long as the one we’d just come out of, and further on it became deep and dark. At the very end, there were some shelves or racks against the wall, and when we reached the middle, I could see that all of them were filled to the top with various cardboard boxes. We came close to them. It was quite dark here. In the flickering fluorescent light, everything looked mysterious, if not disturbing.

“Yes, the lamp is broken but…we can live with that. It’s not important and it won’t bother us,” he chuckled for some reason.

“It’s here,” he jumped awkwardly, grabbed the topmost box and pulled it down.

It gave way, either he lost his balance or pulled it too hard, but suddenly all those top boxes came crashing down and fell almost at my feet. One of them opened and some stuff rolled out. I pulled out my phone, lit a flashlight. They were multicolored dildos and severed male fingers. Sturdy, short fingers with yellowish nails. The severed phalanges were still bleeding a little. On the one that was closest to me, I could make out stiff black hairs near the cut.

I stared at the whole thing for a while. Then I turned around and walked toward the exit. I tried not to walk too fast. I kept wanting to turn around, but I didn’t. It was a long way to the exit. The lamp kept blinking. If he lunges at me now, then… what? And my place is a mess, even the stove isn’t cleaned… It’s embarrassing. The apartment could be broken into and the stove won’t be clean.

I left. He stayed inside, and I hoped he wasn’t going to follow me. I looked around, but there was nothing in sight. As I opened my car, I suddenly remembered the chandelier. That it was in the other garage. And that the money had already been paid for it. I stood near the car for a while, then opened the trunk, and squinting through the opening, I quickly found a toolbox under the skeins of polyethylene. The box had been left in the car since yesterday — I was going to buy a workbench, and according to the seller’s terms, I had to disassemble and load it myself. I asked Tema, we drove to Aprilea, and for nothing — the workbench turned out to be some crap with a table top of organolite, and the purchase was upset. And the toolbox stayed in the car. The sledgehammer was on top. I thought I’d have to find an awl, too, but it would take a long time, and I didn’t want to delay. It was an old, good sledgehammer, I got it from my geometer, who was doing repairs. A geometer is something like a foreman, but not really, it’s more like a middle ground between a foreman and an engineer. The sledgehammer was old, its handle kept shriveling up and the iron part of it kept moving out and wobbling. So I kept the sledgehammer in a basin of water. Even now its shaft was still a little damp. I squeezed it tighter, closed the car, and went inside. I couldn’t see anything at all from the door, just the gloom from the flickering lamp and the faint outline of the shelving.

The light was so ominous that I felt like a character in a Winding Røfn TV series, and it made me laugh. The rage was receding, but slowly. I was about halfway through when I noticed that he was squatting and fiddling somewhere down there on the floor. I tried to walk slowly. The sledgehammer in my hand didn’t give me any strength, but I hoped it added to my image. When he heard me, he straightened up. I approached. He had a severed finger in his hand. He handed it to me and said:

“Señora, it’s not what you think,” he chuckled again, “it’s not what I wanted to show you, it’s for a children’s party.”

I looked at the floor. Colorful dildos were still lying there, seven or eight of them. He probably hadn’t thought to pick them up.

I’ve seen a lot in my life. A lot, really. But I don’t remember any of these things at children’s parties. I finally looked him in the eye. He was very quiet. Even in that light, I could see that his face had changed. He handed me the severed finger again and squeezed it.

“It’s a toy, señora, just a child’s toy.” His voice changed to a whisper in mid-sentence and faltered. He squeezed and unclenched that finger to make me realize it was made of rubber.

First, this war. Then, this Italy. And now some asshole with these rubber fingers.

“I’d like my chandelier back, and if possible, soon.”

He was silent and didn’t move. He was staring at the sledgehammer and even in this light you could see how white he suddenly turned.

“I’d like the chandelier,” I said again, and I stood staring straight into his face, not smiling.

I can stare like that for a long time. Once I had Armenian upholsterers, you couldn’t relax with them for a minute, they immediately started to breed hackwork or otherwise cut me off — they had a lot of ways for that. And even a smile, a symbol of friendliness, they perceived as a weakness. A signal to start their tricks. So I learned to talk to them as if I were Don Corleone and I was going to make a deal and just start shooting. That worked for a while. And then I gave up and learned how to do the upholstery myself. Besides, I can sew better than upholsterers. Anyway, they were these special Armenians. And now I know how to make eye contact for a long time — calmly and without smiling. So for a while I just looked at him with a sledgehammer in my hand, and then I made a small step in his direction.

He came to, nodded at me, and walked around me in an arc, and then he backed away or ran, looking back at me every two steps. When I got out, he was already at the car, on the other side of me, behind the hood. The box with the chandelier was by the trunk. I opened the trunk, picked up the box from the floor, and loaded it. When I got to the door, he ran over to the other side. I started the engine, hit the gas. The car wouldn’t move. I pushed harder. The sledgehammer was on the seat next to my leg. Then the music started blaring. I drove slowly past, Vivaldi blasting from the car. As I drove out of the damn dungeon to the deafening “Salve Regina,” I took another look at him. He looked blue in his black suit. And it was even more noticeable that he was still very pale. He had those perfectly Italian eyes, big and dark and kind of pitiful, like he’d just been raped by Caravaggio. As I drove past him, I realized I hadn’t taken the handbrake off. My nerves were shot. No matter that I was a good driver. On the way home, I realized something.

He never showed me what he wanted to show me. Well, it’s his own fault. He shouldn’t be showing fake severed fingers to impressionable women in the dark. I’m fragile and dreamy. And indeed, quite impressionable.

I’ve also realized that the chandelier and the sledgehammer became friends forever.

Or maybe even something more.