Column: Byzantine conditions

We were all together, selling party, buyers, authorized representative, witnesses, interpreter and the brokers (the Gremlins, see my previous contribution) had been looking in amazement for half an hour at the shuffling and rumbling of the two notary assistants with piles of paper documents (meeting room in, meeting room out), when Mrs. B., saleswoman of the house in Pietra de' Giorgi, couldn't contain himself any longer and suddenly exclaimed with a tortured look: 'Ma è necessario tutto quel bizantinismo?'

bizantinismo, I thought, that's an interesting expression, let me look up what it means, even though I could guess it. As an authorized representative (attorney!) on behalf of the buyers I should have put the most important signature of the day today, but for now I was still bored.

So I grabbed my cell phone and started googlingn. In case of bizantinismo, according to the search engine, there is 'vane complicazioni bureaucratic o (con allusione ai costumi di corte dell'Impero bizantino) di un cerimoniale esagerato'. That's right. Byzantine conditions, that's what we were dealing with here!

'Unfortunately,' was the timid answer of one of the two notary assistants to the cry for help of the selling lady. But, thank you for your patience, now the time has come, the mortgage deed (20 pages in size) was ready to be signed… No, to be read out. Oh yes, that's true, the deeds are read here first, only after that you can sign.

And to make sure that you, as a borrowing party, understand what financial noose you are putting yourself on, the deed is simultaneously translated by an English-speaking Italian interpreter, who is present on this matter, the date 1 April (that too) 2019. An interpreter, okay, but where was the notary?

The notary was not needed yet. The nine of us were able to handle this problem all by ourselves! The assistant read and read and read, one article after another. The interpreter translated the complicated Italian into even more complicated and unreadable English.

To be sure, buyer Marco watched the laptop screen from which the interpreter recited her beautiful sentences. It all sounded very phonetically. Did she even understand what she was saying? Marco narrowed his gaze. Hey, what was there? Four first names, Nicolaas Hendrik Cornelis Maria, but no surname.

Marco looked at me, intended proxy, in astonishment and pointed to the fatal screen. Indeed, no last name. 'Manka Boots!I yelled panicked. I never thought that the absence of my husband would make me panic again. The interpreter and the notary went into a whispered conclave and concluded that it was no problem. Just adjust, print a new one and Cornelis is ready. Fortunately, the reading of the wrong deed could continue in the meantime.

Fifteen minutes later it was time to sign. Hoera! I sat up and tested my right wrist. Fortunately, weeks of training and an altitude training (at 250 meters) had paid off, my writing joint was supple and muscular. Bring on those papers! First, the interpreter put her signature on each page of the freshly pressed document. Well, not really a signature, but her full name, including first names, and legible please!

I gave Nicolaas Hendrik Cornelis Maria Boots an ironic look. He was able to work hard! But first it was the turn of the buyers Marco and Cora. I waited, bearded. Cora had finally reached the last page. The notary took Cora's deed, passed me and gave the document to the witness, my husband who was only invited to the role at the very last moment (mistake of the mediator) and just recently was not allowed to have a last name.

What? The solicitor saw the horror in my look and smiled affably. 'No, Lei no. Il procuratore firma solo l'atto di compravendita.'. I was only allowed to sign the deed of sale. Disappointed, deeply disappointed, I slumped back in my chair with a sigh. Had I been looking forward to that for weeks?

The two meters wide doors at the front of the room suddenly swung wide and the solicitor entered. Was he secretly warned that the foot soldiers were ready? In my imagination I heard a clarion call. 'Si è aperto il paradise!' (heaven has opened) I cried jovially, whereupon one of the Gremlins covered his face with his hands and shook his head.

Apparently I didn't have enough respect for the solemn ceremony. We were all given a soggy, limp hand after which the certified document doctor sighed in his soft leather throne. The notary shoved the corrected mortgage deed in front of him, whereupon the notary conjured a shiny pen from his black suit and pursed his lips precisely.

He first asked whether the persons mentioned in the deed were all present, during which he stumbled over almost all Dutch names. He had the grubby look and damp, lisp voice of a wicked village pastor whom all children know should stay away from him. After first mispronouncing the name of the selling lady, he mistakenly mistook one of the two brokers for her husband, whereupon she immediately makes defensive movements that meant something like 'no, never that!'

The notary worked his way through the extremely boring text and read everything in detail, full social security numbers, article codes, numbers and amounts. Every now and then he made a small correction. We became rowdy with boredom and when we giggled a little too loudly, the notary suddenly barked sternly'C'è qualcosa da ridere?' (is there something to laugh about?). 

No of course not. We had long since lost our laughter! At the end of the document, the number of sheets and pages of the document still had to be entered, which led to a quarrel between the notary and the notary. Before my tormented mind's eye appeared the sadistic situation in which a deed counted 19 sheets, but the writing down of the word 'diciannove' resulted in the need for a 20th leaf.

As a result, the worddiciannove' be replaced in the text by the shorter word 'venti' which resulted in only 19 sheets being needed. And thus the word 'venti' be replaced in the text by the word 'diciannove' which led to… and so on. This meeting was bound to go on forever. We never got out of here!

After fifteen minutes or three the reading session was ready and we were allowed to… draw. What? Again? We didn't understand. But the sworn eye of the notary was unrelenting. All names had to be repeated on the document, in twenty copies.

Well, all, mine still doesn't! The drawing session was followed by a new reading session: of the – fortunately much shorter – deed of sale. Finally, after nearly three hours of waiting, the only document I was allowed to sign appeared right in front of me. But what did I feel now? Tingling? O God, my hand was asleep!

Want to read more fun stories about life in Italy? You can find it in the three parts 'Italiaanse Status' by Stef Smulders, available at bol.com.