37-1,p12

I lived a life of luxury. It was impossible to find lodging at cheap hotels because of the vacationers, so I often had to stay at big palaces with private beaches and tennis courts. The fashionable guests in the dining room didn't know how to react when I appeared in the hall with my backpack, wearing lilac-striped trousers, a sleeveless t-shirt decorated with spangles and blue Chinese-looking tennis shoes with silver-edged laces.

In Levanto the police stayed away during my show, but came to my cafe table later to ask if I earned a lot of money. I pretended not to understand, but they kept asking the same question. Finally, I admitted I was pretty satisfied with the take. They laughed and said I would be a fool not to be satisfied, then left.

It was impossible to find a room even at the more expensive hotels there, so I ended the evening crawling into my sleeping bag on the beach with a bottle of champagne. All alone under a full moon, I fell asleep to the sound of waves crashing on the shore. But in the middle of a beautiful dream about love and cookies I was brutally wakened by two policemen.

They shook me and shouted while six or seven others dazzled me with flashlights. They told me it was strictly forbidden to sleep at the beach. They were not swayed by my argument that all hotels were full.

The two most aggressive policemen were my friends from earlier in the evening. I left the beach and spent the rest of the night on the asphalt behind a parked car. Nobody tries to pay street performers with a credit card, but there are other inventive possibilities. Someone brought cakes and ice cream, and I was invited for drinks. In Raspallo where I performed in front of a hotel, the manager came out after the show and shook my hand. He looked very serious, but presented me with a six-pack of good wine and left with a little nod.

The most common contributions are small bills, coins and tokens for the telephone. The most incredible part of the show began when I went to the bank to change several kilos of income for more convenient bills!

I waited in a long lines to see a teller. Then, seeing my plastic bags, the teller panicked and told me he couldn't handle it today. There was a long discussion, after which I was totally ignored. I didn't move, and began stacking coins in piles beside the window as the teller served the next customer. The piles were slowly moving toward the window, upsetting the teller more and more. That made me more relaxed. I had four week's vacation ahead and was in no hurry.

The trench warfare continued for almost an hour before I demanded to speak to the manager. The cashier exploded and said if that was the way I wanted it, I'd have to count the money myself. I did as I was told, sorted the coins in small bags and tied the bills with rubber bands. When I returned to the window, he paid me what I asked without counting a penny.

Two shows in a row were followed with more than ordinary interest by a married couple. They were nicely dressed, but had four-edged stars tattooed on their foreheads. The man offered me a beer later and told me they had come to the city as jugglers years ago. They had performed all over Europe for many years and earned enough money to make it possible for him to get a job as manager of one of the biggest hotels in the city.

The man's father was a sword swalIower and strong man before buying his own circus. That was where the son learned juggling. He later spent two years in Bombay, India, where monks who practiced juggling as meditation taught the couple to do torches. "Today we live our life like the people around us. We smoke and drink. But one day we'll return to India to live a more simple and harmonic way," said the man as he swallowed another whiskey on the rocks.

At the end of the trip I got a room at a hotel where a photo of Liza Minelli hung on the wall. It was personally signed with a greeting to the hotel keepers. "She's a good friend of ours, because my husband has been her bodyguard on several tours," said the lady as she handed me my key. A couple of days later when she found out I was in showbiz she asked for my picture, too.

That's how Marcus with a 'C' ended up hanging next to Liza with a 'Z' on the wall of a certain Italian hotel. With that enshrinement, I felt that my international breakthrough was complete and I could return to Denmark and the daily routine.

Finito. Basta.