Trafika Europe 11 - Swiss Delights

An Instinctive Feeling of Innocence

a nationwide debate about how to reconcile cremation with Romania’s orthodox Christian traditions, if that were even possible.

“What now?” “The money!” “What money?”

The security guard and I look at one another. This guy is senile. As I should’ve made clear later on, at the precinct, I always try to force myself to be sympathetic to old people, even if it’s just because of their white hair, but I don’t always succeed—because I know that these old folks aren’t really old folks, at least not the way their forebears were. These new old folks only wear the cheap mask of old age, and behind it they’re still just the children of communism, their shifty eyes darting about, as young as their all-encompassing malevolence. I remain polite as with all clients, regardless of their requests, and explain why we can’t just hand him the cash, how the foreign exchange transactions work and why the conversion process prevents us from doing so. The old man sighs—or was that the security guard, whose respect I’ve certainly just regained?—and then says, “Damn speculators.” I maintain my professional smile, somewhat softened by closing time, and tell him that’s above my pay grade, and no one currently present

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