Trafika Europe 14 - Italian Piazza

Frank Iodice

she’d told me, and on the other also by a great fear, because she didn’t know either that, after having molested her, the Bengalese had ended up on the train, or that, fortunately, he was also dead. In our brief phone cal l , we hadn’t imagined that a few minutes would be enough to understand the origins of her problems and mine. Nor did we know that they overlapped in part. I had to put myself in her shoes: it must be difficult to tel l someone over the phone, someone you barely knew, that you’ve been molested by a Bengalese with such a big smi le that you’l l feel disgusted by anyone who smi les at you for the rest of your l ife. Seeing someone’s teeth would be l ike seeing them armed, you’d have the fear prey feels before a predator. Bando’s smi le, which I also remembered, had, on the train, done nothing but stare at the breasts of the girl seated next to me, she, too, must have felt those teeth on her l ike the fangs of someone who, behind a bush, is ready to jump on you and tear you to pieces. Law of the wi ld or of the State Rai lway. I’d l istened to Mel i whi le she whispered Naples to me with her del icate voice, in order that I would l isten closely and understand. Maybe she knew already when we spoke, or at least, that was my impression. Now she sat, engrossed, she was coming to a decision, she who knew how to do that, and her aunt was counsel ing her without triggering any mechanism of jealousy, the way al l experts in a secret language

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