Trafika Europe 14 - Italian Piazza

Frank Iodice

sweet to his wife and l ittle girl might turn into a violent and dangerous alcohol ic. How long ought they to fol low the kids once they ’d left? According to the law, unti l their majority. Telephone cal ls and visits were scheduled regularly in an exemplary government program. And yet Mel i had this atrocious doubt concerning not so much the economic as the psychological welfare of her chi ldren. The love that these kids would receive once inserted in their new fami l ies. And love, unfortunately, cannot be measured in any detai led report or Excel chart ful l of dates and signatures taken according to formal procedure, without looking each other in the eyes, nor real ly talking about the kids and figuring out if they were happy. One evening I’d asked one of the social workers (not Mel i) how they managed not to get attached to them; I was shocked by the prohibition against hugging them and other rules of that kind. They ’d answered that they did get attached, and how! —although their future came first and, if a good fami ly was found that was ready to take them on, one certainly couldn’t hang onto them up there, in that kind of barracks. There were kids who didn’t benefit from any state support, who remained ignored because they ’d passed the age establ ished for help, and yet they were as needy of support as the others, l ike Victori , the Romanian, or Hakim, the Algerian, but with Hakim there was also a question

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