Trafika Europe 14 - Italian Piazza

Frank Iodice

Mel i wasn’t good at speaking about l iterature, she always felt inferior to the persons she had before her, even when they didn’t give her any reason for it. For her this was a new world, as fascinating as it was unknown; she looked around and felt herself wrapped in something new, a kind of l iving air, made of words and titles that reproduced themselves in her mind whi le she read. It gave a title to her existence, that ’s what reading some of these books meant to her. Her aunt owned a quantity that impressed the young Mel i. Working in a l ibrary, she had the advantage that she got first pick when there was a charity sale or a giveaway of old books. Whi le she dried her hair with a towel , Mel i couldn’t stop glancing at the shelves and caressing the covers that stood out as though they were fresh scars waiting for treatment. I would have l iked to l isten with my ears to what they were saying once seated on the couch, a soft couch for readers, on which the aunt spent entire afternoons immersed in research, in the company of her favorite characters, because the subject of that conversation happened to be me. “So, tel l me about your work in L’Escarène, why did you leave it?” Mel i explained: “In the social institutions cal led MECS they take care of chi ldren who have been victims of violence and have no parents or whose parents

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