Trafika Europe 4 - Armenian Rhapsody

“But he looks so incredibly good”, pleaded Irene.

They glanced at each other, wordlessly voted two against one, and the ice cream man was no longer an issue for either Paul or Max.

“And what about Luisa?” Irene protested. “She has a right to vote too, and kids love ice cream. And Italians love kids!”

“Lulu is three weeks old”, Paul pointed out. “She’s a baby. Babies don’t eat ice cream.”

Irene didn’t have a chance, not even with me as another woman, so to speak, who could have shown some solidarity. Could have. If I’d wanted to, but I didn’t because I didn’t want a stranger, didn’t want Francesco, or Claudia, who Max now suggested, once Francesco had been discarded. She was also someone who apparently looked insanely good, was a fellow student at the Art Academy and Max naturally wanted to get into bed with her, and so on and so forth. It wasn’t easy for my father, who’d gone through the painful experience of being roughly thrust into maturity on the day of my birth, and who now suffered from needing to be responsible. But for me, with the same burning desire for responsibility plus honest devotion, it wasn’t easy either. No, I didn’t want new faces. I didn’t want more flatmates who’d be more or less disinterested in me. I wanted my tea-leaf-scented Englishman who, by then, had visited me three times bringing touchingly meaningless

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