Trafika Europe 7 - Ukrainian Prayer

Charles Pépin

appear before the court as a free man and that we would see each other again at the trail, the idea pleased me. The judge repeats that we were seen, Ange and me, at the bar Cap Horn a few days before the crime, because I had, after what Ange told them, “a service to ask of him”. She adds that witnesses attested that we had exchanged cash, a rather large sum, it seemed without being secretive, tranquilly seated at our table with our beers. It is then plausible, as we have each declared it, that I asked him for a loan or a small donation of money. But you can see it differently: that the service in question had been to give Rédoine a lesson and the money was in retribution for this little lesson that had turned out badly. The judge asked me what I think. I respond to her that

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Deep down, Ange’s suicide does not surprise me, wild beasts can’t handle being caged up. There was too much boiling in him, he needed action, boxing rings, bars, women, movement, speaking, thumping, dancing; he could not stop without falling down. The last time I saw him in the prison courtyard, he seemed bad to me, I asked myself if he blamed me, if he told himself that we were there because of me. I tried to convince him that it would pass quickly, that he would be free as soon as the trial ended but he interrupted me: “Months in this hole? You laugh, I will be gone before.” I didn’t really understand, I imagined that he would be free before the trial, that he would obtain instruction from the judge to

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