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Italian Money
- Indiana University Press
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I Was an Elephant Salesman 19 Street-Smart . . . Beach-Smart Glorious Riccione. Riccione, I adore you. I am tired, but my eyes are wide open in order to take everything in. The lights are blinding like the noonday sun, even if it is midnight by now. In my pocket I have an envelope with an address written on it. I give it to the taxi driver: Via Nullo. The driver leaves me in front of the closed door of an apartment building with an intercom to the right and one to the left. I don’t understand, but he insists, “It’s here, here,” and drives away. It’s not too late and so I begin pressing all the buttons. I’ve seen this done in the movies. I keep pressing one in particular. A dog starts barking. This also happened in the movie. A man comes to the window shouting: “It’s not here, it’s not here.” Who in the world understands him? Finally the man decides to come down. He takes me by the hand and with his finger points to the intercom and the right button . I ring and some guys come right down. I say to them, “I’m looking for someone I know . . .”—when really I am looking for a cousin of a friend from Abidjan. I have never seen any of them before in my life. I tell them the name of the guy I know. “He no longer lives here,” they inform me. My first big letdown. And now what do I do? 20 Pap Khouma But the two young guys bring me to him. Right, left, right, left, and we find ourselves in front of another apartment building. We go up together. Two other Senegalese guys let me in. My friend lives there, but he’s out at work somewhere far away: Porto San Giorgio, Porto Recanati, Civitanova Marche, Numana. He’ll be back. In the meantime they put me up. So far, so good. My first night in Italy I sleep. The guys there don’t ask anything. They leave me to my thoughts about the next day when I’ll discover the city and walk by all the houses, the caffès, the shops, the people . . . The morning is here. Finally no more train. I go around on foot now, with my legs, and under the sun. I look around and I’m happy to be in the middle of so many dressed-up people, all smiling. These people have fun and don’t work. They spend their days on the beach or at the caffè. They chat and stroll along all day long. Who knows what they’re talking about as they stroll along without a worry in the world and with plenty of food in their stomachs. It’s an unending party, like in Abidjan, days and nights that last forever. “I will be like them,” I tell myself. They were tourists, but I didn’t know that at the time. I thought they lived there all year round . . . I still had a lot to learn. I want to soak up the sun and take in the nice shops. Instead my new friends are waiting for me at home, worried. “Where were you, grand-frère?” “I just went to take a look around.” “Be careful, you shouldn’t be doing that. You better not walk around because here we live in hiding. We don’t have papers. We pretend we are tourists. But everyone knows that we aren’t tourists and that we sell on the beaches. It’s not allowed, it’s forbidden, got it? If you go wandering around like that, Uncle might see you and stop you. And if he stops you, he’ll bring you to the station and give you deportation papers. And when they find you with those papers, dear grand, you have to leave the country. If not, if they catch you again, they’ll send you to jail. Got it? You’ve got to be careful. When you leave the apartment, you have to look [34.203.242.200] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 02:33 GMT) I Was an Elephant Salesman 21 around and make sure the Uncles aren’t there waiting in their car for you. If there are too many people, go back. And don’t let the tubab see you when you go back in. It’s better if they don’t know that...