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Germany via Paris
- Indiana University Press
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I Was an Elephant Salesman 31 Police . . . Just Joking! Germany is always on my mind. The days pass and I can’t think about anything else. After all, that’s the destination that my fortune-teller assigned me. But my friends convince me: “In the summer everyone is on vacation. They’re all here at the Adriatic. You should wait for winter.” They’re right. I see the Germans every day, right next to their umbrellas. Better to stay in Riccione. But whatever feelings of enthusiasm I had at first now quickly melt under the sun. I see how these guys all live under enormous stress twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. They’ve all been arrested at least once and had their merchandise confiscated. They’ve all received deportation papers ordering them to go home. The expert, Osman, the boss, is always saying the same thing: “Careful, sooner or later it’ll be your turn.” To hear him, you’d think we were back in the days when they would go around hunting the black man. The black man can never escape. Sooner or later he ends up caught in their net. The police raided some other apartments, in Via Nullo, in Via Trieste, and even others. They caught some guys there and took their necklaces , bracelets, and elephants. Some even ended up in jail. Ours is the only apartment that hasn’t been searched. The guys all say over and over, resigned to their fate, “They’ll be here one day. If not tomorrow, then the next.” One evening around nine, the intercom buzzes from downstairs. One of us answers and asks who it is. “It’s us.” 32 Pap Khouma “Who?” “Police.” My friend drops the receiver and comes bounding into the living room shouting, “The Uncles are here.” We are all mute as we stare at the receiver hanging off the hook. There were three guys there with us who had just been released not too long ago. Clutching their deportation papers, they had told us about their run-in with the police. Seated around the table, we were relaxed and chatting, and just to show off, someone even started to laugh his head off. But now when we hear that the police are here, everyone’s eyes jump from one corner of the room to the other looking for an exit or some way to sneak away before it’s too late. I’m the last one to move. I don’t know what to do and like an idiot I stand as still as a pole, praying that Sal or someone else will drag me with them to a good hiding spot. Instead, our three guests are quick on their feet. They run into the kitchen, fling open a window leading to the roof of a garage, and jump. They’ve split. Three others follow them: this must be the best way out. I jump, too. But I don’t know where to go. If I start running I will get lost and won’t know how to get home. I follow one of the guys to a caffè, staying right on his heels. He notices and says, “Stop. Look and see if you see the Uncles’ car.” I do what he tells me. I go back a few meters, lean against the corner of a building, and just like in the movies I peer out to get a glimpse of the front door of our building. There they are. “Yeah, the car’s there. I see it.” And in fact the car’s there, parked at an angle with the doors open, menacing like all the Uncles’ cars. We start running again until we duck into a caffè. “We made it again this time.” “But we can’t spend the night here. We have to go back.” The caffè closes. We look for another one. And still another . We’re now approaching one thirty in the morning. Even my friend says we have to go back. But I don’t know if that is such a good idea at this point. Somehow I manage to suggest: “Let’s go back.” But this “Let’s go back” sounds ...