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54 Pap Khouma he’s visited. Might as well let him. It’s a good way, after all, to begin the sale, to convince someone else to buy, and to close the deal quickly. This is the goal: be quick and get out of there as fast as you can because you never know when a kind Italian brother, while we are there listening to everyone go on about Africa, has had the brilliant idea to call the police. The police or the carabinieri are already waiting for us for their own reasons. Our red Peugeot with Parisian plates attracts the police and carabinieri, but the Parisian plates often save us as well. “Where are you going? What are you doing here?” they ask. It is always me who answers because I happen to have learned a tiny bit more Italian than everyone else. Every night when we get back from selling, I stay up for a few hours with my grammar book and memorize the rules, inflexions, verbs, pronouns, nouns, adjectives, adverbs of place, of manner, and agreement. I am the best at Italian. This month I’ve learned something very important: When you are face-to-face with the police, it doesn’t pay to play the part of one who doesn’t know anything, who doesn’t understand, and can’t manage a word of Italian for his life. It’s much, much better to answer in an appropriate way and not make the police officers’ and carabinieri’s lives any more difficult as they are already angry on their own account. Instead, lower your eyes and say: “Yes, Boss, you’re right, Boss”—and in Italian. The boss, then, without a doubt will ask, “Wait, how do you know Italian?” My turn now: “We speak many languages. He speaks English. This other guy speaks German. Him, Spanish. We know many languages.” “But what are you doing here?” “We’re students.” “ID, please.” “We are from Paris, as you can see from the car. And we are on our way back to Paris. We came to Bologna just to say hello to some friends.” Bologna could then become Pesaro or Perugia or Padua, always a university town, though, because we are students, I Was an Elephant Salesman 55 and we are always headed to Paris. The trick usually works. In the end not even the Uncles really want to waste time with four black guys. But it does happen sometimes that an Uncle wants to waste his time or that he’s very strict and has great respect for his uniform. In that case he usually comes back with “Look here, you’re illegal.” “Yes, Boss.” “You can’t stay in Italy.” “You’re right, Boss.” “You have to leave.” “OK, Boss. I swear that I will never come back.” “If I see you again, you can be sure that I will throw you in jail.” “I know, Boss. Sorry, Boss.” The Uncles threaten us more and more with the jail story. Every day we have to humiliate ourselves more and more. When that is not enough, the threat becomes real and we all end up in jail: sometimes for an hour, other times a day or a week. Uncle’s mood varies, but the accusation is always the same: illegal aliens on board. Our reactions are all different: At first you cry, and then with a little practice in the end you can even make yourself laugh. We always think of our country far away and above all of our mothers: “What are we doing here?” we ask ourselves. “What have we done wrong? We’ve only tried to sell in order to live. In Senegal we were never arrested.” Despite it all we never curse. It’s not right and they might hear. We only complain and sigh deeply. That is, until one of us loses his patience and scolds another: “Cut it out, you crybaby.” No one can stand to be called a crybaby and so he then responds: “You’re the crybaby.” Then we kid around as a way to muster courage. The bitterness doesn’t go away, though. It’s only alleviated somewhat, hidden. Sooner or later Uncle opens the jail cell when he feels that the guys from Senegal have understood who is in charge: “Now listen up: I don’t want to see you around here anymore.” OK, Boss. But the selling must go on, and at the pace we...

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