After four years of torture she finds the courage to report her exploiters, with the help of an organization that fights the prostitution racket preying on immigrant girls. So she gets her residency permit and moves to Rome to change her life. She has never gone back to Albania because she’s ashamed, she’s afraid of how people will react, and also that her exploiters might take revenge. Now Dorina hates men, all men, and she often cries when she recalls freezing nights waiting for clients on the outskirts of all those cities. I always try to cheer her up.
Grandfather Giovanni is over eighty, and has some hearing problems. But in my opinion he’s not quite right in the head. He usually sits on a bench, the same one, reading
La Padania, Libero
, and
Il Giornale
. You’re in trouble if you disturb him, even just to ask the time. You have to leave him alone. After he finishes reading, he bursts out with comments like: “I hope I die before Romania enters the European Union”; “Soon we’ll be invaded by the Gypsies, they’re like locusts, and we’ll have migrant camps everywhere, even right outside our houses”; “What’s the government waiting for to close all the mosques and throw the Muslims in jail?”; “If the Muslim immigrants really want to assimilate, they should convert and become Catholics! I want to see them at Sunday Mass!”; “Damn Communists. It’s always their fault.” The finale is almost always the same: “Oh, my country, so beautiful and so lost!”
Grandfather Giovanni calls me “sister.” I’ve told him over and over, “I’m not a nun, I’m a Muslim.” And he answers, “What? You dress like the sisters and you’re not a sister?” I try to persuade him: “I can’t be a sister, I have a husband and a child.” And he: “I see, the Muslims are mad for women. They even marry sisters!” I don’t have the least desire to explain to him that nuns don’t exist in Islam and that the Prophet Mohammed strongly advised against monasticism. Among us people say, “Marriage is half religion,” or “Marriage is prevention.” Many transgressions are linked to sins of the flesh, to sex. When someone marries it becomes easier to hold temptation at bay. But perhaps this applies more to men than to us women, or am I wrong?
Once Grandfather Giovanni made me practically die laughing. After the usual reading of the newspapers he stared at me for ten seconds or so, then he fired off questions like a high-speed train.
“
Libero
says that the Americans are resigned: they won’t get bin Laden alive or dead. Excuse me, sister, I would like to ask you a question.”
“Please, Signor Giovanni.”
“This damn bin Laden, where is he hiding?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know, sister? He can’t have disappeared into thin air. Have you hidden him somewhere, the way you did with Saddam Hussein?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about it.”
“All right, all right. You don’t trust me because I don’t belong to your religion. You know, I was in the war, so I’m an expert in military matters. You see, I have a hypothesis on bin Laden’s hiding place.”
“Really?”
“Bin Laden is a Saudi, right?”
“Right.”
“So he’s hiding in Mecca, in that square mausoleum you call Ka . . . Ka . . . Kamikaze or . . . Kawasaki.”
Fantastic! An ingenious hypothesis. The Kaaba, built by Abraham, has become a motorcycle brand! But poor Giovanni is only a parrot, he repeats the stupid things he reads in the papers. Luckily he’s almost deaf. Every cloud has a silver lining! What garbage would come out of that mouth if he could follow the programs on TV and radio.
Before going to the market to do the shopping I stop off at the Marconi library to borrow a book or a movie. The staff are all women, who are polite and kind. I choose a book of fairy tales for Aida. Then I go up to the second floor to glance at the newspapers. I see the young man with the
Grandfather Giovanni is over eighty, and has some hearing problems. But in my opinion he’s not quite right in the head. He usually sits on a bench, the same one, reading
La Padania, Libero
, and
Il Giornale
. You’re in trouble if you disturb him, even just to ask the time. You have to leave him alone. After he finishes reading, he bursts out with comments like: “I hope I die before Romania enters the European Union”; “Soon we’ll be invaded by the Gypsies, they’re like locusts, and we’ll have migrant camps everywhere, even right outside our houses”; “What’s the government waiting for to close all the mosques and throw the Muslims in jail?”; “If the Muslim immigrants really want to assimilate, they should convert and become Catholics! I want to see them at Sunday Mass!”; “Damn Communists. It’s always their fault.” The finale is almost always the same: “Oh, my country, so beautiful and so lost!”
Grandfather Giovanni calls me “sister.” I’ve told him over and over, “I’m not a nun, I’m a Muslim.” And he answers, “What? You dress like the sisters and you’re not a sister?” I try to persuade him: “I can’t be a sister, I have a husband and a child.” And he: “I see, the Muslims are mad for women. They even marry sisters!” I don’t have the least desire to explain to him that nuns don’t exist in Islam and that the Prophet Mohammed strongly advised against monasticism. Among us people say, “Marriage is half religion,” or “Marriage is prevention.” Many transgressions are linked to sins of the flesh, to sex. When someone marries it becomes easier to hold temptation at bay. But perhaps this applies more to men than to us women, or am I wrong?
Once Grandfather Giovanni made me practically die laughing. After the usual reading of the newspapers he stared at me for ten seconds or so, then he fired off questions like a high-speed train.
“
Libero
says that the Americans are resigned: they won’t get bin Laden alive or dead. Excuse me, sister, I would like to ask you a question.”
“Please, Signor Giovanni.”
“This damn bin Laden, where is he hiding?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know, sister? He can’t have disappeared into thin air. Have you hidden him somewhere, the way you did with Saddam Hussein?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about it.”
“All right, all right. You don’t trust me because I don’t belong to your religion. You know, I was in the war, so I’m an expert in military matters. You see, I have a hypothesis on bin Laden’s hiding place.”
“Really?”
“Bin Laden is a Saudi, right?”
“Right.”
“So he’s hiding in Mecca, in that square mausoleum you call Ka . . . Ka . . . Kamikaze or . . . Kawasaki.”
Fantastic! An ingenious hypothesis. The Kaaba, built by Abraham, has become a motorcycle brand! But poor Giovanni is only a parrot, he repeats the stupid things he reads in the papers. Luckily he’s almost deaf. Every cloud has a silver lining! What garbage would come out of that mouth if he could follow the programs on TV and radio.
Before going to the market to do the shopping I stop off at the Marconi library to borrow a book or a movie. The staff are all women, who are polite and kind. I choose a book of fairy tales for Aida. Then I go up to the second floor to glance at the newspapers. I see the young man with the
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