hunger of the depths.
The seaside restaurant is empty.
There’s no one but a police official absorbed in a newspaper as he consumes his single plate of cheese pasta beneath the trellis.
The owner of the restaurant has stepped out onto the beach, a white apron over his name-bearing T-shirt. Hands on his hips, he looks at the sea.
Vito walks along the beach.
A dead jellyfish lies next to a plastic bag covered with tar.
This year, the sea is a wall of jellyfish.
That’s not why the tourists won’t come.
Vito walks along the beach.
He saw those overladen boats that stank like jars of mackerel. Guys from North Africa, veterans of the wars there, veterans of refugee camps, stowaways. He saw their dazed eyes, the hand-over-hand passage of children who’d survived the voyage, hypothermia sufferers with silver blankets. He saw fear of the sea and fear of land.
He saw the strength of those wretches: I want to work. I want to work. I want to work in France, in northern Europe .
He saw their determination and their purity. The beauty in their eyes, the white of their teeth.
He saw the degradation, the animal-like conditions.
Young men standing with their backs against a wall while soldiers took away their shoelaces and belts.
He saw the race to help them, used clothes for the children, donations from poor people pissed-off because Jesus Christ always turns to them.
He saw the overflowing camps, the fear of disease, the protesters who blocked the piers and landing places, and then started it all over again by throwing themselves into the sea at night to pull out those wretches who didn’t know how to swim.
There’s no way of knowing who you’ll end up saving. It might be some jailbird who’ll steal your mobile phone, drink-drive in the wrong lane, rape some nurse heading home after the night shift.
Vito has heard this kind of talk, jumbled, crude. The anger of poor people against other poor people.
Saving your killer – perhaps that is charity. But here, no one is a saint. And the world shouldn’t need martyrs, just more equity.
Angelina is at the window. She is waiting for her son, who’s not on his way back. It doesn’t matter. She knows that one day he will not come back. That’s life.
She may not have been a good mother. She was like a lizard whose tail had been cut off. Vito was her new tail.
But how can one hope?
The TV is off. It’s an old TV; it doesn’t work well; it suffers when there’s wind or rain. They should get a new TV, a new aerial. But anyway, this is just their summer house.
Angelina is waiting for the war to end, for the actor of a thousand faces to be captured and tried.
She saw the NATO bombings, heard the usual There will be no civilian targets . They didn’t even spare the factory that supplied oxygen tanks to the hospital.
She saw the tricks, Green Square full of rebels, a fake created by the television. A film set.
She saw the warriors with their bandanas, children carrying machine guns. She stretched her hand out towards the television as if to stop them.
Their city destroyed, the bullet-ridden walls, the holes left behind by explosions. Palm trees white with debris.
Her mother, Santa, said, They’re shooting at us .
We are Tripolini. We aren’t from here, and we aren’t from there. We’re stuck in the sea like those people with nowhere to land .
They saw the rebels, regular people. Girls who did not wear the veil speaking on the radio, university students with machine guns and beach sandals.
They saw the old Senussi flag.
They saw child soldiers. The little loyalists, drafted for a few dinars, were killed on their knees, a bullet to the base of their skull like animals in the savannah.
They saw a woman news reader with a veil, bearing a gun.
They saw bare-handed mine removers dressed in shorts and sweating like farmers in their fields.
What will happen to all of those weapons afterwards?
She woke up with that thought in the night.
They
The seaside restaurant is empty.
There’s no one but a police official absorbed in a newspaper as he consumes his single plate of cheese pasta beneath the trellis.
The owner of the restaurant has stepped out onto the beach, a white apron over his name-bearing T-shirt. Hands on his hips, he looks at the sea.
Vito walks along the beach.
A dead jellyfish lies next to a plastic bag covered with tar.
This year, the sea is a wall of jellyfish.
That’s not why the tourists won’t come.
Vito walks along the beach.
He saw those overladen boats that stank like jars of mackerel. Guys from North Africa, veterans of the wars there, veterans of refugee camps, stowaways. He saw their dazed eyes, the hand-over-hand passage of children who’d survived the voyage, hypothermia sufferers with silver blankets. He saw fear of the sea and fear of land.
He saw the strength of those wretches: I want to work. I want to work. I want to work in France, in northern Europe .
He saw their determination and their purity. The beauty in their eyes, the white of their teeth.
He saw the degradation, the animal-like conditions.
Young men standing with their backs against a wall while soldiers took away their shoelaces and belts.
He saw the race to help them, used clothes for the children, donations from poor people pissed-off because Jesus Christ always turns to them.
He saw the overflowing camps, the fear of disease, the protesters who blocked the piers and landing places, and then started it all over again by throwing themselves into the sea at night to pull out those wretches who didn’t know how to swim.
There’s no way of knowing who you’ll end up saving. It might be some jailbird who’ll steal your mobile phone, drink-drive in the wrong lane, rape some nurse heading home after the night shift.
Vito has heard this kind of talk, jumbled, crude. The anger of poor people against other poor people.
Saving your killer – perhaps that is charity. But here, no one is a saint. And the world shouldn’t need martyrs, just more equity.
Angelina is at the window. She is waiting for her son, who’s not on his way back. It doesn’t matter. She knows that one day he will not come back. That’s life.
She may not have been a good mother. She was like a lizard whose tail had been cut off. Vito was her new tail.
But how can one hope?
The TV is off. It’s an old TV; it doesn’t work well; it suffers when there’s wind or rain. They should get a new TV, a new aerial. But anyway, this is just their summer house.
Angelina is waiting for the war to end, for the actor of a thousand faces to be captured and tried.
She saw the NATO bombings, heard the usual There will be no civilian targets . They didn’t even spare the factory that supplied oxygen tanks to the hospital.
She saw the tricks, Green Square full of rebels, a fake created by the television. A film set.
She saw the warriors with their bandanas, children carrying machine guns. She stretched her hand out towards the television as if to stop them.
Their city destroyed, the bullet-ridden walls, the holes left behind by explosions. Palm trees white with debris.
Her mother, Santa, said, They’re shooting at us .
We are Tripolini. We aren’t from here, and we aren’t from there. We’re stuck in the sea like those people with nowhere to land .
They saw the rebels, regular people. Girls who did not wear the veil speaking on the radio, university students with machine guns and beach sandals.
They saw the old Senussi flag.
They saw child soldiers. The little loyalists, drafted for a few dinars, were killed on their knees, a bullet to the base of their skull like animals in the savannah.
They saw a woman news reader with a veil, bearing a gun.
They saw bare-handed mine removers dressed in shorts and sweating like farmers in their fields.
What will happen to all of those weapons afterwards?
She woke up with that thought in the night.
They
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