Leaning against the wall of the old university building, Daniel took a joint from the pocket of his wide pants.
Cofi went wide-eyed:
“You smoking that here?”
Even though it was broad daylight and people were milling about, Daniel had no compulsion about lighting the joint. Cofi kept looking up and down the street to see if anyone was coming. Daniel did not seem to be bothered. – “What’s the matter? You think the lion’s going to get you?”
Daniel chuckled and passed Cofi the joint:
“Here, you better have some of this to calm you down.”
Hardly had he spoken when a police car rolled up to the lights.
Cofi hid the joint behind his back.
“You want to waste it,” said Daniel.
Cofi waited until the lights changed. Then he handed the joint back to Daniel.
“It’s got nothing to do with lions,” he said, “just common sense.”
A few hours later Cofi was wheeling his little trolley home in the dusk. If he had not managed to sell anything very much, he did not greatly mind.
He stood at the level crossing and waited for the metropolitana to pass.
The gates lifted.
Cofi wheeled his trolley over the track as cars passed around him.
He wheeled his trolley down the end of the road and turned into the square by the church.
Cofi rang Julia’s bell.
Cofi smiled to himself, as her voice came over the intercom. “Ciao, bella,” he said, as he pushed the door and rolled the trolley over the stone step and into the dark recess of the flats.
Julia came out onto the landing to meet him.
She helped him with his trolley over the threshold and they stepped into the kitchen.
“What’s cooking, my lady?”
The tomato sauce bubbled on the stove.
“Hmm, smells good.”
A bag of peanuts was on the kitchen table, and Cofi started to help himself. He got a handful and poured them into his mouth. Munching away at the peanuts, he grinned at Julia.
“Just look at you,” she said. “Always hungry.”
“Hungry,” he said. “Ho un fame lupo. How do you say in English? I’m as hungry as a wolf.”
Laughing, Julia wrapped her arms around him and squeezed his behind.
Cofi squeezed her back. “Bella,” he said.
“Bello,” she replied.
Cofi felt her hand running down the front of his thin trousers, as his own hand gravitated back over to the bag of peanuts.
“Hey,” Julia said, grabbing the hand. “It’s either me, or the peanuts.”
“Just a minute,” he said. “I better turn the sauce off.”
And with the other hand, he swiped another peanut as Julia walked him backwards into the bedroom and threw him on the bed.
“That will teach you to steal my nuts,” she said.
Something had unsettled him in the night. When Cofi awoke and saw Daniel’s lion strolling across his field of vision, as if through the shaft of light that broke through the shutters, it looked like the idlest, most indolent lion in the whole of West Africa. Cofi regarded it warily from Julia’s bed. The lion cannot get me, he told himself, like a mantra.
He was still telling himself it, as he stood under the arches at the back of the station watching the downpour and Daniel came running up with a black bin bag on his back. He ducked under the arches and stopped. He walked over, nodding to the others as he went. He put the bin bag down next to Cofi’s display of lighters and ray bans. He threw back his snood and grinned:
“Cazzo! What’s happening, Cofi?”
“Can’t sell a damn thing, cazzo.”
Daniel laughed.
“You want to buy some CDs.”
“What about I can’t stand the rain?”
The sun came out. Some college girls stopped by, wanting to see Daniel’s khanga beach wraps. Daniel cut to the chase and sold one to each. Out of pity the girls bought one of Cofi’s lighters, not the one shaped like a lipstick but the one shaped like a mobile phone.
Daniel joked. “She’ll be calling you up soon.”
“Well,” said Cofi, “I won’t have any money to call her back.”
“Listen,” said Daniel, “you know if you want to make some real money, I can always help you.”
“More than I’m getting?”
Daniel grinned:
“You want to live like a lion. You must think like a lion.”
Daniel teased, but Cofi knew what he meant. “I can get some more of these lighters,” he said, “and buy Julia one of your khanga wraps.”
Daniel laughed:
“You can buy her a fridge if you want.”
“With a freezer?”
“Cofi,” said Daniel. “I’m not messing you around. You will see. It will be as easy as pie.”
Cofi gave him a look. “As easy as that?”
Daniel slapped him on the back. “Tonight,” he said, “I’ll take you to meet Racine.”
Racine’s car was an old Rover, which had had the stuffing knocked out of it. The upholstery was all ripped and torn. The passenger door did not open and Cofi’s seat kept sliding back and forth, as they drove to a soundtrack of Racine’s improvisation, namely Yassou N’Dour and old reggae numbers from the seventies.
With the ravines at the side of them, they passed through Massafra onto a vast plain that stretched down to the coast.
When they reached Taranto, they crossed the railway and drove along the seafront until they came to the Mare Grande. Racine pulled up at the entrance to the port. “You got the documents,” he said.
Cofi nodded.
“I know where I have to go.”
Cofi wandered through the port, passing row upon row of containers. He found an office where he handed over the bill of lading. The clerk stamped it and asked for the money. Then he looked at the quarantine papers. “Not here,” he said. “You have to go to another office to pick up your goods”.
“Where is the office?”
The clerk shrugged. “In the magazzino.”
“Where is the magazzino?”
The clerk pointed.
Cofi wandered outside, but soon gave up the search.
He walked back to the car.
Racine sat singing to himself and with his hands rapping the steering wheel.
Racine looked up and grinned at Cofi.
“I can’t find the office,” Cofi said. “This place is like a maze.”
“Partner,” said Racine. “It’s no problem. We will go together.”
Racine picked up a tape from the back seat and put it in the cassette player.
“What are you bringing that for?”
“You don’t like the song.”
“No, the song is okay. Do you have to bring it?”
They walked back through the port. Racine swung the cassette player in his hand. Every once in a while he would sing the words.
Cofi was beginning to think Racine was crazy. He tried to tell him to turn off the cassette player, but Racine wouldn’t, so Cofi decided to do it for him. “It’s better this way,” he said, taking the recorder from him. “You can have it back in a minute.”
The clerk glanced at the quarantine certificate.
“Un gatto,” he said. “A cat… Ah, si, fammi vedere. Ah, yes, let me see.”
The clerk went into the back of the office and brought out a basket.
He put it down on his desk and pointed to the place where Cofi had to sign.
Racine chuckled.
“Here, kitty, kitty!”
He picked up the basket.
“Has it eaten?” he said, turning to the clerk.
“How should I know?” said the clerk. “It isn’t a restaurant here.”
“Devi mangiare, piccolo. You have to eat, little one.”
“Poveretto,” he said, turning to the clerk. “Poor little thing. My wife will be upset if it dies of hunger.”
“Well then,” said the clerk. “You better buy it some catnips.”
“This belongs to you,” said Racine. Handing Cofi the basket, he took back his tape recorder and pressed play.
They walked out of the office and between the rows of containers where a derrick was lifting a container onto a ship in one of the berths.
Racine swung his arms in time to the music. “I love this track,” he said. “It always makes me want to dance!”
Cofi heard a whistle. He looked up and saw a carabiniere standing between the derrick and the containers.
Racine must have seen him, too, because he started to run. The carabiniere did a flying tackle. The cassette recorder flew across the ground and smashed against one of the containers, ejecting the cassette.
The music stopped.
Suddenly, Cofi was surrounded.
A carabiniere came and took the basket off him.
“What have we got here?” he said. “A cat?”
He opened up the basket.
The cat mewed.
The carabiniere lifted it out of the basket. Hanging from its collar was a pendant studded with rocks.
The pendant was still glistening in his mind’s eye as Cofi listened to the lawyer’s brief. “Mi dispiace,” he said. “You don’t have any option under the Bossi Fini Law. They will deport you back home.” The lion might have been small, but it had got him in the end.