Chapters (36)
Her mother stopped to greet a neighbour who was asking after Papà – the news had spread fast – and Giulia seized her moment to slip away. She took refuge in a shady side street and drank some water from a fountain. The air was clearer, she could breathe again. Her spirits revived. Voices rang out further along the street. Two uniformed carabinieri were issuing a warning to a tall, well-built, dark-skinned man, his hair covered by a turban which the two police officers were ordering him to remove. The man protested, in perfect Italian with a hint of a foreign accent. Everything’s in order, he told them, showing his papers. But the officers would not listen. They became angry and threatened to take him to the cells if he still refused to comply. He might have a weapon concealed in his headgear, they said. Nothing could be left to chance on the day of the procession. The man stood his ground. The turban was a sign of his religious allegiance, he was forbidden to remove it in public. And it did not prevent him from being identified, he continued, because he was wearing it in his ID photograph – a privilege granted to Sikhs by the Italian government. Giulia watched the scene and felt uncomfortable. The man was good-looking, with an athletic figure, fine features and curiously pale eyes. He looked about thirty years old at most. The carabinieri grew angrier still. One of them pushed the man. Then, holding him firmly between them, they led him away, in the direction of the police station.
The unknown man showed no resistance. He passed in front of Giulia with a dignified, resigned air, flanked by the two carabinieri. For an instant, their eyes met. Giulia did not lower her gaze, and neither did the stranger. She watched as he disappeared around the corner at the end of the street.
‘Che fai?!’
Francesca had appeared behind her, making her jump.
‘We’ve been looking for you everywhere. Andiamo! Dai!’
Regretfully, Giulia rejoined the procession, walking behind her sister.
That evening, she found it hard to get to sleep. The image of the dark-skinned man returned. She couldn’t help wondering what had happened to him, what the police officers had done. Had he been interrogated? Beaten? Sent for deportation to his own country? She was lost in pointless speculation. One question tormented her above all: should she have intervened? And what could she have done? She felt guilty at her passive response. She had no idea why the stranger’s fate intrigued her so. She had felt a strange, unfamiliar sensation when she looked at him. Was it curiosity? Empathy?
Or something else, something she could not name.