“Sometimes it takes fifty years. There's going to be people from al over Europe, even some Americans.”
“And what do I care for Americans? ”
“I'm just saying it's the biggest conference in years.”
“This thing makes good coffee?”
“Please, Mamma.”
“I cannot do it, my heart's love.”
“We've put so much money in. It's huge, people from al over the world, it's a mosaic. They're al coming.”
“In the end, it won't matter.”
“Oh, you don't believe that,” says her daughter. “You've never believed that, come on, Mamma!”
“Have you told anyone about the poems?”
No.
“Promise? ”
Mamma, I promise. Please.”
I can t do it, says Zoh. I m sorry. I just can t.
She places her hands on the table, emphatical y, as if the argument itself has been tamped beneath her fingers, and they sit in silence at a smal round kitchen table with a rough-hewn surface. She can tel her daughter has paid a lot of money for the table, beautiful y crafted, yet factory-made al the same. Perhaps it is a fashion. Things come around again and again. A memory nicks her. Enrico used to spread his hands out on the kitchen table and playful y stab a knife between his fingers, over and over, until the wood at the head of the table was coarse and pitted.
“You know, Franca, this coffee is awful, your father would rol over.”
They look at each other then, mother and daughter, and together they smile broadly at the thought of this man now slid briefly between their ribcages.
“You know that no matter what, I am stil pol uted.”
“But you said it yourself, Mamma, that's al gone, it's over.”
“That's gone, yes, those times, but I'm stil of those times.”
“I love you dearly, Mamma, but you're exasperating.” Francesca says it with a smile, but Zoli turns away, looks towards the kitchen window. No more than a meter away is the brickwork of a neighboring building.
“Come on,” says Zoli, “let's go for a little strol . I'd like to see those ladies I saw yesterday, near that market, maybe we'l buy some headscarves.”
“Headscarves?”
“And then you can show me where you work.”
“Mamma.”
“That's what I'd like, chonorroeja, I'd like a little strol . I need to walk.”
By the time they reach the front courtyard of the apartment, Zoli is already wheezing. A few grackles fly out from the trees and make a fuss above them as they walk along the cracked pavement, her daughter busy with a mobile phone. There is talk, Zoli knows, of the cancel ations and registrations and mealtimes and a dozen other things more important than the last. It strikes Zoli that she has never once in her life had a telephone and she is startled when Francesca snaps hers shut and then open again, holds it out in front of them, clicks a button and shows her the photograph.
“Older than a rock,” Zoli says.
“Prettier though.”
“This young man of yours …”
“Henri.”
“Should I get the linden blossoms ready?”
“ Course not, Mamma! It gets so tiring sometimes. They just want you to be their Gypsy girl. They think during breakfast that you wil somehow, I don't know …”
“Clack your fingers?”
“I've gone through so many of them, maybe I should get an accountant.”
They sit in the sunshine awhile, happy, silent, then walk back arm-in-arm to Francesca's car, a beetle-shaped thing, bright purple. Zoli slides in the front seat, surprised, but gladdened, by the disorder. There are cups on the floor, papers, clothing, and an ashtray brimming with cigarette ends.
It thril s her, the complicated promise of a life so different. On the floor, at Zoli's feet, she sees one of the colored fliers for the conference. She studies it as the car lurches forward, trying hard to figure out the wording. Final y her daughter says, as she shifts the gearstick: “From Wheel to Parliament: Romani Memory and Imagination.”
“A mouthful,” says Zoli.
“A good mouthful, though, wouldn't you say?”
“Yes, a good one. I like it.”
