Free Divorce Islamic Style by Amara Lakhous Page B

wouldn’t have any prejudices against Arabs and Muslims. Truthfully, there has to be a difference (a great big difference) between an emir and an illegal Egyptian immigrant. But Saber doesn’t bother much with this detail, because he has worked out a plan that anticipates four phases. First: become a legal immigrant. Second: break in as a soccer player, preferably for Milan, but the important thing is to play in Series A. Third: get on TV a lot, in order to attract attention, ideally as a regular guest on some famous soccer talk show. The ultimate would be to get a part in a comedy with Christian De Sica. Fourth: win the heart of Simona Barberini.
    A perfect plan, no denying it, except for one small observation: wouldn’t it be useful to devote some attention to the pronunciation of Italian? Is there no hope of recovering that damn “p”? But I prefer not to be critical—I don’t want to ruin the magic.
    Our room resembles a warehouse. And this is because of Ibrahima, the Senegalese. His big bags of counterfeit goods are scattered here and there, under the beds and on top of the closet. If the police turned up, we’d all end up at the precinct.
    Ibrahima has been in Italy for fifteen years; he lived in the north for a long time, before settling in the Eternal City. He has no sympathy for the Lombards, but he can’t rid his speech of their slang and their locutions. He’s thirty but looks older. He belongs to that category of young men who seem in a hurry to get old. Young men let themselves go physically when they lose interest in courting the opposite sex, as happens frequently to those who are married. This I read in some magazine—another piece of intellectual bullshit!
    He has five children, who are with his wife, in Dakar. He was married when he was still a teenager; in Africa marrying early has a long tradition. Proudly, he shows me a photograph of his oldest son, who’s now in high school and in a couple of years will go to the university. Ibrahima’s dream is for him to be a doctor. But dreams are never free, you have to pay to fulfill them. He supports his family, thanks to the remittances he sends—two hundred euros every month. He’s a peddler of counterfeit goods, like the majority of his countrymen, running a thousand risks every day. He hates the local police and the customs police. Luckily he doesn’t know that my father, my real father, is a cop in Mazara del Vallo.
    “Brother, the cops are pieces of shit. They break your balls every day. They treat us worse than thieves.”
    “Selling counterfeit goods is illegal.”
    “So, what the hell! We buy and sell, where’s the harm? It’s called commerce.”
    “But it’s against the law.”
    “Brother, the market and the sidewalks belong to the people.”
    “No, you’re wrong. They belong to the city.”
    “Come off it!”
    I immediately regret having acted the moralist. I could have spared him these fucking lessons on legality. The law is always on the side of the strong and the rich. I mustn’t forget I’m from Sicily. There’s quite a difference between those who can afford to pay an experienced lawyer and those who have to make do with some greenhorn chit. Like hell are we all equal before the law!
    I have to admit that I’ve always admired the foreign street peddlers like Ibrahima. They are true anarchists, revolutionaries in the field of commerce. They don’t give a damn about licenses or taxes; they do everything openly. The market should be open to all, it’s a place of meeting and exchange. I don’t understand why the city governments give the peddlers such a hard time. I recall the Francesco Rosi film
I Magliari
, with Renato Salvatori and the great Alberto Sordi. The story is set in Germany in the fifties and recounts the adventures of a group of illegal, crooked fabric merchants, in other words, Italian street peddlers.
    The third tenant I’ve socialized with in the past few days is the Moroccan, Mohammed. He’s