Her name was Carmela Milazzo. Her father worked in the village factory by the river.
For a year she sat right behind me, and when the teacher called her name, I spun around
and stared at Carmela Milazzo. She sat there, like a dream, she seemed to be asleep. your big ones, black dog eyes
looked through me, through the teacher. She never opened her mouth on time. It was, like she couldn't
rode, as if all the sentences she had started would run back inside her sleeping large body.
Didn't she have anything to say? Or did she just think it was too stupid?
I couldn't understand, like a girl, called Carmela, smelled of smoke and urine every day.
I would have named my girl Carmela too. But my carmela would have been as soft and graceful as caramels.
“You're staring right through me like a cow again!”, I said. But Carmela didn't answer. “are you a cow? A sacred cow?” Carmela mumbled something, she didn't seem to have been listening. I nudged her. No reaction. I was getting angry. Finally the bell rang for a break. Carmela staggered to her feet, I stepped behind her and tripped her. Carmela lay flat on the floor, looked around apologetically and stood up again.
The teacher prescribed me punishment tasks: “Write a hundred times in your exercise book: I will never trip Carmela Milazzo again.”
After writing the sentence twenty times, I called: “Mrs. Messerli, i love caramel!” Mrs. Messerli laughed, and meant: “And, Then why don't you bring Carmela a bag of caramels as an apology!” I considered. Finally I did. I put the foil with the caramels on the counter in front of Carmela. She pretended, as if she doesn't see them. “He, look, of …. gives …… do you like these?” Carmela said nothing. Her black eyes became a little more alert. “And, to you!” During each pause I turned my head to Carmela, to see, if she had nibbled a caramel. Nix. Finally it got too colorful for me, I undid the strap and popped a caramel in my mouth. A second, a third. “A caramel for camels. You say, when stop!”, I cried sucking to Carmela Milazzo, who smiled a little now.
I do not know, what became of Carmela Milazzo. (Certainly more than me).
(30.7.2022)