Melina Velba In Black

Marseille - Naples only return



(Andrew Drummond - From Naples Monitor)

In the Piazza di Porta d'Aix people flock in the midst of the junk recycling bins close to the Roma, and street vendors sell cartons of cigarettes to passers-by whispering the brands they have. This is the last image of the city, I want to print it right on the head before returning home, among familiar faces and family.

The person who answered the phone yesterday was annoyed: a French-accented Arabic worse than me that only after insisting a lot of puffing told me I can be found within the seven on a side street near the market. There is no way of knowing in advance whether the bus will leave or not. We must call a number to rectify some information and gather at the appointed place one hour before departure. If you find someone good, or else you will speak the following Sunday. From what I understand, a kind of abnormal company provides a bus and two drivers abusive to dealers who come down to Naples each week hands-filled, Marseilles and go up to loads of fake goods.

The bus arrives, park badly and started to load. Completely white, not at all reliable, without the name of any firm on the side, with stickers of various Madonnas attack on the glass and a wooden rosary hanging from the mirror. The drivers leaving the side door patched with tape. Four Arabs arrive Travel, one of them says to call Mohamed, Ali and the other is called seems nervous. Then there are Abdul and Ibrahim. A middle-aged lady immediately takes place, says to go to Naples once a month to shop.

Jeans, jackets, shoes, handbags, sunglasses, shirts, watches, underwear. These traders have figured out where it is produced the fake author. Yet the fake money, but since the financial police found a laboratory in Giugliano in which falsified Algerian dinar has become dangerous. Anyway back to the bus is crammed with boxes packed with craft and the journey you do it standing on him with anxiety. Retailers buy in clandestine factories in Naples and neighborhoods and then sell in shops in the center of Marseilles. To avoid detection by unloading the goods into other cars before the border, although the French customs do not eat a laugh and a bus in the past have turned from top to bottom. The last check of the police a few months ago of five thousand euro and a deluge of verbal belts seized.

In all this the drivers are neighbors. As soon as we enter the highway, Ali collects the money and starts to count with the others in his hand before you pay them, but they begin to discuss the price because, during the outward journey there were some complications. "But what complications?" Ali ago. Two hundred and fifty € per person and not just discussed. One of two drivers to check each bill carefully passing the nail in the center. "You will see these? - He says, pointing with a nod - They keep our economy. " It's called

Giggino. After the sign of the cross he was sitting reluctantly in the driving seat, his eyes still uncomfortable with sleep and binge on the outward journey on the back. Other thoughts go through your head, to Giggino: unresolved issues, bills insolvent, the lover of Ukraine to maintain, so that gives a damn about the intrigues that are the smugglers. "I pay enough for me." His aide said that sometimes he has to make customs, but all ends with some pieces taken from the disturbance to a poor fellow underpaid he is.

Giggino but does not want anything but envy them not to show it. Better to take the place of those Arabs voted in the informal trade rather than driving a bus smashed through the night, stressed the thought of the trouble, under the orders of a certain Rafele that calls on the phone to see if we left on time. Plus this is his second job - in black - because officially Giggino works in Cumana, and will even mount the morning shift once you arrive. I ask him how to spend your free time and he responds angrily: "But what spare time." From time to time we have the remember to look ahead, slow down, the other's cries suddenly realized Gigg, 'and he s'innervosisce before taking it back there with the Algerians, who incur the blame of his eternal defeat.

From the back of the bus, the young Algerian look with suspicion and respectful we spoke to her only if asked. Remain seated to smoke, listen to rai music, try to deflect talk of their travels and smiling stubbornly pretend not to understand the questions.

Giggino is convinced that it was the "son of latrine" Ibrahim to steal money from the purse in one of the previous trips. Is retiring as the others and I think his face of having already seen it somewhere. From the pockets of fighters written on slips of paper with addresses and telephone numbers and the money takes them rolled up in socks. Napoli knows best of all, Ibrahim, unlike the tourists who run away from Piazza Garibaldi outraged. Abdul seems to only trust, but speaks little French and less Italian. We are able to sketch a conversation in half-sleep, as a way to stay awake gotta find it, and driving sports Giggino there is nothing to be quiet. Abdul recently emigrated in the past has worked in the fields. He hopes to earn a bit ', starting a family with the help of Allah and return to his cut bled off from the world to plant fruit trees. Eventually we find ourselves listening to the songs of Dahmane El Arrach.

Giggino can not bear the thought of having to work for foreigners. Ali refuses to taste his sandwich capocollo and he looks angry, and when they try to explain that they do not eat pork he did not think such a thing really possible. Perhaps Giggino despise those guys because they do not have the courage to despise himself, and yet that was the only really tangible sense throughout the trip, an absolute hatred accumulated over time, easy to understand why family as the familiar faces that I am going to review. Giggino continued to drive the bus, risky overtaking the trucks. Once there, Rafele responded to that invoked to see if everything had gone smoothly, then with a wave of anger has sent us all to fuck off and went running to mount the morning shift. Ali and Abdul, meanwhile, have picked up the bags with the others, and dragging them to have started with that cunning grin to the market of Porta Nolana.