A Muslim woman sits across from me on the train, her hair tied back by a brown and orange splotched scarf, a crust of red on her fleece sleeve. It is my first encounter with someone in Italy who is obviously not Catholic, like a quiet play of wind across my knuckles. On her purse--it melts into a pod of rough fabric--a keychain. Minnie mouse, followed by square, white beads, worn with grains of browned touch: Dunielu.
"I want to hate," he says, rolling up a leather belt of drawing pencils and ink at Bar Duelle. I ook at him and he says it again. "I want to hate," this time with a hand on his stomach. Eat. He wants to eat.
Later, across a table of fried food and peach tea, his finger hooked around mine. "You make me loathe." I stare, not because it is surprising, not because I am stuck by this bold and uncomfortable statement. No, it's because this sentence twines around her time together. It's because he knows better by now, after two weeks of brick pressed into my shoulder blades while I correct him. He squeeze his eyes shut. "Laugh." The word is like a bean bag in his mouth. "You make me laugh."
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