The Artist & Her Lover

After defending Autumn against the police commissioner’s accusations, Colin sat in his tree house listening to Jesse Cook strumming the song ‘Azul’, a rumba instrumental he played every night when he arrived home from work at the academy in Rome. Cook had re-recorded the song during the pandemic, and it was a part of his just-released ‘Love in the Time of Covid’ series. Colin could not sleep and sat on the balcony of his tree house in a large, cushioned, rattan chair with his eyes closed and a vodka tonic in his hand when he felt his cell phone vibrate, indicating he had an incoming call, and he answered it. “I am hurt that you did not return my phone call,” Nala sounded wounded. “I intended to, but I have been so busy here, I haven’t had a chance,” he lied. “Colin, I need your help,” she said, sounding troubled. “Qual è il problema?” What’s the matter?” he asked. “I have been living with my brother, Amadi, and immigration officials came to our shanty looking for us and indicated we are to be deported when they return for us. After the COVID pandemic, hundreds of thousands of migrants lacked legal status in Italy and tried unsuccessfully to apply for it. “I contacted Marco, but he is uncertain about what we should do,” Nala said. “I will speak with Marco and figure out how I can help, but colleagues are waiting and I must go now,” he lied. “I understand. You are still in another country. But please try to help us if you can,” she said and hung up the phone. Colin hung up and called Marco, who said he wasn’t sure whether he would be arrested for assisting migrants but that he would try to smuggle Nala and Amadi out of the city and would contact him if he was successful in finding asylum for them. Colin lay back on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. He knew Italy had repatriation detention centers known as Centri Di Permanenza per i Iimpatri, which held undocumented migrants waiting to be sent back to their countries of origin. But he’d heard bad things about the organization. He heard migrants waiting to be deported were often “kept quiet’ by using psychotropic drugs. Doped up or knocked unconscious, migrants didn’t eat, make waste, and above all, didn’t claim their rights while waiting to be deported from Italy. This type of treatment saved the centers’ money because psychotropic drugs were cheap compared to food. Given the reputation of the detention centers, Colin decided he would contact the Migrant Resource Center, which was a neutral space and a “one-stop shop” for in- formation and services for migrants in both source and host countries. The center employed a variety of actors and served a multitude of objectives, helping migrants learn a second language, learn vocational/skills training, and obtain legal counsel. Colin called his father, Gianni Acieta in Amalfi to tell him the authorities were trying to deport Nala and her brother, Amadi, and that Marco was trying to help them avoid deportation. Colin did not reveal that he knew Nala was his sister. Gianni told his wife, Francesa, that Marco was illegally helping migrants, that he might be jailed for doing so, and that he was going to find him. The next day, he headed for the Orthodox Monastery of San Giovanni Theristis in the province of Reggio Calabria. Gianni did not reveal that he suspected Nala and Marco were in one of the two places. Either Marco, Nala, and Amadi had taken refuge in a monastery because monastery abbots could not reveal their worshipers’ confessions, or they were hiding with Nala’s mother, Jamila, in Riace, a location he had where he’d taken Nala’s mother decades earlier when immigration officials had successfully deported her husband and intended to do the same to her if they caught up with her. Riace’s was at the top of a windswept ridge where, for decades, thousands from Syria, Eritrea, and Nigeria took refuge. Gianni and his wife had remained together after his wife learned about his affair with Nala’s mother, Jamila. However, his wife had never forgiven him for his adultery or for having fathered children with another woman. They slept in separate rooms and had not had sex for decades. As Gianni began his journey along the seaside roads leading to the monastery and then Riace, he fantasized about his youthful indiscretion and unlikely romance with Jamila and her hypnotic erotism. It was an aphrodisiac, and she was an addition that, decades after their intimacy, he could not rid himself of. Gianni intended to confess his continuing sinful nature when he spoke to the abbot at the monastery and hoped he would be forgiven for not attending to his immigrant family sooner.