fake jews

At the Piazza
“I think you should eat slower.”
She was smiling her radiant head with the sun behind it, blonde on blonde.
“You think?”
“Sometimes, tourist, I think.”
“Why?”
“So we can talk.”
“But I don’t like talking when I eat.”
He forked a pile of ragu into his mouth and swallowed it with wine.
“It’s better this way. I can talk with you for longer, after.”
“But all we do is eat.”
“And then we move.”
“And then we sit.”
“And then we eat.”
It’s too hot for wine, he thought.
“We’ve done more.”
“Let us not,” she said, with her Dutch accent straining. He broke some bread and flicked a butter knife along it delicately, soft. She reminded him of butter. A few times, she had smelt of it. She must’ve smelt it, he thought. But that still isn’t why.
“You think I should eat slower?”
“For protection.”
“From what?”
“Malaise,” she said, not knowing how to pronounce it.
“But we are patient anyway. When the trains are late – and they are always late – we sit over our bags and read. Or, when there is a silence, Sara, we wait, rather than hide in our phones, and then” he held her hand “there is nothing we expect from each other.”
He was much younger than her - but his tongue was good. When he finished the meal he wiped his mouth and there was oily ragu all over. He ran his gums along his teeth, like a chimp. He had dark eyes and a brown skin that had been left pale over the lonelier years. She thought it was handsome, but she thought a lot of men handsomer.
“That wasn’t so long, see?”
She seemed quiet. Her glass had been left still as a lake.
“You know I’m the one who should be annoyed.”
She didn’t respond.
“But I’m not,” he lied to himself as well, “But I’m not annoyed. Not with you.”
“It’s just hard.”
“Let’s enjoy it. I’m sorry for not talking with you.”
A wind began to go and it dragged the waiter’s old fashioned coats like sails around the square. He’d miss the waiters here. The first time, in Bologna, he ordered Sara a coffee with her lunch. They didn’t speak much Italian but they understood laughter. The whole table laughed and they all understood each other then.
 “We should walk,” he said, eyeing the hills. “Finish your food”. “You can have it.” “And the wine?” “I’ll carry it carefully.” The town and houses were low in the valley, and they could see the rolling hills from the square. He motioned to the waiter at the coins left gleaming on the piazza table. Her pesto had been cold and he left hungry while he crossed the shell shaped piazza, hungry beneath the slanting medieval clock tower, and, past the tourists in ugly sunglasses, single-file in a cool corridor between the walls of houses, hungry in a road of shops, closed for lunch. Sara arched her long body by a row of sequin dresses. “Do you want a jacket?” he asked, moving closer. “I was only thinking of it.” “You should buy.” She held her hips. “It wouldn’t fit, see? It’s better with no one inside.” The glass was dark and it mangled them onto the leather coat. He wondered if it was deliberate; if shop windows like that made you feel ugly for a reason. He could see her, but even in the mirror, their eyes did not touch.
“We should walk,” he said.