Basic HTML Version
46
-
SEXY X2
MAGAZINE - JUNE 2012
Every day, he had to eat at some
cheap restaurant, or buy a sand-
wich to satisfy his hunger because
he was not allowed to cook in
the place where he was living. In
his room, he had an old television
left behind by another tenant and
which he used for entertainment in
the evenings or during winter when
the cold, rain or snow prevented
him from amusing himself walking
around the city in his day off.
Ethel felt that she needed to learn
more about Oscar. It was no
longer the morbid curiosity that
would guarantee her tears, it was
something else. It was a genuine
desire to get involved in the world
of those who leave everything
behind to follow their dreams.
How much despair was there in
those who plucked the roots that
sprang from their shoes to start
looking for a new land to put
down those roots that now did not
have soil to settle them?
How much courage and hope
was there in each migrant? How
many dreams and feasible goals
were there in each one of them?
Suddenly, she realized that there
was a wide and completely un-
known world to her In a transcend-
ent second, she understood that
the city was full of different faces
that she had refused to acknowl-
edge, ignoring them, making them
invisible to her, and sinking them
into a social invisibility.
They talked for nearly two hours.
Ethel lied to him again. She told
him that she was a professor at a
university and that she intended to
do research on the social impact
of migration so talking with him
would certainly prove helpful for
her project. She asked him, actual-
ly begged him, to see him again.
Oscar agreed to meet her again.
She invited him to have breakfast
the following Sunday, so that he
could talk about his life experi-
ences and his own history over a
cup of coffee.
Four days later, they met again just
as Ethel had suggested.
While Oscar kept talking and talk-
ing, she felt that she was getting
more and more involved in the
history of this man whom a week
before was an absolute stranger,
and today was an important part
of her life.
When he made a comment about
his unusual face, she felt deeply
ashamed when remembering that
it was precisely his particular face
that had caught her attention.
Oscar said that people sometimes
looked at him with mistrust just be-
cause his face and skin color were
different from the locals of that city.
He said it with a blunt statement:
“Many people commit a crime by
carrying a weapon without au-
thorization. It would seem that my
crime were to carry my own face”.
He told her how happy he had felt
when he could send money to his
son for first time, as a result of his
hard work and sacrifice. He spoke
about that sacrifice which many
people in his home country mini-
mized by saying that the real brave
men were those who stayed to
fight on their own land, instead of
running away to another country
where people live better.
His eyes were moist with the tears
that he tried to hold back when he
was talking about his plight. He
found it difficult to look at the light-
colored eyes of the woman who
was sitting in front of him because
to see her crying did not help him
hold his own tears, and because
to lower his head to the people
of that city had become a condi-
tioned response for Oscar.
It was the first breakfast they
shared, but not the last one.
Ethel was being pulled without
resistance into the immigrant’s story
which increasingly imbued her into
the smells and flavors of a strange
land. She learned, without having
seen it before, that the color of the