Zamani, the monster

 Per versione italiana di questa storia, premere qui

We discovered our windows were bulletproof the day the monster decided to smash his head into one of them. That same morning we found him tossed onto the ground, all bloodstained and halfdead. We imagined he’d had a fight with someone but, while we waited for the ambulance, we checked the security cameras and saw that Zamani, the monster, had arrived with a solid brick in hand, the type that can only be found in Yorkshire. He was determined to shatter all the glass in our windows. He threw the brick with brutal force and it bounced back like a tennis ball, fracturing his skull, knocking him unconscious and leaving him in a gory state.

 There’s nothing worse for an enraged spirit than unleashing his anger with violence only to become the laughing stock of his surroundings. Our manager, who we would all call Debby to mark our democratic spirit, could not help but laugh when she learned about unfortunate Zamani, and she was the only one, along with the administrators, who knew about the change, , because every week somebody would break a window during the  night, until the one day she resolved that bulletproof windows were what was needed.

 A few weeks later Zamani appeared in our office. Helenka, the receptionist, rushed over to tell me to deal with him. I had a reputation of being good with difficult clients.

 -Fab, there’s a pretty pretty guy here. Can you take care of him?

 -Of course- I said without hesitation. Nobody liked dealing with violent, dangerous, or cry-baby clients. But I was of the view  that these were the only  interesting service users. Partly due to my ethical predisposition to help those most in need. But partly due to a very selfish reason. It had become a game.

 Yes, a game. Dangerous, but a game. And fun, too. I learned this in Venezuela from the famously untamed llaneros. I remembered once the pride with which a brave tamer said that he’d mounted the wildest horse, an impossible mare, and had left her meek. And so it was that  one day I said to myself, "with clients I will do the same".  So if one of them arrived in a serious sweat, furious, red, with  protuberant veins, bulging eyes, a contained scream, and clenched teeth I would say to myself, in silence:

 -Here you are papito... I’ll have you meek in no time.

 Little by little I became the expert in all types of fury and Hallucinations. And my dear Helenka knew of my longing to deal with all kinds of demonized clients and for that reason she immediately called on me to deal with Zamani.

 -Fab, he's the one who broke his head with the brick, he's furious. He still has a bandaged head. Doesn't speak. Says nothing. His eyes are going to pop out. Right up your street. - Helenka said to me, laughing, for she didn't understand how I could be mad enough to deal with someone like that. But she knew the other option was to call William, Paul or Vicky, and they’d end up reciting the institutional mantra, very much aligned to our policies, that we simply do not tolerate assaults or insults. Helenka knew our policies all too well, without Vanessa or I everything would end up with the police involved. Zamani would punch the table, break something, yell, throw a chair against a wall, and the security guard would come, and with his black belt of I don't know how many martial arts, he would tie him up and ten minutes later the police too. For that, and more, Helenka adored me.

 -Please Helenka, try to tell him where the door for the security room is. I’ll wait for him there.

He came in  through the door on one side of the room, I came in through the other. Both at the same time. The security guard followed behind him.

 -Please leave me alone with Mr Zamani, I asked the security guard.

-Are you sure?

-Yes.

 I sat down in my chair, facing the desk where my computer was placed, and he sat in front of me.

 -Good morning Mr Zamani.

He did not answer. He put one elbow on the table, with force, as if he wanted to break the table. Then his other elbow. Then he leaned forward a little to put his hands on both sides of his face, his elbows firmly fixed to the table. I was calm, or at least calm in appearance, let's say that if someone had looked at me, they would have said yeah, that guy is calm, but I couldn't have been because I am really rather terrible with physical attacks - at school I was the worst at fighting, in any case I just defended myself with words, don’t get distracted, Fabrizio, you know nobody is interested in that so go back to telling the story, and as I was saying  I could see that elbows on the table were aggressive, but people that are after a fight don’t put their elbows on the table. My expectation was that it would end well, but I knew that with the faintest negative stimulus the man would jump me. I waited for a bit and Zamani didn’t return the greeting.

 -I’ll do my best to help you, -"I’ll wait for you to explain". I waited patiently for his response.

And I waited. I didn't rush to follow the procedures that were specifically outlined by the organization where I worked. The first step was to ask for the name, confirm the person’s identity, ask for their identity document and to confirm date of birth, nationality and so on. If my boss had been supervising me, she would have already marked several Xs under "things to improve". I of course ignored that procedure, or to say it in true Venezuelan, which is how it should be said here, I passed it through the very lining of my balls. This guy was furious and needed to be heard, to let it all out. I waited, then added:

 -I’ll wait, don't worry, I'm here to help you. 

And Zamani only moved his chest for take deep and controlled breaths. His arms were thick, muscular, and his veins were visible. I imagined that the air he expired when he breathed came out hot and vaporous. It seemed as though he wanted to avoid an explosion.

 And so that he didn’t explode, I continued to wait  a few seconds longer. “Maybe he needs his adrenaline to drop”, I thought, a little worried about my safety. I visualized my escape plan in case he jumped across to strangle me, since it looked like I wouldn't have time to activate the emergency button. And just when I glanced at the door, I saw my manager beckoning me through the window with a gesture, something along the lines of “we-have-to-talk". I didn't pay any attention to her, of course. And I focused on Zamani. Nothing happened after allowing a reasonable amount of time to pass so his adrenaline to drop, what do I know if I am not a shrink, but thus, unarmed:

 -I'm here to help you, Sir -I repeated, and left a short pause to add - And to help you I need to know what's wrong.

I waited for a few more seconds to pass, which felt more like hours to me, possibly also for him, but I knew that this phrase needed to break into his consciousness, of which there was little. Little, yes, but enough to get him here, the right place to get help. Like a true Venezuelan I know very well how to react in moments of extreme tension because we’ve all gone through the training of being detained by the terrible Guardia Nacional, the fearsome malandros or any of the new police forces created by the dictatorship which I was spared the doubtful honour of meeting. Anyway, I tried to hold the silence for as long as possible so that the discomfort made him speak.

But I was the one that  felt uncomfortable when out of the corner of my eye I saw the manager making a gesture to me that I pretended not to notice. And it suddenly occurred to me that the problem was perhaps that neither of us spoke English as the primary language. So in slightly tarzan-esque English I repeated:

 -To help, I need to know. I know, I help, I don´t know, I don’t help. You tell me, I help.  

Nothing. There he was; still looking at the table. Firm elbows.  His head propped up by his hands. There wasn’t a single movement coming  from his extremities, only his breathing, always heavy, deep and sonorous. For me it wasn’t altogether easy to imagine what he was feeling. He was frightening, rather than pitiful, and that's why I continued to play tamer.

Certainly, I didn't yet know he’d been accumulating rage since he was a child. Less still, that his fate by birth was not to become a traumatised child, but the spoiled child of an Iranian upper middle class, with studies abroad and all the sophistication of Persian culture. He had a quiet and privileged childhood in Tehran. He had not learned much about the Islamic revolution, as he lived in the protected world of his home, which included domestic workers, and frequent visits from family and friends of his parents. They frequently travelled to Turkey, where they would go to the beach, and his mother enjoyed the markets of Istanbul, a city she preferred to Paris or Rome. But master Zamani was not impressed by Anatolian beaches because he preferred to play in the pool at home, originally built for an English diplomat, always clean and more often than not featuring some carefully selected family guest. Who would have thought that this child would have metamorphosed into this monster that everyone feared?

 -Take your time, Mr. Zamani. I am also a foreigner and I have become very angry in this country. Not everyone understands us, I know. 

And I decided to wait a few seconds longer. Maybe minutes. But hours according to my warped perception of time. And I was trying to understand what he was thinking but he didn't give me such a kinetic indication, his body motionless. I only managed to suppose that the night before the incident of the vengeful brick, Zamani travelled across the north of the city of Leeds, went downtown, grabbed a huge brick from a nearby building site and walked south of the city. He arrived  at our office to release all the anger he had against us, the Home Office, the United Nations, God and life. And all that with a brick against the vengeful window; and this time, as with all other occasions both in this country and in his native Iran, he was down on his luck, and with all his muscles he merely managed to get  bricked by the window in return. Poor Zamani.

And poor me, that the man was still silent. And poor me that the manager had disappeared and the internal phone had begun to ring, and I knew why. Obviously the manager, Debby. I unplugged it. My full attention available for Zamani once more .

 -I don't know what happened to you, but things have happened to me in this country too, that's why I came to work here, to help people like you, people like me.

I still didn't know what his problem was, but it was easy to guess from his fury that he was in a grave situation , or at least according to himself. For my part, I had to make him understand that there is a them and there is an us, there is a “you-and-I" that is us. It’s not very fair to my colleagues, but it’s the way to break this barrier. But nothing worked. He was still there, pinned down. I could still hear his breathing. His elbows were still pinned firmly to the table. Still I couldn't see a single sign that he was hearing  me, that there was empathy. And of course, I hadn’t yet learned that his family fell into disgrace due to his father's political membership, and that the revolution stripped them of all their privileges at great speed. The final privilege to be lost was his mother's freedom to wear a half-covered veil, in clear contravention of the rules imposed by the Ayatollahs and rigorously imposed by the moral guards. While still  accustomed to the privileges of being a wealthy child in an unequal society, he was forced as a child to see his mother stoned to death following a brutal trial. And with each stone came insults, to add humiliation to the pain. Every stone the mother received wounded him in the chest with a burning pain that would never leave him. And so he saw her die. And she died not only with the pain of stones and humiliation, but with the pain of seeing her son watching, to add more suffering. What a death!

 I kept asking myself how to break the ice. I couldn't let him go without solving his problem or he would kill someone, or would kill himself, or he would throw another brick at a window, preferably not ours again. And the manager reappeared at the window with her talk-later or I-have-something-to-say grimace. I made a gesture for later, a gesture indicating to wait, hoping for the best ... I waited a while and said:

 -Listen , Zamani, we’re not from the Home Office here. The Home Office is often wrong, maybe we can help you.

 I waited some more. Nothing. I kept waiting.

 -Zamani, listen, I need to help you. Look, I'm not doing it for the Refugee Council. I do it for me. To give my life some peace. I came to help because I want to help people like you: but I can't help you if you don't tell me the problem.

 And he finally looked up. He looked at me and made a gesture as if to say  "yes", yes something. I waited. I thought; "Looking at me, he won’t bear the silence," but he held on. And I had no choice but to carefully process his gaze, of only a few seconds, but it’s very intense when a gesture is all you have to go on to understand somebody. He had that look of doubt, of enquiry and of will-you-be-the-one-who-understands? A look of I can't cope any longer.

Until finally he took out a bunch of papers, documents, and various things he had in his pockets. They were wrinkled, folded, stained with coffee. I took the papers and saw notifications from the Home Office about housing…and also that one about his “liability to detention”, in other words that they can put you in prison without reason, for the simple fact that you  applied for asylum, for, you see, claiming asylum is your human right, but for asserting your right they can put you in jail, as vulgar as that, almost as much as Chavez threatening to put people in jail by national TV broadcast. Now here they’re more “civilized” than in Venezuela or Iran, they have judges with white wigs, and what they do is send you a little letter with your name and current address, and later on the judges with white wigs don’t question the legality of putting you in jail without having committed a crime. Civilised my arse. Callous beasts. This letter is not exactly comforting when they hand it to you while informing you that they’ll analyse your asylum application and you’ll have to wait for months or years. Years in limbo - better limbo than hell - but with the threat of hell, and to make it more pleasant, years you can be detained, just like that, for nothing more than ‘a stitch in their ass’, as they would say in Venezuela.

That letter, that piece of paper saying liability to detention always came up among the documents of refugees. It was one of many. It was never relevant. And yet there he was yelling at me about the injustices of the world. I am Venezuelan, just like Carlos, just like Sofía, just like my mate Arturo, the scientist-turned-entrepreneur. But there’s something different about me, something for which I cannot take credit. I’m also Italian, my parents are. It’s written in the Italian constitution, article 4.  It’s just their luck that the others receive this letter and I do not. For me if I go to prison it’s because I’ve killed somebody, no matter how stupid they are. Or I’ll go to jail for writing these stories, who knows. Or because some story offends one of these white wigs from a bygone nineteenth-century era. And now, in leaving the European Union, Europeans get goosebumps because of their newly insecure status, and look at Zamani, his status permits detention and deportation to hell rather than the horrors of Paris or tortures of the dolce vita.

 I kept looking through the papers. I read about articles that spoke about  his mother and father when they were arrested. I read an Amnesty International petition for his father. I read about their sonorous cases, years ago. I also read and learned about his childhood by reading testimonies from his parents' relatives in Canada and Germany. And I got to the letter that had led to his current state of alienation. "Your asylum request has been denied," it said.  

A few sentences later, this was followed by "there are no reasonable grounds  for your fears " because "the experience suffered by your mother, father and older brother are not related to your own circumstances..." which, by the way, is correct, if it’s being analysed by a computer that has been programmed by an extra-terrestrial robot. How can they say that his fear is unfounded because he wasn’t killed and that they will therefore not want to do anything to him? What kind of reasoning is that? Malparidos! 

You have to eat a lot of tinned ravioli to think like this. Or could it be the effect of  fries with vinegar? I kept looking and it was not easy to reassemble the sheaf of papers that made up  his asylum application because they were folded, curled, and unstapled. Filled with tiny little words, handwritten in Persian, underlined, fist marks, and of course, they were torn and stuck back together with sticky tape, all sorts, and with all kinds of marks to make you think the documents had been on tables, floors, trash cans, dumpsters. The papers had been  trampled on, spat on, insulted. When those sheets of paper left the factory, they didn't know they would go through so many forms of harassment. They were themselves wondering what could possibly be said by these words that could drive someone so crazy.

 -You’ve come to solve this problem, I imagine? I said showing him the document in which he was denied asylum.

 Zamani finally moved. He stared at me and something in his eyes said you get it, at last someone who understands. But right then during that magical moment,  the manager, Debby, appeared. She first appeared through the window, and then, breaking common practice  and the established protocols, she opened the door.

 -Fabrizio, sorry, but can we talk for a minute?

 I looked at Zamani to see if he looked like the type to smash her face in, which would have been convenient for me, so she can learn for once and for all not to interrupt these kinds of sessions. But unfortunately Zamani was more reasonable than Debby, so the manager managed  to keep all her teeth, preserving the work of her dentist, and leaving her uneven jaw bones, intact. I looked at the manager again and said:

 -Sure Debby, I'll be there in a moment,- I said, knowing that I had no intention of interrupting the session with Zamani.

-If you could come now, that’d be better, she said with a face of "once-again-Fabrizio-you-just-do-what-you-want"

 Zamani looked at me and somehow saw my face of "this-bastard-doesn't-understand-anything".

 -English people- said Zamani.

 Victory, I thought. This Zamani is more reasonable than the boss, as expected. So I made a gesture to Zamani and asked him to wait for a moment. I went to the door and walked out of the room. From the corner of my eye I saw Zamani saying no with his head and he repeated:

 -English people.

 When we went out Debby, with her cryptic smile and her usual rictus, showing her dentist's teeth, began her sermon.

 -Fabrizio, there are procedures. And today there are special circumstances. We have many service users so you have to be quick with this client.

 -Don't worry, Debby, I'll be as fast as possible.- I said knowing that I wouldn’t do it and that I would get into trouble, but at least the trouble would come later.

 -What's his problem?- She asked.

 -They denied him asylum.

 -Ah, something simple,- she said with a look of someone that knows it all - Refer him to the immigration office to arrange the return to his country and that way he can complete his section 4”. Section 4 is  the bureaucratic jargon used to refer to a request for financial support, by means of supermarket vouchers and temporary housing, while a return is being organized.

 -Ah, section 4, what a good idea,- I said knowing that this was a bad idea, let alone being far down the list of Zamani's priorities, although nobody cares about that. Not to mention that if the first thing I’d said to Zamani had been that his only solution  was to get packing, he would do nothing less than pack his things and go to Iran and make friends among the Ayatollahs, in any case, if I recommended that, the only things that would need packing would have been  little fragments from my  head, skull on one side and brains on the other, to send them back to Venezuela together with my coffin.

-Remember not to take too long-, Debby told me, - so far from what I thought and what I wanted to say: "Sure, motherfucker."

 And I was about to open the door to return  to the room with Zamani when Debby stressed:

 -And remember you’ve got to follow the procedures, Fabrizio. You need the security guard. He’s a dangerous person and we have confidential information saying he’s intransigent,” and she gave me a little pat on the back and a wink as if to say“you’re-a-naughty-child-and-we-need-to-keep-an-eye-on-you”.

 -He’s calmed down now, don't worry” I replied “and I don't think he’s too intransigent” I said, without adding, since I wasn’t yet aware myself, you are far more intransigent, after all she was the one that  hadinterrupted the session to tell me to hurry while he, who fears for his life and saw the death of his assassinated mother, agreed to the session’s interruption. And I suddenly become lost in the thought of  her ease to classify him as intransigent. And it does happen to me that sometimes I get stuck wrapped up in the things that people say, especially when they’re very  stupid and I cannot respond. And I said to myself  what about you, motherfucker, are you really so tolerant and open to negotiation, you call him intransigent and you interrupted me lots of times,what would you do if you punctured your shitty fucking bicycle, and you criticize him for being intransigent, go fry a monkey as we say in Venezuela. 

 -Are you sure?- she said.

 -sure about what?-; My thoughts had made me lose track.

 -What else would it be, Fabrizio, that he calmed down.

 -Oh, sure, yes. I'm completely sure” I said, not being sure in the slightest, but I needed at all costs to avoid having a security guard put inside there. It would have destroyed the atmosphere that we’d only just managed to build.

 At last I returned to the room where Zamani was. What a relief. I sat down. Took a breath. In truth, I  was rather missing the bulging veins, and the elbows firmly nailed to Zamani’s side of the table. Much better than that crazy woman with her worthless institutionalism that forces me into being a hypocrite.

 -What did your boss want?- said Zamani.

 -Nothing. It doesn't have anything to do with you, don't worry. It's that we have a problem with the alarms, do not worry” I lied. Of course I wouldn’t tell him that she doesn't like us solving problems to do with access to justice.

I took the handful of papers that at some point were the answer to his asylum request into my hands . I already imagined, as  was often the case, that his problem was that the lawyer didn’t want to continue to represent him but Zamani wanted him to continue. The logic in this country was very simple. Lawyers are paid by none other than  the Home Office itself, and the condition for payment is that they win 50% of cases or more before a Court of Appeal. That’s in Anglo-Saxon parlance, because in Venezuelan we’d be a little more prolific in our explanation, in other words that it’s is like a bet of sorts between the Home Office and the lawyer, and in this bet the Home Office says something along the lines of :

 “Hey lawyer, come here , something ‘ere for the both of us, so let's bet.  If you beat me for half the cases, I’ll pay you for all of them; if you don’t, you’ll lose your contract, go find yourself another job and write stories with Fabrizio, which  nobody reads, or you can both go sing Mexican rancheras together in the London underground. Wanna bet?”

 “OK, says the lawyer that has a mortgage to pay, on top of dental treatment for his children who need to smile like Debby.”

 Well, the idea of the bet is not a bad one. It has allowed capitalism to survive all its mistakes, but we are in England, and this must never be forgotten: there’s always small print and the small print is the only thing that counts. So to place its bet the  Home Officesays, again in good creole Venezuelan:

 "Well, mate, I’m not going to pay you for all your work, only for a very small number of hours, not many, I don’t want this to be a walk in the park for you, and if you start to investigate and get interpreters, hey pal, just let it be known I won’t  pay for any of those little luxuries, not even the luxury of understanding what it is that your victim’s got to say through somebody that speaks their language, don’t take me for a fool, no soy pendejo,  hell, I don’t need to tell you that if you start to find out exactly how it is that everything we make up is a lie, well it’ll come out your own pocket and you’ll lose.  Up to you. We’ll go halfsies. There’s enough bacon to go around here.”. 

 The Home Office pays the solicitor a set number of hours. And if the case can be appealed using a simple copy-paste from other cases, asylum seekers have a chance, if not, then no. So lawyers, who believe in justice and who are democratic and support human rights, end up more committed to staying afloat on easy money, instead of combating injustice at their own cost. As such, having registered the situation, I asked Zamani: 

  -So you want us to find you a lawyer or do you want us to talk to yours?

-Please,- he said. As if the answer was clear. 

  -Do not worry. The first thing will be to call your lawyer,- which would apply to whatever obvious response he thought he’d given. .

I called his lawyer. The receptionist answered. After some formalities and generic greetings she told me: 

  -Oh, excuse me, but what nationality is our client? 

 -Iranian. 

-Oh no, it can’t be done.

-What do you mean can’t be done, why?

-I’ve been instructed. No Iranians. 

-Well, I understand that,”-clearly there is much to understand. It’s shameless discrimination and confirmation that, in this country, if there’s a particular kind of fuckery that is not banned, forbidden, prosecutable, then that is exactly how they’ll fuck you over. Asylum claims aren’t assessed on merit but by discrimination on the grounds of nationality, wow.. 

  -Can I help you with anything else?- She recited with the usual do-not-bother-more-with-this-issue tone, and get-ready-to-turn-the-phone-off-without-you-being-able-to-say-that-I didn't-give-you-the-courteous-opportunity-to-talk-about-something. Typical. 

  - Yes, I understand, no Iranians. But this person used to be your client. He waited for years and was counting on your services as their lawyer and all of a sudden he’s abandoned, just like that. No further details..

 -Well, a lawyer reviewed his case and he received their letter. His asylum claim lacks evidence, it is weak.. 

  And how do you know if you are a secretary without legal training? I felt like asking. But it wasn't worth it. I had long known the explanation, it's very simple: If your client is Iraqi, your asylum application will be accepted, if they’re Iranian, it won´t. In Germany judges were of the opposite view.  But it couldn’t end here. 

 -And, apologies, how do you know that got everything if you don't know who I'm talking about?  

 -What’s the name of the client, please? 

 -Don´t-remember-his-first-name Zamani.

 -Date of birth? 

  And we continued the  standard  data privacy protocol. 

  -Well, as I said before, Sir, it says here he received his information. He doesn’t have a strong case. As far we’re concerned the case is closed, I’m sorry.-

 -I am sorry,” repeated Zamani, from his chair. From the tone he was using I was made to  think that he must also scoff at how much they say I'm sorry when this is far from how they feel, especially when their tone indicates only their great contempt and disinterest. For my part, I wanted to shout at her that they’re a bunch of penny pinchers, they have no commitment to justice, but my rage could only lead to them filing a complaint against me, although risking a complaint was perhaps worth it, I could have thought, at least that way Zamani would know I was on his side. 

  - The British are like that, I can imagine what she is saying,” said Zamani, having guessed the receptionist's replies correctly. .

  And I began to realise that Zamani knew surprisingly more than what it first seemed about the country where we lived. On the one hand, I wanted to tell him that there are English people who are not like that, like Sue. But greater was the temptation to yell at that secretary so that he understood I was on his side. But by the time it got to this point  I gathered he must understand that I had no choice but to uphold professional etiquette, where being professional means being indifferent. And as soon as I finished the phone call, Zamani told me: 

  - Well, now is the time to look for another lawyer, one that believes in justice.

  I suddenly confirmed that I was dealing with someone of great intelligence and not some wild beast, no matter how mad it was to throw stones at our bulletproof windows. No wonder that when I asked him whether to call his lawyer or look for another he simply said "please". He already knew the script in advance. What a relief, finally. Now I was going to look in my notebook for an Iranian lawyer’s phone number, of Italian culture, who had studied at the same university as my father, La Sapienza. I wanted to tell Zamani about this lawyer, to whom by the way I certainly enjoyed talking to, and who would reward me for allowing him to speak Italian by taking on more Iranian cases than was reasonable. But luck is often in short supply and at that moment, just then, Debby appeared through the window again. Again with her I-have-something-to-say grimace and circular hand movements, akin to a robot. 

  - There's your boss again- Zamani said, and pounded his fist on the table. 

 -I'm going to call a lawyer who I think could help you.- I said ignoring Debby.

 -I'd prefer if you call this one,- and he pulled out a card. 

 What a great coincidence. It was the same lawyer. Except this wasn’t at all a coincidence; it’s not like there were many committed Iranian lawyers, and in this very region to boot. I started to dial the phone number, but Debby came in with the security guard. 

  -Are you all right? 

 -Yeah, fine 

 -Please can you come out for a moment?

-Of course, as soon as I finish, I'm on the phone with someone.  

-You can call them later. 

-No, I can't, I'm on hold because they’re looking for some documents for me, they’re on the other line and asked me to wait- I lied, holding the phone right up against my ear  so that she wouldn’t hear the monotone beep indicating that the line was busy. 

 -Ok, I'll wait for you,” said the boss. And she left. 

 -What do you think she wants- asked Zamani as soon as the door was closed.

 -Nothing. She wants me to hurry up and was frightened by you punching the table. She thought you were going to kill me,- I said jokingly. 

 -What can I do to give you more time? 

 "Fill out a Section 4 form,” and I gave it to him. 

  As the lawyer did not answer due to the line still being busy, I went out to speak to the boss. After many questions on her part I explained that Zamani had decided to apply to Section 4. The boss congratulated me. I went back to Zamani. 

  -We have a few more minutes, Zamani,- I said. 

  I dialled the number again and realised that there was something absurd about the situation. How is it possible that Zamani had this contact and gave me the phone number but he hadn’t called the number himself or appeared at their offices. I thought this guy was smart, and he didn’t seem shy at all. In fact, he came in like the Hulk wherever he went, and I simply could not square the two together. 

 -Do you want to speak once they respond?- I asked. 

-Do not!!! Please! That's the problem; the secretary won't let me speak to the lawyer.

 Suddenly I remembered that my dad once said something along the lines of to have a friend who’s a minister is to have a good contact but is of little use without making friends with their secretary. And here was Zamani giving me evidence that my father's sociological intuition was correct. I waited on the phone, the famous secretary, who held the keys to power, answered, until I finally spoke with Izadi, the Iranian lawyer. We had a relatively long conversation as a greeting, without mentioning  for whom I was making a referral. Izadi just liked to talk in Italian, whatever the topic. But when I told him about Zamani, a cold water bath fell on me, which luckily was in a language that Zamani did not understand. 

 -Me ne vado, I'm done, I'm leaving. I'm moving country. I’m going to Canada where I have family and where I don't have to go through the things that happen here

  -I'm glad for you, Izadi. I’ve heard very good things about Canada. Many friends live there and love that country. Lucky you. In bocca al lupo! 

  -Hey, why did you call me?” 

  -I wanted to refer you to an Iranian client. Typical case where lawyers appear to represent their clients, but when it’s time to take it to the court for appeal, they say the  case is weak. 

  -I won't be able to take the client, sorry. My departure is imminent. 

  -I figured Iza, but can't you leave the case to one of your colleagues? 

  -Impossible, I already left them a lot of cases that they think are lost. My clients will be abandoned. 

  -Well, Iza, that's a shame for my service user, I'll let him know. Again, in bocca al lupo, good luck. 

  Now it was time to talk to Zamani. I tried to gather my strength. How do I tell him that the Iranian-friendly lawyer who also speaks Farsi is leaving the country? I was about to speak to Zamani but Debby, the manager appeared again. 

  -Fabrizio, can we talk for a minute?”

 -Well, give me a second with Zamani and I'll go outside and we can talk.

  She left and Zamani came to my rescue, in the most unexpected way. For a second I thought he had understood the conversation, but I realised that no, was simply helping me control my boss. 

  -Hey Fabrizio," said Zamani" tell her I'm going to commit suicide. 

  -What do you mean? Are you going to commit suicide? 

  -Do not be silly. Listen. If you tell her I told you I'm going to commit suicide, we have more time to talk" and winked" You are going to have to follow another protocol. You can  make sure  that everything in the notes is fine and that's it! And in the meantime we can continue speaking with the lawyer.   

-Ok, I think it's a good idea," I said, admiring his cunning.

  But even if the idea were a good one, unfortunately it could actually happen that Zamani would be driven to thinking of committing suicide, if he found out that the lawyer that has any hope is leaving the country. It was ironic that the Zamani monster helped me control the personification of the bureaucracy by pretending to say something that he would probably think when I told him what I had to say. I went out to talk to the boss with a thousand ideas entangled in my head. 

  -Hello Debby, I have a delicate situation- I said. 

  -Fabrizio, you have to finish. You have to be professional. It can't be that it takes you so long to fill out a worksheet for a section 4! I know you're a good member of staff but you have to respect the boundaries. Again, she looked at me and I could read her expression as  “Fabrizio, you are a nice cheeky child but we have to control you”. 

  -Debby, he just told me that he is going to commit suicide.

 -Well you know what you have to say. Go and make sure to refer him properly so that they take care of his mental health. And don't forget to write your notes very carefully. 

  -Sure.- And I went to talk to Zamani. 

  I went to talk to him and he immediately asked me: 

  -You got rid of that monster? 

  -For a while. I'm supposed to refer you to specialised medical services and alert other organisations about your intentions 

-And you forgot that you have to tell me that you have to breach my expectations of confidentiality because you have to protect a life.

-Exactly.

 I explained everything to Zamani about the lawyer. Poor man. I followed the procedure for referrals of this kind, of course. And we agreed that he would return so that we could  refer him to lawyers in London. He told me that he knew lawyers in London. And Zamani left calmly. Very calm indeed. I was happy because he helped me control Debby, which turned out to be a far more difficult endeavour. 

And a few weeks later the boss called me to her office. She had an indecipherable face. And she said: 

  I have two bits news, one good and one bad. We start with the bad”

 -Okay.

 -Zamani committed suicide.

 -And the good one?

  -They were investigating you. You did everything right. You referred him, you alerted the competent authorities, you disclosed the information according to the Data Protection Act, followed all the procedures and you wrote perfect casenotes. All very professional.

  -Thank you. 

Translated by Fabiana Macor

 

Meeting the goddess

Translated by Derekk Ross

}

When I saw her in the lift, I understood that my life was going to be wretched from that moment on. Because, it was her!


I had first set eyes on her a week earlier, when, as yet, I had no idea what a state I was about to put myself in. There she was, on the pavement opposite the building where I live, right there on my own home turf, her contagious laughter ringing out as she strolled happily by with a couple of friends. More beautiful, sensual and vivacious than could be thought possible in a woman.


She stopped to buy something in the corner shop: some vegetables, some fruit. I remained fixed where I stood on the pavement outside the building, gazing at her. I had no idea yet what was going to happen to me the following week, and beyond...


The problem I have with my appearance is that my jawline is lopsided, my nose a bit bent, that kind of thing. It's something that's noticeable, and it's not so good. Or, maybe it's not that noticeable but it ought to be? I dunno. Women tend to be drawn to men with the most muscles, with the most masculine jawline, with noses that are straight, and above all, with no brains but lots of money. And that's why I stayed where I was, watching her from a distance, there on the pavement, trying to be unobtrusive. I was spellbound by her tanned complexion, her black woman's broad hips, her legs, powerful as a tennis player. Her waist was impossibly narrow, her breasts perfectly formed. She had a slim elegant face and her features, which seemed to have the mysterious air of an Indian, contrasted captivatingly with her sonorous musical laughter and her rather mischievous expression.


I also had to remain watching her from a distance because I'm not the 'ladies’ man' type that my friend Gonzalo is. He says stuff like 'how beautiful you look today!', and the beautiful girl in question - could be any beautiful girl on the entire planet - feels adored, and she responds. Whereas, if I were to say 'how beautiful you look today!', the girl would look at me as if to say 'what's it to you?' - if she even bothered to look at me at all. If I give a compliment to a girl that I actually know, then a 'what's it to you?' becomes even more of a discouragement. She might say 'thank you my friend', but by saying 'friend' she clearly means 'keep your distance'. 'Friend' means: 'you've got a crooked mouth, and I do like you, like you a lot even, but it's not gonna happen, thanks anyway'. Lizmary, Isabel, Ana Isabel, Ana María - all 'friends'; and I can't get close to any one of them. They've all of them addressed me at some point as 'friend'. For all this, I can never open a conversation with a complement. I have to start by asking them some kind of question. But what question?


I never know where to start. I've always been a very conventional type of person. I never break the rules. I adapt to situations so as to fit in, not be a nuisance, and I work very hard at not calling attention to myself. I get terrified at parties, of saying something dumb, and so I just nod when I don't know what's being said to me - because I know equally well that no one has anything interesting to say anyway, including me.

I never arrive late because I don't want to have to apologise: my excuses can tend to be horribly embarrassing. I can't bear being made fun of, so I just avoid being involved in any discussions. I stick with the majority opinion and keep my own council. Also, I'm a coward. So much so that I even get scared when I'm watching a film where someone cheats on their lover and is about to be found out. My own love affairs would be secure, faithful ones - if such things existed.

And all of this should explain why, when I saw her and realized how I felt, I felt lost: it was the hour of my downfall. I couldn't let this one turn out the same way as all the others. Something had to happen this time, or I'd just carry on here interminably, til I died, in this tiny little Caracas flat with its view over the Avila national park...


All these kinds of thoughts filled up my brain. It wasn't by chance that I felt suddenly breathless when I saw her there in the lift - I always do when I have a beautiful woman in front of me. I don't know if I'm a pervert, or a moron, or a sick person, or a psycho. This is just how I am. I don't really know what I'm saying, if I'm saying anything. Neither do I know what I'm thinking because I don't know either whether I am actually thinking. All I sense is my heart racing, the heat in my chest, the confusion of ideas, my cock readying himself for action that's not going to happen. Waste of energy. But this time things were a bit different. Seeing her in the lift, I gathered up all my strength and managed to speak a sentence. This time, yes, at last, a heroic question:


'Which floor are you going to?'


'The fifth floor...I've just moved in there'


I know that Gonzalo would've thought of something better, something more 'masculine', but this was good enough for me. In fact, she looked me in the eyes. With tenderness, love, desire! The lift stopped at the fourth floor. I got out and said 'see you later'. 'See you later', she replied.


I took the risk! I spoke to her! To that very same most beautiful woman in the world, the most divine! The one with the mischievous look!


'The fifth floor...I've just moved in there'.


That moment was repeated over and over in my memory whilst I took out the keys to my flat, whilst I opened the door, as I walked inside. And throughout the rest of that night:


'The fifth floor...I've just moved in there'.


The intense look she had given me was what confounded me most. That was no 'friend' look. No, there was fire! Could this just have been a figment of my imagination, I wondered? No, it can't have been; no one gives a look like that without it meaning something. And also, what did she really mean when she said she'd 'just moved in'? That I should come round? Bring her some lemons? Ask her for a cup of sugar? Say to her, 'hello, I'm here if you need me, I live downstsairs, flat 42'?


'Yes, that's it', I was thinking, 'I'll go up, ring the bell and say 'hi, I live downstairs - I'm at your service'.


And that's where the problem began, because instead of thinking about what was going to happen, I began to think about what I wanted to happen. That's to say, I revelled in the thought that she might say 'yes, how kind, do come in, have a coffee...', and then shortly afterwards she would undress in front of me and ask me if I wanted a shag. I kid you not, this is what I always do; I have such a wild imagination. I don't plan it that way. In my head I just star in movies about things that never happen. Pure fantasy. Pure nothing.


But then I took my first big step:


'That's it! I'll go up there and tell her I'm at her disposal. Like a man. Because maybe my problem's nothing to do with the wonky jaw or the crooked nose; it's to do with how I'm so unagressive, so over-respectful, so lacking in virility. So maybe it’s not a physical thing. A woman looks for determination in a man but here I come along with these wimpish ways and women get turned off. I end up with a "you are a great friend" or worse still, a "you are my best friend", especially from the most beautiful ones - because they're the ones who can choose and they're not going to choose me, drooling and stammering after them.'


I grabbed my keys, wallet, splashed on some cologne - not too much - best shirt, freshly-ironed trousers. I opened the door with energy:


'Today I'm a new man, different. Hard, determined, strong, self-assured, macho. I either change myself, or remain celibate for the rest of my life. Nothing ventured nothing gained.'


I left the flat and closed the door. I turned, and, with the confidence of a victor, looked down the hallway leading to the stairs to the fifth floor. I took three steps and now I really felt like the victor. But then, just as I got to the stairwell, oof, I suddenly began to feel really hot.


'Bugger, come on, let’s go up! To the goddess's flat! Treat it as if it were nothing.

And less of the sweat. I'll go up, sure I will! But I won't go up if this body won't behave and starts sweating! And I'm getting palpitations too! Best go back. A good wank would get rid of all this stress. Right then.'


And I went back home.


I went straight in the shower. Got rid of all that excess energy. Tried to watch TV but couldn't concentrate on anything.


'What a stupid idiot, what a moron. You're 25 years old and you've never even so much as touched a woman. Unbelievable. And you're going to carry on like this. It would be better if I just threw myself out of the window and killed myself. Or jumped onto the tracks in the underground. But no, stop pissing about! It would surely be better if I just went up to the goddess's flat, right now!'


I grabbed keys, wallet, cologne, everything as before, reached the stairs, climbed up.
And now I had to ring the bell. I pondered for a moment.


'I'll ring the first one. If it's not that one it'll be the next one, or the next, until I get the right one.'

And then right at that moment, guess what? The old heat in the chest came back, along with the palpitations and the sweating.


'Agh, I can't go ahead in this state. Best delay it a bit...'


I returned to the stairwell and decided to wait until, by some miracle, the door might open.

And then suddenly it happened. I started to hear the sound of keys being turned in the lock. I hid myself a little, round the side of the staircase in order to survey the scene, and to be able to feign a chance arrival, if it should become necessary.


'This'll be perfect. She comes out and I appear, pretend to be busy with something and then I see her and feign surprise - pleasant surprise, obviously - and I say Hi! We meet again! What a surprise! Actually I live just beneath you and I'm at your service. If you need anything, just let me know! Shit, this heat again! My chest, my heart. I'm gonna die of a heart attack! Before I've even managed one screw!'

The lock suddenly released. The door opened and I heard the hinges squeaking. It closed again. My palpitations felt like a heart attack but it couldn't be a heart attack because I was too young for that, and on the whole I looked quite well. It wasn't her. It was another neighbour. 'Nothing. I'll wait a bit longer.'


I waited for almost an hour. I was just thinking about it all and then suddenly I heard the unmistakable sound of the lift coming to a stop.


'Perhaps it's her, who knows. Maybe she went out to buy some fruit and this is her returning home right now. I'll pretend I'm passing by, by chance. I'll say hi, how are you, we meet again, what a surprise! And she'll invite me into her flat.'


More palpitations and feeling too hot. The lift door opened. It wasn't her.


I stayed on the stairs, waiting. 'She'll get here eventually. Obviously the first one to arrive wasn't going to be her. All love affairs have their own story to tell, and maybe this one will be mine.'


I was thinking - that's to say I was fantasizing - all sorts of things. Because that's what I do, I fantasize instead of think, and the fantasies become a substitute for reality, which leads to me not attempting to change reality because I don't feel so much of a failure when I'm picturing a new reality.

'But things can't go on like this. I'm 25 and I've never touched any woman. Ok, so fantasies are always available to me but I want a real woman, one that truly loves me, someone with whom I can do it all, but above all, someone who'll want me to do it all with them.'


When I woke up the next day I decided that in order to continue this stalking business properly, I needed some supplies. I bought some soda biscuits, long-life milk and a few bottles of water, and I put them all in the hallway so that I wouldn't have to waste any time going into my flat for food. Those were invaluable minutes saved. I also decided not to worry if the neighbours saw me there with a load of carrier bags. However, at the same time I thought it more advisable that they shouldn't notice me camped out, as then they wouldn't be asking me any questions.


'It mustn't happen that right at the moment she appears someone should happen to be asking me if I've moved home to live out in the hallway or on the stairs.'


Everything else was fine - with the neighbours, the hot flushes and the palpitations. But as for her? Nothing. 'That's what it's like with goddesses', I thought, 'the minute I go to the toilet, out she goes, or back she comes.'


So on the Thursday I decided I wouldn't go to the toilet anymore. Okay, obviously you can't avoid the physical need itself, but going to the actual bathroom is a different thing altogether. So, I had various drinks bottles which I could use if I needed to urinate quickly; I could dispose of them down the refuse hatch later. 'They'll hold five litres of pee. Perfect'. I believed I'd gained some invaluable watch time. But the goddess didn't appear.


On Monday morning I called into work:


'I've caught a really bad infection. The doctor's told me to rest for a week.'


They believed me, so I did the same the following week - at least from Monday to Saturday…

On the Sunday everything changed. I went out to buy some ham, cheese and bread - my new fast food diet that would allow me to continue with my spying vigil. Just as I was returning, I
saw that she too was approaching the building! She moved with poise, swinging her hips, gazing vaguely about her, giving no particular attention to anything. Two weeks on the hunt for her and now she appears in front of me completely randomly like this! Well, so much the better, I thought. I pretended to search for my keys, in order to give her time to get to where I was. But when she did arrive I could neither find the keys, nor the words. She simply opened the door and went in. I followed her to the lift, and once we were both inside I quickly said:


'Fifth floor, yes?'


'Yes. How did you know?'


'You told me a couple of weeks ago that you had just finished moving...'


'Ah yes, that's right. But I haven't been at home these two weeks. It's been divine'


'Divine? Why?' I asked her.


'My honeymoon', she said.


It felt rather unfair. She looked at me and said:


'There's nothing you can do about it - it is written.'


Now to me, this kind of esoteric comment always sounds a bit ridiculous, but I played along and she explained to me:


'Everything we do is already laid down in a story written by Fabrizio. He's crazy, and he wanted the story to end this way. There's nothing that can be done.'


She went into her flat and I stayed outside, thinking that if she was right then the only thing that I had to do was carry on waiting in the hallway. But perhaps the story has a different ending. This Fabrizio may be crazy but perhaps he'd take pity on me. I waited and waited...and nothing. I wanted to knock on the door and invite her to escape from this story, tell her that if she didn't come out of her flat she would disappear from in there, without even dying.


But I couldn't do it. Something bigger than me was preventing it.

The bloody migrant stories (in English)

Click the flag for Spanish

The bloody migrant is my namesake and he is completely nuts. He went to the UK when he was fed up with Venezuela as he thought that marvels from the Venezuelan revolutions were not for him or his family.  His stories are similar to mine because he likes to plagiarize my reality.

English version Crime and no punisment

Original Crimen sin castigo
One of the first books Fabrizio read was crime  and punishment by Dostoevsky. So he wanted to write his own version of a story with that name, but he changed the title because his character did not feel lots of guilt after commiting the crime and perform his own killing. By the way he managed to get away with it so his story cannot be named as the epomynous book.  

 The impostor and his farce


As you know by reading the previous story, Fabrizio is a lunatic. However, he claims that his managers are very arrogant and if you are crazy enough you may think that he has a point. Here  he shows how he managed to survive when his English speaking skills were underdeveloped and if you are a foreigner in the UK will know that nothing is more exaggerated than the reality itself. However the story is true, except for the bits that are not, which we don´t know which they are.
The translator of this story was Stella Heath, who claims to be British but I have no evidence of this as she speaks Spanish like a native.

Zimani, the monster



This chapter apparently is about monster Zimani, which at the begining looks very mischievus but later another mounster appears and she is really malevolent. However later you will discover that the story is about every social worker who has to deal with managers who believe in project managing and Fabrizio, my sakename, has found many of this bugs in life and wanted to make fun of them by telling a story which he think is orginal but as always he has plagiarized reality in a way which has not been discoverd by any scientist in the world. 

English version Two questions for Mamostá

Original Dos preguntas a Mamostá

In this chapter Fabrizio finaly manages to write a short story that is short. Congratulate him please. And is not very dramatic, except that is about prejudice although slightly harmless. Mamostá means teacher in Kurdish and Fabrizio likes to call Mamostás to all the braka, but he won´t say what braka means.






Original Uvas y desventuras 

This chapter is very depressing so to avoid anybody to commit suicide has not been translated to English. It´s about something that can be read in Spanish and if you want to read it, you will need to learn that language.
The reader can see here how horrible is to work in low wage britain when you are a bloody foreigner like Fabrizio.






English version not available yet

Original Susto y gusto de galleta

This chapter is not a short story at all, but a post I published on my facebook. Fabrizio plagiarized reality with no shame and he did not make literature after something real. So is a kind of memory that you can read if you have time and you are locked down due to coronavirus. However it is not translated yet because nobody has offered help to translate this chapter.

Message from Carlos 

It´s the first chapter and is about the death and resurrection of Fabrizio. It´s the only oportunity for the reader to understand the messages he received from the after life.
In Spanish Fabrizio, my namesake, said that he wanted to make fun of the lawyers and judges of the UK, but we don´t understand why. The translator who wanted to mortify his fellow nationals with an English version is Derrek Ross

. 

English version Meeting with the goddess

Original Encuentro con la diosa 

This story should not be here because has nothing to do with the bloody migrant, but Fabrizio, the author, not to be confused with Fabrizio the character, wrote this story before he even thought about writing the bloody migrant stories or the Sofia story.  However Fabrizio's new pen pal, Derrek, decided to translate it because he liked the story so I published it here because Fabrizio, the author and also the character, is messy person, sorry, so he did not know what to do with the translation in English, so here it is. It's about a very shy man who has a crush with the most beautiful woman in the world and is trapped in a story from where he fails to escape. 

I N D I C E....D E......C U E N T O S (a modo de Introducción)

Cuentos de la serie el maldito migrante

(si ya te leiste todo y solo quieres leer el ultimo, ve directo al cuento de Celine)

a

El maldito migrante se llama como el autor de estas historias, y está chiflado. Mi tocayo se fue a Inglaterra a vivir, harto de Venezuela e intuyendo que las maravillas de la revolución chavista no eran pare él, ni para su familia. Es un descarado al que le pasan cosas parecdias a las mias, y éstos son sus relatos.

 Mensaje de Carlos 
Primer capítulo en el que se trata de la muerte y resurrección de Fabrizio y es la única oportunidad del lector de entender los mensajes que le dieron a Fabrizio desde el más allá. Tiene el propósito metaliterario de mofarse de los abogados británicos, y sobre todo, de sus jueces, pero el lector no sabrá cómo.

El impostor y su farsa, 
Capítulo donde se cuenta de modo cómico lo arrogantes que son los jefes de Fabrizio, el tocayo del que hablé antes y que no voy a repetir las loqueteras que le pasan. Dicen las malas lenguas que los personajes están basados en la realidad, pero todo es una gran invención, excepto las cosas ciertas, que nadie sabe cuáles son.

El monstruo Zimani

Capítulo donde se habla del monstruo Zimani, que al principio es muy maluco pero después de descubre que hay otra monstrua, aún más malévola. Pero al final el cuento no es de estos monstruos pero de Fabrizio, el tocayo loco, que tiene que sortear estos bichos que se consiguió en la vida y que decidió dedicarle este cuento a todos los  trabajadores sociales quijotescos, que son muchos, pero no suficientes 


Dos preguntas a Mamostá

Capítulo breve que narra qué pasó el día que el buscapleitos de Fabrizio, un immigrante insensible de esos que tiene Inglaterra, cortesía de la revolución bolivariana,  se consiguió un jodedor que se lo baciló así como Fabrizio se bacila a los demás. Y lo peor del caso es que la historia es cierta, aunque no haya pasado, porque en realidad pasó de otra manera.  Y bueno, si Fabrizio se consigue con un mamostá como él, dos preguntas dan para un cuento entero.

Uvas y desventuras 

Capítulo super deprimente que nadie se debería leer a menos que quieran ponerse  furiosos con la sociedad donde vivimos y apreciar un cuento bien escrito pero lúgubre que narra cómo el fracaso del trabajador social estrella lo precipitó al bajo mundo del trabajo fabril donde pasan cosas maravillosas que Fabrizio no cuenta y se la pasa inventando embustes sobre las maravillas del trabajo enajenado en el prmer mundo.



Susto y gusto de galleta

Este capítulo no es un cuento nada. Es un post que puso Fabrizio en facebook. No es del loco de las historias anteriores que cuenta cuentos de cosas que se inventan pero todos saben que no inventa tanto. Pero aquí se pasó en su propensión a plagiarse la realidad al punto que toitico es cierto. 

 Crimen sin castigo
Dostoevsky escribió crimen y castigo así que este capítulo trata de otra cosa que es parecida pero no igual, y no solo porque no hay catigo sino porque a Fabrizio no le viene bien tanta culpa justificada que sentía el probre Raskolnikov así que decidió escribir más sobre la justificación que sobre el crimen que el lector podría creer justificado. Felicitaciones por leer esto sin entender nada, y es que para entenderlo se tienen que leer la historia de este maldito migrante que confunde todo.

El ultimo cuento, Celine

Todavía no tiene dibujo, espero ayuda pa la foto, para los cafés, y escribanme algo para saber si les gusta este cuento. O mejor dicho, si les parece bueno, porque a nadie le gusta leer de estas cosas. Mejor que no lo lean, pero si deciden hacerlo, espero que no se arrepientan.

Cuentos fantásticos

-1) Conversación con el demonio

Donde se cuenta la tenebrosa historia de mi conversación con el demonio y algunas reflexiones teológicas.


-2) La barriga
Donde se narra como tomé posesión de mi amo y lo convertí en mi barriga, o algo así.

-3) Encuentro con la diosa 

Donde se cuenta lo que le pasa a uno cuando se enamora a primera vista de la vecina y quedas atrapado en una historia de la que no puedes salir.  

Message from Carlos

Translated by Derekk Ross 

After my suicide, the first person I met was Carlos. Yes, it was Carlos, and not my grandmother - which was the person I would have expected to have met had I known that you could meet people after death. But that's life - I am always wrong, and I began my new life badly, by being wrong. And so instead of my grandmother, or Manola, it was Carlos who turned up.  

God didn't show up either. It could be that God was too busy welcoming other newcomers, or that he was just busy enjoying his day off, doing... God knows what he does in his free time, I don´t. Well what I do know is that he has no time for suicidal lads - well, not me at least, although that could just be because he has it in for me. 

I didn't even see the Devil. What a relief, as I, being the good atheist, wasn't expecting to meet him either - even less a bunch of saints. Nothing religious. Not even some famous and important people - though that would have been interesting. I don't know, being Venezuelan, maybe one could have hoped to have had a quick chat with Bolivar - poor guy - whose occasional appearance now and then would only, however, be bestowed upon the Chavistas, to give them a few smacks about the head, and if that were the case then hopefully Chavez himself would have a head covered in bumps and bruises. None of that though. No one of importance. Not even anyone from my family nor any ancestors, not even my grandmother - la nonna - who had spent so much time with me, telling me stories. 

As I've already said, it was just Carlos who appeared. But that's not to say he was a stranger, or some functionary from the hereafter, no: Carlos was a mate from my most recent times here in England - the final phase of my life. I'd originally got to know him when he turned up as a client at the Refugee Council where I was working as an advisor and advocate - which meant that I sat in a little booth without a counter - really was just a desk, which was all there was to separate me from the clients' frustration and anger. And here I gave out advice to the unfortunate refugees, about what to do to escape from the mess they found themselves in - which was generally a worse mess than I myself was in (and mine wasn't insignificant, because I always end up in a mess - and not only the kind of mess that life tends to deliver generously but also the kind of mess that I create for myself - which again isn't insignificant either). 

My role was to help the refugees, who were waiting for the results of the British state burocratic machine (which could last up to ten years or more) and who, during this far from short period of waiting, needed the government to deign to treat them humanely. This task was made particularly difficult by the civil servants who worked for the so called NASS (National Assylum Support Service), assigned to the feared Home Office, internationally renowned, since the Brexit vote, for its blind malevolence. And these civil servants, the NASS ones, it's difficult to forget them even in the afterlife, because they were firmly convinced that their mission in life was to make the life of refugees, during the waiting period, as miserable, gloomy, constricted and as cold as they possible could. And one of these refugees, who they loved in their sadistic kind of manner, was the unfortunate Carlos. 

The day I met him was the day I realized how incapable of understanding refugees my colleagues from the Refugee Council actually were. It's true that I wasn't a normal refugee myself - in fact, as the law defined it I'd never even been one in the first place. In effect, my Italian ancestors provided me with a citizenship that allowed me to pass through any border in the world; my mama charged herself with only ever speaking to me in Italian - always correcting my ‘Spanishness’; and my Italian grandmother recited stories to me every, well almost every, night of my childhood, even when I was living in other cities, because the stories used to arrive on tape - the kind that came before cassettes. 

Anyway, although all my colleagues knew that my ancestors were Italians, they also knew that I had left Venezuela under fire, during Chavez's regime - before he showed his mask to the world - but all the same they considered me to be a refugee even though I really wasn't, at least legally speaking anyway. So that, in a supportive tone a colleague would say to me: "Look Fabrizio, a Venezuelan. You wanna meet him!" Or, "Hey Fab, someone from your country", from the guy on reception. Or, "Hey Fab, here's someone from your country - you'll want to see him!" - this time the security guard, in his typical Pakistani Bradford accent, speaking as fast as a machine gun. 

But why would I have wanted to meet with a Venezuelan after I'd left Venezuela fed up with its mediocrity and its 'Chavismo'? He wouldn't have wanted to meet me either: both of us would be avoiding Venezuelans, and for the same principal reason, the most important reason of all: neither of us wanted to bump into a Chavista, especially not an undercover Chavista. Of course in this cold and dark land one misses our tasty hallaca, our delicious arepa and our cheeses - like the queso de mano. Above all one misses all the tropical noises in the background, with their Colombian and Venezuelan-Caribbean zing. And the cumbia, merengue, joropo, even salsa dancing. I miss the fiesta, miss the jokes, miss the hugs and kisses... but no homesickness is strong enough to make me want to bump into someone who was responsible for so much regression in the country. 

And of course how would either of us know whether or not this was the government sending out spies to track us down? Somewhere the Venezuelan government has spent all their money, they can´t steal it all. Maybe some was spent in spies to make our life miserable also abroad. No, no, I don´t want to meet that Carlos, I thought. And I wondered: how is it possible that my English colleagues can't see this; how many times do I have to tell them that Chávez is a complete farce, a nothing?  

Well, in the end I did end up meeting him, this Venezuelan. We became friends, going against all the rules of the Refugee Council, of the country, of the British culture, of everything. We became friends despite spending very little time together - the brief moments we did manage to share being quality time that we enjoyed, in an intimate Venezuelan kind of way, sharing arepas de reina pepiada and improvised tequeños, and many memories of Juan Griego and Guacuco beach and Guacuco soup. 

In short, Carlos was a friend, but only for a short while, because both of us were busy with the commitments of our lives in this country. And as I said, hardly had I opened my eyes after death (and clearly, opening one’s eyes is just a metaphor for saying what I could see in this world of the afterlife) - I had hardly opened them and there, looking really calm and relaxed, was Carlos. What a crazy life! No, I mean what crazy lives! - both the one before my death, and the one after. And Carlos was looking at me extremely calmly as though he was thinking just that same thing, and he smiled. There was a moment's silence. 

"Sorry Carlos, but I don't understand. I'm confused..." I said. 

"Don't worry, we're all confused after we die", he told me, and I felt really perplexed about the somehow coherent but absurd logic of this confusing situation.  

It was then that I thought it better to ask him an intelligent question as I couldn't start this new life with as many errors as I'd committed before; I wasn't going to let it happen that in this 'life after life' I was going to do everything badly again - that would be the limit. But then things got worse. Carlos sat down in an armchair - yes, there are armchairs and everything - and as if it meant nothing, he said to me: 

"We on the committee decided that I should be the first one to come and talk to you" 

"Ah" 

Carlos's explanation was so far from what you'd expect, to be honest, that although I hadn't believed in the afterlife, this still felt like a gunshot. But anyway, even if I had believed in something so absurd I would have imagined something completely different to this first informative sentence that I was hearing. What madness. And whilst I was taking in this crazy reality, all the ideas, observations and surprises mounted up in my head - like the one about 'after life there's more life, another chance even'.  I, that had been an atheist all my previous life, would have said that this was all an illusion but look, there are other people... and at least one of them is Carlos, luckily! But this 'luck' suddenly seemed to turn sour, just like in the other life, because these survivors of the other life have...committees! How awful! The thing you'd least expect to find in the next life is a bureaucracy, even less an authority established by committees. Committees my arse! I didn't die just to end up in an office.  

All these things went through my head, my mind jumped from one thought to another, just like in the other life, and I noticed that the armchair where Carlos was sitting was red and very comfortable looking, but why would you bother to sit down if you didn't have a body, only the image of a body, because images don't weigh anything, my God, how absurd, yes I can say 'my God' now because in one of these lives he might well appear, riding by on a bicycle or eating a fried chicken, who knows? In short, my mind was flying about all over the place, and here, for once, flying is actually a thing, but then I landed with a bump when Carlos said to me: 

"Ok, Fabrizio, in the committee we do not agree that you killed yourself." 

So, I was already a failure: I had only just begun my new life as a dead person and here I was, already infringing the rules - with no chance of starting over with a clean slate. I was already an offender. Or worse. They had found me out, and to top it all off they were coming to reprimand me. This new world had already started badly. If you die through suicide they should at least have the decency to let you die in peace, and if you are going to live afterwards, fuck it, the last thing you wanna hear is a judgement on whether or not you killed yourself for the right reasons. And so began my new life as a dissident, forever seeing things differently from how everyone else sees them. Well, fuck their committee. The 'hereafter' was rapidly becoming very similar to the 'therebefore'. What a drag. 

After death, I found my survival instinct was tending to push me a little bit towards hesitation and caution before I expressed any dissension (whereas in my previous life I had always expressed my opinions impulsively and fearlessly, or, to put it another way, I was a bit of a big-mouth and it had always ended badly). Anyway, I reckoned it might be a good thing to wait until I understood a little better the politics and modes of operation of this new life. I was starting to think something along the lines of: "I can't go on with this shitshow of being a fucking misfit in every single life that comes along". So I got a grip of myself and told myself to make the best of the fact that I had a friend on this committee of the dead that was coming to judge me. Carlos could be my ally, my leverage here in the life beyond. I wanted to somehow get him on my side, initiating, in this way, a political process in this new world touched by the old world. And so I said, interrupting him: 

"Listen Carlos, are you going to tell me that you killed yourself for the right reasons, whereas I didn't?" 

But on hearing my own words I realized that maybe I wasn't being very diplomatic - it might well have been an ok thing to say in the old life but who knows how it would go down in this one? But as soon as he replied I realized that at least one thing remained the same here: friendship.  

"Look, we know everything here", he said, extremely calmly and then he continued justifying his own suicide, “I was haunted by those horrible memories of when the collective supported by Serra, the bastards, tried to drown me in the city sewage and made me eat shit. I couldn't take any more”.  

I was finding it difficult to keep my head straight. Of course I recognised the frankness of his reply as something belonging to our friendship in the previous life, but the bewilderment that this situation was causing me now took control and it was difficult for me to follow his thread, and even harder to articulate my own reply. When he said to me "we know everything here", the horror dawned on me that in this new world there was no privacy, and it's not that I have much to hide, but this, along with other things, prompted a thousand questions, like what kind of place was this new world in which they even had committees that had the gall to decide whether or not someone had committed suicide for the correct reasons. But as the idea of friendship and sincerity seemed to be the same in this new world, I said to him; 

"Don't play dumb, cos you had loads of friends in England, you started a new life there and you even joined a rock band, unbelievably. And then you go and kill yourself like an arsehole." 

And he started to laugh as I was speaking and he made gestures as if to say "Carry on! Carry on! You don't know anything!" But I kept going: 

"Even the police arrived to investigate whether or not it was murder", I said, trying to make him feel uncomfortable. And he made a gesture as if to say ‘big deal’. But I carried on in spite of his sarcasm, and with some effort I informed him, in a lowered voice: 

"And at your funeral, you would have seen-" But, with a brusque gesture, he cut me off short and left me hanging with my thoughts still in full flow. I remained silent for a few seconds too, as the reminders of his funeral all began to crowd into my memory. 

His funeral had been the most beautiful funeral I had ever experienced - if it's possible to describe a funeral as beautiful, as funerals, to me, are always macabre. I don't know, suddenly everyone feels under pressure to say how much they loved you, including those that probably didn't even say hello to you if they saw you in the supermarket, and suddenly they are saying how important you were in their lives. Typical Brit. 

I wanted to tell him about the friends who gathered there, but he repeated the gesture indicating that he was going to say something. I waited longer and recalled that we had all gathered there, his friends and myself, the only Venezuelan, all of us bewildered to hear he had got hold of some insulin without being a diabetic and had injected himself with enough of it to kill a horse. I don't know why but all his English friends were there, inconsolable, some of them sitting on the sofa, some on the floor. One of them, who was wearing a purple scarf and wasn't wearing any socks suddenly took the initiative and said something amazing about Carlos: I don't remember exactly what, but something to do with his passion for electric guitars, and she asked that he be remembered for this. Then after a long silence another of his friends, also barefoot but wearing one pink sock and one green started to share a lovely memory of the day Carlos prepared some arepas, which Carlos thought tasted awful, and this was followed by some joke which I didn't understand, and I was the only one there who didn't get it. 

I wanted to tell Carlos that he would not have killed himself if he knew how much he was loved, “how dare you, Carlos, they loved you so much”, I wanted to tell him, but he had a gesture of “I-am-going-to-tell-you-now-something-you-don't-know". 

I was really wanted to tell him that when Lou spoke, I was deeply interested because I knew they adored each other and she recalled the day they met, in Caracas, when Carlos was still a Chavista and she was writing her postgraduate thesis on the Venezuelan government's food program - which of course was full of enthusiasm for Venezuela's revolutionary process. Howver I couldn’t speak because he interrupted me again with this abrupt gesture and said: 

"Yes, I saw my funeral, the three that I had", he said, and laughed a little sarcastically but with some affection. 

"You dick, you saw your funeral?", I said, surprised but growing accustomed to being surprised in this new world of the dead, and I didn't get to ask him why three if there was only one, maybe two - one informal on the day he died, the other a few days later when the police brought back his body.  

"Yes, of course! A funeral is the best day of your life in England. It's a pity that you're dead. Suddenly everyone loves you like mad. And my Venezuelan mates were even jealous when I showed them my funeral on cinetrip. 

"Oh", I said, as if it was clear what is the cinetrip but trying to maintain the light hearted air of the conversation I added:  

“If only I had known. Let's organise our funerals before we die so that at least we're invited. Tell me when I can go see the cinetrip." 

"You haven't changed", he went on, "You are always mucking around." 

"Well, you don't get to die all the time. You've got to make the most of the opportunity. If only we'd known, in Venezuela we would put on better rumbas and less macabre funerals." 

With a little touch of humour, always present between me and Carlos, I was already beginning to forget the committees thing, or at least the particular committee that wasn't happy with my suicide; nor was I even interested in asking about the cinetrip, because I was beginning to think this whole thing could actually be quite entertaining - although I didn't know yet if I would miss my mobile phone and all that other pre-death stuff. But then all of a sudden I was caught by the worry that I still might have all the mess of the life before death, and I wanted to ask Carlos what life was like here, but he suddenly became serious and reminded me: 

"Well, my friend, on behalf of the committee I repeat that we are not in agreement with your suicide." 

"So what? Are they going to come and tell me I have to pay a penalty? And you - did you kill yourself for the right reasons? You saw your funeral-" 

"Look, Lou did say that at my funeral, and it's true we were very close and I love her very much; she let me live in her house, had her family treat me like their son. But she never wanted to help me with Venezuelan issues. And her thesis was used to argue in favour of Venezuela's food policies. Even the FAO was taken in. Yeah, right. That hurts. It still hurts me." 

While hearing this, I was aware that Lou was slow to accept our denunciation of what was happening in Venezuela, even after the newspapers printed that Carlos had suffered from post-traumatic disorder and he had committed suicide because he could no longer bear the memories of his torture. In the end though, I have to admit - for reasons of intellectual honesty - she did stop defending the Bolivarian revolution - fortunately. But Lou didn't want to face the reality that she had discovered at first hand - that is, that the Bolivarian authorities are a fraud, they are corrupt, they are torturers. It went in one ear and out the other when they told her the socialists should take on the lessons of the control of power as characterised by liberal democracies. Seeing all that Venezuelan reality disorientated Lou - who was on the Left of the Labour Party where one had to be in agreement with Chavez or else be labelled a Blairite, a sellout, etc. All of this went through my head as Carlos continued with his tale: 

"Lou always gave me great solidarity on a personal level. I was excited by everything that she did, and besides, I think she did more on my behalf than I had done on hers" 

But I stopped following his discourse - I knew only too well from where it derived. In England nobody wanted to believe me about what was going on with Chavez, but they had heard it from Lou, at least inside her circle of friends, friends of friends, a few colleagues and maybe more beyond that. She blamed Serra's abuses on a single case of corruption within the system, although it was linked to Diosdado, that son of a bitch. It was always just a case of ‘corrupt personalities’ with Lou, of failures of the system, never that the system itself was a mistake, a big lie, a huge farce. A bulwark for the military for the setting up of a new oligarchy - the Bolibourgeoisie  

"Watch it, watch it”, I told him, “ I'm not of the British Left, you can forget that. And I know very well who Diosdado and his crowd are." 

"But you too betrayed me!" he said. 

"Me? How?" 

"To start with, you never turned up at my university meetings on Venezuela." 

"There was no point, you know that. The English always think they know more than we do. 

"Look, they wouldn't even discuss it with someone like me. They hear what I say then go off and give money to Hands Off Venezuela" (that movement created by the embassy as a kind of self-protection; along with the idiot followers of the mayor, whatever his name is). "Even some of those who came to your funeral were doing it. There's no answer for that." 

"But you also betrayed me in a bigger way, and that's more terrible." 

"Another way? How?" 

"Well, at my funeral you promised me you were going to write a novel about Sofia, remember? And promises made to suicide victims should be kept. Not to do so is a terrible wrong. Terrible. So terrible that up here, it's a crime. And the committee is united on that.." 

This was a shock. I had almost forgotten I was in the kingdom of the afterlife, that I had committed suicide and that that was what had sent me off to the life beyond; suddenly, I realized the mess I was in. A crime in the hereafter. A crime. And even worse: against a friend. 

"Fucking hell Carlos, I'm sorry, I didn't want to betray you. When I made that promise I made it sincerely, but things got really difficult..." 

"Writers in difficult circumstances write better than those who haven't really lived - those who only read books." And I replied: 

"Yes that's true, I'm sure. But I was fired from all my jobs." 

"But the novel - why did you give it up? You couldn't... You promised me! And I believed your promise, and you can't imagine the hope that that gave me." 

And I interrupted him to continue with what I wanted to say, but he wouldn't let me. 

"Fabrizio, you have to understand, that in this new world of we that have died, we are all waiting, and what we learn is to be patient. Patience is a grand virtue. Patience. And you need to learn this too. It was impatience that led you to suicide, and that shouldn't be. You wanted to live, you wanted to write and you were going to find the means but you killed yourself.  

And I wanted to tell him that it wasn't impatience but the need to live, the impossibility of living; that I wanted to live but I couldn't. I couldn't go on cutting grapes. It wasn't just impatience. 

"Patience, Fabrizio, learn- 

"But let me tell you Carl- 

"Patience for fuck's sake, listen!!!... 

"Fuck patience! It's you who is shouting at me!" 

And I could see that this new world was actually just like the old one. 

"Fabrizio, listen. We aren't going to allow you to die." 

"Ah no! Friend! What do I have to do? Everyone who ever died stayed dead but now you're gonna make me - me! - what kind of cunt are you - make me be the first dead person to be sent back? I'm going to scare the shit out of everyone! They're gonna take me for a ghost! Resurrection? Screw that!" 

And Carlos laughed: "Yes, but so long as no one knows then yes we can send you back." 

"No mate, please! I couldn't bear any more of that life, don't let them do that to me, take me to this fucking committee, let me talk to them! I want to remain dead in that life, I'm sure I can start afresh here, I can help them, I'll be useful!" 

"Even after death you're still just as stubborn as you always were. And you're the only dead person I know that ever wanted to find work - ah Fabrizio, how funny is that! But we can't accept you, I'm sorry." 

"How sorry are you? Not at all." 

"Yes, we are sorry, and we're going to help you with the novel." 

Aha, that was different. Because after all is said and done I could actually come back to this new life because I'm not going to be the only person in the world who's going to be alive forever - the pinnacle of bad luck for someone who commits suicide. Ok, I told myself - and I got ready to hear carefully the details of my return to normal life. 

"The dead who come back to life don't remember anything," ('This isn't starting well', I thought), "but we're going to make an exception for you because seriously you have to get on with the novel as it was funny. You're going to go back, and you're going to have to look for the funding (I spent ages doing that, I thought) - you're going to find them." (This sounds all very well as long as it doesn't take twenty years, I thought) "and we're going to give you some hints as to where you can find them. Watch your phone and your computer. That's all." 

"No! It’s not as easy as that! They have to tell me what I'm going to live on!" 

And it was there that I woke up. Indeed I was in the land of the living - I recognised it by its solid materialistic quality. I looked at my bedside table and the medicines of which I'd taken the overdose were all still there. Fuck me! If I take them all again they'll put me back there and I'll never die, ever... 

I got off the bed, opened the curtains and there I was again, in England, with its marvellous climate of clouds and more clouds. Rain and more rain. Too bad I couldn't watch the video of my funeral nor see my grandmother and my dearest friends. I felt I wasted my time while I was dead. If I knew how it was, I would have made the best of it. 

I looked at the phone: all the apps. Nothing. Nada. I looked at the computer. Nothing. I looked more carefully at it and only saw that the novel was gone, because I had deleted it before I had killed myself as I didn't want it published before it had been properly edited. There were only the short stories, and they were only still there because they were online. Fucking great, thanks, all you dead people in the dead people's committee! Well, fuck it then. I went out to seek help to fix the laptop. 

Because I'd sold the car, I got the bus, and then I noticed that I had a message. It was Arthur, my banker friend. He had been in business all his life, became a Chavista and made a fortune through his connections with the Bolivarian government. But he fell into disgrace and was jailed for some minor offences. And the last time we spoke he was complaining about all the millions he'd lost during the crisis. He sent me a WhatsApp message. 

‘Hi Fabrizio, are you there? I'm about to hit sixty and I don't know what to do. What kind of project would you launch yourself into if you were in my situation?’ 

I sent him a voice message. In Spanish of course. And while I was speaking a lady watched me, with irritation, and her husband was with her, also looking at me as if I was some kind of criminal. 

"Now we have won the elections, we will have Brexit. You have to speak English." 

And I replied: 

"Whilst my taxes are paying for your pension I shall speak any damn language that I like."  

And everyone on the bus applauded. A sign that not everything in this country was lost. Yes. 

And then Carlos appeared. 

“Carlos, what are you doing here? 

“I came to tell you that we made a mistake. Arturo is not going to help you” 

“Who is going to help me? 

“Nobody”. 

“What can I do?” 

“ I don´t know. Try to tell the tale about how hard it is to write a novel about Sofia.