"Accendino." A deep, intentionally muffled voice came from behind me. I turned around and it took me several seconds to understand that the person now standing before me had asked if I had a cigarette lighter. I looked him over. He was tall and slim, and looked to be about 18 or 20. After pausing for a moment, I said, “No. I don’t have accendino."
He said nothing, and walked away.
It was a summer day, around 3 or 4pm, at a bus stop on a quiet side street of Palermo, Sicily. I’d been waiting for home-bound bus.
Several minutes later, the man came back with another guy: short, stumpy. The new man approached me, face twisted in a scowl. He produced a knife from the folds of his jacket, aiming it at my left chest. “Soldi— money,” he said. Seeing me shocked and nonresponsive, the short guy started to search me. He patted down all my pockets but found only a bus pass.
This was 20 years ago, when Palermo was notorious for robbery. That’s why I, like other foreign students, did not usually carry a wallet, keeping only my bus pass and a small amount of money to get to and from school each day.
Coming out of my shock, I somehow woke up enough to feel irritated, though not necessarily scared. I shouted to him in the Italian that I had learned not long before: “I am a Chinese. I am not a Japanese tourist. I don’t have soldi!”
He grabbed my collar fiercely and stared at me for a couple of seconds. Then they both went away.
If I were scared of this, I would not come to Sicily, I thought to myself. The agitation I felt was still brewing.
I decided to follow them, thinking I might catch hold of a passing-by policeman I could report them to.
The men went into the Medical Bar, a bar and café across from the Policlinico di
Palermo, where I had been invited to do research project. I went to the bar for an espresso or breakfast at least once a day. I followed them into the bar and intentionally saluted the bartenders loudly. “Ciao, Mimmo. Ciao, Salvadore!”
The two had joined other another gang of about 5 or 6 people at a table near the back. The thugs looked at me from the remote table, aware that I was “local” too. They whispered, discussed.
The tall guy was sent to me. He walked close to me and quietly said “dolce,” meaning apologies and inviting me for a dessert. I refused the dolce offer and reprimanded the guy in my half Italian and half English. I advised him not do such bad things and told them they needed go to work for soldi instead of committing shameful crimes.
He looked lost.
Did he even understand what I had said? I didn't know.
Nevertheless, it was such a winning feeling to confront him. It made me feel that I overcame the hardness and fearing of staying in Sicily.
Months ago, my applications to scholarships had been accepted by several institutes at almost the same time but only the one from Palermo University allowed me to leave right away. Since China at that time was under bad political shape after Tianmen Square Event, I was afraid that China shut down the door to outside world and hided into iron curtain again. So, I decided to go for Palermo University scholarship first.
However, the mafia caused a lot of trouble at that time in Palermo and the news spread to whole world even to China. I thought this trip as a challenge in mind. In first several months, I was really in tense. Up to this point, I felt first time relieved.
Twenty years have passed and I still remember every single detail of this episode. But I could never understand how I managed such fearlessness in shouting at the gangs and
following them to the bar. I’m older now; looking back, the whole thing seems rather reckless. Many times I have asked myself, “what if…?” When I told my friends this story, they all have asked the same question, no exceptions.
Just a few days ago, I was still struggling for a reasonable ending to the story I had put on paper for the first time. It was then that I realized a truth, and perhaps the most simple explanation of all: When you are young, you do not ask “what if…?”
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