After dinner I was walking through the mall with my book, pt. 2 of Chava Rosenfarb’s trilogy about the Lodz ghetto when an man somewhere in his early eighties, who walked with a little limp, noticed me with interest and asked me to stop. It was the book that made him do this, as though it was exciting for him to see someone who also likes to read. He asked what was the title and why was I reading it. I showed it to him, it’s called The Tree of Life and he asked what kind of tree? I answered if was about the Holocaust but he didn’t seem to understand and I didn’t think he knew the word or that English was his first language. I added it’s about Jews and World War 2. He said what are you? I said I’m a Jew. He looked annoyed and said I’m sorry like he changed his mind about talking to me. I sensed some fucked up speech was about to follow. Why are you sorry, I asked. He said because of what they did to the Jews and the Gypsies too, I’m from Italy, they killed all of them. Ahh I see, I said, it’s ok, it’s another time and place now. I said I played music all over Italy about ten years ago, from Udine to Genoa, from Frosinone to Cosenza. Just my luck he’s from Cosenza and became very excited though I don’t think he attended any of my shows. I still know my phrases, io sono bobbinni wisemanni. I presume I pronounced buonanotte correctly, because he returned it instantly and we moved on in different directions.