One hot day in the month of August
fair Vida traveled to Trieste;
she needed diapers for her baby
and tablets for her husband’s chest;
and when it all was bought and paid for,
she sat down in a park to rest.
Suddenly she sees a black guy
coming toward her bench. He’s in
a handsome suit and on his necktie
wears a gold and diamond pin.
He says to Vida, “If you permit me,
I’d like to tell you, as you sit here,
about our range of great vacations
to exotic destinations.”
“Sorry, but I’m afraid I have
too many problems here to solve,”
Vida sighs, as the man inspects
the weary beauty’s pallid cheeks,
the dark circles beneath her eyes,
and the box of diapers by her side.
“If these problems on your mind
are merely of a financial kind,
I may have a good job for you,”
fair Vida hears the stranger say.
“Once a simple health review
shows you’re basically OK,
you can make a lot of money
in a distant foreign country
with your own breast milk in just a year,
enough to last a long time, my dear.
Room and board and all your clothes
come with the job. So if you chose,
you could leave your pay intact
and put it in a savings bank
at high interest, or, alternatively,
send it home to your family.”
Vida doesn’t need a second
to think it over – things are getting
worse and worse at home: the kid
cries day and night, her husband’s sick
and out of work with no insurance. . .
She’s at the end of her endurance!
So she makes up her mind at once.
To a nearby post office she runs,
the pills and diapers she mails off –
tomorrow they should get the stuff.
And then for a month of endless hours,
she breastfeeds a child that isn’t hers.
She agonizes – tosses and turns
in bed – until her paycheck comes.
Filled with trepidation, she
telephones home immediately,
but – a most annoying thing! –
the telephone just rings and rings.
Her husband’s mobile service provider,
each time she calls, says over and over,
as if it’s the only thing it knows:
“The number you have dialed is not
available. Please try again later.”
Her heart is beating faster and faster.
At last she gets through to a neighbor,
and then, right afterwards, collapses.
Since what she learns is truly terrible,
gruesome yet poignant, almost unbearable –
for more details you’ll have to buy
a newspaper. We can only say
that the tragic way things ended
might, in fact, have been prevented
if fair Vida had been wiser
and been our mobile phone subscriber.
If she had joined our premium
Sheik Plan (with a four-year minimum),
which includes the right to make
international calls at the same low rate
that otherwise exclusively
applies to local calling, she
would have phoned much sooner – and
this tale would have had a happy end.
Translated by Rawley Grau.
