I was about to ask my mother whether she would consider
living in Bangkok when
Carmine stepped out, with a cone in hand, and sat down. He made short work of the scoop and
then, in between stories about the imported fridges and ice cream makers and how the Neopolitans
had been the ones to finish off the Roman empire, he broke off pieces of the cone's rim and
sucked them dry. He held each piece in his hand until there was no more ice cream and then
placed them carefully back in the cone which he then threw away. He told us he had come to
Canada 33 years ago from Naples and he went back every year. But only in April because there
were too many people : 70 million people, he told us in that amazing way that way Italians speak
French where it sounds like they're rolling their ns as well as their rs, in a
country one tenth the size the size of
Québec. I remember seeing an interview with John Irving a bunch of years ago where
he commented that Canada's small population allowed it the luxury of a discourse among it's
citizenry not affored to larger countries (he was speaking about the States, specifically.) I've
never wanted to believe that he was correct but it's also always stayed with me.