As she had heard a noise from the apartment across the hallway the girl quietly opened the door and looked out into the corridor whose light had been turned on for a moment. Just as she had supposed her neighbor was returning home. The woman had stared at him since he had arrived at the building a week earlier. Despite seeing just his back she could not help breathing a sigh. His general appearance and his youth were extremely attractive and she could not deny herself that she wanted to contact him. Perhaps alerted by some sixth sense that he was being watched the boy turned around and for a moment their gazes crossed. The woman thought she saw in his face a gesture that she instantly associated with a certain physical pain whose origin she could not discern. Then, in a reflex act produced by being discovered she closed the door and leaned back on it, feeling the blush covering her cheeks. She was willing to open her door again and directly face the young man and start a conversation but then felt that he was not ready and that is was not the right moment.
Zahra decided not to wait any longer and consult her cards. She took the deck from the dresser drawer where she remembered having kept them long ago and spread three cards on the table. Seeing the result her frown creased so she decided to throw the cards again. The verdict of the decks was practically the same so that the woman decided to carry out the consultation in another way. After several attempts she sat down in a chair with a dejected gesture. The cards were warning her of a problem associated with the boy but the reasons were rather confusing and obscure. Zahra held her head between her hands as she rested the elbows on the table and began to stare at the last hand of cards. After a while of profound introspection the data of the decks began to make sense in a certain twisted way
Federico Ferrari had been staring for a moment at the door of his neighbor that had closed rather abruptly. He had already seen the woman before and had been struck by the exotic beauty of her features and the curves of her body. Federico had a definite predilection for black women, particularly for pure African women.
As he turned to his door and proceeded to open it the wounds on his back and chest produced him a sharp pain. He entered the apartment and immediately took off his sports jacket and shirt. The latter showed clear stains of blood. He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror, the only one throughout the modest apartment, and saw the new still bleeding wounds on his back, which intersected his skin with older, partially healed ones. A series of questions about the meaning of his life in the last months raised again in his mind, but when his thought flew to Shantaya he mentally toured body once again, remembered the feelings that invaded him when she covered his countenance with her flesh and paradoxically everything returned to be clear for him, once more he found a sense in his actions. After practicing an emergency cure he lay down on the bed and fell asleep.
Zahra dressed and left her apartment heading for the flower shop she owned in Harlem. The trip in the subway lasted about twenty-five minutes but she could freely choose the time to go to the store to avoid the rush hour as her two employees always opened it at nine o'clock without problems since they lived in the neighborhood.
<Advantages of being the owner.> Meditated the woman.
Seeing that she was loaded with packages Kafil ran to open the door to his employer, even though he was wetting the plants with a watering can. His wife Imani was in the background putting together orders from regular customers, generally roses to give to wives or lovers on their anniversaries. Imani and Kafil were a couple of about thirty-five, both born in Tanzania and recruited by Zahra years before when she offered them work and helped the recently arrived couple to settle in Harlem. Both were extremely grateful to their patroness and were unconditionally loyal to her, which Zahra appreciated for the nature of their duties. In fact the Tanzanian couple collaborated with her in her other activity ... actually the main activity from the point of view of profitability, since it complemented the income of the flower shop.
Zahra waited until Imani finished taking care of some customers who had approached the counter and once they left closed the door of the shop in a transitory form and the three met to interchange the news of the day. In fact, Imani and Kafil informed Zahra of the tasks that had been entrusted to them.
"How is the couple of the Ugandan girl's with her new husband working out?" Asked the owner.
"Up to now very well," Kafil reported. "The man is an old Chinese who seems very much in love with her. I talked to the girl and she assured me that he does not mistreat her like the previous one, on which she has now placed a restraining order. Anyway, I think the blows I gave the guy the day she left him have been more effective.”
"And what about Busara, the girl from Tanzania related to you?" The question was addressed to Imani.
"She's very happy. She has become pregnant with the Italian, also a rather elderly man.”
Thus Zahra progressively learned of the status of the girls she had brought from Africa in recent times, knowing that often the unions with the men they had carried out were not the most convenient and that she would have to find them new partners after a while.
Zahra brought beautiful young women from Africa, particularly from Kenya and Tanzania, and tried to find suitable couples but made a follow up on them until she was sure they were not abused or abandoned. Men who constituted their clients, generally white and of a certain age, financed the entire search cycle and left a significant gain. Some errors had to be corrected firmly and without delay. The most serious case had been that of an African American from Harlem who turned out to be a pimp and forced the girl into prostitution. Kafil proceeded to break his legs and leave his two thugs out of action, which had given him a certain reputation as a strong man in the neighborhood.
Zahra detested criminal trafficking organizations that brought young women, particularly from Africa and Asia, but also from Latin America, to the United States, and sold them to other sinister characters that prostituted and exploited them, often taking off their passports and taking as hostages the children whom the unfortunate women gave birth. For that reason she wanted to differentiate her activity from such traffic and was careful to ensure that the girls she introduced into the country were integrated into the social fabric.
After the exchange of information Zahra called Kafil aside and showed him a photo on her cell phone.
"What are you showing me? Who is this boy?" Asked the man.
“His name is Federico Ferrari. I learned his name from the mailbox of my building because he lives in the apartment that is right in front of mine so that you can locate him easily.”
“He´s very young and good-looking.” Said Imani who had joined the conversation. “Do you have a particular interest in him?”
Zahra did not expect the intrusion or the direct question and blushed but finally thought she should show her game and answered firmly.
"For now it's just a man I'm interested in. I've never spoken to him.”
"And you want to know if there's another woman?" Insisted Imani.
The blush on Zahra's face increased but she actually reasoned that they were logical questions and that both Imani and Zafir had enough intimacy with her to make them.
"Yes, and all the information you can get me about his work and friends will be appreciated.”
“I get it.” Said Kafil. "Leave it in my hands." Then he retired to continue his floral ordering tasks. Imani waited for her husband to walk away, approached Zahra and tenderly stroking her cheek, whispered.
"I have already told you that I cannot understand how a beautiful woman like you can remain alone, without a man. I hope the news Kafil brings will be good, you deserve it.”
"I do not know ... there's something strange about this boy, and I want to be sure.”
"As my husband said, leave it in his hands. You know he's very good and discreet in these ...detective tasks.”