It was still hot, but the Madonna of Trapani had already crossed the streets of Tunis, dragging behind her that long, swarthy swarm of people. Of pious children with flushed faces the color of the earth, and of matronly women, uncompromising yet docile for the occasion. Of troubled fathers who, amidst all their commitments, thought at that moment, "ah, who knows if you will grant me a blessing," while on their wrists the hands of little ones felt like long chains of love.

In the time when the sun was leaving the earth, against the backdrop of cracked white houses, slapped by salty winds and scolded by liturgies, here and there a cluster of voices—of families returning, crossing the corridors between hanging clothes, where the smell of faded laundry formed a gesture of peace around them in the gentle evening.

In all of this, I saw no difference with my own story. Fishing united us, the immense effort united us, the swift flow of our blood, the throbbing veins on our foreheads. And those smells made me think of strong, hairy, thick arms, which as children we humiliated by mistaking for fat, when instead it was power...