The End

Wednesday, 13th October 1993

"Stop, I get off here. See you later, I hope."

Marco and Eva came to pick me up at the railway station that morning, not at destination, directly at the departure.

"Come on Hungry Heidi, show them what you can do."

We were both already in business mode, no effusion possible.

Even early, I decided to wait for the monster out of the classroom.

Minute after minute the students took place, until to a sold-out classroom, but of Miguel Dominguez not a whiff.

Ten minutes late. I used the phone card Marco gave me during the summer to call at office; Vanessa didn't know where he could be and my personal manager told me he'd have been too out of office that morning, useless to call him at least for a moral support.

Twenty minutes late. Understood what was waiting for me, I went to the bathroom, as it happened just a few months before with Fosca and Eleonora.

Twenty-five minutes late. A faculty's clerk came to check what was happening, why all that out loud talking inside the classroom and who was responsible for it. I gave him all the explanations needed, but he went away still angry.

Thirty minutes late.

Miguel's austere face appeared in my thoughts:

'React.'

I crossed the entrance door of the classroom, immediately under test by the big eye. Students silenced, in the meantime I prepared the slides for the lesson.

I turned on the microphone and I placed myself where he had been just the day before. And I started.

The beginning was all uphill, for sure more than five minutes.

Because they wanted the leader, not his pallid echo.

But at the third slide I had been interiorized, I didn't exist anymore, about myself they caught just the concepts.

Miguel didn't lie to me; after the fear of falling only the desire to let me go, not alone, but carrying with me all those innocent youths.

I revised all the mistakes of the day before, trying to add them what necessary to get a better result; impossible to reach Miguel, but I could at least get on his way.

So it was, because he appeared at the top of the classroom.

His head emerged from the last row of desks and with calm steps he went down, while the heads of the shaded crowd followed him in unison, imitating every his own move. He stared at me more than concentrated, bad; if I trembled of just one decibel he'd have given me the famous kick in the pants saved to his favourite.

I went on, in the meantime he put his briefcase on the teacher desk with the usual impetuousness, then he took another microphone and reached me on the stage.

He introduced himself without a word about the heavy time misunderstanding, only referring to a new experiment he decided to try just that morning; best managers are those who don't panic and react. And for supporting more his hypothesis he chose a couple of guinea pigs, inviting them to follow him on some paragraphs of his remaining speech, a too sadistic game in my opinion.

I returned to my place, waiting for the mark, the only thing on time that day, obviously after the end of the workshop:

"Come on, Giulia, it's time to go to work!"

Certainly I didn't expect compliments.

I relaxed satisfied, with him always the most dangerous mistake.