WANTED: Love of my Life

45. Kuru Kuru Kuru?

Despite my inability to pay attention to anything apart from his perfect face and physique while I was in the company of Giacomo, my tutoring payed off. I was able to pull my grades up one or two letters in the alphabet, and my Dad didn't ground me. In addition, my secret stash of romance novels was still undiscovered albeit a bit damp, due to morning mist by now, and my love life was just... well I had one! I actually had one!!!

And I just couldn't help let it show a bit. A smile seemed to be permanently glued onto my face. I had to exercise strenuous control so as not to start dancing tango in the school corridors, and now and again, I just started laughing for no particular reason. People were still trying to figure out what was wrong me. One day, after Bio, Sandra sidled up to me, almost in tears, and asked in this very low very serious voice: “Angela... do you... do you have...?”

That's all. Apparently she couldn't bring herself to ask what it was she thought I had. A boyfriend? From her expression, I thought that this wasn't what was on her mind.

“What?” I wanted to know. “Out with it! You know you can ask me anything.”

“All right.” She swallowed. “Do you have Kuru?”

I laughed and said: “Not that I'm aware of. But perhaps I do. I don't really know. What in heaven's name is a Kuru?”

She shook her head, apparently only more concerned now. “Not a Kuru. Just Kuru. It's a disease from Africa, more commonly known as laughing sickness.”

“Really?” I started to get it.

“Kuru is an incurable degenerative neurological disorder, usually fatal within six months. The term is derived from a native African word which means 'to shake', in reference to the increasing body tremors symptomatic of the disease. These tremors are also the cause of the hysteric fits of laughter which plague people afflicted by the disease, from which comes the second term for the sickness, namely 'laughing sickness'.”

“Geeze. Fancy that.”

“There are different theories on how the sickness is spread, though the most commonly held opinion among medical scholars is that it is transmitted through cannibalistic practices.”

This made my eyebrows rise.

“Well, thanks for thinking nothing but nice things of me, Sandra.”

She looked tortured. “It's just... that you've been laughing suddenly again and again in the past weeks.”

“So? My Grades have gone up. Can't a person be cheerful anymore around here without raising suspicion?”

“Just tell me that you... that you're not...”

“I haven't got Kuru. I promise.”

Sandra closed her eyes and sighed in relief.

“Thank you.”

“And I haven't gobbled up any of my neighbors, lately, neither.”

“Angela!”

“They would be pretty tough to chew, actually,” I mused, thinking of the thick-necked Italian guy. “I suppose, if I cooked them long enough, I could probably force a few bites down, but I'm not absolutely sure. How about your neighbors?”

“Angela, I'm serious.”

“Well, don't be. The weather is far to nice to be serious. How about old Mrs. Jaworski? Do you think you could do it? With salt and pepper, of course.”

And we got into a discussion about which of our neighbors would be the most edible and forgot all about my strange fits of hilarity.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

My friends weren't the only ones who kept me under close observation. Enrique the driver raised his bushy eyebrows more often than usual when I climbed into the cable car in the morning with a smile on my face and a cheerful 'good morning' for him. Sometimes I even paid for the ride!

Fortunately, my parents were as delusional as all other parents and concluded that my good mood must be a result of my better grades. I would have been worried that Cathy, queen of the quidnuncs, would find out about Giacomo and me sooner or later if she hadn't had the quite useful habit of finding anything to do with sweet little me completely and utterly boring.

I wanted to meet with Giacomo every single night. But after I once managed to fall asleep right in the middle of kissing him, even I had to admit that I probably had to catch up on some sleep. From then on, we met every second or third night, except on weekends. I simply had to see him Saturday and Sunday. I wouldn't budge. Otherwise, what would I have had to look forward to the entire week? He agreed, but only on condition that occasionally, we would study together. I agreed, partly because I loved to spend time with him whatever we were doing, and partly because I knew that for some screwed up reason he was feeling guilty about our relationship, and this helped convince him that he wasn't totally ruining my life.

So, all in all, my life was pretty fabulous, compared to what it had been before. Who was I kidding? It was fabulous compared to anyone's life! Yet there were still theses mysteries, these unanswered questions surrounding Giacomo. There were still an old newspaper, a crushed coke can, a hand-written price list of Italian wines and a couple of drawings residing in my hidden bag alongside my beloved books. Giacomo didn't seem any more inclined to tell me anything about his past than he had been in the beginning.

Which is why that Saturday took me so much by surprise.