The Zebra-Print Shoe

On a road near Rome, I found a woman more frightened of speaking than of dying

A cyclist’s shadow (Upsplash)

Note: this essay discusses violence against women and may be upsetting for some readers. --Eric

The Cyclist

I was halfway through a Friday morning bicycle training ride near the sea, turning around to head back to Rome, when a woman’s zebra-print shoe caught my eye at the bottom of a roadside embankment.

I made another pass, stopped, and a dark-skinned leg near the shoe came into focus, partially obscured by the brush. I carefully laid my bike on its side and looked both ways. “Hello? Buongiorno?” I called down the hill. Then, after a moment: “Jambo?” -- the only Swahili word I knew. No movement.

I started to make my way down the embankment but stopped after a couple of steps. She was probably dead. Did I want to risk trampling over evidence? And if she was alive, she didn’t need me, she needed a doctor. I climbed back up to the road and found a rock to mark the spot. As I raced toward Ostia, the closest city, I practiced what I wanted to say in my head.

Before even getting there, I found a police car on the side of the road and two officers leaning against it, smoking. I pulled up to them and announced: “Ho trovato una mignotta morta!” I was out of breath.

The Cops

“Che?” one of the officers asked -- “What?”

“I found. A dead. Prostitute,” I repeated, in Italian. I didn’t yet realize how ugly the word mignotta was. I’d learned it from other riders on my cycling team, where I was the only non-Italian. Sometimes one of them would shout it when we rode past certain women standing on rural roadsides during late-in-the-day rides.

“Where did you learn Italian?” the other cop asked.

I repeated the phrase a third time, pronouncing each syllable with more emphasis.

“Allora,” the first officer said, “dov’è questa famosa mignotta morta?”