As mentioned, if we exclude the “attempts” during the period of her marriage and partner no. 2, Miriam has never been monogamous; she certainly wasn’t before marriage and, later on from partner no. 3 onward, and she has always imposed “promiscuous” situations, perhaps using as an excuse the need to travel for “business”.
Given the impossibility, real but even more so as she perceived it especially at the beginning, of going out on her “own” in a violent environment like that of the Dark World, she has always tied herself to partners for reasons of economic convenience in the broad sense: she needed physical protection at home and during her night movements, she still needed to keep “cordial” relations with whatever criminal group operated in the area, she needed convenient and steady Drug supplies and now and then an “operational base” … and in return she has always been able to make available her huge network of clients who trusted her and/or were in love with her or psychologically dependent on her.
Here I outline schematically Miriam’s “minor” partners and, where I know of it, their overlap with the “main” partners; through this overall web of ties and its evolution it is possible to grasp not only Miriam’s evolution, but, by reflection, that of the entire criminal world in Veneto.
ETanolo
Nationality: Albanian
Type/Role: Business partner, not in life
Relationship length: A few years
Overlap: Maurice
BigMan
Nationality: Albanian
Type/Role: Sort of bodyguard (he’s a huge man about two meters tall) living at Miriam’s house; she denies having had relations with him despite sleeping with him every night
Relationship length: a year or a little more
Overlap: none, I believe immediately after Manolo
Bloom
Nationality: Albanian
Type/Role: Business and life partner but, it must be said, Miriam always kept him away from home with various excuses.
Relationship length: A few “fragmented” years; relationship start uncertain but probably before Manolo; relationship interrupted due to imprisonment (of Bloom), relations resumed intensely after imprisonment, but he immediately becomes a fugitive, commits new crimes and is re-imprisoned after a few months1.
Overlap: Probably Maurice and Manolo, and unfortunately I had the chance to meet him too.
(Note: there would be at least a couple of very recent names and some after the brief period in which Miriam and I had a relationship, but in my view they are not particularly “important”; I mention them in later chapters)
1 And from what Miriam told me he’ll stay there for quite a while, to the point that the Albanian Mafia had officially given Miriam the green light to start a new life with someone else.