One thing is for sure: Soon’s musical tastes have changed. Old Man catches her softly singing Why don’t you see it? Why don’t you feel it? I don’t know, I don’t know. You don’t have to live next to me, just give me my equality, and he interrupts her: Soon, do you know what you’re singing? She has no idea; she was singing to herself without thinking. “Mississippi Goddam,” one of Nina Simone’s legendary songs! She composed it in only an hour! It was one of her first protest songs! Those aren’t the only lyrics Soon has learned inadvertently, and that’s in spite of the fact that she’s not very good at English. Old Man isn’t either, but he’s memorized all Nina’s songs in all their versions, plus where they come from, who composed them and on what date, their translations and meanings, their histories and anecdotes, where Nina sang them for the first time, where the last. Of course, he’s collected the complete discography of his goddess, including rarities and vinyl, even though he doesn’t have a record player.

For Soon, it’s still a mystery where he gets his money, though it’s clear he doesn’t have much, and that he spends the little he does have almost exclusively on his hobbies. She has the impression that the only thing he eats is the junk food he shares with her, and buns dipped in cafe con leche. He’s told her himself that he buys three buns a day: one for the birds and two for him. Two buns a day, the junk food, and maybe a banana—it’s the only fruit he allows himself, he says: the cheapest, pure phosphorus! That must be his basic diet. When Soon unwraps her sandwich and the smell of cold cuts wafts out, he just watches in silence. Soon usually offers him a bite and he always refuses, but she thinks that’s just a show of refinement, and he’s really dying for a taste.

One morning he shows up dressed differently, without his suit, in jeans that are too big for him and a green and orange striped long-sleeved polo shirt. He exudes an air of abandonment; it’s clear he isn’t comfortable, that he even feels ashamed. He’s wearing a leather belt just to keep his pants from falling down, and it forms a lot of pleats around the belt loops. It looks like a head of lettuce, thinks Soon, but she pretends not to notice. She needn’t bother. Old Man himself, aggrieved, brings up his appearance. He had to bring his suit to the cleaners, and the only thing he has are these clothes, which were given to him. Soon asks who gave them to him, and she also asks him why he only has one suit. He has two, Old Man says, puffing out his chest, a winter one and a summer one! They’re good suits, they cost over five hundred euros each when he bought them, and that was many years ago now. He also has several shirts, four or five, and some ties, although those are only for special occasions! Since they are good clothes, unsuited to the washing machine, he brings them to the cleaners when he needs to. He brings everything at once, because they give you a discount the more articles of clothing you bring, and that’s why he’s left with nothing now! As for the clothes he’s wearing—those awful jeans and the striped shirt—they belonged to a friend of his at the clinic, and when his friend died they gave the clothes to Old Man, wrapped in a bundle with other belongings. His friend didn’t die, he says then: he hung himself. He’s wearing the clothes of a hanged man!