Ciancianedda didn’t notice a thing; she didn’t see the resentful faces; she forgot completely about her own misfortune. Under Graziano’s gaze, she seemed smitten by the July sun.

But at night, when the darkness worsened the silence that enveloped her, she would feel her heart tighten, thinking that she would never, ever, be able to speak to Graziano with her own voice. She recalled the good times when she was like all the other girls. She knew how many things you can say with a voice, how many things you can hear in just one small word. She remembered when she used to go to the quota with her mother, running to look for blackberries along the very hedge that separated Petranìca from San Martino. Graziano used to come work the land at the riverbank. When he saw her he would set down his hoe and sometimes say, “Oh! Ciancianedda! What have you come looking for all the way up here?”

“Blackberries, look!”

“Is that right? Well now I’m going to help you search for them!” And he would make as if he were going to jump over the bush. And she would run away shrieking and take refuge in the haystack.

“What’s wrong?” they would ask her. “Why are you so red?”

“It’s nothing! I saw a snake in the grasses.”

And she would laugh. And then she’d sing at the top of her lungs, feeling as if her soul were being carried away under the blazing sun, into the clear sky. What times those were!

Once Graziano really had jumped over the bush and,seizing her by the arm, had planted his lips on her cheek, searching for her mouth. She’d run away then, too, with her legs trembling, carrying that kiss in her blood the same as if the sun had seared her veins. Since then she had never gone back to pick blackberries along the hedge, and whenever she saw Graziano she would lower her eyes. Even now, on this cold night, she felt the burning desire of those lips that tasted like the sun on her cheeks.

What had happened after that? She’d gotten sick; that at least was certain. But as for the illness, she remembered nothing; and she had only vague, faraway memories of her recovery. She had felt herself getting better little by little, like someone whose sleep is broken by frightening dreams that are impossible to describe. And then she awakened wrapped in silence. A leaden silence that weighed heavily on her heart and ears.

In the dark night she feared her approaching wedding and fell asleep crying. But with the light of day her sad thoughts vanished, scattered amid the kitchen items she went about touching and that had been, for four years, a little like her godmother, a little like her father: things without a voice, but good things.