The little girl had sat down on the rear rack and rested her head on the seat. He was guiding the bike from one side. Claudia walked beside him without saying a word. She wanted to know more, ask if the girl was his daughter, but she didn’t dare. She walked nervously, diminished. She didn’t even feel capable of turning her head a little to scan their faces or gestures for the answer to their relationship. It was as if they shone, as if it were dangerous to look directly at them. She also felt as if she were crossing a boundary, that she was finally acting in accord with the messages thrown into the sea. A man had told her once, “You waste the impulse, desire is fleeting.” She’d found his phrasing grandiloquent and replied that the problem was that it was never fully satisfied. Desire. But she said it to get him away from her, because she wasn’t sure about taking a risk on him. Maybe now she would manage to find out a little more. She began imagining what he would be like, how he would act, and then his voice interrupted her.

“And your name is . . .?”

“Teresa,” she said with a certain coldness. Without looking at him, and resuming the silence.

“And I’m Bruno,” he said with a hint of irony, showing her he was aware of all the things she was hiding.

A black dog approached them and started to bark. At her, not at the bicycle wheels, as dogs usually did. As she walked, it barked and followed her at a distance, with hatred, fearlessly.

Dogs bark at ghosts or thieves, she thought. Which was she?

“Why do dogs bark at you, Teresa?”

“They know I’m thinking bad thoughts.”

“That’s right, I’d forgotten dogs can tell that.”

“They’ve sort of forgotten, too.”

“Dogs just ain’t what they used to be,” he said. And then Claudia could finally look him in the eyes again. They were blue, and they sparkled.

The dog stayed behind with a pack of strays all sniffing one another. It barked one last time.

Claudia took out a cigarette and offered him the open pack.

“I don’t smoke in front of her.”

“Right.”

“You want to have onces with us? I live around the corner.” His tone was still decisive, but it didn’t sound calculated. Not entirely. If he had presumed to have total confidence in his suggestion, she would have left right away.

“Sure,” she said, and they began an awkward conversation.

“Where do you live?”

“Not so close.”

“Sure. What were you doing at the library?”

“Nothing.”

“Sure.”

“I was reading.”

“Reading what?”

“The civil code.” It was what almost everyone read at the library. It sounded realistic.

“Sure,” he said again.