When the coffin was all the way down, the priest opened his book, but I told him no and took out The Last of the Mohicans. I hadn’t even needed to mark the page, the last sentences were what I wanted to read. I approached the sun-filled grave while Graziano’s father went and leaned against a cart full of dried-out flowers. “‘Why do my brothers mourn?’ he said,” I read aloud, “regarding the dark race of dejected warriors by whom he was environed; ‘why do my daughters weep? that a young man has gone to the happy hunting-grounds; that a chief has filled his time with honor? He was good; he was dutiful; he was brave. Who can deny it? The Manitou had need of such a warrior, and He has called him away. As for me, the son and the father of Uncas, I am a blazed pine, in a clearing of the pale faces. My race has gone from the shores of the salt lake and the hills of the Delawares. But who can say that the serpent of his tribe has forgotten his wisdom?’” Then I closed the book and left.

The avenue in front of the cemetery was deserted. I looked over toward the bus stop, because my old Alfa Romeo was still outside the hospital and I had to go pick it up, but I couldn’t make up my mind to move. It struck me as impossible that I couldn’t do anything else for Graziano. But there really was nothing more I could do for him. Nothing at all.

By the middle of August the swallows had gone. They’d never before left so early and when I went out on the balcony in the evening to wait for the wind, the sky was empty and silent. The newspapers claimed the birds had gone because of the poisoned air that hung over the city, but that was a childish explanation. The truth is, the higher you go, the better you can see things.