“Well,” she said, smiling in that conceited way of hers, “what are you doing, aren’t you going to ask me to come in?” I stood aside. She hesitated a moment, then shrugged and came in, glancing at herself in the mirror. “But there are two of you!” she said ecstatically, catching Graziano with a bottle in his hand.

“Shall we have a drink?” he said nonchalantly.

I took the bottle from him. Arianna recognized him even without his beard. “Why don’t we have dinner together?” She was very beautiful, of course.

“Right away,” Graziano said, looking at her spellbound. “What movie have you stepped out of?”

She smiled and collapsed on the bed. “What a day!” she said. “I got up very late, went to the swimming pool for three hours, then went back to bed for another two hours. I’m exhausted.”

Graziano was looking at her, forgetting to breathe. “A very productive day,” he said.

“Why?” she said. “I produced red blood cells, isn’t that enough?”

Graziano fell silent for a moment. Then he said, “When shall we get married?”

She laughed. “Not before September. I have to take a vacation first. What are you two doing?”

“We’re writing a movie.”

“What kind of movie?”

“A traditional avant-garde movie,” Graziano said. “It’s about a guy who, when he turns thirty, goes home and murders his father.”

“How about if he murders his sister instead?” Arianna said. She was flirting, she’d always liked flirting, and every now and again I caught her glancing at me. Without saying anything, I went and sat down at the typewriter. I couldn’t say a word, not even when, around seven, before leaving, she asked if she could come see us again. But from that day on she came every afternoon. Around six she would ring the bell and come in, with that insolent air of hers, always looking slightly different, maybe with a new blouse, or pair of pants, or sandals, or else just her hair combed in some weird way. She’d wander around the room, looking at herself in the mirror wherever there was one, and regularly end up on the bed, playing solitaire. Sometimes she’d make tea, and we’d have it on the balcony, still warm from the sun. She’d flirt shamelessly with Graziano, light his cigars, make sure there was ice in his tandem, force him to tell her something amusing, and listen with her eyes wide open. And then, around seven, she’d go, liberating the mirrors.

“Christ,” Graziano would say, “why don’t you ever talk to her?” But from the window I could see her car and the bag with the tennis racket on the backseat and I knew that when she left us it was to join Livio Stresa.