“No. All I know is that they told me to ask where the crazy woman lives!”

“Ahhhh,” said the man. “I know who you mean. But I don’t know if she’s still alive, you know? It’s been years and years since I saw her last!”

“And can you tell me where she lives?”

“You need to go uphill . . . that way, you see?” And he pointed to a dirt road that wound up through the fields. “You go up about five hundred yards . . . you’ll find an intersection, take a right, another five hundred yards and you’re there. If the house is even still there, it’s probably falling apart, and there’s a stench of cat piss that could kill you. Anyway, she’s a strange old lady. No one ever talks to her, you know? So, you need any gas?”

THE HOUSE WAS STILL THERE. SINGLE STORY, UNPLASTERED, and the roof had given way in two places. Sticking up in the middle of the terra-cotta roof tiles was an off-kilter chimney. The windows were so heavily mended with duct tape that there was no need of curtains to protect the intimacy and privacy of the inhabitants, that is, assuming that there even were any (inhabitants) and that they even had any (intimacy and/or privacy). A low wall surrounded the property. The rusting body of a Fiat Ritmo rested on four cinder blocks. Weeds infested what had once been a garden and now covered an old stone fountain with a circular basin, now empty of water. Atop the fountain was perched a moldy cupid. Flavio got out of his car and put on his sunglasses. May had run riot. Whitish puffs of pollen wafted through the air, and the perfume of flowers mixed with rust was spreading in all directions, gently pushed by the wind.

“Anyone home?” he said as he pushed open the remnants of an iron gate that had been eroded by the passing years. Halfway, the gate ground to a halt, stopped by a mound of dirt, and Flavio just barely managed to squeeze sideways between the sharp-edged iron gate and make his way into the front yard. Long ago, beneath the weeds and the wildflowers, there must have been a pathway in rammed earth. A lizard twisted behind a stone. The ants were busy, marking the dirt with black lines.