He immediately ruled out the foreigners. He never spent time with them—he didn’t know them at all. Romanians and Albanians spoke only rudimentary Italian. Africans couldn’t speak it at all. All that remained, then, were the Italians, a tiny portion of the prison population. He could have talked to Cavabucion, the former bartender from Padua—whose moniker meant “corkscrew”—but he didn’t even know his real first name . . . That was out of the question. How about Federico? He would certainly have misinterpreted Sergio’s approach, assuming that it was nothing more than a sexual advance. And then Federico would start coming up with a series of heavy-handed double entendres about the possibility of having sex in the showers or else in his cell during the “socializing” hours. Or else Mariano? The truck driver who had murdered his wife and her lover in a single night of violence? No, not him, either. That left Marco. Too young. All he ever thought about was the children he’d left behind and the days he counted down until he could return home. All he was good for was making leather bracelets with his astrological sign engraved in a black stone. After that, he had run out of fellow Italians. Few in number and none of them reliable or willing to share his secret and keep it jealously to themselves. Worst of all, none of them capable of offering him any advice.

Just don’t give a damn about it! his head told him. Just don’t give a damn about it, Sergio, you saw it, so what? Mind your own fucking business. In a year you’ll be out and you can try to enjoy the last scraps of this shitty life you’ve made for yourself.

“I’m just going to get myself into a world of trouble . . .” he said in a low voice as he looked down at the floor. And for what? Domenico Cuntrera hadn’t even been a friend of his. In those few days they’d exchanged, at most, three words. All he knew was that Cuntrera was Calabrian, that every night he prayed to the Madonna, and that they were planning to transfer him in the next few days. But they hadn’t been quick enough about it.

Just don’t give a damn about it.

But he couldn’t get that face out of his mind, that poor wretch as his features turned deathly blue, his staring eyes seeming to beg for help as his life fled his body, hasty and cowardly as all lives end. The foam on his lips, his death rattle. And what had Sergio been able to do? How had he responded to that desperate plea? He’d hidden behind the reinforced concrete column to make sure he wasn’t seen while a gang of assholes were beating each other bloody at the far end of the courtyard.

Just remember not to give a damn about it.