I saw her again in the street one morning, by chance, towards the end of the year. It might have been November. It might have been a Saturday. It was cold, and I remember – God knows why – that I was wearing a thick jacket and a scarf. She was with a shabby-looking man, and they were talking excitedly, maybe quarrelling. I thought frantically of what I could or should say, how I should behave, without finding anything appropriate. She noticed me when we were almost about to pass each other. She didn’t show any surprise, let 256alone a flash of contentment, or maybe of contrition or embarrassment over what had happened. Over the fact that she had vanished, or the arrogant way she had treated me. She greeted me distractedly – the way you greet a person you see every day without there being any particular relationship – and moved on.

Just like that.

And yet the strange thing was that within a few days all the pain, all the sadness, all the excruciating disappointment I’d felt over what had happened vanished. It was almost as if that humiliating encounter had been a kind of therapy, the kind you get from a chiropractor when you have a strong, persistent pain. At the time you feel even worse, but immediately afterwards, if the chiropractor is good, the pain goes away as if by magic.

I can’t say with any accuracy how long it took, but definitely by the start of the Christmas holidays the whole affair seemed to have been relegated to a very distant past. A lot further back in time than the summer of intoxication during which I had convinced myself that I was in love with Lorenza. I stopped thinking about her and got on with my life.

I got over that crazy period of childish unawareness, but also at times of elusive and therefore genuine, pure happiness.

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26

That night I had to take drops. I’d spent a couple of hours tossing and turning in bed and ended up convinced that I wouldn’t get to sleep. Nor could I afford to see in the morning at the Osteria del Caffellatte.

When, the next day, I started speaking, I was still slightly dazed from the benzodiazepine.

“I’m now going to examine the testimony of Sabino Arcidiacono. His account is a key element in an alternative reconstruction of events to the one proposed by the prosecution. It’s a key element in asserting the existence of reasonable doubt which must lead to the acquittal of the accused.

“The original ruling states that, before going to see Gaglione, Cardace had coffee near the victim’s apartment with an acquaintance of his.