I had assumed – for as long as I’d thought about it – that she’d left Bari, which was something she’d always said she wanted to do. With a slight sense of dizziness, I realized I’d never told anyone about her, or about those months when our paths had crossed. Maybe that was why my memory of her had faded until it had become intangible. As time passes, a memory untold becomes less and less real and gets mixed up with the even more intangible material in our minds: dreams, fantasies, private legends.

I didn’t say any of this.

“What … what do you do for a living?”

“I teach. I do other things too, but basically I’m a schoolteacher.”

“Even back then you did a whole lot of things…”15

“Not quite the same kinds of things… But anyway, that doesn’t matter, I’m not here to talk about me.” Her voice had hardened, as if to protect a vulnerable area.

I shrugged, tried to smile and gave her a questioning look. Her jaw muscles tightened.

“I’m here to see you for a professional reason. Meaning your profession, obviously.”

“What’s happened?”

She hesitated, then her hand went to a pocket of her jacket in an automatic gesture, as if searching for a packet of cigarettes.

“I don’t know how to begin.”

“Going to see a criminal lawyer is almost always an unpleasant experience. A person’s unlikely to feel at ease, but we’re in no hurry. My colleague Pasquale has already told me it’s something to do with your son.”

“My son, yes.”

“How old is he?”

“Iacopo has just turned twenty-five. He’s old enough to have already had quite serious problems with the law – and not just the law.” Before continuing, she breathed in and cleared her throat. “Right now he’s in prison. He’s been there for more than two years. He was found guilty of murder.”

She told me what had happened, and there was nothing good about her story.

Iacopo had always been a problem child – maybe because he’d never really had a father, but who can say? She didn’t go into detail about that and I didn’t ask any questions, just did a rapid mental calculation: he couldn’t have been my son.