He stared at me and then he said, “It’s a dog …”

I lowered my head, eyes full of tears.

And then I burst out crying.

The darkness had already entered the room, and the red curtain floated slightly in the breeze, while the noise from our neighbors’ TV filled the still silence.

“What shall we do?” he asked me, stroking my feet.

“He’s already done what had to be done. Everything’s just as it was,” I replied crisply.

He got to his feet, lit a cigarette, and went to look out the window. I heard him breathing.

The cowering dog took refuge in a corner and followed all my tired movements with the corner of its eye.

“Everything’s just as it was,” I repeated.

The smoke from his cigarette rose in circles and dissolved in the air.

“Why did you throw it away?” he asked me in a tone of voice that I had never heard him use before.

“It came out all by itself, I …”

“No, no,” he broke in, “why did you flush the toilet?”

I stopped and thought for a moment, because I didn’t really know either.

The dog went on staring at me, and that phrase echoed around in my head: “Suttu ’n palazzu c’è ’n cani pazzu, te pazzu cani stu pezzu ri pani.”

“Perhaps out of fear,” I replied.

“Fear of what?” he asked me.

I shrugged, but he couldn’t see me.

“You should have shown it to me,” he said.

“What difference would that have made …,” I replied, tears beginning to sting my eyes again.

Then he turned around and said, “I’m sorry.”

Everything’s as it was.

Is everything as it was?

TWENTY-TWO

You’re almost black and I’m white as a Q-tip; you’re cheerful and I’m melancholy.

I remember your yellow car very clearly: a yellow Fiat 127, an old model you never see around anymore. It was funny, it looked like a cartoon, and we were the main characters. You had a raincoat the same shade, canary yellow. For me you were “the lady in yellow.” You had two earrings that looked like sweets, yellow and soft with a slight dip in the middle. I watched them as you drove. I looked at the mole behind your ear, the mole that identified you as my mother. You were that mole. Without that mole you wouldn’t have been yourself, not even with the yellow raincoat and not even with the sweets in your ears.

After lunch we stayed on our own and played like two sisters only a few years apart. You spoke to me and I listened to you. You spoke to me because while I was listening to you I was serious and moved my head as though to say, “I understand, don’t worry, go on.”