“What do I have to do?” I asked her, half frightened, half curious.

“You know what you’ve got to do. Don’t be an idiot and pick up that bloody pen—hurry up.”

I picked it up and held it as though holding the metal probe of a scientific instrument. I clutched it very tightly.

I went over to him. He was asleep, the sheets wrapped messily around him without covering him up. His lips were half open, his feminine eyelashes very, very long. He looked like a beautiful little girl.

His chest was bare, so I brought the tip of the pen to the skin, with the intention of tearing it. And then eating it and not digesting it.

I brought it a little closer and my eyes filled with tears. I pressed the pen against his chest, but I didn’t plunge it in. I let a drop of blood color his white, white skin.

I remembered a line from a song: “Maybe it’s not quite legal, but you look great covered in bruises.”

I woke him up to make love. To heal his wound.

And mine.

And the deeper he plunged, the more he healed me; the more he healed me, the more ashamed I grew, the more I longed for death, the more he said he was waiting for it.

When he made love to me, pressing me close, drowning his love and desperation inside my madness and desperation, I heard a Sicilian voice call, “Iettiti, Vora, iettiti”—“Blow, north wind, blow.” All my madness floated to the surface, stimulated by my echo. Not the kind of wind that cleans and refreshes but a wind that brings with it detritus and ancient breaths, ghosts, and memories.

Then I disappeared.

Then he disappeared.

TWENTY-NINE

I remember that in our sitting room was a grotto and in the grotto was a statue of the Madonna.

I remember that she was bleeding and that the child she held in her arms was bleeding, too.

I spoke to her and you came in from the other room to ask me who I was talking to.

I didn’t listen to you and went on talking in a language you didn’t know.

You had a word with Father Pasqualino and he told you to try to record my voice.

You did, but when you played it back the tape was blank.

Then you talked to Dad and he hit you and then he cried, admitting that that morning he himself had seen a man walking unperturbed through the kitchen.

You went to see Father Pasqualino again and he came the following afternoon to bless the house.

As we walked him to the gate I started running and shouting that there were dozens of snakes coming after me.

Then you took me to a psychologist and he told you that I was suffering from depression and hallucinations.

I was five years old and didn’t know those words.