She listens, brimming with interest, or so it appears, then speaks. “Ah, yes, a crazy woman who committed suicide. Because they have to believe that people kill themselves because they’re alone, because they’re sick, because they’re old, because they’re too poor, because they’re too rich, because other people mocked their standards or their ambitions, because their papá and mamá used to quarrel over their little heads, or for love (very few), or for want of love, or out of shame, pride, imitation, mysticism, freedom, ideas, and other noble things. But mainly because they’re crazy.”

“Yes,” I say.

“But it’s not all madness. Some women kill themselves because they’re pregnant, even when their own husbands are the fathers. They’re terrified of the prospect of suffering.”

I ask whether she’s pregnant and she cuts off that angle with a curt “No.” She goes on.

“Suicide increases with alcohol use, which makes people bolder, also with heat and urban living, with depression brought on by the arrival of autumn, with industrialization and social isolation. It also spikes, proportionally, among the more educated and wealthier classes; doctors are now more likely to commit suicide, but in earlier periods—the nineteenth century—it was members of the military.

“Statistics,” she says. She opens a notebook. “Italy: for every civilian suicide, five military suicides; United States, eight and a half; Austria, ten.”

“Austria, Vienna: the waltzes,” I say.

“Professionals take their own lives more often than people in business or manual laborers do, but manual laborers do so more frequently than skilled laborers. Among young people, students are most likely to do it.”

I hazard a supposition that suicides are more frequently male than female. Bibi confirms this, but adds that women attempt suicide in greater numbers, and that more recently, in certain countries, women have been committing suicide as often as men, possibly because of their growing incorporation into general activities.

“Moreover,” she explains, “old people commit suicide more often than the young do, but the young attempt suicide and fail more often than the old.”

“Are there more suicides among married people like you?”

She consults the notebook. “No, there are more suicides among single people like me.”

She goes on. “In the West, whites commit suicide more often than Blacks. In the East, they throw themselves into the Ganges, or off a cliff, or into the mouth of a volcano, or they set themselves on fire or have themselves buried alive to appease their gods. In Africa, suicide is a way to flee from family disputes, castration, impotence, and leprosy.”

“Now let’s bring it home.”

“All right. In South America, it’s the same as among primitive peoples: Here, too, family disputes are the number one reason. Nevertheless, prior to the Space Age, Latin Americans had the highest rate of romantic suicides. ‘They don’t understand us’ (standoff between Montagues and Capulets), ‘She’s marrying someone else,’ ‘He changed.’”