The apartment’s circular floorplan and long balcony gave the place a sense of possibility and made this older sister of mine seem even stranger, freer, than I’d expected. In one night, I’d not only discovered what had become of the apartment my parents gave her, I’d also learned about her preferences. Her doorless suite was simple and luminous, even with her square, crimson-red couch and her low, round cherrywood table covered with art books and stacks of photos evenly arranged, like hours on a clock. Two framed photographs—of the sky and industrial complexes surrounded by a natural landscape—reflected the light, and a very tall plant created its own shade. Irene never lowered her blinds; the windows and glass doors went all along the three outer walls, both lighting the interior spaces and displaying the outside, like in an Antonioni film, the cranes busy raising tall buildings. At night those sites were a planetarium of small flashing lights.

In that apartment, my sister’s eyes were even rounder than I remembered, and she was covered in freckles, her skin clear and tanned from her last trip to the southern hemisphere in December. Her eyes grew excited when we sat by ourselves, at breakfast, or over evening cocktails. With others, she was more settled, sure of herself. She talked about fashion, money, Asian cities; if I tried to discuss our family, she’d lay her hand alongside mine, wait for our fingers to lace, hold my hand until I changed the subject.

One morning, she had to pay her rent to the landlady, who lived in the facing apartment, so she stepped onto the landing and I followed in my sweats, carrying my coffee, and the three of us chatted about hatha yoga, which the landlady taught. Finally, Irene handed her two five-hundred-euro bills. Back at my sister’s, I asked where she got the money and she showed me a roll of bills in a rubber band that she’d just brought back from China: she’d worked like crazy for various customers there, in design sessions that went on for weeks, and in the end had been paid off the books, with wads of five-hundreds. To get them back to Italy, she had to hide them in different suitcases. For her rent, clothes, flights with travel agencies, she paid in cash. She paid directly, avoided online transactions, constantly recycling that part of her income which she didn’t declare. While we were making our breakfast and I was slicing oranges for the juicer, she said: “Can I give you a little money for Milan? Then you won’t have to withdraw any.”