She had to wait for a few seconds, and took advantage of the fact to search her pockets again. She pursed her lips and blew on the letter so that only a few grains of the powder stuck to the paper, then took the corner between her right thumb and index finger. In her left hand she held the piece of black-and-white card given to her by Cesareu Garcia.

She brought them together so that her eyes could compare them, rather than superimposing the two.

It took a second, a second to be sure; after that her fingers were trembling too hard.

The words danced frantically.

My whole life is a dark room.

Kisses,

P.

Among the different smudged prints there appeared those of an ogre’s hand.

Orsu.

It was illiterate Orsu who had written that letter.

Or at least carried it.

51

Wednesday, 23 August 1989, seventeenth day of the holidays
Crumpled-paper sky

Eight o’clock in the evening …

Order has been restored.

The Aryon has returned to the harbour.

Papa has come back from the lighthouse.

And everyone is gathered, as planned, around the big family table beneath the oak tree at Arcanu Farm, with Papé Cassanu at one end, as the head of the family, and Mamy Lisabetta standing there like a conductor.

The food is being passed around, sweet and savoury canistrelli, saliti au figatellu, slices of panzetta, prisuttu and coppa, maquis terrines, all carried in and out by Lisabetta and her old servant whose name I don’t know. There are also some distant cousins I’ve never met before, of all ages, the older ones drinking wine, the famous Clos Columbu produced by a great uncle, and the younger ones drinking Coke. No choice about that, even though Papé clearly isn’t too happy about it – there’s Corsican wine, but no local fizzy drink.

I’ve counted about fifteen Idrissis around the table. It’s long and narrow, essentially a large plank resting on four trestles, its dimensions calculated precisely so that the groups can’t mingle. At one end, the men are talking about politics, the environment, heritage, things I would love to hear about but can’t, only scattered words such as taxation, speculation, pre-empt. At the other end, the teenagers and the kids. And in the middle the women, almost hidden by the large bunches of yellow roses brought by Papa; they’re talking among themselves, but I’m sure they’re discussing other subjects, and most of them are speaking Corsican. Deliberately, so that Maman doesn’t understand?