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Chapter One

the boy with
two mothers

This strange story begins in sunlight and happiness on a spring day in the capital city of the world.

    It starts at around one in the afternoon on the seventh of May in the year 1900, the last of the century. The day was a Monday, to which anyone with a calendar of the time can attest. It was Monday in every nation of the civilized world which adheres to the Gregorian calendar, and therefore Monday in Rome as well, on via Abruzzi, the centermost of the streets on Ludovisio Hill, named to honor the sixteen regions of Italy.

    Having so quickly specified the moment and the place on the earth's surface in which our tale commences, we can now ascend—with the immunity and invisibility that God concedes to storytellers—to the second floor of one of those modern houses resembling villas that make up this most elegant quarter of the Empire City. So without delay, and with perfect timing, we enter a cheerful dining room filled with sunlight, flowers, gleaming crystal, multicolored porcelains and silver.

    Here, sitting around a white-clothed table, is a young family, the family of Mariano Parigi. Parigi is a man little known to history, but one who plays a somewhat important role in life—assuming it is important to earn a great deal of money annually dealing in weighty matters, to use that money to provide well for oneself and one's family, and to be the recipient of those honors by which our society encourages its most industrious members.

    The sun'srays entering through the wide-open window are breaking upon decanters of red wine, sinking beneath the froth of white wine still left in goblets.

    Parigi, the paterfamilias, is forty. Opposite him is his wife, Arianna, still young and attractive, at least to those who like small, plump, accommodating women with uninquiring minds. For such is signora Arianna. And because of these particular qualities, those closest to her have, understandably, sliced the head off her mythical and ethereal name, leaving behind the more prosaic Anna.

    Between these two people, between Mariano and Arianna, between father and mother, enthroned on his chair, propped up on two plump cushions, sits their young son. Opposite him is his pale governess, also youthful though unsmiling. The sun's rays elude her. Two house maids in black and white are serving silently. This authentic portrait even includes a house cat. It is completely white and sits contentedly at the foot of the boy's chair. The cat is smug and satisfied because it has just finished its share of an unusually appetizing and festive meal. Throughout the room there is a lingering echo of toasts and barely concluded laughter.

    But now a small shadow falls across that echo and darkens the room.

    For precisely at the moment at which this story begins, as the boy, who had been diligently collecting the last crumbs of dessert from his plate and, assembling them in the palm of his hand, was about to pop them into his open mouth, a stern glance from his father, a timid gesture by his mother, and the sharp voice of his governess, Elena, stopped him in the middle of that voluptuous and innocent act.

    Elena said, "Mario, we do not eat crumbs."

    Mario stopped, stared at his elders with large stricken eyes, then asked. "Not even today, on my birthday?"

    Mariano Parigi cast an angry, pitying glance at his son. Elena quivered with horror. But Arianna, moved by the boy's plight, placed her hand gently on his arm.

    The father rose, tossed his napkin on the table and, with an utterly disconsolate look on his face, murmured, "We'll never make anything of this child."

    Mario's large eyes filled with tears. Now Arianna stood up too. She bent over him, put her arm around his shoulders as though she were helping him down from his chair, then silently kissed the top of his head.

    Everyone left the table.

    The room was enormous and divided into two unequal parts by a vaulted arch. Beyond the arch, in the smaller part of the room, large glass doors were admitting the clamor of a Roman May.

    In this luminous space stood Mariano Parigi's deep armchair, Arianna's small soft one and, on the thickly carpeted floor, Mario's and the cat's cushions. The cat was now walking, first in the family, tail straight up, solemnly heading for the spot on the carpet where the sun shone most fully. Behind him came Mario, still in his mother's embrace and almost supported by her.

    The small shadow had dispersed toward the corners of the room and was nearly gone. After Mariano Parigi had very carefully selected the best cigar from a humidor and lit it with restrained pleasure, the sun was once more blazing everywhere—on the silver, in the air, along the walls—from which it sang happy birthday to Mario.

    When each family member was thus restored to his customary place and the governess had silently disappeared, a new person entered the scene and was greeted joyously by all.

    "Good day, doctor."

    "Mario," the doctor called out, "I came to wish you happy birthday. This is the seventh time I'm doing it, no, the eighth, because I was right there when you were born in Milan seven years ago."

    Mario looked up calmly at the doctor. The boy had a prominent forehead. His eyes were large, soft and filled with a strange uncertainty.

    There was a brief silence. Perhaps everyone was waiting for Mario's reply. Instead, he asked a question.

    "What time was it, when I was born?"

    "Mario!" exclaimed his father, "don't ask silly questions."

    Instantly Mario's face darkened. Gray clouds gathered on the walls and the air around him began quivering. His mother came to his aid and the sound of her voice quickly dissipated the chill. "During the day. At two, I think."

    "That's right," the doctor agreed. "I remember it very well. The seventh of May, 1893, at precisely two o'clock."

    "In that case," said Mario, "my birthday isn't for another hour."

    "Exactly so," the doctor replied smiling. "Another hour. Right now, you weren't born. You're not here."

    "I'm not here, but the presents I got this morning are here, and I want to show them to you. There's one from you too. Come take a look."

    But at that moment the governess reappeared holding a hat and a veil. "It's time for our walk," she announced.

    "Take him to Piazza di Siena," Arianna instructed.

    Mario turned to his mother. "Aren't you coming, mamma? You promised me."

    "Of course I'm coming. Wait for me there. I'll meet you in a little while and then we'll take a real walk"

    "Where will we go?"

    "Wherever you want, just as I promised."

    "Mamma will go wherever I want today," Mario explained to the doctor, "because it's my birthday."

    "And where do you want to go, you rascal? But then, how can you want anything, if you haven't been born yet?"

    Mario replied with great seriousness, "But I'll be born in an hour and then I'll start doing whatever I want."

    With Mario and Elena gone the conversation on the smoky veranda over cups of coffee slacked off quickly. Then Arianna left to change her clothes.

    Mario, walking beside Elena along via Campania said to her, "Please let me know when an hour is up, because then I'll be born. The doctor explained it to me."

    "He was only joking."

    "No, he wasn't. He was perfectly serious. Anyway, even if you don't tell me, I'll know just the same."

    Without further exchange, Mario and Elena skirted the Belisario walls, passed the Pinciana gate, left behind the muddy edge of the bridal path and reached the Piazza di Siena. At that time of day it was completely deserted.

    Roman sunshine filled the air, proclaiming the glories of May to one and all. The meadows were emerald green, the shady areas were abysses of deep, dark blue.

    Elena turned to the shade, chose a bench, dusted it and sat down.

    Mario's voice was gentle, "You can stay here. But please hold my cap, the sun is good for me. I'm going to count those pine trees over there."

    "That's fine, just don't go too far."

    "And you know what," the boy added, "a lot of that hour must have passed by now. I'll tell you when I'm born."

    Mario rushed away into the sunlit expanse. When he reached the pines he began counting them. He touched each as he did so, walking ever more slowly from one to another until he reached a tree at which he paused. He leaned against it and stood stock still.

    Elena noticed nothing.

    Everything surrounding the boy, light and shadow, air and greenery, had stopped moving. The sun seemed fixed in the center of the sky.

    When, about half an hour later, Arianna, slightly breathless, reached the Piazza di Siena, it was still fairly empty. Looking around she immediately saw Elena sitting stiffly on the bench with Mario's white cap in her lap. Arianna quickened her pace and Elena, seeing her, rose to meet her.

    "Where's Mario?"

    "Over there, signora," the young woman pointed to a tree across the green.

    Arianna saw the child leaning against the tree as though submerged in its shadow, while all about him the air quivered with brilliant light.

    He seemed absorbed. His head was bent somewhat toward the ground, though Arianna couldn't make out what he might be looking at. He leaned still further forward, and his head now protruded a little from the shadow, as if drawn down by that dazzling sight. The sun, striking his prominent forehead, exaggerated its shape.

    Seeing him so engrossed didn't surprise Arianna. Mario often sat alone, lost in thought. Her immediate reaction was to start toward him across the edge of the meadow, almost at a run. But when she was just a few steps away and he still hadn't seen her or moved, another idea occurred to her. She stopped, smiled to herself, then changed direction. Although the grass was enough to have silenced her footsteps, began walking on her toes until she reached the back of the tree against which Mario was leaning.

    Suddenly she put her hands around his head and covered his eyes.

    "Guess who!"

    Mario didn't react immediately. But after a moment he turned toward his mother and all at once raised his hands and tore hers from his eyes so quickly and forcibly, that it didn't occur to her to resist. And they remained that way, staring at each other, the mother bent toward him, the boy's face tilted up.

    "What's the matter with you?"

    "Nothing."

    "Didn't you know it was me?"

    "I don't know."

    "What were you doing?"

    "Nothing."

    Arianna sought to rouse Mario from his distracted state. "Let's go for our walk now. We can still go. I know it's after two o'clock. I made you wait for me? But now I'm all yours. Shall we go?"

    "Yes." The boy's voice was muted.

    "Where do you want to go, darling?"

    "Home."

    "Home?" Anna was dumbstruck. "You don't feel well?"

    "No, I just want to go home."

    "But you just came from there."

    "No."

    "Darling, what are you talking about? What's the matter with you?" She bent over the boy, clasped his head tightly in her hands, feeling as if she were going to faint.

    "I want to go home," he repeated. "Right now."

    "Yes, of course, my love. We'll go home right away. But why?"

    "I want to go to my own house, to my own mother."

    Arianna fell upon Mario, circling him completely in her arms, as though he were about to fly off forever. "My God, what did you say, darling? I'm your mother."

    "No."

    "Mario," Arianna shouted and felt she was going crazy.

    "And stop calling me Mario," the boy spoke severely. "Why do you keep doing it when you know it isn't my name?"

    Trembling and sobbing, holding the boy tightly in her arms, Arianna now fell to her knees on the grass.

    "You're sick, darling," she said. "Come, let's go. Let's go home. Elena, come over here. We have to get him home. What happened? What happened to him. What was he doing?"

    "Nothing, signora. He just walked across the grass and was counting the trees. I don't know. Then he must have stopped there. But nothing happened. You know, yourself, he does that sometimes, stares at the ground as if he were in a trance. Just like now."

    "Get me the carriage over there."

    While Elena was across the street securing the carriage the boy's agitation subsided, though he still seemed oblivious of his surroundings and kept turning his eyes absently from one thing to another. A blue vein appeared down the center of his deeply troubled brow.

    He didn't react again until he was in the carriage seated between his mother and the governess, and the carriage had begun moving. Perhaps he didn't remember entering it. For several minutes he'd felt nothing. But then, after looking about him with an air of quiet distraction, he suddenly asked suspiciously, "Where are we going?"

    "Home, dear." His mother no longer had the heart to call him Mario.

    "To my house?"

    Arianna didn't dare answer. She put her hand on his forehead, but was so agitated that she couldn't tell whether it felt hot or cold to her touch. Over and over she asked herself what she was feeling, but her trembling hand was unable to relay the information to her mind.

    By then the carriage was completing its short trip. It entered via Abruzzi and stopped in front of the house.

    The governess descended and Arianna was about to rise from her seat when the boy suddenly shook violently and shouted, "No, not here. I want to go home. To my house. To my mother. Right now."

    Arianna felt faint again. Elena, stunned, didn't even try to understand. Mario, his face dark and distraught, stared angrily at the walls of the house with his small fists pressed against his chest. Arianna, on the other hand, was deathly pale, as her world became silent and motionless for what seemed an eternity. Then the boy spoke in a strange, muffled and hostile voice. "Give him my address," he commanded.

    It took superhuman strength for the mother to indulge him and to ask in a tiny voice, "What is it?"

    His composure restored, the boy spoke quietly and calmly. "Number eighteen via del Muro Nuovo."

    Once more it was the strength of her love that enabled Arianna to speak. "Via del Muro Nuovo," she murmured to the driver of the carriage, who had turned away while waiting for them to descend.

    The driver muttered something under his breath, but didn't move. Arianna had to will herself to speak a second time. "Number eighteen," she said.

    The driver frowned, turned back to her and was about to reply, when Mariano Parigi and the doctor appeared in the doorway.

    Arianna stretched her arms toward them as if toward rescuers, but then was overcome by a strange fear and, without knowing why, lowered her arms and put them around the boy as if to protect him from imminent danger. The two men hurried toward the carriage. "What is it?" "What happened?" they asked.

    Arianna stared at them blankly, too ashamed to explain. An anguished silence hung over the scene until, blushing and filled with fear, she finally whispered, "I think Mario is sick."

    She thought she had spoken quietly, but the boy had heard her and protested furiously, "No, no, no, I am not sick. I just want to go home."

    The doctor, perceiving the strange look in the child's eyes, called out to him. "Mario."

    "Don't call me Mario. Use my right name. You know it's Ramiro. And take me home. I told you where, to via del Muro Nuovo."

    Even the doctor was stunned. But Mariano Parigi, the man of action, took control of the situation. "Come on. Get down from the carriage and into the house, all of you. Beginning with you, Anna, get out."

    Moving quickly he took the boy into his arms, lifted him out of the carriage, and was about to set him down when, still in his father's arms, the boy let out an inhuman scream and threw his head back violently. He became startlingly pale, his eyes rolled upward and he lost consciousness.

    Carrying him into the elevator, they took him upstairs and into the apartment. When he awoke, his eyes shone and he was burning with fever, but he said nothing more. Breathlessly, Arianna recounted the child's strange utterances. Neither man could understand or explain them. Toward sunset Mario fell into a labored sleep that slowly and gradually became normal, quiet and deep. His forehead became cool again. Barely speaking, the three adults sat by his side for several hours.

    "He's over it," the doctor finally said. "The crisis is past."

    "What a relief," Mariano Parigi exclaimed. "I've got a business trip tomorrow. It would have been dreadful to leave a sick child behind. That was frightening. Come on now, Anna, you don't have worry about him anymore."

    But Anna wasn't relieved. Her son's physical recovery was not enough for her. The insistent, inexplicable things he'd said to her, as cutting as knives, were still lodged in her heart. She wanted to talk about them, but couldn't bring herself to do so. She was hoping frantically that one of the men would raise the subject, but it appeared that her husband and the doctor had forgotten those words.

    It was only when the doctor rose to take his leave that Arianna ventured to speak. 'Those things, doctor, those things that Mario said, 'I want to go to my own house. I want my ...'"

    "It's all nonsense," Mariano interrupted her. "Can't you see he's better now?"

    "It was a kind of hallucination," the doctor explained. "With the fever coming on and his temperature going up, he had some strange fantasies, perhaps things he remembered from books. It was a kind of delirium. Forget it. He won't remember any of it afterward. And don't you think about it anymore, either. I'll be back tomorrow morning to take another look at him."

    Mario slept peacefully into the night. But Arianna, in her nearby room, couldn't fall asleep. She didn't believe that Mario had recovered from that strange fit of madness. She didn't believe that it had been a delirium, as the doctor said. But she couldn't go beyond those thoughts. Comprehending mystery was beyond the capacity of her modest spirit. She didn't know what to think, but suffered torments of anguish. She turned again and again in bed, and at each turn recalled the terrifying events of the afternoon. She reexamined their every detail from the moment she first saw Mario motionless under the pine trees, bent forward a little, with his head in the sun, totally absorbed by something on the ground. Sunstroke, that's it! Stupid Elena, to have exposed him like that! But it's not sunstroke. When I got there he was leaning against the tree. I went around behind him. It was me. I frightened him. Maybe it was that instant of fright that made him sick. Oh, Lord, I'm the one who made Mario....

    Instantly, Arianna was up, sitting at the edge of the bed and staring into the darkness with her eyes wide open. So wide that she felt as if they were shooting forth light. The sensation sickened her. But suddenly she understood that what happened wasn't her fault. Mario hadn't become ill from fright. She tried to recall the doctor's reassuring words. She decided she was clear-headed now, and though it frightened her to do so, she began to think again about the moment she'd arrived at that park. Mario is sitting there against the tree in the shade with his head slightly forward. I tip toe around behind him. Then, suddenly, I put my hands around his little head and over his eyes. I say, "Guess who?" But he doesn't move right away. It's only afterward that he reacts so violently.

    The darkness about Arianna was filled with tiny gleaming atoms that spun about like planets and extinguished themselves in the corners of her weary eyes. She could hear the sound of Mario's quiet breathing from his room.

    Just before dawn she fell asleep. Immediately she was caught up in a languid, dolorous dream. She is traveling in a slow moving train that jolts constantly—opposite her is Mariano Parigi, and on her lap Mario, still an infant. The unending jolts carry the train onto a road between stone walls, where a gray atmosphere weighs ever more heavily on Arianna and on the child she is clutching to her breast. Then a more powerful jolt causes her to drop the boy at her left side, the side near her heart, and he falls beneath her body. Moaning, she struggles to move, but can't. Terrified of suffocating the baby, she tries to scream and can't do that either.

    Although Arianna awoke at this point, she couldn't escape the nightmare of helplessness, for no sooner did she turn to her other side than it was upon her again.

    Because her imagination is limited, her husband is still there. He looks at her with his air of superiority. She feels ashamed and trembles. She cannot take her eyes from his, which grow ever larger, until only they exist in the gray world. As a result she cannot look down at the child, who is once again in her arms. But is he really still there? She cannot be sure. She feels a weight in her arms, but cannot move them. She is afraid they are empty, but cannot look down, cannot make herself look away from those proud, scornful eyes fixed on her. Will she ever know if the child is still in her arms?

    Then Arianna manages to speak in her sleep, to mumble something. She knows she is mumbling, speaking, not understanding the words. She listens to her voice carefully, trying to catch the meaning, and instantly she understands and shudders. She understands and a moan escapes from the side of her mouth, from the very mouth that has been mumbling over and over, "I'm not your mother. I'm not your ..."

    In her dream Arianna frantically jams her fist into her mouth to keep herself from speaking the loathsome words, and imagines she's awake. She is about to sigh with relief when icy terror seizes her again. There in the furthest corner of her room the darkness has taken the form of a pine tree, an evil, cursed pine tree. Beyond it is its shadow, which speaks to Arianna and says, "Why do you call him Mario? Don't you know his name is not Mario?"

    Arianna's body heaves and she screams like a beast in labor. She thinks she is awake, but she is sleeping and dreaming. She thinks she is dreaming, but now she is awake, sitting up in bed, her face ashen in the light which begins to filter through the window frame.

    She had slept for four minutes.

    Now fully awake, she remained still for a moment with her head raised and her attention strained, because it seemed to her that she no longer heard Mario breathing. Then she jumped up, ran to his room and bent over his small bed. He was sleeping soundly and breathing as quietly and regularly as the calm sea at dawn.

    Several hours later Mario awoke smiling.

    "Are you all right, darling?" Arianna tried to peer into the depths of his being.

    "I'm fine," he answered simply.

    "You weren't so well yesterday," said the doctor from the doorway.

    Mario hadn't seen him. He turned toward him now and looked at him intently, but said nothing.

    "I'll be in the study with Mariano," the doctor told Arianna and left the room.

    Arianna waited for the boy to get out of bed. She went with him to the bathroom, then began to help him get dressed.

    While he was putting on his second shoe Mario suddenly stopped and looked up at his mother. She caught her breath.

    "I'm very hungry," he said, and Arianna breathed again.

    Watching him eat calmly and with a hearty appetite, she forgot her fears. They joined the men in the study. Mariano was in a good mood.

    "Mario, kiss papa good-bye, I'll be away for over a week. What would you like me to bring you from Zurich?"

    Mario looked at his father, then laughed, but didn't answer.

    "All right, you think about it and write to me. Are you leaving too, doctor? Come along with me to the station."

    The two men embraced the child and left.

    Mario was leaning against the entrance to the veranda, looking out toward the sun when Arianna, having accompanied the men to the door, reentered the room. She walked toward him. "Mario, I told Elena to give you the day off from lessons. Isn't that nice? Would you like to go with me for a walk to the Villa Borghese instead of doing lessons?"

    The child turned to her, then looked at the doorway for a moment before turning back to her and speaking. "Look," he said, his voice serious and confidential, "I waited for them to leave because I don't understand what they're saying to me. But now, will you take me there, to my house?"

    A veil of darkness suddenly dropped before Arianna's eyes. She grasped the arm of a chair to support herself and stood rigidly. When her vision cleared she found herself staring into her son's face, and saw that it had become hostile.

    Still standing stiffly and controlling her every nerve lest she fall completely apart, she said, "Yes. Wait for me."

    She managed to leave the room, but once out of it had to stop a moment to try to understand what was happening to her. Whatever it was, she vowed to follow the will of destiny no matter where it led. In quick succession she ordered a carriage, dressed and returned to the room.

    "Darling," she called out, not wanting to hear her son tell her not to call him Mario again, "We can go now."

    In the carriage she asked him, "Via del Muro Nuovo?"

    "Yes, eighteen."

    She repeated the entire address to the driver.

    "I don't know where that is," he answered.

    When he looked the street up in his directory, it wasn't listed.

    Arianna was caught between hope and despair. She turned a frightened look at Mario, who had heard the conversation. He responded as though recalling a memory. "It's on the other side of the river. You pass a piazza, it's pretty big, and there's a kind of castle near there ... it's piazza ... wait a minute, it's in Trastevere ... Piazza ..."

    "Trastevere," Arianna ordered the coachman.

    They traveled in silence. Arianna didn't dare look at her son. Mario turned his head this way and that, going down the via Veneto as if he'd never seen it before. At the bottom of the hill, Arianna looked at him somewhat timidly and began, "Listen, Mar ... listen, darling."

    The boy interrupted her. "You can call me Mario if you like. It's enough that we're going to my mother's house."

    Arianna could no longer utter a sound.

    They had already descended almost the entire Tritone when Mario spoke again. "What were you going to say?"

    Arianna's eyes were puffed and dry. She shook her head. "I don't remember anymore. Let's just go on."

    Having crossed the center of the city, the carriage plunged into the streets behind piazza Montecitoria. Passing the Pantheon, Arianna, whose face was as white as paper, bent to the child and in a choked voice asked, "Then who am I?"

    The boy looked at her for a moment and frowned. His brow cleared and he said simply, "I don't know."

    They were silent again for a long time. But for Arianna, time no longer existed. When they reached the end of via Torre Argentina, Mario suddenly shouted with joy "I remember. It's called piazza d'Italia."

    Arianna asked the driver, "Is there a piazza d'Italia?"

    "Yes, just past the Garibaldi bridge in Trastevere."

    In all his seven years, Arianna thought, I've never left Mario alone for a day. We've only been in Rome one year. Until this very minute, I didn't even know piazza d'Italia existed, and I'm sure he's never been in this part of the city either. But there is a piazza d'Italia and it's in Trastevere. How did he know that? I'm going mad.

    When they passed via Arenula and were facing the bridge, Mario was seized by a kind of joyous restlessness. "Down there. Down there," he shouted, "that's piazza d'Italia." He was pointing to a kind of red castle that had become visible on the other side of the bridge. That's what he described, thought Arianna, a kind of castle. I'm going to die.

    In the few minutes that it took them to reach the piazza, Arianna was possessed by both hope and dread. She prayed that Mario was mistaken, that the address he had given wouldn't be found, and that all of this had come from some strange dream of his. At the same time, she was terrified to think of how a disappointment might crush him. And then, like a knife, there's that strange fact that Mario knows about this part of the city and the names of its streets even though he's never been here, and we don't know anyone from here, and no one ever told us about it.

    Not only did Mario know the name of piazza d'Italia, which was just before them now, but he was looking all around him with warmth and certainty, as if at familiar sights.

    And he was very happy. He stood up in the carriage and pointed to the right, toward the head of a street. "That way," he said.

    "That way," repeated Arianna.

    When the carriage reached that corner, the driver slowed and continued straight ahead.

    "Turn, turn," shouted Mario impatiently.

    There was a newspaper stand a little further on. The driver drove till he reached it. "Where's via del Muro Nuovo?" he asked the vendor.

    "Never heard of it," was the answer. "Not likely around here."

    "Yes, it is," said Mario, looking past the man. "It's that one. And number eighteen is where I live."

    But the driver, having turned the corner, held up his whip to the street sign. Mario and Arianna read:

VIA GUSTAVO MODENA

    Mario was silent. Arianna's face was red when she looked at him. The driver also turned to the boy. Below them the newspaper vendor was smiling. Mario's eyes were as wide as if he were beholding a miracle. "They're crazy. This is it," he insisted.

    For the first time Arianna was convinced that her son had taken leave of his senses. He was still standing. She put her arm around his waist and, looking into his eyes as though to reach his soul, spoke softly.

    "Mario, look, it's a mistake. You were never here in this part of the city, ever. This isn't the street you say it is. It just seems that way to you. Let's go home. You don't live here. Can't you see that there's no house like the one you're looking for? Listen to me...."

    Mario interrupted her resolutely.

    "That's it. That's the street. Let's take it. Let's go to number eighteen. I'll show you my house is there."

    Arianna was in terror of letting him face further disillusionment. To see Mario sink ever deeper into fantasies was breaking her heart.

    "Let's go," the boy repeated imperiously.

    "All right," Arianna sighed.

    The carriage turned the corner slowly and stopped. All of them looked up again at the implacable street sign.

VIA GUSTAVO MODENA

    Mario was calm now. "It's wrong," he said. "This is via del Muro Nuovo, my street. Why don't we just go to number eighteen?"

    Arianna still had her arm around him. At that moment a man with his hands in his pockets stepped out of a corner shop and looked up at them with curiosity. The driver stopped the carriage. "Is there a via del Muro Nuovo around here?" he asked.

    "Via del Muro Nuovo?"

    Arianna's heart was pounding.

    "Via del Muro Nuovo," the man repeated quietly. "It's this one. That's what it used to be called. They changed the name two years ago."

    Now Arianna tightened her grip around the boy not so much to hold him as to keep herself from falling. A great cloud closed around her head. She could no longer see anything. Through a buzzing that seemed to come from an infinite distance, she heard her son's voice.

    "You see? Let's go. Let's go to number eighteen."

    And from that same great distance she heard him clap his hands together and felt his body quivering. She heard the wheels begin turning on the pavement, then was enveloped in darkness and heard nothing more. When she opened her eyes again and raised her head, the carriage had stopped in front of number eighteen.