Chapter 15: The Chair by the Window

The driver climbed the stairs alone and stopped on the landing with his hat in both hands.

"Signora."

"Where is he?"

"In the car. He says he won't come up unless you say so."

"Does he."

"He says he'll sit in the street until Christmas, if that's your wish."

I looked at Nella, who was standing by the gas ring with her arms folded.

She raised one eyebrow and said nothing.

I went to the window.

The black car stood at the kerb with its back door shut.

Through the glass I could make out a dark shape sitting very upright.

"Tell him he has five minutes," I said.

He came up the stairs slowly.

I heard every step.

He stopped in the doorway and filled it, in a black suit with soot still in the seam of the collar.

He looked ten years older than he had on the balcony.

His eyes went to my face, my hair, and my cotton dress from the baker's wife.

Then they went to my hand on the back of the chair.

He did not speak.

Nella took her coat and went past him out of the room.

The door closed.

"You're alive," he said.

"You buried me."

"The coffin was sand."

"You said goodbye to it."

"I know what I said."

"In front of two hundred people. With your hand on the lid."

"I thought you were dead for three hours, Rosaria. After that I thought you were gone. I didn't know which was worse."

"And now?"

"Now I know." He took a folded paper from his pocket and laid it on the table.

It was the delivery sheet, with my father's two letters at the bottom.

"This came to my consigliere at nine this morning. He brought it to me at ten."

He looked up.

"At eleven the baker's boy was seen leaving his door."

"You followed a child."

"I followed my wife."

"I'm not your wife. I'm a woman who is dead."

He closed his eyes for a moment.

"Where did you get it?"

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