Chapter 7: Morning Mail

Pia lent me a gray sweater and a pair of socks and did not say a single word about the night.

"There's coffee," she said. "My brother doesn't eat before nine. He listens to the radio and glares."

"I heard that," Lucio said from the stairs.

He was in a clean shirt, barefoot, and he looked ten years younger than the man who had bled on my floor.

The kitchen was a big brick room with a long wooden table and a stove that had been cooking for three generations.

I sat down where Pia pointed.

At eight o'clock exactly, the back door opened, and Nunzio Castaldi came in with a white bakery box and a folded newspaper under his arm.

"Buongiorno," he said. "Signorina. What a pleasure to see you at our table."

"Zio," Pia said, in a very flat voice.

"Pia, cara. Your brother's coffee is too weak, as always."

He set out the sfogliatelle on a plate and made himself an espresso in the little pot on the stove without asking where anything was.

Then he took the chair at the corner of the table, next to Lucio's.

He laid a pile of mail in front of him and put the reading glasses on his nose.

He began to read aloud.

"Gas bill. The city, about the tax on the cold storage. A card from the priest at Holy Rosary, who thanks you for the roof."

His voice was warm and unhurried and extremely pleasant to listen to.

Lucio sat with his coffee and listened.

He did not look at the letters.

He watched his uncle's mouth.

I noticed it, and I set it down as good manners, a nephew giving an old man the whole of his attention.

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