impatiently tapped the price on the meter. Rosa paid him and got out.
She put her bag over her shoulder and began to climb. A few overgrown stone statues stood on plinths to the right and left of the path; you could hardly see them under dense tendrils of climbing plants. In a few months’ time they would be entirely hidden under the leaves.
The upward path went around another bend before Rosa saw the three-story villa. She couldn’t help comparing it with the fairy-tale palace of Quinta da Regaleira on the other side of the mountain. This house was a cube, with dark yellow plaster facades, in the middle of a garden that had run wild. The tops of trees bent down close to the walls, and dried, brown, twining plants hung like curtains in the branches, keeping the sun away from the tall windows.
The flat roof of the house was dominated by a glazed dome with a stone balustrade around it. With its rusty metal framework and clouded panes, the dome reminded Rosa of the wrecked greenhouse. All at once, the thought of the burned-down palazzo made Rosa more melancholy than ever. For a moment she wondered whether they kept animals up here, too, but she immediately rejected the idea. This was only an old hothouse in the art nouveau style.
The front door of the villa was flung open, and Iole ran out. She was wearing one of the white summer dresses that she liked so much. Rosa had given up trying to break her of the habit. Maybe Signora Falchi would be more successful once Iole was back in Sicily.
They hugged each other, and Rosa was surprised but most of all glad to see how happy Iole looked. She herself had thought Augusto Dallamano a cold, surly man when she’d met him, but Iole seemed to feel at ease in his company.
“Are you okay?” Rosa asked, wrinkling her brow.
Iole nodded. “How’s Alessandro?”
“Getting on the nurses’ nerves.” She leaned forward, with a conspiratorial air. “He’s the worst patient in the world. But don’t tell him I said that.”
“On TV they’re the ones who always end up marrying the head nurse.”
“The head nurse in that hospital is at least sixty. And they’re discharging him tomorrow.” Rosa sighed. “Well, strictly speaking he’s discharging himself. I guess that once he’s gone, they’ll all get drunk and have a fireworks display to celebrate.”
Iole twirled around in a circle. “I could stay here forever and ever,” she cried enthusiastically.
“Signora Falchi would never go along with that. She may have survived the Hundinga, but this place would drive her to quit.”
Iole beamed. “It’s even nicer inside.”
She took Rosa’s hand and led her up the steps to the front door.
Late that afternoon, they were sitting with Augusto Dallamano in the villa’s conservatory, a rickety glazed annex built onto the back of the house. Outside, the garden came right up to the windows. Two armchairs and a sofa stood among towers of books. Rosa and Dallamano sat opposite each other, leaving the couch to Iole. She had an albino cat on her lap, snow white with red eyes. It was purring with pleasure as she stroked it.
Dallamano had come in only half an hour before. He was obviously doing research of some kind over in the Quinta da Regaleira. Rosa had known that he had started studying sculpture after finding the statues, a discovery that he and Iole’s father had made together six and a half years ago. Enough time for him to acquire a certain amount of knowledge. But she was surprised to find him devoting himself so enthusiastically to the mysteries of the Quinta. Dallamano was an academic—an engineer, if she remembered correctly—so he was no stranger to books. For Rosa, who had only just made it through the end of high school, it made more of an impression than she wanted to admit.
He still wore his dark hair shoulder length, and it was still untidy, but he no longer hid behind that bushy beard. Instead, his chin and cheeks were shaded with stubble. Last time she had met him, in the Initiation Well, he had been wearing a pin-striped suit; today he wore khaki cargo pants with a great many pockets, and a brown sweater. Both were covered with dust, and he had brushed off only the worst of it when he’d arrived.
He was leaning back in his armchair, chain-smoking. The ashtray stood on an unsteady pile of books beside the armrest. His dark, intent