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Traian puts his computer to sleep, she glimpses his desktop photo, it’s one she’d e-mailed him from Afghanistan. She’s happy he liked it. It’s of a girl his age, staring sternly, willfully, at the soldier taking her picture. She seems to be asking him what he’s doing there, in her village, and yet also to be waiting, almost expecting something. Disappointment and innocence mingle with each other in that gaze, and when Lorenzo—who had taken the photo in Qal’a-i-Shakhrak during an inspection of the school they were building—showed it to her, she had recognized something familiar in it. When the screen goes blank Manuela is suddenly relieved, though she can’t explain why.
    *   *   *
    That afternoon, Teodora wants to go to the movies, to see a comedy, to have a few laughs. At the Parco Leonardo multiplex: twenty-four theaters, plenty of parking, shops, an ultramodern place that doesn’t seem to belong in Fiumicino. Manuela doesn’t feel up to being with all those people yet, she might have a panic attack. She says so, bluntly, and Teodora apologizes with the same bluntness for not having thought of that, and hastens to say that of course she’ll skip it. It’s a stupid movie, anyway. But Manuela knows that Teodora wants to go to remember her husband, because that was one of his stubborn habits, the only pleasure he allowed himself. Manuela’s father went to the movies only once a year, always on Christmas Day. And Teodora shouldn’t have to give that up because, six months after the attack, the daughter of the father of her son still can’t handle a crowd. It’s not fair. Manuela begs, insists, and in the end Teodora heads off on her own, in her fake fur coat, her hair freshly coiffed, to see a comedy she won’t even enjoy, but that her husband would have liked. It’s the only way she has of letting him know that she loved him, that she still misses him.
    Manuela stays and plays video games with Traian. He lets her choose the game, like a challenger in a duel who lets his opponent choose the weapon. Dubious, she studies the covers, on which square-jawed supermen, armed to the teeth, roar. The titles are all menacing: Assassin’s Rage, Battlefield, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Medal of Honor. Her brother collects the most brutal shoot-’em-ups, in which he plays the hero who exterminates one human being after another, mowing them down with machine guns, blasting them apart with missiles, crushing them under a tank. Most are set in Iraq or Afghanistan. The protagonist is either a new recruit or a marine. Manuela worries that all the violence is having a negative impact on him. Traian worships weapons. Teodora says he surfs violent extremists’ websites, and ordered an AK-47 on the Internet once. Luckily it was a scam, and in the end he just lost some money. “Traian,” Manuela says, “I heard you flunked, that you’re repeating freshman year.” “The teacher and I didn’t get along,” he mopes. “This year’s better, mostly.” “Are you doing your homework?” she asks, regretting it right away because she thinks she sounds like his mother. “Can you come see the tournament finals?” Traian asks, slipping a DVD out of its case. “I’m not a sub anymore, I sent the regular fullback to the bench, we’re going to win the cup, and if I score I’m going to dedicate my goal to you.” In the end he chooses the game: Sniper. Manuela reminds herself that she should tell Teodora to keep an eye on him. Every time she sees him, she finds him more deeply immersed in virtual realities, more indifferent to what’s going on around him. But she never does, because she recognizes herself in that willful, wayward boy.
    At twelve she was a toothpick with constantly scraped knees, long, wild hair, bangs that hid her eyes, filthy fingernails, a frayed