Read the Solitude Of Prime Numbers (2010) for Free Online

had replied with a shrug and studied the dazzling reflection of fluorescent light on the knife with which he was supposed to be cutting his meat.

    "It isn't really raining crooked," said Mattia, looking out the car window and jerking his father out of his thoughts.
    "What?" said Pietro, instinctively shaking his head.
    "There's no wind outside. Otherwise the leaves on the trees would be moving as well," Mattia went on.
    His father tried to follow his reasoning. In fact none of it meant anything to him and he suspected that it was merely another of his son's eccentricities.
    "So?" he asked.
    "The raindrops are running down the window at an angle, but that's just an effect of our motion. By measuring the angle with the vertical, you could also calculate the fall velocity."
    Mattia traced the trajectory of a drop with his finger. He brought his face close to the window and breathed on it. Then, with his index finger, he drew a line in the condensation.
    "Don't breathe on the windows, you'll leave marks."
    Mattia didn't seem to have heard him.
    "If we couldn't see anything outside the car, if we didn't know we were moving, there would be no way of telling whether it was the raindrops' fault or our own," said Mattia.
    "Fault for what?" his father asked, bewildered and slightly annoyed.
    "For them coming down so crooked."
    Pietro Balossino nodded seriously, without understanding. They had arrived. He put the car in neutral and pulled on the hand brake. Mattia opened the door and a gust of fresh air blew inside.
    "I'll come and get you at one," said Pietro.
    Mattia nodded. Mr. Balossino leaned slightly forward to kiss him, but the belt restrained him. He leaned back into the seat and watched his son get out and close the door behind him.

    The new school was in a lovely residential area in the hills. It had been built in the Fascist era, and in spite of recent renovations, it remained a blot on the landscape amid a row of sumptuous villas; a parallelepiped of white concrete, with four horizontal rows of evenly spaced windows and two green iron fire escapes.
    Mattia climbed the two flights of steps leading to the main door but kept his distance from all the little groups of kids who were waiting for the first bell, getting wet from the rain.
    Once inside, he looked for the floor plan with the layout of the classrooms, so that he wouldn't have to ask the janitors for help.
    F2 was at the end of the corridor on the second floor. Mattia took a deep breath and entered. He waited, leaning against the back wall, with his thumbs hooked in the straps of his backpack and the look of someone who wanted to disappear into the wall.
    As the students were taking their seats, their new faces glanced at him apprehensively. No one smiled at him. Some of them whispered in each other's ears and Mattia was sure they were talking about him.
    He kept an eye on the desks that were still free, and when even the one next to a girl with red nail polish was taken, he felt relieved. The teacher came into the classroom and Mattia slipped onto the last empty chair, next to the window.
    "Are you the new boy?" asked his neighbor, who looked just as alone as he did.
    Mattia nodded without looking at him.
    "I'm Denis," he said, extending his hand.
    Mattia shook it weakly and said nice to meet you.
    "Welcome," said Denis.

5
    V iola Bai was admired and feared with equal passion by her classmates, because she was so beautiful she made people uneasy, and because at the age of fifteen she knew more about life than any of her contemporaries did; or at least that was the impression she gave. On Monday mornings, during break, the girls congregated around her desk and listened greedily to the account of her weekend. Most times this was a skillful reimagining of what Serena, Viola's older sister by eight years, had told her the day before. Viola transferred the stories to herself, but embellished them with sordid, and often completely invented, details, which to her friends'