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learning the alphabet:
“Combien . . . de royaumes . . . nous ignorent.”
    Nobody at the inn said a word.
    Like a miniature bird of prey, Vango’s hand dived for the tiny square of handkerchief and made it vanish.
    “My God,” a woman sighed.
    “We’re not out of the woods yet,” concluded Tonino.
    A man had just walked in. He tucked himself into a corner and took off his leather jacket, which was soaked through, before ordering a glass of fortified wine and some biscuits. His long hair, which he wore in a ponytail, had been slicked back by the rain.
    “You’ve got to pay first,” the innkeeper insisted suspiciously.
    The man was named Mazzetta. Everybody knew him. He lived with his donkey and didn’t have the means to buy wine and biscuits for himself except at Christmas and Easter. Tonino didn’t trust him.
    “You’ve got to pay first!”
    The man looked at him. He slid a brand-new coin onto the bar. The innkeeper picked it up and looked at it.
    “Have you sold your donkey, Mazzetta?”
    Mazzetta was tempted to smash the counter. He wanted to string Tonino up from the beam in his kitchen, along with the garlic and the hams.
    But he saw the little boy in the blue pajamas.
    The little boy was watching him. His cheek was squashed against his nurse’s shoulder, and he was watching Mazzetta as if he knew him.
    Mazzetta let the innkeeper carry on with his business. He couldn’t hold Vango’s stare for long. He looked down, then stood up again slowly. That was when he saw Mademoiselle.
    When Mazzetta saw the nurse, and his bloodshot eyes met her blue eyes, he froze.
    He turned into a block of stone.
    It was like the lava of Stromboli making contact with the sea.
    For the first time since she had been carried there, Mademoiselle started crying.
    Mazzetta pushed his chair away and turned to face the wall.
    Apart from Vango, nobody had noticed this odd exchange of looks. All they could see were the tears on Mademoiselle’s cheeks. What were they going to do with this woman and this child? It was the only question that mattered.
    “Can you take them to your place, Pippo Troisi?”
    Pippo was busy eating a large piece of fried ravioli, as thick as his hand, which he had removed from a napkin. He nearly choked.
    “My place?”
    “Until we have a better idea . . .”
    Pippo would have loved to say yes. It should have been his role, since he was the one who had spotted them first. A glimmer of pride shone for a moment in his eye. But then he remembered how things really were. Pippo Troisi was not the master of his own home.
    “The trouble is . . .”
    Giuseppina. He didn’t need to finish his sentence. Everybody knew what the trouble was. It was his wife.
    Giuseppina watched over her husband to the point of squeezing the lifeblood out of him. When it came to other people, she was about as welcoming as a goose defending her egg. She would never let a stray woman and a child near her nest.
    Perhaps it was because of his wife that Pippo the farmer dreamed of becoming a sailor. There are certain people on this earth who make you want to sail very far away, and above all for a very long time.
    Nobody could remember exactly how Vango and Mademoiselle ended up going to live in Mazzetta’s gloomy house.
    But when Mazzetta got up to say, “I can take them,” everybody looked surprised. Mademoiselle had clutched the little boy tightly in her arms. She had shaken her head without being able to utter a word.
    Mazzetta’s house consisted of two white cubes located in the crater at Pollara, which was crumbling into the sea. An olive tree grew up between the two cubes. The other houses in the hamlet of Pollara had long since been abandoned.
    Vango and Mademoiselle set up home there.
    Mazzetta and his donkey had moved into a hut a hundred meters away. It was more like a hole in the rock, carpeted with straw and closed off by a stone wall. As if to thank his donkey for accommodating their guests, Mazzetta made him a beautiful