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door to accompany
him out to the pavement. Maria jammed the door with
his foot and Rosa permitted him to kiss her goodnight.
Then she went to the tradesman's entrance giving onto
the street. She looked to left and right and, when she
was certain there was no one else around, signalled to
Maria to come out. Once at the grille, he kissed her
again.

    "I'll come by tomorrow..." He said. "And again, please
forgive me. Bye, beautiful."
    "Hi, beautiful," was the first thing he had said to her
the next day. It was so cold that when Rosa embraced
him, he could feel the cool of her hands through his
jumper. He didn't have the lampshade with him.
    "I was just listening to the radio and heard that there
was an impressive tornado over Costa Rica," she said,
"only I'm not certain whether they said Costa Rica or
Puerto Rico..."
    "There are loads of tornadoes in the United
States..."
    "But they didn't say a thing about the United States,
they only mentioned Costa Rica or Puerto Rico, I can't
remember which. Apparently the roofs of the houses
blew away. And they said the boats broke their moorings
and scooted about in the air like flying ducks..."
    "What if one of those yachts landed on your head?
Can you imagine that?"
    "I don't want to imagine it... How cold it's got!"

    "Freezing. Though I don't feel it myself."
    "I prepared this for you," said Rosa, holding out the
plastic box she gave him each morning. "You have
two chicken legs, and I also included some mashed
potato..."
    "Thank you, darling. Well, I'd better be off now, it's
already gone eight o'clock..."
    "Did you get home all right last night?"
    "Perfectly. How was your night?"
    "I fell asleep immediately."
    "Didn't you watch the TV?"
    "Yes, but there wasn't anything on. I switched it off
and I'd no sooner put my head on the pillow than I
was asleep. Oh - and I added some red pepper to your
lunchbox, to spice up your potatoes."
    "You always make them so tasty..."
    "Time to be on your way, you don't want to be getting
there late."
    "I'll see you after work."
    Maria gave her a kiss, winked and set off on his walk
to work.
    Up until this point, everything had followed its normal path. But the problems started as soon as Maria got
to work. He bumped into Israel and the doorman, on
their way back from talking to his foreman. Israel and
the doorman passed by without looking at him, then
carried on walking, hastening their pace.
    "Maria," the foreman called out, "come over here a
second, I need to speak to you."
    The foreman walked away from his workers in order
to speak to Maria alone. He leaned one foot on the
floor and a thigh against the edge of some scaffolding.
Maria was standing beside him, but the foreman took
his time in withdrawing a packet of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, raising one to his lips, then patting down
his trouser and anorak pockets in search of matches,
before finally asking:

    "Do you have a light?"
    "I don't smoke."
    "Ricciardi!" he called out.
    Ricciardi pushed his way past them carrying a sack of
cement.
    "Ricciardi, give me a light."
    Ricciardi approached them, still with the sack of cement on his shoulder. Using sign language, he indicated
he had a box of matches in his back trouser pocket. The
sack was so heavy he didn't have the necessary strength
left even to open his mouth.
    The foreman felt his pockets with a degree of apprehension, but failed to find what he was looking for,
so Ricciardi had to turn around to proffer him the other
back pocket. The foreman repeated the operation
without finding any matches.
    "See that? You're just doing it because you want me
to put my hand down your trousers, aren't you?" he
announced to everyone.
    Ricciardi cracked a smile through clenched teeth
and planted himself in front of the foreman so that he
could try his luck with the front pockets. At the final
try, the foreman tapped on a box.
    "Here they are," he said.
    But before inserting his hand inside Ricciardi's