24 July 1916
The morning found him at the little port of Marsaxlokk. He spent two days and two nights, paying a little something of course, at the whorehouse Irem had arranged for him, drinking Bajtra and playing pocker with the maitresse, a flamboyant Belgian woman in her forties, waiting for some news from his contact that would take him out of there.
He was lying in bed in his room and going through the newspaper he had asked for. Aldo remained muted. The only interesting piece of news was the drowning of a woman in the closed sea of Gozo. Early in the morning, a young shepherd grazing his flock in the grassy meadows overhanging the precipitous coast located the woman’s lifeless body. He read the piece again, carefully. Yes. That nagging sensation he had from the start. Everything was
