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“And now what? What will happen to my brother?” Concetta asked.

“He’ll be in Troina for a while,” her father answered. “When they find him, he will have to go off to war, my poor son!”

Nunzia burst into a sob. The idea of losing her son forever was now being fulfilled in all its cruelty. Ture had been her first-born child, the fruit of the first night of love, and now the greatest fear of a mother was coming true.

Until the day before, she had tried to exorcise that moment, but now, as she watched Zi Peppe locked up in a pain that did not belong to him, her emotional defences had melted like ice in the sun. So Nunzia collapsed with a crash. She threw herself to the ground and stayed there, so much so that Zi Peppe and Concetta struggled to get her up. She looked like a rag that had slipped off a chair.

Their daughter took care not to let the other children notice her in that state. She poured some water into a basin, washed her face and dried it, then helped her to pull herself together.