16

Fulvio slept restlessly in the concentration camp. He had taken a leap and was in mid-air. He trusted in his devilish luck and in his mother's prayers. In his new home, in Valencia, on the other side of the world, in that lost area with a name as strange as the Chinese. There, in Guataparo. While he slept he understood what he had been capable of with that woman's love. He did not regret it for a second. But it was clear to him that Marina was not made to be a housewife. She was very beautiful, vain, with a lazy spirit, a cruel player of other people's feelings, she liked too much to enjoy herself, to dance, to drink like a sailor, she didn't know how to cook or wash, nor did she want to learn, she loved to sleep late and usually got up in a lousy mood, and between dreams she doubted if she wanted to be a mother and if once she was a mother she would be good at it.