“Or, when I wasn't practicing the guitar and he wasn't listening to his headphones, still with his straw hat flat on his face, he would suddenly break the silence:

'Elio.'

'Yes?'

'What are you doing?'

'Reading.'

'No, you're not.'

'Thinking, then.'

'About?'

I was dying to tell him.

'Private,' I replied.

'So you won't tell me?'

'So I won't tell you.'

'So he won't tell me,' he repeated, pensively, as if explaining to someone about me.

How I loved the way he repeated what I myself had just repeated. It made me think of a caress, or of a gesture, which happens to be totally accidental the first time but becomes intentional the second time and more so yet the third.”