Summary

Chapter 9 (43-48)

Olga turns around and sees her children watching her call to Mario, and she recognizes how much like the poverella she has become. She has a flashback to the suicide of the poverella, and how the poverella’s husband never came afterwards.Through this reflection, Olga thinks about the notion of being somewhere between life and death, like a walker on a tightrope.

In an effort to find out more about Mario’s wherabouts, Olga calls mutual friends, discovering from Lea that Mario has taken up residence with his new lover in a shabby neighborhood a distance away. One night as the children are sleeping, Olga sneaks off and visits the neighborhood, only to find it depressing and separate from the rest of the city, as if divided from it with a “gash” (46).

Olga wanders and returns to her neighborhood at...