Summary

Chapter 15 (67-73)

Olga is delinquent on many of her bills, leading to the interruption of her utilities. When she has her phone service turned back on a strange noise interferes with Olga’s ability to hear the signal. She visits another part of the city to file a complaint with the phone company, and on the way she spots Mario and his new lover, whom she recognizes as Carla, the young girl he had been with five years earlier. Enraged by her inference that their affair has been going on uninterrupted all this time, and also by the fact that the girl is wearing Mario’s grandmother’s earrings, Olga assaults Mario, banging his head into the wall, so hard that Mario bleeds all over his shirt. Then, with the desire to literally rip the skin off the girl’s face, she turns...