I walk very slowly, step after step, avoiding thinking too much. I look at the paintings perfectly adorning the hallways and smell the coffee filling the air, probably coming from the kitchen, where I can hear Fiamma’s voice.
I stop before a wall where several moments from the family’s life have been framed. The three Vitale brothers, still children, smile. Francesco and Lorenzo look frighteningly alike, while little Arturo wages a fierce battle against the tiny tie they put on him. Francesco, with a broad smile, seems far removed from the man he became, while Lorenzo, even in childhood, already wore a crooked smile heavy with irony.
I wonder whether he was the one who twisted his younger brother’s tie.
I am transported into that image, into that innocence, when the underworld had not y
