Laughter, excited voices, and the blaring sound of jukebox music spilled from the small restaurants and bars that lined the street leading out of Curmina.
Beyond the gas station, before the street joined the road, large trees on either side interlinked their branches to form arches, creating a dream-like stillness.
On the road we passed solitary shacks made out of cane plastered over with mud. They all had a narrow doorway, a few windows, and a thatched roof. Some of the huts were whitewashed, others just mud colored.
Flowers, mostly geraniums growing in discarded cooking pots and tin cans, hung from deep eaves.
Majestic trees aglow with golden and blood-red blossoms shaded meticulously swept yards, where women were doing their wash in plastic tubs, or were spreading clothes to dry on bushes. Some greeted us with a slow smile; others with a nearly imperceptible nod of their heads.
Twice we stopped at a roadside stall where children sold fruit and vegetables picked from their gardens.
Candelaria, sitting in the backseat of my jeep, gave me directions. We passed a cluster of huts in the outskirts of a small town, and within moments a blanket of fog enveloped us; a fog so thick I could barely see beyond the hood of the jeep.
"Oh Lord Jesus Christ," Candelaria began to pray. "Come down and help us get through this devilish fog. Please, Holy Mary, Mother of God, come here to protect us. Blessed Saint Anthony, Merciful Saint Theresa, Divine Holy Ghost, gather around to help us."
"You'd better stop it, Candelaria," dona Mercedes cut in. "What if the saints are indeed listening to you and answer your prayers? How are we going to get them all into the car?"
Candelaria laughed, then burst into song. Over and over she repeated the first few lines of an aria from an Italian opera.
"Do you like it?" she asked me, catching my glance in the rearview mirror. "My father taught it to me. My father is Italian. He likes opera and taught me arias by Verdi, Puccini, and others."
I glanced at dona Mercedes for confirmation, but she had fallen asleep.
"It's true," Candelaria insisted, then proceeded to sing a few lines from arias of different operas.
"Do you know them, too?" she asked after I had correctly guessed the opera to which some of them belonged. "Is your father Italian, too?"
"No." I laughed. "He's German. I don't really know much about operas," I confessed. "The only thing he taught me about music was that Beethoven was nearly a demigod. Every Sunday, for as long as I lived at home, my father played all of Beethoven's symphonies."
The fog lifted as abruptly as it had descended about us, unveiling chain after chain of bluish mountains. They seemed to extend forever across an emptiness of air and light.
Following Candelaria's directions, I turned into a narrow dirt lane angling sharply from the road: It was barely wide enough for the jeep.
"Here it is," she cried out excitedly, pointing at the two-story house at the end of the lane. The whitewashed walls were yellow with age, and the once red tiles were gray and mossy.
I parked, and we got out of the jeep.
An old man clad in a frayed T-shirt was leaning out of an upstairs window. He waved at us and then disappeared, his loud excited voice ringing through the silence of the house. "Roraima! The witches are here!"
Just as we reached the front door, a small, wrinkled woman stepped out to greet us. Smiling, she embraced Candelaria, then dona Mercedes.
"This is my mother," Candelaria proudly said. "Her name is Roraima."
After a slight hesitation, Roraima also embraced me.
She was barely five feet and very lean. She wore a long black dress. She had thick black hair and the bright eyes of a bird. Her motions, too, were birdlike, dainty and quick as she ushered us inside the dark vestibule where a small light burned under a picture of Saint Joseph.
Beaming with contentment, she told us to follow her along the wide L-shaped gallery bordering the inside patio where a lemon and guava tree shaded the open living-dining room and the spacious kitchen.
Mercedes Peralta whispered something in Roraima's ear, and then continued down the corridor that led to the back of the house.
For a moment I stood undecided, then followed Candelaria and her mother up the stone stairs to the second floor, past a row of bedrooms; all of which opened onto the wide balcony running the length of the patio.
"How many children do you have?" I asked as we passed the fifth door.
"I have only Candelaria." The leathery wrinkles in Roraima's face deepened as she smiled. "But the grandchildren from Caracas come to spend their holidays here."
Aghast, I turned to Candelaria and stared into her dark, guarded eyes in which a glimmer of amusement was just discernible.
"I didn't know you had any children," I said, wondering if this was the surprise dona Mercedes had hinted at that morning. Somehow it was a letdown.
"How can I have any children?" Candelaria retorted indignantly. "I'm a maiden!"
I burst into laughter. Her statement not only implied that she was unmarried but that she was also a virgin. The haughty expression on her face left no doubt that she was very proud of the fact.
Candelaria leaned over the railing, then she turned and looked up. "I've never told you that I have a brother. Actually he's only a half brother. He's much older than I. He was born in Italy. Like my father, he came to Venezuela to make his fortune. He has a construction company. He's rich now."
Roraima nodded her head emphatically. "Her half brother has eight children. They love to spend the summers here with us," she added.
In a sudden change of mood, Candelaria laughed and embraced her mother. "Imagine!" she exclaimed. "The musiua can't conceive that I have a mother." With an impish smile she added, "And what's even worse- she doesn't believe that I have an Italian father!"
At that very instant, one of the bedroom doors opened, and the old man I had seen at the window stepped out onto the balcony.
He was stocky with sharp angular features that strongly resembled Candelaria's. He had dressed in a hurry. His shirt was buttoned up askew, the leather belt holding up his pants had not been fitted into the loops around the waist, and his shoe laces were untied.
He embraced Candelaria.
"Guido Miconi," he introduced himself to me, then apologized for not welcoming us at the door. "As a child, Candelaria was as pretty as Roraima," he said, holding his daughter in a warm embrace. "Only when she grew up did she start to resemble me."
Clearly sharing a private joke, all three burst into laughter.
Roraima, giving a satisfied nod, regarded her husband and her daughter with unabashed admiration. She took my arm and led me downstairs. "Let's join dona Mercedes," she suggested.
The yard, bordered by a stake fence, was enormous. At the farthest end stood an open hut with a thatched roof.
Sitting in a hammock fastened to the crossbeam of the hut was Mercedes Peralta. She was sampling Roraima's homemade cheese. She congratulated Roraima on her success.
Guido Miconi stood irresolute in front of dona Mercedes: He seemed unsure whether to shake her hand or to put his arm around her. She smiled at him and he embraced her.
We all sat around the hammock, except for Roraima who sat in it beside Mercedes Peralta.
Roraima asked her questions about me, which dona Mercedes promptly answered as if I were not there.
For a while I listened to their conversation, but soon the heat, the stillness of the air, and Guido Miconi's and the women's low voices interspersed now and then by faint giggles made me so drowsy I stretched out on the ground.
I must have dozed off, for dona Mercedes had a hard time making me understand that I was to check with Candelaria about lunch. I had not heard Candelaria and her father leave.
I went inside the house. A deep soothing voice murmuring an incantation came from one of the bedrooms.
Afraid that Candelaria was entertaining her father with one of my tapes of a healing session, I rushed upstairs. On a previous occasion she had played a tape and promptly erased it by pushing the wrong button.
I stopped short at the half-opened door. Speechless, I watched Candelaria massage her father's back and shoulders while she softly mumbled an incantation.
There was something about her stance- the concentrated, yet fluid beauty of her moving hands- that reminded me of Mercedes Peralta. I realized then that Candelaria was also a healer.
As soon as she finished massaging her father, she turned to face me; a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. "Did dona Mercedes ever tell you about me?" Her voice had a curious softness that I had never heard before. "She says that I was born a witch."
There were so many questions running through my mind, I was at a loss where to begin.
Candelaria, aware of my bewilderment, shrugged her shoulders in a sort of helpless gesture.
"Let's fix lunch," Guido Miconi offered, heading for the stairs.
Candelaria and I followed behind him. Suddenly, he turned around and faced me.
"Mercedes Peralta is right," he said, then bent his head and stared fixedly at the lacy shadows of the guava tree on the brick patio.
For a long time he just stood there shaking his head now and then, unsure what to say or do next.
He looked up, smiled faintly, and then began to walk about the patio, his hands lightly touching flowers and leaves, his shiny eyes seeming not quite to take me in when they focused on me.
"It's a strange story," he said to me in an excited voice that made his Italian accent more pronounced. "Candelaria says that dona Mercedes wants me to tell it to you. You know that you're welcome here. I hope you come often, so we can talk."
I was at a loss. I looked at Candelaria, hoping for some kind of explanation.
"I think I know what dona Mercedes wants to do with you," Candelaria said.
Taking my arm, she led me to the kitchen. "She likes you a lot, but she can't give you her shadow because she's got only one and she's giving it to me."
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"I'm a witch," she replied, "and I'm following in dona Mercedes' footsteps? Only by following in the spiritual footsteps of a healer can you be a healer yourself. That's what's called a junction, a link. Dona Mercedes has already told you that witches call it a shadow.
"Shadows are true for everything," she continued, "and there is only one heir to anyone who has real knowledge.
"Victor Julio had real knowledge about killing dogs and made an unwitting link for Octavio Cantu. I've said to you that Octavio sat too long in Victor Julio's shadow and that dona Mercedes is giving me her shadow.
"By letting certain people tell you their stories, she is trying to put you, for an instant, under the shadow of all those people so that you'll feel how the wheel of chance turns, and how a witch helps that wheel move."
Unsuccessfully, I tried to tell her that her statements were throwing me into deeper confusion. She stared at me with bright, trusting eyes.
"When a witch intervenes, we say it's the witch's shadow that turns the wheel of chance." she said thoughtfully;
Then after pausing for a moment, she added, "My father's story would fit, but I shouldn't be present when he tells his story to you.
"I inhibit him. I always have." She looked back at her father and laughed. Her laughter was like a crystalline explosion: It reverberated through the whole house.
Sleepless, Guido Miconi tossed in the bed, and wondered if the night, made longer by Roraima's peaceful sleep, would ever end. An anxious expression crossed his face as he gazed at her naked body, dark against the white sheet, and at her face, hidden behind a tangled mass of black hair.
Gently, he pushed the hair aside. She smiled. Her eyes opened slightly, shiny between the thick, stubby lashes, but she did not wake up.
Taking care not to disturb her, Guido Miconi rose and looked out the window. It was almost dawn.
In a nearby yard a dog began to bark at a singing drunkard staggering down the street. The man's steps and song died away in the distance. The dog went back to sleep.
Guido Miconi turned away from the window and squatted to reach under the bed for the small suitcase he kept hidden there. With the key he wore on a chain around his neck, along with the medal of the Virgin, he opened the lock and fumbled for the wide leather pouch tucked in between his folded clothes.
An odd feeling, almost a premonition, made him hesitate for a moment. He did not tie the pouch around his waist. He reached inside, retrieved a heavy gold bracelet, placed it on the pillow beside Roraima, and put the pouch back into the suitcase.
He shut his eyes tightly. His mind went back to the day he immigrated to Venezuela- twenty years ago- tempted by the opportunities for work and the good pay.
He had been only twenty-six years old. Certain that his wife and their two children would soon join him, he had remained in Caracas for the first few years. To save money, he had lived in cheap rooming houses conveniently close to the construction sites where he was working. Each month he sent part of his savings home.
After several years, he finally realized that his wife did not want to join him. He moved out of Caracas and accepted work in the interior. Letters from home reached him only sporadically, and then they stopped altogether. He no longer sent money. Instead, as so many of his co-workers did, he began to invest his salary in jewels. He was going to return to Italy a rich man.
"A rich man," Guido Miconi murmured, securing the suitcase with a leather strap. He wondered why the words no longer evoked the familiar excitement.
He glanced at Roraima on the bed. He was already missing her.
His mind went back almost a decade to that day he first saw Roraima in the courtyard of his cheap rooming house, where he was heating his spaghetti on a Primus cooker. She was hollow-eyed and wore a dress that was too large for her thin, slight frame: He thought her to be one of the children in the neighborhood who were always making fun of the foreigners, in particular, the Italian construction workers.
But Roraima had not come to mock the Italians. She had been hired to work at the boarding house. And at night for a few coins, she shared the men's beds.
To the annoyance of his co-workers, she attached herself to Guido so devotedly that she refused to sleep with anyone else, no matter how much money they offered.
One day, however, she disappeared. No one knew where she had come from: No one knew where she had gone.
Five years later he saw her again. For some inexplicable whim, instead of driving out with the crew to the barracks next to the site where a factory and a pharmaceutical laboratory were being built, he took a bus all the way into town. There, sitting in the bus depot, as if waiting for him, was Roraima.
Before he had quite recovered from his surprise, she called to a little girl playing nearby.
"This is Candelaria," she pronounced, grinning up at him disarmingly. "She's four years old and she's your daughter."
There was something so irrepressibly childish in her voice, in her expression, he couldn't help but laugh. As frail and slight as he remembered her, Roraima looked like the sister rather than the mother of the child standing beside her.
Candelaria looked at him in silence. The veiled expression of her dark eyes made him think of someone very old. She was tall for her age. Her face was serious as only a child's could be.
She shifted her gaze to the children she had been playing with. When she looked up at him again there was an impish gleam in her eyes. "Let's go home," she said, taking his hand and pulling him forward.
Unable to resist the firm pressure of her tiny palm, he went with her down the main street to the outskirts of town.
They stopped in front of a small house fenced in by a row of corn stalks waving in the breeze. The cement blocks were unplastered, and the corrugated zinc sheets of the roof were held in place with large stones.
"Candelaria finally brought you here," Roraima stated, reaching for the small suitcase in his hand. "And to think that I almost stopped believing that she was born a witch."
Roraima invited him inside to a small hall that opened into a wide room, empty except for three chairs arranged against the wall.
One step down was a bedroom partitioned off by a curtain. On one side beneath a window stood a double bed on which Roraima dropped his suitcase. On the other side hung a hammock in which the child went to lie down.
He followed Roraima along a short corridor into the kitchen and sat down at the wooden table in the middle of the room.
Guido Miconi took Roraima's hands in his and, as though clarifying matters to a child, he told her that what had brought him to town wasn't Candelaria but the dam that was going to be built in the hills.
"No, that's only on the surface. You came because Candelaria brought you here," Roraima stammered. "Now you'll stay here with us. Won't you?"
Seeing that he remained silent, she added, "Candelaria was born a witch." With an encompassing wave of her hand, Roraima took in the room, the house, the yard. "All this belongs to her. Her godmother is a famous healer and gave her all this." Her voice dropped, and she muttered the words, "But that's not what she wanted. She wanted you."
"Me!" he repeated, shaking his head sad and baffled. He had never lied to Roraima about his family in Italy.
"I'm sure her godmother is a good healer. But being born a witch! That's pure nonsense. You know that one day I will return to the family that I left behind."
A strange disturbing smile flittered across Roraima's face as she reached for the pitcher and for the turned-down glass on the table.
She filled it, then held the glass out to him and added, "Miconi, this tamarind water has been bewitched by your daughter Candelaria. If you drink it, you'll stay with us forever."
For a second he hesitated, then burst into laughter. "Witchcraft is nothing but superstition."
He emptied his glass in one long gulp. "That was the best refreshment I have ever had," he remarked, holding out the glass for more.
His daughter's faint coughing broke into his reveries.
He tiptoed to the other side of the partitioned-off room and anxiously bent over Candelaria sleeping in a hammock that hung from two rings cemented into the wall.
A sad smile parted his lips as he peered into her little face, in which so often he had tried to discover a likeness to himself. He saw none.
But oddly enough, there were times the girl made him think of his grandfather. It was not so much a resemblance but rather a mood, a certain gesture made by the child, which never failed to startle him.
She also had that same easy way with animals that the old man had had. She healed every donkey, cow, goat, dog, and cat in the neighborhood. She actually coaxed birds and butterflies to perch on her outstretched arms.
His grandfather had had that same gift: A saint, people had called him in the small town in Calabria.
Whether or not there was anything saintly about Candelaria, he was no longer sure.
One afternoon he had found the child lying on her stomach in the yard, her chin resting on her folded arms, talking to a sickly looking cat curled up a few inches in front of her. The feline seemed to be answering her, not with meowing sounds, but with short grunts that resembled an old man's laughter.
The instant they felt his presence, both Candelaria and the cat leapt up in the air, as if some invisible thread had pulled them. They landed right in front of him, a spooky smile on their faces.
He had stood bewildered, as for a fleeting instant, their features appeared to be superimposed on each other's: He had been unable to decide whose face belonged to whom.
Ever since that day he had kept wondering about what Roraima always said, that Candelaria was not a saint but a witch.
Softly, so as not to wake her, Guido Miconi caressed the child's cheek, and then tiptoed to the small vestibule lit dimly by the dying light of an oil lamp. He reached for his jacket, hat, and shoes laid out the evening before and finished dressing.
He held the lamp up to the mirror and studied his image. At forty-six, his gaunt, weatherworn face was still filled with that indestructible energy that had carried him through years of hard work. His hair, although gray streaked, was still thick; and his light brown eyes shone brightly beneath his bushy brows.
Cautiously, without stepping on the dog whining and twitching its legs in sleep, he let himself out the door.
He leaned against the wall and waited until his eyes adjusted to the shadows.
Sighing, he watched the early workers heading toward work like phantoms in the emptiness of the predawn darkness.
Instead of going to the southern end of town where a truck waited to take the laborers to the construction site of the dam in the hills, Miconi headed toward the plaza where the bus for Caracas was parked.
The faint light inside the bus blurred the shapes of the few passengers dozing in their seats. He moved to the very back.
As he lifted his suitcase to the rack above him, he saw a shadow through the grimy window of the bus. Black and immense, the shadow stood out against the white wall of the church.
He didn't know what made him think of a witch; and although he wasn't religious, he quietly began to pray.
The shadow dissolved into a faint cloud of smoke.
The dimming of the lights in the plaza must have played a trick on his eyes, he thought, and chuckled.
Roraima and Candelaria would have explained it differently.
They would have said that he had seen one of those nocturnal entities that wander about at night; beings that never leave any trace, but use mysterious signals to announce their presence and disappearance.
The ticket collector's voice cut into his musings. Miconi paid his fare, asked about the best way to go to the port of La Guaira, and then closed his eyes.
Rattling and swaying, the bus crossed the valley, then slowly ascended the dusty winding road.
Miconi sat up and looked back for one last time. The retreating rooftops, and the white church with its bell tower kept swimming through his tear-filled eyes.
How he loved the sound of those bells. Now he would never hear them again.
It had been a month since Guido Miconi left Roraima and Candelaria.
After resting for a moment under the elusive shade of the blooming almond trees in the plaza, he resumed his walk up the steep, narrow street that ended in a flight of crooked steps carved into the hill.
He climbed halfway up, then turned to gaze at the port below him: La Guaira, a city crowded in between the mountains and the sea, with its pink, blue, and buff-colored houses, its twin church towers, and its old customhouse overlooking the harbor like some ancient fort.
His daily excursions to the secluded spot had become a necessity. It was the only place where he felt safe and at peace.
Sometimes he had spent hours up there watching the large ships dropping anchor. He had tried to guess by their flags or the color of their smokestacks to which country they belonged.
His weekly visits to the shipping offices in town had been as essential to his well-being as gazing at the ships.
He was still undecided whether he should return to Italy directly or by way of New York.
Or, as Mr. Hylkema at the shipping office had suggested, perhaps he should see something of the world first by boarding one of those German freighters that sailed to Rio, Buenos Aires, across to Africa, and then into the Mediterranean sea.
But regardless of how enticing the possibilities, Guido Miconi had been unable to bring himself to book his passage back to Italy. He couldn't understand why; and yet, in the depths of him he knew.
Guido Miconi climbed to the top of the steps and turned into a narrow twisting path that led to a clump of palm trees.
He sat on the ground, his back against a trunk, and fanned himself with his hat.
The stillness was absolute. The palm fronds hung motionless. Even the birds seemed to be floating effortlessly, like falling leaves pinned to the cloudless sky.
He heard a faint laughter echoing in the silence. Startled, he looked around.
The tinkling sound reminded him of his daughter's laughter. And suddenly, her face materialized before his eyes; a fleeting image, unsubstantial, floating in some tenuous light; so pale, it seemed her face was surrounded by a halo.
With quick abrupt movements, as though he were trying to erase the vision, Guido Miconi fanned himself with his hat.
Perhaps it was true that Candelaria was born a witch, he mused. Could the child indeed be the cause for his indecision to leave? he asked himself. Was she the reason for his inability to bring to mind the faces of his wife and children in Italy; regardless of how hard he tried?
Guido Miconi rose and scanned the horizon.
For an instant he thought he was dreaming as he saw a large ship emerge like some mirage through the shimmering heat. The vessel came closer, angling toward the harbor.
In spite of the distance, he clearly recognized its green, white, and red smokestack. "An Italian ship!" he exclaimed, throwing his hat up in the air.
He was certain that he had finally broken the spell of Venezuela; and of Roraima and Candelaria- superstitious creatures who read omens in the flight of birds, the movements of shadows, the direction of the wind.
He laughed happily. This ship approaching the harbor, like some miracle, was his liberation.
In his excitement he stumbled several times as he hurried down the crooked steps.
He ran past the old colonial houses. He had no time to stop and listen to the sound of water splashing in the fountains, and the songs of caged birds spilling out of open windows and doors.
He was going to the shipping offices: He was going to book his passage home this very day.
A child's voice calling his full name brought Guido Miconi up short.
Overcome by a sudden dizziness he closed his eyes and leaned against a wall. Someone gripped his arm. He opened his eyes, but all he saw were black spots whirling in front of him.
Again he heard a child's voice call his name.
Slowly, his dizziness subsided. With his eyes still unfocused he glanced into the worried face of Mr. Hylkema, the Dutchman at the shipping office.
"I don't know how I got here, but I want to speak with you," Guido Miconi stammered.
"From the hill I've just seen an Italian ship approach the harbor. I want to book my passage home this very instant."
Mr. Hylkema shook his head in disbelief. "Are you sure you want to go?" he asked.
"I want to book my passage home," Miconi insisted childishly. "Right now!"
Upon catching Mr. Hylkema's eyes on him eloquent with meaning, Guido Miconi added, "I have finally broken the spell!"
"Of course you have." Mr. Hylkema patted him reassuringly on the shoulder, and then steered him toward the cashier's counter.
Looking up, Guido Miconi watched the tall, gaunt Dutchman move behind the counter.
As usual, Mr. Hylkema was dressed in a white linen suit and black cloth sandals. A fringe of gray hair growing on one side of his head had been carefully combed and distributed over his naked skull. His face had been aged by the relentless tropical sun and, no doubt, by rum.
Mr. Hylkema brought out a heavy ledger and placed it noisily on the counter. He pulled up a chair, sat down, and began to write.
"There are some of us who are meant to stay here," Mr. Hylkema said, then lifted his pen and pointed to Miconi. "And you, my friend, are never going to return to Italy."
Guido Miconi, not quite knowing what to make of his words, bit his lip.
Mr. Hylkema burst into a loud, toneless laughter, which sprang from the depths of his belly, and moved up with a rumbling painful sound.
But when he spoke again, Mr. Hylkema's voice had a curious softness. "I was just joking. I'll take you to the ship myself."
Mr. Hylkema went with him to his hotel, and helped him gather his belongings.
After making sure he had a cabin all to himself, as he had requested and paid for, the Dutchman left him with the ship's purser.
Still dazed, Guido Miconi glanced around, wondering why there was no one on the deck of the Italian ship anchored at pier 9.
He reached for a chair beside a table on the deck, straddled it, and rested his forehead against the wooden back.
He wasn't insane. He was in the Italian ship, he repeated to himself, hoping to dispel the realization that there was no one around.
As soon as he had rested a moment, he thought, he would walk down to another deck, and confirm for himself that the crew and the rest of the passengers were somewhere in the ship. The thought restored his confidence.
Guido Miconi rose from his chair, and leaning over the railing looked down at the pier. He saw Mr. Hylkema waving; looking up at him.
"Miconi!" the Dutchman shouted. "The ship is pulling anchor. Are you sure you want to go?"
Guido Miconi felt a cold sweat. An immeasurable fear took possession of him. He longed for his peaceful life, for Roraima and Candelaria; his family.
"I don't want to go," he shouted back.
"You have no time to get your luggage. The gangplank has been lifted. You must jump now. You'll land in the water. If you don't jump now, you'll never make it!"
Guido Miconi vacillated for an instant. In his suitcase were the jewels he had hoarded over the years, working with almost inhuman strength. Was all that going to be lost? He decided he still had enough strength to start all over again and jumped over the railing.
Everything blurred. He braced himself for the impact with the water. He was not worried: He was a good swimmer. But the impact never came.
He heard Mr. Hylkema's voice saying loudly, "I think this man has fainted. The bus cannot leave until we take him out. Someone get his suitcase."
Guido Miconi opened his eyes. He saw a black shadow against the white wall of the church. He didn't know what made him think of a witch. He felt that he was being lifted and carried away. And then he had a devastating realization.
"I've never left. I've never left. It's been a dream," Guido Miconi kept repeating. He thought of his jewels in his suitcase. He was sure that whoever grabbed his suitcase would steal it, but the jewels no longer mattered to him, he had already lost them in the ship.