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since Professor Vella’s death. Her elderly father had been the island’s schoolmaster at the turn of the century, Amedeo knew—Professor Vella had married Pina on the old man’s death, inheriting both girl and schoolroom. Now she had no remaining family on the island except the fisherman Pierino, who was a sort of distant cousin.
    Afterward, draining alone the dregs of red liquor, he wished that he had unburdened himself to her a little, for Pina was always so composed, a woman stronger than the walls of the old house. He wished that he had told her how the war had opened a grayness inside him, a grayness that he had sought to fill with the affair with
il conte
’s wife, with the purchase of the crumbling house, but which still yawned and gaped on nights like this. Fitting that he now inhabited the House at the Edge of Night, for his own spirit these days could be precisely divided—half of it light and fathomable, half as dark and deep as the ocean.
    —
    ONE NIGHT IN LATE OCTOBER, his friend Father Ignazio intercepted him outside the church. “Come and drink a coffee with me,
dottore,
” he said.
    Amedeo was on his way to examine the infected eye of the Mazzus’ goat (for he was treated indiscriminately by the islanders as both physician and veterinarian). But the priest’s words were an order, not an invitation, and so he followed his friend under the austere arch of the priest’s house, and into its courtyard, a dark place green with the scent of oleander bushes, a courtyard that never seemed to get warm.
    Father Ignazio poured coffee, arranged cups and saucers on the little rusting table, and addressed Amedeo sternly. “It’s time there was a wedding on this poor island,” he said. “That’s what I want to discuss with you.”
    Discomposed, Amedeo sat, stirring his coffee. “You and Pina,” said the priest. “I may as well come out and say it directly. The girl’s got a great affection for you—anyone can see it. And look at you, a bachelor of nearly forty!”
    Amedeo was forty-four, but did not say so. “I’d like to see her married again,” said the priest. “She’s lonely, especially since you left her house to go and knock about in that old Casa al Bordo della Notte.”
    Amedeo, uncertain how to reply, said at last, “I still see Pina very often.”
    “Yes, but why not see her every day? As man and wife. Amedeo, you’d be a good husband for Pina. You wouldn’t nag at her to give up thinking and reading, as less enlightened men would. She’d be willing to marry you, I’ll bet ten thousand
lire—
though I can’t say for certain that she loves you. But she’ll come to, Amedeo. Her husband has been dead three years. It was a poor match to start with, made because of some family connection over a house and a lemon grove, not out of love. She’s an outstanding woman, Amedeo—loyal, resourceful. She’s young enough to bear children, with some luck. Why do you hesitate?”
    Amedeo drained his coffee and examined the grainy depths.
    “Unless there’s another woman,” said the priest. “I can’t deny I’ve heard some strange rumors, these last few months.”
    “No,” said Amedeo. “There’s no other woman.”
    “Then consider it at least. It grieves me to see the two of you moping about in your great crumbling houses, both alone.”
    Pina. He walked away dizzy with the strangeness of it.
    That afternoon, he inspected the eye of the goat on the Mazzus’ farm, receiving a sharp bite on the thumb for his pains. Mazzu always paid Amedeo in food, having no other currency, and he walked back to the town with his pockets stuffed with hazelnuts and white truffles from the Mazzus’ olive grove. He checked a bad case of constipation on the Dacosta farm, and called in to inspect Rizzu’s two smallest grandchildren, who were suffering from an itching complaint of the skin. He found them, still scabby, wrestling in a heap with an assortment of their brothers and sisters. He would be