To help her relax, she removed her wristwatch, her thin silver bracelet, and the seashell-shaped earrings and stored them in her bag. She curled up in a corner of the floor, and hoped she could just sleep till morning. Naturally she couldn’t get to sleep. She was cold, and uneasy. An occasional gust of wind shook the gondola. She closed her eyes and mentally played a Mozart sonata in C
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minor, moving her fingers on an imaginary keyboard. For no special reason, she’d memorized this piece that she’d played when she was a child. Halfway through the second movement, though, her mind grew dim. And she fell asleep.
*
How long she slept, she didn’t know. It couldn’t have been long. She woke with a start, and for a minute had no idea where she was. Slowly her memory returned. That’s right, she thought, I’m stuck inside a Ferris wheel at an amusement park. She pulled her watch out of her bag; it was after midnight. Miu slowly stood up. Sleeping in such a cramped position had made all her joints ache. She yawned a couple of times, stretched, and rubbed her wrists. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep for a while, she took the paperback out of her bag to take her mind off her troubles, and began reading where she’d left off. It was a new mystery she’d bought at a bookshop in town. Luckily, the lights on the Ferris wheel were left on all night. After she’d read a few pages, though, she realized she wasn’t following the plot. Her eyes were following the lines all right, but her mind was miles away. Miu gave up and shut the book. She looked at the night sky. A thin layer of clouds covered the sky, and she couldn’t make out any stars. There was a dim sliver of moon. The lights cast her reflection clearly on the gondola’s glass window. She stared at her face for a long time. When will this be over? she asked herself. Hang in there. Later on this will all be just a funny story you’ll tell people. Imagine getting locked inside a Ferris wheel in an amusement park in Switzerland!
But it didn’t become a funny story.
This is where the real story begins.
*
A little later, she picked up her binoculars and looked out at the window of her apartment. Nothing had changed. Well, what do you expect? she asked herself, and smiled.
She looked at the other windows in the building. It was past
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midnight, and almost everyone was asleep. Most of the windows were dark. A few people, though, were up, lights on in their apartments. People on the lower floors had taken the precaution of closing their curtains. Those on the upper floors didn’t bother, and left their curtains open to catch the cool night breeze. Life within these rooms was quietly, and completely, open to view. (Who would ever imagine that someone looking in with binoculars was hidden away in a Ferris wheel in the middle of the night?) Miu wasn’t very interested in peeking in on others’ private lives, though. She found looking in her own empty room far more absorbing.
*
When she made one complete circuit of the windows and returned to her own apartment, she gasped. There was a naked man in her bedroom. At first she thought she had the wrong apartment. She moved the binoculars up and down, back and forth. But there was no mistake; it was her room all right. Her furniture, her flowers in the vase, her apartment’s paintings hanging on the wall. The man was Ferdinando. No mistake about it. He was sitting on her bed, stark naked. His chest and stomach were hairy, and his long penis hung down flaccidly like some drowsy animal.
What could he be doing in my room? A thin sheen of sweat broke out on Miu’s forehead. How did he get in? Miu couldn’t understand it. She was angry at first, then confused. Next, a woman appeared in the window. She had on a short-sleeve white blouse and a short blue cotton skirt. A woman? Miu clutched the binoculars tighter and fixed her eyes on the scene.
What she saw was
*
Miu’s mind went blank. I’m right here, looking at my room through binoculars. And in that room is
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he gently undressed the Miu inside the room. He took off her blouse, undid her bra, pulled off her skirt, kissed the base of her neck as he caressed her breasts with his hands. After a while, he pulled off her panties with one hand, panties exactly the same as the ones she had on now. Miu couldn’t breathe. What was happening?
