Chapter 9 Summary

Ornella de Monterecchi, Dario de Monterecchi's mother, has been reading the paper since the seventies when her husband was a diplomat in Riyadh. Ornella reads the paper so slowly that she has only just finished the edition for April 23, 1994. Ornella keeps all the papers in a storage space in the ceiling of her apartment, but she will not retrieve them herself because she does not want to look ahead. For this reason, it is the job of the maid to get the next days paper when Ornella is ready. This day, however, Ornella stops the maid from getting April 24, 1994 down from the attic. Instead, Ornella calls Dario to ask him to get it, but when he arrives she delays him until finally he looks and discovers it is not there.

The next day, Ornella visits Kathleen at the paper. They were once close...