I have been exploring Marco's house in the early afternoons, when things are calm and heavy with heat, and it is nicer to be outside. The house grows quiet and empty, and I can move about undisturbed, looking at old things. I do not mind the heat so much, so I have been spending handfuls of minutes stealing up the back stairs to the third floor. Marco's house is like a lot of the houses here, built long ago in proportion to the third and squattest floor in the house; the second story being twice as tall, and the first one three times as much. The first floor is very airy with distant ceilings. The third floor is tight with boxes of old papers and books easily stacked to the low overhead, focusing the heat. I mind the heat somewhat less than the confines, and I do not really mind either.

I stumbled into an alcove four days ago under a high gable on the third floor. A man sat there, making no noise; I had caught him in the middle of some activity, but I had not heard him. He was Asian, from some province I did not know, most likely from the southern island states where I have spent no time at all. I did not recognize him from around the house, and I'm certain I would have remembered him. He was very slight and frail. He was sweating a little in the heat under the roof.

My own skin had made a paste of the dust on my face. I told him hello and tried to clean myself with my hands, but I think I could only have worsened things. He nodded to me, and offered me a bowl.

He was eating a lunch of new potatoes, cooked tender and coated with chives and parsley and garlic in oil. I do not know how he had prepared it; I could see no kitchen. He had a lump of cheese for grating, and although he did not take any himself, he offered it to me. The potato was cut small, and he ate with slow care, eating with a pair of pointed sticks as thin as reeds in one hand. He offered me sticks and I took them with the bowl, forced like him to slow myself.

I do not expect to find anyone else up there. I do not think I can speak any words he would understand, nor he me. He minds the heat less than I do, though, and we both mind it far less than anyone else. Because we have that in common I sit with him now, in the afternoons, and take him vegetables from the garden. I do not know why else he welcomes me, but he does.