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Catherine McNamara
behind, one man who turned
around with a radio in hand.
His son-in-law stood alone on
the snow as the line of men
shrank and their red jackets
disappeared one by one into
the dark strip beneath the
trees. His daughter went over
to a bench by the wall. He and
his old wife stood there.
‘How has it come to this,’ she
said. ‘How can such a thing
happen here in this expensive
place?’
He looked at the woman he
had married, her breasts
above her middle and her
crisp curls.
A pair of
carabinieri
stepped
outside onto the terrace
with the hotel manager, who
indicated his daughter. The
old people were ignored. One
officer took out a notebook.
His daughter ’s husband
turned around and began
moving towards them, his
steps awkward in city shoes.
The young man tried to half-
jog but his feet caught in the
snow, at times perforating the
surface and plunging as far as
his shins. They watched him
struggling. His wife beside
him began a gruff crying.
‘What if they never find her?’
she said. ‘We were all
there
.
What was the child thinking?
Who could have taken her?’
‘No one has taken her,’ he
said.
‘Then why,
why
would a child
wander into the woods? Just
tell me that. Into the cold with
all of this fresh snow?’
His daughter had taken Luna
to see many doctors. It had
been suggested that there was
a slowness, a slight disability.
She scarcely spoke, her mouth
was so clipped and small.