Section Thirty Four

The hawkers were setting up their corn-on-the-cob stands again, as if they had had a siesta after the lunch sitting and were back out for the evening diners. The burning smell seared within her - she felt even more queasy.
The light dimmed further. Birds were screeching across the coastline. She walked the stone-wall between sea and city, the line between what she felt was security and that which represented the threat. But which was which? Sometimes they switched.
Sometimes the honking mass of uncontrolled humanity on her right threatened to push her into the sea, which, night-calmed and severe, offered her the stillness she required.
Sometimes there was a reversal, the sea gee-gawing up, raising its malevolence through its still-calm outward appearance, the street now the shore, the solid rock of home comfort to save her from the marauding waves.
But never both. Never neither. Always an aggressor, always a refuge. Always an indistinct dividing-line walk between the two.
Bird screams and cat calls and car hums were pounded into a homogenised tutti.
-Always the same thing. -The threat. -Always there, just like home. -And like home, it's always threatening.

"defiance doesn't pay"
-No, but neither does doing nothing.

They walked along the esplanade. People seemed to part to let them through. There were no spaces to start with. Then there were. As if by higher intervention. They walked determinedly but not briskly. Body to body, they bumped intermittently. Birds flew overhead. Slowly. Everything else seemed slowed down. Even the cars. She seemed to surge ahead. She looked back. He seemed to be lost. Diminished by perspective. He caught up. He overtook her. He stood awhile. He waited. Ahead now. Diminished again. She caught up. No problem. They walked. They did not speak. Fish muscled through the sea. Unnoticed. (Not gliding. Another trick of perspective.) They reached a curve in the sea-wall. They turned and crossed the road. Easily. They paused.
"So where do we go?" she asked.
"Up here," he said, indicating a series of hairpin bends, barricaded off from traffic.
"To the view?"
"Yup. To the view."
A crunch underfoot. She looked down. A syringe.

"in the land of the junky the needle man is king"

The American was pushing ahead; determined, silent. As she looked up the slope after him, inscrutable faces appeared in and disappeared from half-opened doorways, then, as she passed, the doors wafted shut in strict timing, like a ceremonial salute in reverse. She felt the hidden eyes prickling into her back. -Are we the evil eye?
She muscled up the ramp to keep up with him, her shoes biting her heels. Eventually, she caught up with him. They both paused for breath.
"Do people really live all the time in these places?" she asked, pushing a sweat-stung lock of hair out of her eyes and glancing back down at the doors, which remained resolutely shut.
"Yeah. One room's all they got."
"Unbelievable."
"Oh, you ain't seen nothing yet." He was slightly out of breath. He set off again without warning, almost sprinting.
She followed again. They turned another bend. It was like walking up a helter-skelter.
An old man in rags materialised from the dark. An old mandolin was strung across his shoulder. He grinned toothlessly and doffed his old hat, holding it out for alms. The American stopped, seemed to dig deep into his trouser pocket. His hand emerged with a 500 Lire coin. He pretended to toss it, slammed it onto his wrist. "Sorry, you lose," he said, in English, without looking at it, and strode on.
She was left staring at the courtly, ravaged face, at the sad eyes, at the eyebrows that almost had a shrug of the shoulders written into them. The hat was still outstretched.
He opened his brown mouth. "DIO!" he yelled.
She fled in panic.

"still running still running"

One more bend, one more gradient, and the climb was over. She emerged at a disreputable heap of grass, dusty scooters abandoned on the adjoining concrete. young couples slouching by, youths sitting on motorcycles and an incongruously bright and newly-painted set of railings.
He was standing there, shuffling his feet. "Here."
Here. Yes, here. Finally. The view. The view. She went up and leant on the brightly-coloured railings. All the elements, finally there. Worth the climb. Well worth the climb.
She gazed at the deeply-scored curve of the coastline, the pushy protuberance of the Castel dell' Ovo, the mist-ensnared double peaks of Vesuvius. The sea had a skin, which rippled but never burst. Clouds of mist blurred the horizon. Nothing seemed to move. (Diminished by perspective.) The noise of the city was damped right down to a smoulder, as if its energy were being absorbed by the sea's skin. The volcanic peaks seemed to vibrate in the heat-haze, seemed to pulse out miniaturised vibrations across the busy, still, placid, dangerous sea.
"Good, ain't it?" opined the American.
-Good is not the half of it, brother. -Good is nowhere near one-tenth of the size of it. -This is it. -This is what I've been looking for.
"You OK?"
"Course I'm OK. Sure I'm OK. Why..." -Gratitude. -Get a grip on yourself. -Remember who brought you here. "Sorry. I was miles away there. It was just such a stunning view."
"Yeah. Pretty damned fine. I come here pretty often myself."
Suddenly, her privacy, her ownership, felt invaded. "Still, I suppose we'd better be going."
They turned from the railings.
He nestled in beside her. "You want a drink? Can't offer you a cappuccino, I'm afraid."
"Jesus!" A pall of traffic fumes lumbered up from a lower level, like a lost snow-cloud. The air was made visible and sluggish and plumes of smoke danced. "Oh, gah, gah. How can you breathe in this?"
"Oh, we learn to adapt. we evolve. We survive."
She linked arms with him. "Well, survivor, take me to your lair."
"OK. You got it."
"Which way?"
"This way."
As the moved off along the level road, the youths, who had been sat on their motorbikes all the time, uncharacteristically silent, simultaneously gunned their motors into action and started to cruise either side of them, at walking speed, looking ahead, never so much as turning a helmeted head once, symmetrically and almost imperceptibly squeezing closer.
"What the hell are these bloody capitanos playing at?" she hissed.
"Where did you get that word from? Keep walking."
step step step
The Gauleiters get very agitated and their capitanos get extremely cocky and aggressive, brushing past me with inches to spare.
My boots have got motor-cycle scuff-marks around the ankles.
step step step
Suddenly the youths pincered in in front of them, then roared away, their twin palls of blue exhaust smoke mingling behind them.
The American exhaled. Noisily. "Just putting themselves about a bit," he whispered.
She looked to one side. Merging into the shadows, yet somehow gleaming out from them at the same time, the old man with the mandolin stood there. He had the air of a discarded puppet. She glanced at the American. He quickened his pace and moved on ahead. The old man saluted as they passed.
They plunged into a corrosive network of alleyways, full of more half-doored hovels. He hustled along. Too briskly for her in her court shoes. She stumbled on cobblestones and bits of broken tarmac as he made slight slips to the left, sudden flicks to the right, half-disappearances, shimmies up twisted alleyways, and she clattered along beside or behind him. She had lost her bearings, had no idea of how much they had sunk compared to how much they had climbed before.
He had disappeared. She was left there. Left beneath the dripping washing. Left with a thousand staring shutters. -Bollocks. -What's he playing at now? -Is he in a sulk? -Is he playing some stupid game? -Or is he just in a world of his own? -Well, I should be used to that by now. -Only thing to do is wait, I suppose.
She sat down on a rough stone stone. The washing dripped on her foot, not her head. Shutters eased and creaked. In the breeze? By unseen hands? -Oh, Lordy - such poverty.
-BLASPHEMY!
-Why, hello again! -Long time no speak. -And worrying about blasphemy as usual. -Well, really relevant around here, isn't it? -Let's face it, you got to be pretty damn committed in your beliefs to believe in a God around here.
-IT'S EXACTLY IN PLACES LIKE THIS THAT YOU DO NEED TO BELIEVE!
-Mother, please don't start. -I don't need this now, OK?
-THESE PLACES REFLECT THE GLORY OF GOD AND SHOW US HOW WE NEED TO GLORIFY HIM.
-Yeah, sure. -Glorify the bitter poverty and the cruelty of his vision.
-IN YOUR FATHER'S HOUSE THERE ARE...
-I never had a father! -As well you know! -There! -Thought that would shut you up!
"What are you thinking now?" He was standing there, wheezing slightly.
"Jesus! Shit, you scared me. Where did you disappear to?"
"Sorry. Just went into overdrive, I guess. Sometimes, I just get my head down and drive towards where I wanna go. And forget other people. I'm just so used to these alleys, I forget how confusing it can be."
"I thought you were trying to run away from that guy with the mandolin."
"No, not him, poor devil. No reason."
Two men stepped lightly down some steps, and passed them by. One flicked the fingers of his hand up the side of his face. The other glanced at the American and held the look for an instance without breaking step. They were soon gone.
They stood beneath the dripping washing. She stared after the men, then looked at him. He was gazing up at the reams of hanging underwear.
She caught his eye. -A fetishist's dream come true. "I'm surprised that all this stuff's out so late in the evening," she said.
"Oh, all the time, all the time." He glanced up. "You call these things knickers?"
"Yes."
"I was here with an English chick once - well, more a lady of a certain age - and she said that the Neapolitans must walk around without any knickers on all the time because they're always on the washing line."
She stared at him.
"Well, I thought it was kind of funny."
She suppressed a grin. He turned. She followed him. At a leisurely pace.

A final shift to the left, a final fade up a covered entry and he paused. "Well, here we are."
She stood beside him, gazing up at a phalanx of drooping balconies; at two women three floors up in the twilight, placing dripping rugs, gossiping to each other, leaning not inconsiderable weight on wrought-iron rust; at paint-flaked shutters; and at the whole creaking edifice, which somehow seemed to be seething, simultaneously expanding and contracting in all directions, as if it were about to implode and grab its grubby stuccoed walls through it and out the back of it for once and all. Each balcony, every shutter was uniformly faded, but there remained a sort of exuberant memory of variegation in the peeling paintwork of the individual apartments.
A jolly-looking middle-aged woman appeared on her first floor balcony, gazed up at the dripping washing of others, screamed a good-natured reproach, and picked up her own rug, ready to take it in. She spotted them, and raucously yelled out something conspiratorial to him. Only to him. To her, it was simply incomprehensible. She glanced at him. He shrugged.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
He pointed. Horizontally. Shutters around the window. Half stable-door like a vertical trap-door.
She looked at the flaky woodwork, at the dirty glass it framed. She thought she saw an old woman's face. It wasn't there. They moved towards the door.
The door creaked open. He gestured her forward. "Mind your head."
She stepped down. No. Not quite. She attempted to step down. But. She didn't so much step down as step out to a void. There seemed to be no steps. There was a lintel, however, which she cracked her head on.
"Ow!"
"I did say, 'Mind your head'!"
-Shit! -That's twice now! She thought back to the metal rail in the funicular and grimaced. She tottered down into the unlit room, unable to differentiate between mild concussion and not-so-mild inebriation.
"Hang on, I'll light some candles. No electric light, I'm afraid."
Her ears went temporarily ablaze. It sounded like a forest fire in there. The room gloomed around her. She had an instant vague impression of some neurotic child's one-room dolls' house with all the furnishings - such as they were - piled in with no thought at all.
There was no immediate smell. There was no body odour. There was no mustiness. She was mildly surprised. Then a faint tickle of something chemical fizzed inside her nose. The fire in her ears doused down.
She moved further inside. Tripped over something. A pile of books and papers. She bent down to pick them up. Folders. Textbooks. Scraps of paper. "Whose are these?"
"They're mine, as a matter of fact. Surprised?"
"Um. Well, if I'm being honest, I suppose the answer is yes."
"Yes, well, perhaps that's another prejudice done away with. No, these are all mine. These are all to do with the work I do."
"And what work is that?"
"Oh, you know - doing good: a bit like that Robin Hood guy you got in England." He stooped to light a candle. Knocked a book over as he moved to the next one. Replaced it carefully. Turned too quickly. Lurched across more piles of paper onto the wooden and chipped linoleum floor, the match shaking dangerously close to them. He said nothing. She felt a strong impulse to giggle. She picked up a sheaf of papers from the pile he had disturbed. They were written in tiny neat handwriting in green ink on sepia paper.
"Mine, I think," he said, snatching them from her.
She stared at him, illuminated briefly by the match. From her left, a duet of Italianate passion roared through the lasagne-thin walls.
He selected a reasonably robust portion of wall, banged on it, and yelled "Maurizio, silenzio!" The sound muffled away.
She winced. "How often does this happen?"
"Every night."
"Always like that?"
"Oh, no. Sometimes it's much worse."
"How can you stand it?"
"Well, it's pretty difficult, I can tell you: you have to be pretty laid-back to live here."
"And how long have you lived here?"
"Oh, coupla years. On and off."
"Hm." She was silent. Walls pinged. The whole building seemed to be settling down for the night as it cooled. He lit another match.
"Something bugging you?"
"Well, yes. If you don't mind me saying so, there's a bit of a contrast between this place and that restaurant we've just been to."
"Yeah, so?"
"It's just that - I don't know."
"Things like restaurants, it's easy come easy go. You go when you can afford it. You can't afford it, you don't go. But a roof over your head, that's different. First, it's got to be paid for all the time. (Always assuming you do pay, that is.) So it's got to be affordable. Or free. Second, all you really need is a roof and a floor. I'm not in much, anyway. And most of life is lived on the street around here. So that's why I'm here. And that's why I stay. Capisci?"
"Sì. Capisco."
She scuffed her feet on fragments of lino and segments of bare board. A white granular layer seemed to pock the surface. It grated like sandpaper beneath her feet. She attempted to slip out of her shoes. Her feet were now really killing her.
"Mind the floor," he said. "Splinters. Or worse."
She slipped into her shoes again. Peered around the one candle-power room. Incongruously, there was a small plastic Madonna on the far wall.
She wrinkled her nose. "Worse? What kind of worse? What's that chemical sort of smell? What's that white powder? Sorry," she giggled nervously. "Too many questions."
"No matter. The answer's the same. Ants."
"Ants?" She shivered in her cotton frock. Some distant part of some neighbouring water-heating system started up and the pipes vibrated and purred and growled and snarled and subsided.
"Yeah. Ants. Big red mothers. Eat you in your sleep." His eyes gleamed in the candlelight.
Her eyes followed one of the trails of powder. She looked around the room for other signs. There were small piles around each of the feet of two iron-framed beds, which were lain foot-to-foot to each other, side-on to the wall. One of these was covered in yet more papers; the other had a scrunched-up sleeping bag and an old pillow. She winced slightly, bit her bottom lip and looked down at her reddening feet in the alien court shoes. She could feel her bladder pushing against the money-belt beneath her dress. She glanced up again. Next to the pillow on the bed, open-sandwiched between it and a fat-splattered cooker was a chipped white porcelain toilet bowl. Seatless. Her teeth slotted into the recesses just made in her lower lip and she looked away. She attempted surreptitiously to loosen her moneybelt, relieve the pressure on her bladder. His eyes pounced, however.
"Making yourself more comfortable?"
"No. Well, I just wanted to slip out of these shoes for a while. But I'll take your advice. Keep them on."
He stared at her levelly. Insolently. "Well now, I thought it was around the waistline I detected a certain amount of movement."
"Oh you did, did you? Well, I was just adjusting my money-belt."
"Money-belt, eh? Smart move around this town. But I think you should be safe in here. Not many sneak-thieves around here. Not much room for them to hide."
She glanced around again. "But plenty of things for them to hide behind. I mean, what is this place? At first glance, it looks like a desirable residence in need of some care and attention but with all facilities close-at-hand, but when you look a bit closer, it seems more like a paper-recycling plant. Just look at all this stuff." A sweep of the hand. There were piles of paper on metal trays penetrating circles of the ubiquitous white powder all over the place. "What is it all?"
"Well, it's a variety of - um - 'stuff'. Some of it's essays written by the kids around here, about what they think about their living conditions..."
"Sort of testimonies?"
"Yeah, you could say that."
"So is that what you do? Is that what 'a little bit of this, a little bit of that' really means?"
He shrugged. "Yeah, I work with the kids around here. It's a kind of a community programme."
"But that's what John - was - involved with."
"John?"
"John Morris. The guy I told you about when we were having the meal."
"Oh, yeah. Hey," tucking the papers under his arm and reaching for a tiny flip-over notebook and an evil stub of pencil in the depths of his pocket, "let me write that down. If he's involved in that line of things, it might be easier to trace him." He frowned in concentration as the pencil scraped over the paper.
-Stay there, kid, we'll get to you. "Thanks. I'd appreciate it very much. And that's the sort of thing he did, working with kids. What is it that you do with them?"
"Oh, I help out. Trying to keep them off the crooked and wide, as someone once called it."
"How crooked? How wide?"
"Oh, wide enough to make falling into it pretty damned easy enough. And crooked? About as crooked as you can get. You wouldn't believe some of the corruption around here."
"What sort of corruption?"
"Oh, drugs, mostly."
"And all this getting the kids to write about their own experiences, does it help?"
"Yeah, sort of, I guess. Hard to tell."
"And that's what all these papers are. Amazing."
"Well, some of it's my own papers. And the rest of it that isn't written by the kids is stuff from people passing through. One of the things we're doing is just slowly building up a picture of the community and trying to see what can be done to make things better. If anything."
"And it just sort of accumulates, I suppose."
"Yeah, loads of it. Never get rid of it. Just look at it. We could do with a proper room with a proper filing cabinet. But this is probably a bit more secure. You know, the old Purloined Letter Routine."
"Yes, but secure from whom?"
He chuckled. "'From whom?' you ask. Oh, all sorts of people."
"Can I have a look?"
"Well no, not really. I don't really want you grovelling around in this light. You might knock something over. A lot of them are kinda - confidential. They probably belong to someone else."
"Evidently. But who are these mysterious 'someone else'? Who lives here?"
"I do. And another guy - he's out of town right now. And then it's whoever else is passing through."
"Mm. Must get pretty cosy then. Three to a bed is it?"
"Oh, we make do. Clear a few things, hey presto, there's a bed. Clear a few more, there's a floor, if you don't mind hunkering down with the ant-powder. We manage."
"Pleased to hear it."
He moved to a rickety low sort-of-bookshelf, the sheaf of brown paper still in his hand, nonchalantly struck a match on the seat of his jeans and lit a candle wedged into a Chianti bottle.

Heavy footsteps resounded overhead. Beams bent and flaked. Several drops of plaster burst down from the ceiling, splattering the wickerwork of the bottle. The candle-flame hissed but survived. He scowled. Moved the bottle to the other end of the shelf.
"Well, that's about it. All the illumination you're gonna get."
She looked up at the beams. They seemed to hang, rather than support; they were mottled like an exotic fungus; they were almost translucent.
He moved close to her. Too close. "Mind yourself just here." He was almost whispering. "These beams are pretty low. I don't want you banging your head a second time."
-Third time! "I'll remember that," she said, with mock-solemnity, and edged away, crouching. She proceeded to perform a hunched pirouette, observing the room with all the illumination she was gonna get. She felt like one of the dwarves in "Snow White on Ice." She swung round to face him, still in her crouch. "Do you know, I can see every one of your nostril hairs from here."
He grinned. "So how many? You count them?"
"Oh, there are far too many to count. So numerous, in fact, that if I had a lira for every one of them, I could afford an entire cappuccino."
He grinned again. "Not here, you couldn't. Don't touch the stuff. I've already told you."
"Ah, pity." She straightened up.
"Would you like a drink, though?"
He turned back to the bookcase and squatted in front of what looked like a cupboard underneath, but when he opened it, she realised it was a hotel mini-bar of the same type as in her guesthouse. She could just make out a bottle, and thought she could see what appeared to be some packets or little jars.
"What have you got?"
"Whisky or whisky"
"Whisky."
"Neat?"
"Is there any drinking water?"
"Yes, but it's undrinkable."
"Ice?"
"Afraid not."
"Neat, then."
He poured the drinks.
"I like the minibar."
"Yeah. It's a really useful little item."
"Have you got anything else in there?"
"No. Just whisky, I'm afraid."
She accepted her glass, turned it round so that the marginally cleaner side was to her lips and sipped. Then grimaced. Wrinkled her nose. Whisky. Ice-cold. Neat. Neat as the stack of empty bottles in the corner. She took another sip; looked for somewhere to put the glass down; held onto it. "Very nice," she volunteered, "but a bit strong."
"Oh, you get used to it. Like you get used to everything."
"Precisely how used to it are you?"
"Oh, pretty used."
"How much?"
"You mean, what percentage of my disposable income goes on whisky?"
"If you like."
"Oh, a reasonable amount. Whatever. It's something I kinda like."
"It's that why you're here?"
"Here? In this place? In this particular place? Nope. If you think I'm some kind of Bowery Bum, think again. No, reason I'm here is consistent with all the rest. I live cheap. Don't get paid much. Get my accommodation cheap. Get my whisky cheap."
"So, all in all, you're pretty..."
"Cheap, yeah. And so are you for making that remark."
"I didn't. You did. I was going to say - 'secure'."
"'Secure'. Hell, young lady, you seem so old sometimes. Security! Hah! But, hell no - no problem - the bills balance."
A lone shutter banged, high above.
"So, on the Micawber principle - I'm sorry. I mean..." She hesitated.
He took a deep gulp, emptying the glass. "No need to patronise me, my little chickadee. I may not have read much Dickens, but I know my W.C.Fields. And if we're talking purely on financial grounds, the needle tends to swing towards 'happiness' rather than 'misery'. OK?"
"OK. My turn to stand corrected. Twice. So how do you arrange it, if it pays so little, yet keeps you on the 'happiness' side of the great divide?" A slight gesture of the head towards the neat stack of empty bottles.
He slumped on the floor, grinding the powder with his backside, and glared balefully at her. She was sure that, had he been closer or lower, he'd be trying to look up her skirt. He started to roll the empty whisky tumbler across the floor, stared down at the ground-up granules he was creating. Stared up again. "Tell me, why don't you just leave me the questionnaire, I'll fill it out overnight and you can pick it up in the morning."
"What do you mean?"
"What do I mean?" He kicked out at a patch of powder with his heal. "I mean, this is less like a social conversation than a fucking survey."
"Just asking a few polite questions, sir. Just my way of making social conversation." She went over to the bookcase, rolling her whisky glass between the palms of her hands.
Silence hung between them in sheets. Far-off in another apartment, what sounded like a grandfather clock chimed an incomprehensible hour. One of the bedsprings uncurled and let loose a fearsome plangent noise in sympathy.
"What was that?" she asked.
"Oh, just Paoletta the Poltergeist, getting off the bed," he said without looking up.
"Ha, bloody ha." She thought back for a second to the old lady's face in the window.
She shook her head, drained her glass and put it down on the lower shelf; rubbed a finger along the dust of the higher one. A line of books stood there, in mint condition, a bit like ceremonial soldiers, with their cheap but neat jackets. She frowned. "What are all these?"
"What? Oh, them, they're sort of privately produced. Independent press. I've got quite a few."
"Are these confidential, too?"
"No. Go right ahead."
"Thanks." A title caught her eye. She felt a whisky chill go from eye to toe. "What the hell's this?"
He rose to his feet. "Hey, snappy title: 'A Report into the Social Conditions of young people living in the Spanish Quarter of Naples by John Morris.' Hey, isn't that the same name as the guy you said you were looking for?"
"Yes, you bastard. And you said you didn't know him!"
"Now hold it, lady. To the best of my knowledge, I don't know him. All sorts of people move through here. All sorts of hangers-on, people passing through, would-be-community-workers; you name it. I told you I'd make enquiries, try and find him and that's just what I'll try and do. There's a complete network out there. I know all kinds of people. I'll see what I can do. OK?"
"OK. Sorry."
"You should be grateful. At least we've got some clue to go on."
-Should I tell him about the envelope?

"shunned bad-mouthed silently the word was out on the street"

-Not yet. "Yeah, sorry. I guess I should be more grateful, but I can't help being disappointed."
"I'm not jiving, you know. there are so many people about, and the scene's so confusing, you wouldn't believe it; I honestly don't know more than about a tenth of the people with their names on books up there."
"Yeah. I do believe you. Sorry. But I need to know. You will try and help?"
"Course I will. First thing in the morning. If he's still around here, we'll find him." He leaned across her diagonally. His breath smelt sweet. "What is the book about, anyway."
She left her glass, took the book, looked in vain for a chair, and eventually settled on a wooden tomato-box, next to a candle. She frowned in concentration.
"Hello, you still there?" he said from the bookcase.
"Sorry, I was reading the introduction. It is by John."
"What's the book?"
"Er - it seems to be a collection of kids' essays - testimonies, like you were saying. And he's translated them into English."
A sudden gust of wind blew under the door. She was aware that she was talking more loudly than she needed to in such a small space. She flicked the pages. It seemed to open naturally at one place, about a third of the way in. She struggled with the Italian at first, then glanced at the English version.
"What is it?" asked Walt, sounding slightly exasperated.
"This particular one? It's called 'My Statement, by Antonio Farlucci. Age 14.'"
"Read it."
"Out loud?"
"Yeah."
Another gust rattled the door then seemed to ascend the building, banging successive sets of shutters like some demented scale of instruments of indeterminate pitch, rising and fading. She frowned a little, trying to make out the words in the candle-gloom. She wrinkled her nose again, cleared her throat, felt stupid for doing so, then started to read:

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