Lila’s son, Rino, telephones Elena, the first person narrator, to tell her that his mother has been gone for two weeks. Rino reports that Lila has been wandering the streets of Naples and acting strange. While Rino claims he has done everything to find his mother, going around to hospitals and the police, Elena trusts him little, believing that “he had no brain, and in his heart he only had himself” (19). Rino wonders whether Lila is with Elena. Rino sobs to hear she is not, but Elena tells him to stand on his own two feet and not to make any further attempts to look for his mother.

Lila’s real name is Raffaella Cerullo. Everyone shortens Raffaella to Lina, but, to Elena, she has always been Lila. Long ago, Lila confided in Elena that she wished to disappear “without leaving a trace,” for “every one of her cells to disappear, nothing of her ever to be found” (20). Elena, who thinks she knows Lila, though there is a hint of uncertainty, believes her friend has achieved this dream.