Chapter 15

I must admit now that perhaps, for a moment, I wondered if that FBI agent was nothing more than the happy panther who attacked Ivan, disguising himself. That is to say, didn’t felines also have human lives in other parts of the world? It could well have been.

But that man looked loyal and professional, and besides, he had that old photo of Ivan. Something about him, although it caused me rejection, did not make me feel threatened—not as if it were something unknown. I think that if he had been “bad,” part of me would have felt it (just as I didn’t feel that Mirko was “bad” the first time I saw him, although we already agreed that what I felt at that moment was more pain and emptiness). That was probably why I led him to the house and gave him permission to enter. Ivan was waiting for us at the kitchen door, with a very relieved smile on his face and a very calm Sasha leaning on his chest, looking at us with those huge, beautiful eyes.

Wouldn’t Ivan have been the first to