Characters
Matteo Rinaldi
The nursing home’s daily routine all runs through him
Matteo Rinaldi is 36 and works at a nursing home in Pozzuoli, a three-story building from the eighties with 78 residents. He doesn’t run the place, but everything runs through him. He wears his sleeves rolled up and a bunch of keys on his belt, and the phone in his hand vibrates constantly. Lena Voss wants to know how fast the home can be evacuated. Matteo shows her: the staircase with the turn that’s too tight and the elevator that works most of the time. At night there are four caregivers in the building, and the home has two vehicles of its own. Matteo knows all 78 residents by name and knows who will need what kind of help in an emergency.
First encounter
- First noticed: he opens the door before anyone rings, because he was on his way out anyway
- Speaks: dry, brief, precise; addresses Lena formally; quote: “Let me show you, and then you’ll understand the question better than the answer.”
- Object: the bunch of keys on his belt that jingles softly with every move
Connected to
- Lena VossOceanographer at the ICRU in Hamburg, following a falling line
- Sofia EspositoVolcanologist at the Osservatorio Vesuviano, grew up in Pozzuoli
- Frau BelliniResident of the Pozzuoli nursing home, with her own cup
- De FilippoNursing home resident in Pozzuoli who believes it’s 1966
- Naples and PozzuoliA city in a volcano’s hollow, on ground that’s rising
Spoiler-free. This describes the starting point of the book named, without its major twists or resolutions.