- PROLOGUE
.Friday morning
She’s just finished putting on her makeup, Gabriella looks at the clock, it's already ten a.m.
'Shit! I'm going to be late for rehearsals, that faggot of a Director will punish me again.'
Must exit immediately, take the car to arrive in time at Mestre station, then catch the train to Venice, and run to La Fenice theatre for the dance rehearsal for the opera 'Zenobia', which is to be performed in February.
Gabriella is a dancer in the corps de ballet of the world's most popular theatre, La Fenice. Blonde, green eyes, tall, perhaps too tall for a prima donna, the most successful ones are more tiny, light as feathers, which is why she is limited to performing with the corps, male dancers prefer butterflies flying alone, they don't like to sweat, they are too wrapped up in their performance, though to see them you’d think they could lift the world with one hand.
Search, rummaging in her purse for the car keys:
'Here they are, at last! Another thing to piss me off today!'
Rushes down the narrow stairs of the seventy-year old building where she lives in a tiny apartment. In Venice it is impossible to find accommodation at an affordable price for a girl who has not yet got enough economic independence. Dizzying prices are charged for a damp mouldy room. So she’s had to move here on the mainland, to Mestre.
It's raining, a light drizzle, cold, the grey skies of this strange winter makes everything flat, uniform, wrapping everything in an opaque veil.
The motor starts with a muffled hum, reverse gear, a cry, a passerby hits his hand against the right window and makes a gesture indicating she's crazy. Gabriella leaps, gets out of the car, a micro bought in installments.
Lying on the ground, almost under the car, a man’s holding his right leg, a grimace of pain is like a mask on his face, but he doesn't complain. He’s very well dressed, in a grey coat of soft cashmere, a pinstriped grey suit, blue shirt and tie. He’s looking at Gabriella with blue-grey eyes, cold as ice, a look that chills the blood.
The beam of the flashing light, and the sound of the siren of the approaching ambulance, awaken poor Gabriella from her astonishment and shock, she is trembling like a leaf.
'Black day for Virgo’, it said in her horoscope for today. It could hardly have been worse.
The Municipal Police are here:
'Miss, your licence, registration, insurance...'
They take control, meanwhile the ambulance goes away with its biiih-booh-biiih-booh growing faint.
'You must accompany us to the station, Miss, we'll have to do the report, you hit a person on the pedestrian crossing. There will be problems, the person is injured, your licence will be withdrawn, at least for a while.'
Stunned she struggles to open her mouth.
'Can I make a phone call? I must warn that I won’t be in time for rehearsals, I work at La Fenice.'
'As soon as we get to the station. Now you’re required to come with us in our car, yours must remain here for the forensic experts.'
As if the world had suddenly fallen in on her, Gabriella thinks of the injured man, his icy gaze full of hatred. He looked like one of those who come to the theatre and engage one or two girls, take them to one of those luxury hotels on the Canal Grande, then make them dance naked ... Swan Lake, the dying swan, and then, and then ... Even classical dancers lead a shitty life, humiliation, prostitution. Rich men pay ridiculous amounts for a dancing girl, the choreographer and the director pocket the money, the girls get a handful of loose change for a bit of shopping.
Please continue when you are able. 
