Seventeen-year-old Teresa Saporiti flung open the door of her father’s tiny stone house and ran out to the cobbled balustrade to lean against it, pressing her hands to her mouth to keep her father from hearing her sobs.  Beneath her the blue waters of Lake Garda sparkled joyously in the August sunshine, mocking her torment.  Behind her the voice of her father had gone still.  The soft call of a black-necked grebe from the shore carried through the quiet.  F and B.  A distant part of her mind noted the tritone without knowing, at that moment, that the tritone would forever be connected in her mind with the day she left home.

            Teresa pressed her hands to her eyes, and tried to stem her tears.  She couldn’t let Babbo see her cry.  He would think she had weakened, that if he kept trying, he could persuade her to stay.  But she couldn’t!  She couldn’t stay here in Limone, cooking and cleaning for her babbo.  She didn’t want to marry one of the boys who plied the fishing boats on the lake or tilled the vines in the hills, and cook and clean for him.  She wanted to sing.  She needed to sing.