'Onna pereta fore 'o barcone

’Onna pereta fore 'o barcone: the woman leaning out over the balcony. She’s one of the most Neapolitan figures in the Smorfia — the one at the window watching the street, who knows everything about everyone, who’s waiting for someone or is simply there. Forty-three is the number of watching, and of being watched. In dreams, forty-three arrives when waiting is involved. An answer that doesn’t come, a person who should get in touch, a situation where you watch and don’t step in. But also exposure: the feeling of being looked at, talked about, judged by whoever is at the window — which in a city of balconies is an everyday experience. The images that lead here all point the same way. The woman on the balcony. The courier, who once carried the mail: waiting in the flesh. And the bell, heard from one balcony to the next. In the Smorfia the gaze and the voice travel together, because in a courtyard there’s no such thing as looking without commenting. If forty-three has shown up in your dream, there was a position: yours, in relation to something that was happening. The question that remains — and it isn’t ours to answer — is whether you were watching because you couldn’t do anything else, or because you chose not to come down to the street.