He doesn't sleep. He was never good at sleeping crowded. A seven-seat van, and there are too many of them inside, one half on top of another. The one who's always laughing laughs even now while he complains, and says the Afghans who complain sleep worse. The one with the keys doesn't laugh. He drives. He has the keys.

Too many also because one of them said enough, he's going back to Rome. He, instead, came for October. They picked the olives, then the clementines, then the vegetables, and now the strawberries at Scanzano, four months without a euro because first you have to pay for the transport and the bed, says the one with the keys, and the bed is a shed with six mattresses for twelve. He's forty-two, two children in Herat, a wife who calls once a week. The wife only asks when are you coming back.

"When I get back," he said last night to the one with the keys.

The one with the keys said:

"All right. Tomorrow."

And he smiled. He knows that smile means something, but he didn't know what.

Now the van is stopped. Service station on State Road 106, Amendolara. Midnight. The diesel hisses softly somewhere. He has the right rear window. It's small, dark, dull with dust. He sees only the light of the petrol station. Above the pumps there's a camera. A red light, steady. The lens watches the forecourt and watches nothing.

His friend sleeps with his head against the glass of the front seat. Twenty-eight. He wanted to be an electrician. He became a field hand for two months, he said. It's been four already.

He hears the door. It doesn't open. He hears someone outside speaking fast, low, in a language he doesn't speak. He recognizes the one with the keys. He hears the one who laughs laugh, a short laugh, two notes.

He smells it. He knows it at once, it stings his throat before his head.

He reaches out, shakes his shoulder. His friend opens his eyes. He puts a finger to his mouth. He points to the trunk behind with his chin.

"Gasoline."

His friend sniffs. He sits up. The others are still sleeping. The youngest is nineteen, he sleeps with his mouth open the way boys sleep. The one curled up is twenty-seven. He looks at the door. He pulls the handle. It doesn't open.

He pulls the door on the other side. It doesn't open.

Outside, through the window, he sees the one with the keys go by. He sees him with the container in his hand. The one with the keys doesn't look at him. He sets the container on the hood and turns the corner. Above, the red light stays on.

He knows.

He knows one more thing too. His head is the hardest thing he has, and the window is the most fragile thing between them. He has shouted for four months without raising his voice. Now there's no shouting to do. There's breaking.

He turns to his friend. His friend looks at him. He says nothing. His friend offers him his elbow, bonier than his own. He shakes his head.

He pulls his head back. He slams it against the window.

One.

The glass vibrates, doesn't break. He feels a jolt in his jaws. The youngest wakes. The one curled up wakes.

Two.

Three.

His friend says a word. He doesn't hear it, doesn't turn: if he turns he loses the rhythm. Four. He feels a line of blood behind his ear. Five. The glass cracks in the center. A diagonal trace, thin, like a hair. Six.

The glass gives.

Pieces of glass in his hair. Pieces in his cheek. He throws himself forward, slips his head through, his shoulder, one leg, the other. He falls out onto the asphalt. He gets up. He pulls his arm back in. He feels his friend's hand searching for his. He holds it. He pulls. His friend comes through up to the shoulders. He stops. The window is too small.

At that moment the first flame lights under the hood. He hears the fwoosh, the same sound as the gas cylinder at home when you light the stove, but longer.

His friend looks at him.

"Go," he says.

He doesn't want to. He looks around. The petrol station. The pump. The pay phone. The red light above the pumps. The station is empty. There's no one.

He pulls his friend's hand again. He pulls with his whole shoulder. His friend screams. He doesn't come through.

"Go. Go. Go."

He lets go of the hand. He steps back. His friend's eyes stay on his face. The flame under the hood grows. He turns. He runs toward the wall of the station. He hides behind a low bush, the kind that grow next to petrol pumps.

He hears the youngest's voice calling. Then the one curled up. Then his friend again.

He presses his ears shut. It doesn't work.

Then the voices end.

There's the sound of the flame. There's a blast, dull, contained. There's again only the diesel hissing.

He hears steps on the gravel. He crouches lower. He waits. The steps go away. He hears an engine start. It drives off.

When he gets up, dawn is breaking. He has an old phone, with buttons. He doesn't know the number for 113. He knows his wife's number. He dials it.

"I'll call you later," he says.

"Is it you?" his wife's voice says.

"I'll call you later. I'm fine. I broke the window."

He hangs up. He turns toward the van. He doesn't see it anymore. He sees only the smoke, high, thin, rising straight because there's no wind.

He walks toward the main road. Above the pumps the red light is still on. He knows he broke the window. He knows his friend didn't. He knows the tape has the faces, the container, the fire, and that someone will watch it. He'll tell it anyway, to everyone, even to those who don't ask, until the names are written down somewhere. Then maybe he stops.