Irene Carrera’s suicide is first approached through warning signs that are present in the family home but go unread: her exhausted appearance, withdrawal, and repeated listening to “Gloomy Sunday.” The narrative places this unrecognized crisis alongside an evening when the family is distracted by other concerns, then gives the death a later afterlife in Marco’s thoughts as he prepares to die. It becomes both a private family loss and a point of reference in Marco’s reckoning with grief, survival, and purpose.

Crisis and Unnoticed Warnings

On the evening of Marco’s planned meeting with Luisa Lattes, Irene appears profoundly exhausted. The account describes her sunken eyes, disordered hair, and distant manner as she moves around the house wearing headphones. For days, she has played “Gloomy Sunday” on repeat on the red Walkman her brothers gave her for Christmas. The song’s association with suicide makes the choice especially alarming in retrospect, but no one in the household recognizes it as a warning.

The narration emphasizes not a single decisive clue, but a pattern of distress alongside failed attention. Letizia, preoccupied and reluctant to attend dinner, does not notice how unwell her daughter seems. The family is absorbed in separate plans: Marco is focused on seeing Luisa, while the house empties around Irene. This juxtaposition makes the tragedy less a mystery to be solved than a crisis whose signs were visible without becoming legible to those nearby.

The Family’s Inattention

Irene’s departure for the beach occurs while the rest of the family is occupied with its own tensions. Giacomo sees her leave and is relieved, because her presence makes him fear that she will discover what he is doing. The scene gives her absence a practical meaning to him, even as the reader knows that she is in serious distress. At home, Letizia’s dissatisfaction and headache reinforce the family’s ordinary routines and distractions; no one pauses to ask Irene whether she wants to talk.

The contrast is consequential but does not establish that any one person or missed conversation caused her death. Instead, the episode depicts a household in which Irene’s condition is not recognized in time. Her repeated music, altered appearance, and withdrawal accumulate as signals for the reader, while remaining unacknowledged within the family’s immediate perspective.

The Song and Its Uneasy Association

“Gloomy Sunday” gives the episode a recurring sound and a history that sharpens its foreboding. The narrative identifies it as a Hungarian song widely known as the “Hungarian song of suicides,” a reputation built around claims that its sadness had led listeners to take their lives. That legend had prompted censorship and restrictions on the song’s circulation.

The account also notes an attempt to soften the song’s meaning: in 1941, a verse was added to Billie Holiday’s version that framed the preceding events as a dream. This history does not explain Irene’s suicide or reduce it to the influence of a song. Rather, the song’s reputation makes its repeated presence in Irene’s days an ominous detail, while the narration stresses the more immediate fact that the people around her fail to hear the alarm it represents.

Aftermath in Marco’s Memory

Years later, as Marco discusses the practical arrangements for his own assisted death, Irene suddenly comes to mind. He thinks she would be proud of him, then recalls that she killed herself when she was only a little older than Miraijin. The memory briefly interrupts his technical explanation of what will happen after he takes potassium, placing his decision in the shadow of a death that shaped the family long before his own illness.

Irene’s death also enters Marco’s broader search for meaning after Adele’s death. When he asks why he survived a plane crash, lost his sister, endured a terrible divorce, and buried his daughter, he gathers these losses into the painful history that he believes has prepared him to bring Miraijin into the world. Irene’s suicide is therefore not an isolated recollection: it is one of the losses through which Marco interprets his past, even as the novel leaves the grief itself intact rather than resolving it.