Afterwards, when he had finished checking in and dragged his duffel bag to his room, Carter had collapsed onto the bed and promptly fallen fast asleep despite the steady thrum of traffic below his window. It was just past sunset when he awoke sometime later, opened his eyes, and assessed the interior of his room for the first time. It was a clean but drab affair he found, sparsely furnished with a bed, a night table and a lamp, an armoire, and a small bureau. There was no television, and the telephone could only call the front desk if one wished to get an outside line. The air in the room was still and rather warm, but there was no air-conditioning. The only ventilation came from the window, which at the moment was shuttered closed. Carter recalled that Giancarlo had once advised him that he should not to be too surprised if he discovered that the hotels in Italy were not quite the same as those in America. Now he understood what his professor had meant.

Feeling a bit grimy from the long plane ride, and completely out of sorts from the time change, Carter had decided to take a shower to see if that would perk him up a little.The cramped bathroom had no shower stall, or curtain for that matter, but only a drain in the tiled floor and a showerhead protruding from the wall opposite the toilet and sink. It was an odd space, but Carter had nonetheless felt himself revive as he let the water rain down on his head. When he was done, he took one of the large bath towels hanging on the rack and rubbed it across his body. Curiously, the towel’s coarse fabric did not seem to absorb any water, and so Carter wrapped it around his midsection, walked out into the room, and nudged open the shutters.There he stood for a time, letting the air rush in and dry him off, while he beheld Rome for the first time.

In truth, there was not a great deal for him to see. From all indications, the hotel was not located in a particularly picturesque part of the ancient city, but it appeared to be a safe enough neighborhood, and at least the traffic had finally eased. Eager to get outside and take a walk to check out his surroundings, Carter had dressed quickly, grabbed his tourist map, and headed out the door.