There were many destinations to which he might have chosen to travel that day. After weighing all his options the night before, Carter had settled on Pisa, where he planned to visit the famous tower and spend the night. From Pisa, he would go to Florence, which would start him more or less in the direction of Abruzzo. The rest of his journey after that was still a question mark, so for the moment he decided to just settle back and enjoy the ride.The train on which Carter was traveling was on a regional line.The trip from Rome to Pisa, with its twenty stops in between, would take the better part of four hours. He closed his eyes, and unlike on the plane from Boston, he immediately dozed off.

When he awoke almost an hour later, the train had come to a halt. As he looked out the window, Carter had a vague recollection of the train having stopped at least once or twice previous to this while he slept. In fact, though he did not know it, the train had already made five stops as it rattled along on its way to Pisa. He consulted his watch, which confirmed that the train must have traveled a considerable distance down the line since he nodded off. Just then the train began to pull away from the station. A voice came over the public address system announcing, he assumed, the next stop, but the words had been spoken so quickly that he had not understood them. Carter looked out, hoping to see if he could catch the name of the town. High up on the side of the station wall was a sign saying USCITA.

“Uscita,” Carter repeated to himself.

He did not recall seeing that particular name on the list of stops between Rome and Pisa, but there were many, and he most likely had simply overlooked it. He sat back and closed his eyes again.

A short while later the train pulled into the next station. Once again Carter opened his eyes and was surprised to see USCITA written on a sign high up on the side wall. How could that be, he wondered. They had just left Uscita. He sat up, opened his daypack, and pulled out his map of Italy, but nowhere between Rome and Pisa could he find such a town.

People were getting on and off the train—by now the seat next to him and the two facing him were empty—and it would be only a few moments more before they were under way again. Carter began to get a nervous feeling that somehow, while he slept, the train had turned around and was headed in the opposite direction. How else to explain their consecutive arrivals at Uscita?

When a conductor happened to pass by, Carter gestured for him to stop.

“Scusa, Signore,” he said holding up his map. “Ma dov’ è Uscita?”

Where, he wanted to know, was Uscita?