Yes, apart from anything else, it was raining. I remember that day’s rain very well. A spring rain falling intermittently on a forgetful, surprised city and filling it with scents that became ever more fragrant after every shower. So much so that there isn’t another day in my life as rich in scents as the one on which this story began.

2

I got to Piazza del Popolo with an empty stomach and my shoes full of water. The square was overrun with parked cars, and a single beam of sunlight, high in the sky, made the terraces of the Pincio shimmer. The two cafés were full of people annoyed by the fact that they couldn’t sit outside. Under the awning of Rosati’s, I found chairs piled one on top of the other. I grabbed one and looked around for a friendly face, someone who might buy me lunch, but the only people I saw were people I couldn’t stand. Then it started pouring again, so I headed for Signor Sandro’s. He was an old barman, with measured, skillful moves, who’d opened an elegant watering hole with red leather chairs and prints on the walls. It was frequented mainly by literary types, poets, filmmakers, and a few radical journalists, who ate steak and carrots, but naturally that day I couldn’t find anybody I was friendly enough with to invite me to lunch. It was a place where I had credit, though, so I ordered a hamburger and a glass of Barolo and sat watching one of my favorite spectacles, Signor Sandro making cocktails. It was at the climax of this spectacle that a magnificent silk umbrella was lowered in the doorway and, too late to be of any use to me, Renzo Diacono appeared. I hadn’t seen him for a while, not since he too had ended up working in television. “Leo!” he said loudly on seeing me. He was very well dressed, unlike the bearded giant he’d come in with, who immediately vanished in the crowd at the counter. “What are you drinking?” he said.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” For a moment, he seemed about to say something, then, with his Piedmontese tact, he merely asked me when I might be available for a game of chess. “I don’t have time for serious things anymore,” he said, indicating his companion, who was returning from his siege of the bar. That was the great thing about him. Whoever he was with, he always gave the impression he’d rather be with you. “How’s life?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I can only answer for my own.”