“It doesn’t matter,” he said, “I’m in no hurry.” It was an old joke. We kissed each other on the cheeks, and I asked him why the beard. He lifted a finger to get me to lower my voice. “I’m incognito,” he said. “Beard and dark glasses. Like a fucked-up cool jazz musician.” Not that he did drugs—that was a college students’ thing, he said. No, a good tandem was better than anything. He was what you’d call a serious drinker. I’d once seen him lift a beer to his lips and pour it down the collar of his shirt. I couldn’t ever remember displaying such classic lack of coordination, even in my best moments.

“That’s where you reveal yourself,” I said. “Nobody drinks in duplicate like you.”

“Not true at all,” he said, raising the two glasses. “That’s another thing that’s changed. It’s not scotch on the left and beer on the right now, but beer on the left and scotch on the right. I know a thing or two. How are you?”

“Who are you hiding from?”

“From my wife, man. Remember, you never saw me,” he said. “But don’t think you can bullshit me, I asked how you are.”

“How do you want me to be?” I said, letting my gaze wander over the square. “Well, that’s what I am.”

At that hour, the square was mainly full of old people, kids on bicycles, mothers sitting around the fountain. In the cafés, in the shade of the church, a few customers were drinking coffee and leafing through newspapers. All that was missing were the azaleas and the lake. There wasn’t a single face we recognized. Only a couple of years earlier, we would have seen nothing but friends, we’d have talked, turning from one table to the next, with our hands on the backs of our chairs so they wouldn’t be taken away from us. Those days were over, only the waiters were the same—the waiters are always the same whatever happens—and when I saw old Enrico, with his failed comedian’s face, I ordered an orange juice.

Graziano snickered. “Don’t think you can bullshit me, don’t think you can pull the wool over your best friend’s eyes. I know you shut yourself in the bathroom to have a pick-me-up when the sun goes down.”

“No,” I said. “That’s a lie, and you know it.”

“Sure,” he said, “I always know when I’m lying. Only, it’s sad going home and there’s nothing to welcome you back but vitamins. Can you explain why you dried out?”

“Fear of success.”

“At what?”

“Dying,” I said.