It was vast, immense, dark. I went and sat down at the end of a jetty. The sea was all about me, the waves beating on the shore, and, in the distance, in the darkness, the lamps of the fishing boats winked. What did old Cavafy say? The city will follow you, he said. For elsewhere, he said, do not hope, there is no ship for you, there is no road, just as you’ve wasted your life here, in this little corner, you’ve ruined it in the entire world. He knew a thing or two, that old Cavafy. I smoked a couple of cigarettes and thought about the packed suitcase I’d left at home. Well, I’d arrived where I meant to arrive. Now all I could do was turn back.

From some very distant place, the sky was starting to lighten by the time I got home. Outside the gate, a little English car was parked. I knew it well by now. And the girl who was inside it, fast asleep in her seat. “Arianna,” I said, “what are you doing here?”

It took her a while to figure out where she was. Then she tried to smile. “Oh, Leo!” she said. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come back.”

6

Summer arrived unexpectedly early. At the beginning of May, a cloudless Egyptian sky dominated the city for some days, until we found ourselves, almost by magic, in high summer. The cafés threw their glass doors wide open, beneath the awnings along the river the jukeboxes started to scream out the songs nursed during the winter, and hundreds of buses deposited hordes of tourists in front of the ruins. The long, wearying Roman summer had begun and I had made up my mind. I’d asked Renzo Diacono to get me work in TV. He’d cheered up and invited me to lunch at Charlie’s, where he got me to fill out an application form and told me all the good things I’d be able to do once I was hired. He was certain I was the right man for the job. He didn’t specify what the job was, but he was absolutely certain.

In the meantime, I went to the sea every morning with Arianna. She couldn’t stand beach resorts, all those people under their umbrellas with their portable radios, so we’d preferred to scour the coast northward in search of quiet spots and a little clean water. We’d found it, but most of the time, in order to get to it, we had to climb over the perimeter wall of some still-uninhabited villa, and there, on the sun-drenched concrete terrace, surrounded by the rocks of some private dock, we’d put our towels down and start to read while waiting to take a dip.