“It’s always a good time for me.”

“I meant for Signor Laurenzi,” she said.

I stood up, my face turning red. If he didn’t have time, I’d hurry to the bar, no two ways about it. I left the room and immediately got lost in a maze of corridors and rooms all clustered together, where I could see secretaries at work and executives with their feet up on desks, smoking pipes and watching TV sets. There was also a whole bunch of people strolling arm in arm through the corridors, leaving a trail of mild tobacco smoke behind them. I kept pushing doors that were windows, opening windows that were storage closets, and pressing buttons for elevators that were out of order. After a while I gave up, stopped by a real window, and looked out at the inner courtyard. In front of me was a reddish, transparent façade, subdivided with the regularity of a chessboard, and each square was an office, some with a lamp on the desk, to indicate that it was the office of someone in charge of something, and the higher you climbed, the more lamps there were, because, as we know, the higher you are, the easier it is to be in charge. In desperation, I stopped a girl and asked her where Signor Laurenzi’s office was. She was one of those girls who go around as if they’re the only people who can see anything, and she looked at me as if I were an idiot, then pointed to an usher, who reluctantly put down his Corriere dello Sport—ah, the good old days—and led me to my destination.

Signor Laurenzi was there, in person, when I walked into his office. “What’s up?” he said. He might have been around my age, but there wasn’t a hint of generational solidarity in his eyes. While I told him what was up, he focused on my white suit as if it were a shroud. “I don’t have time,” he said. He looked like someone who’d already met his angel and given him the answer he deserved. I told him I’d wait for him. “Not here,” he said and I asked him if the bar would be all right. The sociability of my answer surprised him. He looked at his watch. “All right, in the bar,” he said, “in forty-five minutes.”

Now I just had to find the bar, but I let myself be guided by instinct, took the first elevator that was leaving, and pressed the top button. When the door opened, I was immediately hit by a comforting clink of glasses and bottles. I followed the call and ended up in a vast room whose glass walls granted a view of the surrounding city. I ordered a tandem and sat down on one of the stools lined up along the window.