“You’re wrong,” I said. “Don’t think about it.” But I couldn’t think about anything else and when I left I started walking the streets, knowing I’d lost her. I wanted to get drunk, I wanted the most god almighty hangover I could manage, because I could stand anything except losing Arianna after disappointing her like that. I had to find Graziano. I would find him even if it meant going around all the bars in the city and I began with the ones on Piazza del Popolo, only finding people who’d see him. From what they told me, I got the impression he was having one hell of a party. One person told me he’d seen him with two bottles in his jacket pockets to sustain himself on his journey from one bar to the next, another that he’d tied a kerchief around his thigh, and a third that he’d seen him heading for Piazza Navona but doubted he could make it all the way there.

Knowing Graziano, I didn’t take any notice of this and drove to Piazza Navona in my old Alfa Romeo. I left it in a parking lot because I didn’t know when I’d be able to pick it up again and continued on foot. The evening was cool, the temperature suitable for drinking without ice, and my stomach in good condition. It was likely to be a memorable encounter.

But I was still on the embankment when I realized it wouldn’t be easy to find Graziano. Buses were parked everywhere, which meant the square would be overrun with tourists. I hoped they wouldn’t disgust him so much as to send him elsewhere, to Santa Maria in Trastevere maybe, but that was unlikely, it would be too close to his wife. The square was indeed full of people, and what with the tourists, the painters of views, and the parties, you couldn’t walk without bumping into someone. At Domiziano’s, Enrico told me he’d seen him an hour before, looking for a free table, then asking for a glass and leaving. He couldn’t have gone far, and I started moving between the toy stands and the painters’ easels while monstrous balls shaped like caterpillars rose, whistling and twisting, into a sky illumined by streetlights.

I found him sitting on the rim of the central fountain, on the side facing the church, where there were fewer people sitting. The kerchief was now knotted around his forehead and he was sitting with his feet in the blue water. He was pouring scotch and beer into his glass, adulterating the mixture with a little water from the fountain, and drinking it. It was clear that he needed help.

“Leo, my boy,” he said, watching two tourists photograph the fountain, “how sad to feel one is part of a herd.” He raised his glass in their direction.