The station’s cleaners were efficient, however, and after pacing the length and breadth of the ticket hall two times over, looking under every bench and even peeping in the top of the rubbish bins, Nina wasn’t able to unearth so much as a single sheet of printed matter.

Only that wasn’t quite true. The ticket hall of the station, like so many others she and Stella had passed through in recent days, featured a large noticeboard that normally would be covered with timetables, announcements, and advertisements. As with those other stations, though, the board in Bolzano’s ticket hall was instead shingled with pieces of paper, some faded, some only days old, and on each small notice there was a name, and beneath that name was a plea for help.

She was tired, so tired, and it would be far more sensible for her to simply return to the waiting room and try to sleep. Instead she began to read the notices.

Ricardo Rossi, age 22, last seen on march from Dachau April ’45. Information please to his mother, Signora Rossi, via Vittoria, Borgo Vallessina.

Marco Foà Recagni, age 36, sent to Fossoli in August 1944. Last seen in Flossenburg. Any information gratefully received by his wife and children at via San Felice in Maragnole.

Guerrino Salvati, age 18, last seen on Monte Grappa in September ’44. If you have news of him please write to his father, Signor Ettore Salvati, presently living at 2 viale Trieste, Castelfranco Veneto.

She read through every last notice on the board, one after the other, and not because she thought there was a chance of her recognizing any of the names. She never had, not once, in any of the stations she and Stella had passed through on their way home. But someone ought to read them. Someone ought to spare a moment to think of those lost lives.

She stepped back, wiping her eyes, and went to turn back to the waiting room and her quiet corner and the meager meal that waited for her there. And then she stopped short, her breath catching, for a man had come into the station, and for some ridiculous reason she thought she might know him.

He was standing in the shadows, his attention focused on a ticket in his hand, and as she watched he shook his head, took a deep breath, and let it out in a huffing sigh.

The man stepped back, only a little, and a beam of light fell upon his face, and her heart seized as she recognized him.

As she discovered that joy could be as painful as grief.

“Nico?” she whispered. And then, finding her voice, she called to him. “Niccolò!”

He turned his head, surprised at hearing his name so far from home. The bag he’d been holding fell from his hand.

“Nina? How on earth . . . how did you know I’d be here?”