I walked back down to the beach and I found the Banini having an espresso at the beach bar. He was reading a copy of La Stampa, which he put down when he saw me. “Why youa no cornea to ‘elpa me today?”

“This is our last day and I had to pack this morning. We’re leaving at noon.”

“So soon! Youa only stay a few days. Whya you no stay longer?”

“I wish we could. I wish I lived here.”

“No, no, Italia noa good to leeve een. No good work, no good money. You are lucky een America.”

“But I don’t live in America, I live in Switzerland.”

“Svizzera the same. Gooda money, gooda job. You noa wanta to leeve een Italia!”

We argued a little more and I told him that Italy was the best place on earth and he laughed and said something to the fat lady behind the bar about what I had said and they both laughed, but not at me I don’t think, but about Italy. Then he pinched my cheek and told me to come back soon to help him with the boats.

All this time I was getting sicker and sicker and sadder and sadder feeling because the clock was saying ten to eleven and I knew I had to start back to Portofino, get changed, and be ready to leave the hotel at twelve sharp. I ran down the beach to see if there was anyone else to say good-bye to. The Italian family asked me to have lunch with them and I said I couldn’t because I was leaving and they all shouted out, “Buon, viaggio!” cut through the Pensione Biea to get out to the road and for no particular reason I ran up the back stairs to Jennifer’s room and tried the door. The door was unlocked and the room was empty and the bed was stripped down to the mattress. But I could still smell the Pears soap Jennifer used and the smell made it like she was right there and made my chest ache.

Then I noticed something sticking out from under some folded towels on the dresser and I picked it up. It was Jennifer’s hairbrush. It had a couple of long pale blond hairs of hers stuck in it. I reached out and touched one of the hairs and ran it through my fingers and thought about Jennifer and the only picture I could get of her in my mind was of her face next to mine with blood on it, all pale and hurt and tears on her cheeks when she cut her foot. I turned and left her room as quietly as I could and held her hairbrush under the towel Lucrezia had lent me so no one would see me with it.