THROUGH THE OPEN WINDOW CAME THE PERFUME OF MEADOW flowers. It managed to overpower the stench of exhaust fumes from the passing cars. All winter long he’d smelled nothing but the odor of burning firewood. And the resin of the pine woods. Snow, too, ought to have had a smell. But Rocco had never managed to catalogue it, occupied as he was with cursing that crisp white blanket as it devoured one pair of desert boots after another. Only now that the threat had receded did he try to give it a name. But he couldn’t come up with one. He decided that, just as the Newton disc sums up all colors and transforms them into white, so it was with the scent of the snow that summed them all up, only to zero them out in its blinding whiteness. Even though someone had once managed to explain that smell to him. A carpenter, in a town in Valtournenche. Who knows why he gave him that example. Perhaps moved to pity by Rocco’s light loden overcoat, his shoes drenched by snow, he’d taken a clump of snow in one hand; then he’d crushed it and held it up to his nose. “There are people who can smell the forest in snow,” he’d told him. “Others smell a rose. To me, the snow smells of cream.” And he’d extended the palm of his hand so Rocco could smell it. But all that Rocco could smell was the scent of wood that issued powerfully from the man’s hands, mixed with glue and wet sawdust. Still, the old man seemed perfectly sincere. He could smell cream in the snow. He smiled at the thought that he, too, could smell Marina’s distinctive scent every time she came to see him. Cream, pine needles, Marina. When all is said and done, everyone smells the odors and scents they like best.

He went back to his desk. He picked up his cell phone. He dialed Amelia’s number, which he had obtained from the website. The phone rang twice; then a woman’s voice replied, as warm as an embrace. “Ciao . . .” she said. “Who’s this?”

He hadn’t thought of a name to use. “A friend.”

“And just what does this friend want with me?”

“He wants to drop by and get to know you.”

“When, my love?”

“Right away would be good by me.”

“Oh, oh,” the woman laughed. “We’re in a hurry, are we?”

“Yes.”

“And do you want to get to know me at my place or yours?”

“At your place. I don’t have a home here.”

“Then you’re not from here.”

“Otherwise, I’d have to be a homeless person, right? And a homeless person isn’t likely to be able to afford someone like you . . . Amelia . . .”

“You’re sweet.”

“Listen. The pictures on the website . . .”

“Yes?”