Mehran hadn’t really wanted to see him; he knew that Marco and he were no longer the way they once had been, that he’d probably come away from their encounter wistful and disappointed.

But he hadn’t expected to leave the way he is now, shaken, trembling, more affected by the loss of Riccarda than he’d been when Lilla first gave him the news. He’s talking to Marco in his head, wishing he’d reminded him: I was the one who walked out on Marvi in cold anger; even when she gave me an ultimatum I never turned back. But perhaps there had been no turning. The last time Mehran walked away Marvi only called out to him once. And then he heard, with relief, that she’d gone to live in Karachi.

Long ago, Mehran learned not to think about the people he’s been parted from, except with the vaguest feelings of affection or nostalgia. Now he’ll erase memories of all the hurtful, angry partings; he’ll eradicate their presence from his life.

He takes a couple of buses to get back to Lilla’s place at dawn. They plan to leave early, for Assisi.

‘What’s with that man?’ Lilla asks on the road from Rome to Assisi. Years before, Marco and she had a long argument, over plates of gnocchi and glasses of white wine at Riccarda’s table, about the architectural politics of the South Bank and the Hayward Gallery where Lilla was exhibiting her sculptures. ‘It’s a concrete rabbit hutch,’ he’d said, ‘the living prison of culture.’ At one point, Mehran thought she was going to throw her glass of wine in his face. Then she’d seen him after years the night before, when he came to pick Mehran up from the café at the corner near her flat. ‘He seems tormented. So much anger. And envy. Or jealousy. Something left unsaid between you? He looked so … confrontational.’

Guilt, Mehran thinks on the slow drive out of Rome, often makes the guilty offend the innocent.

‘What exactly does “ti voglio bene” mean, Lilla?’

‘You know what it means. You have to love someone to say it. Why do you ask?’