She came towards the desk and I stood up. She saw the surprise in my eyes.

“Hello, Guido. Don’t you recognize me? Lorenza.”

It was her. If I’d passed her in the street I wouldn’t have recognized her.

There she was in front of me. At this point I knew perfectly well who she was, but equally I didn’t have the faintest idea. It was a feeling I’d never before experienced so intensely, not even when I’d occasionally met old school friends I hadn’t seen for decades who’d turned into fat, bald gentlemen.

Since I didn’t know who she was, I also didn’t know how to greet her. I came round to the front of the desk. She, too, didn’t know how to behave and so we embraced awkwardly, both aware of how forced and unspontaneous the gesture was. There was the smell of a recently smoked cigarette about her, as well as the denser, more unpleasant smell of many 13other cigarettes, smoked one after the other, which had impregnated her clothes and hair and stained her hands and nails with nicotine.

I motioned her to sit down and sat down myself.

“You’re just the same, Guido. It’s almost weird, looking at you. Apart from a few grey hairs, you’re just the same.”

I smiled, embarrassed. I was looking for a way to return the compliment, but couldn’t find one. I thought I’d offend her if I told her too big a lie, like: You haven’t changed either.

When we’d first met, she was almost thirty and I was almost twenty-five. Now she was fifty-seven, she looked older than that, and she was in my office to talk to me about a serious, urgent matter concerning her son.

14

2

“Before coming here I did my sums. It’s been twenty-seven years.”

“Oh yes,” I replied almost simultaneously, congratulating myself on my effort at originality.

“I’ve often been tempted to drop by and say hello, have a chat. Especially when I read about you in the papers in connection with some trial or other. I’ve even caught sight of you in the street, but I’ve never had the guts to call out to you.”

I’d never noticed her in the street. The last time I’d seen her was September 1987, then she’d vanished from my life. I hadn’t seen her again and hadn’t heard anything about her.