“Sometimes I’d get up, read, then go back to bed about half past four. At other times, I was so tired I couldn’t get up, so I’d just lie there and force myself to relax. Those were the worst nights. I’d lie in the dark wondering what I’d done wrong in my life. And the answer, basically and with few variations, was that I’d done everything wrong and there was no way out of my situation. Or maybe there was a way out – there almost always is – but I didn’t have the courage to take it, which was even worse.”

He poured another small glass of rum for himself and took a little sip.

“Then the inheritance came along,” I said.

“Then the inheritance came along. And thanks to the inheritance, for the first time I decided to really do something with my life. I gave up teaching, opened this place … well, you already know the story.”

After just a few minutes chatting in that almost abstract yet familiar space, my anxiety passed.

“Something happened to me this afternoon,” Ottavio said suddenly. “I was shopping in the supermarket when I passed a guy who looked familiar. I realized he was a classmate of mine from middle school who I hadn’t seen since then – in other words, practically forty years. They used to call him 153Giovanni the Fart. I don’t suppose I need to go into detail about the nickname or why nobody wanted to sit next to him.”

“No, I don’t think you do.”

“I think he actually had a physical problem with controlling himself. He was a kid with all kinds of hang-ups, so many that if a teacher even talked to him, let alone asked him a question, he’d get into a terrible state. He’d wring his hands so hard it was almost like he was trying to break them.”

Ottavio’s eyes wandered into the distance, as if to recapture the memory of those long-ago scenes. I kept quiet, waiting for him to continue his story.