I pointed the watch face in Gerry’s general direction, though there was no way he could have seen it from where he sat. As it was, he barely glanced at it.

“That’s too bad,” he said, a strange, false note in his voice. “Don’t you think you’d better stop, then?”

I stared at him. He really looked enormous sitting there on that little bench, among the overgrowth of vines. There was star jasmine all around him, and behind him a grassy lawn. Droplets of sweat were beading on his pasty, freckled temples.

“I don’t think it will be a problem,” I said coldly. I switched the briefcase into my other hand and kept walking; I didn’t give Gerry another glance.

Time seemed to speed up in my dream, so that I encountered the second set of people very soon after I left Gerry, though they appeared to be in a completely separate location, standing on a sandy stretch of ground: a man, a woman, and a small boy, grouped together as if posing for a family portrait.

“Wait,” said the little boy, and I stopped. I did not really feel like stopping, but I thought it would be impolite to simply ignore them. When I looked more closely at the little family arranged before me, it was apparent that they were from a different time. The man wore a dark old-fashioned suit with a waistcoat and a gold watch chain braced across his torso; the woman, who was considerably younger, wore a high-necked, somber-colored dress. The boy was in an elaborate white blouse, short pants, and black boots. He was not well, I saw at once. His eyes were shiny and feverish, each of his cheeks marked by a too-vivid pinprick of red.

“Won’t you stay with us?” said the little boy, and then he was wracked by a fit of coughing. His mother held a white handkerchief to his lips that, with his next cough, was immediately stained with blood.

“Our son,” she said, lowering her voice. “Our son has typhoid. We leave for Florence tonight. We think the doctors will be better in Italy. We’ve chartered a boat, and we think it would be best if you came with us.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That’s very kind, but I’m in the middle of something.”

She looked pained at my reply and cast a questioning look at her husband, who remained stony-faced.

“What you are planning to do,” she said. “Please reconsider. We know that place.”

Here she looked at her husband again. “Don’t we know that place?”

He nodded, but just barely; he seemed determined to stay out of it.

“It’s…” she said. “There has already been so much death there—” Here she was interrupted by her child, who, gripping at her skirts until she bent down to attend to him, began to whisper something furiously in her ear.