I looked around. “How is the flat heated?”

“There is a boiler. With coal. It heats the radiators.”

“How do you get coal up here?” I asked, blurting out the question before I realized it was probably not polite.

“We have a pulley,” she says. “Rubbish goes down on the pulley. Groceries and coal come up. It works very well.” And she actually smiled. “The boiler also heats the radiator in your room. It gets very cold here in winter. You are used to the cold in your country?”

“Oh yes,” I said. “It can get very cold in England. And wet, too.”

“Here also.” She led me back to the living room, where the cat had taken over the armchair. I stood.

“I provide breakfast and an evening meal,” she said. “At what hour do you require breakfast?”

“Whenever it is convenient,” I said. “My first class will be at nine o’clock.”

“I go to Mass at six every morning,” she said. “Do you wish to accompany me? To San Maurizio, not Santo Stefano. I do not like the priest there. Too liberal. He forgives sins too easily. Three Hail Marys—what kind of penance is that?”

I had no idea what kind of penance it was. A thought suddenly occurred to her. “You are not Catholic?”

“No, I’m Church of England.”

“Dio mio,” she muttered. “Still, I suppose we all worship the same God, don’t we?”

I nodded. In truth, I had never had too much to do with God. I attended prayers every morning at school. I went to church with my mother most Sundays, but it all seemed like a sham, a show. I felt that God hadn’t actually done much for me. He had taken my father, taken my chance at a happy life.

“I must take you to Mass with me when we have a festival. Then you will see what you miss. The Festival of Redentore comes up at the end of this month. We cross the canal to the church of the Redentore, carrying candles. It is very beautiful.”

“I’d like to see it,” I said, and she gave an approving smile.

“So breakfast at eight, and the evening meal at eight also? Here we take our big meal in the middle of the day, so in the evening it is something simple like a soup or a salad. That is satisfactory for you?”

“Yes, perfectly satisfactory.”

She named the rent she was asking for, but my mental conversion of lire wasn’t yet good enough to know if it was reasonable or not. How many lire to the pound? About a hundred, correct? I thought it seemed quite reasonable, not having had to rent a room in my life before.