Henry was able to grasp everything up to this moment—but no further. That is, he saw himself flying from New York to Berlin, and giving a talk at a conference there, and for three days listening to talks by other physicians and researchers. He saw himself taking a flight afterward from Berlin to Milan, where he rented a car. He saw himself driving down into Liguria and along the coast and making his way to a sprawling old-fashioned hotel at the edge of Camogli. He saw himself eating a lonely hotel dinner and then falling into a hard, dreamless sleep, thickened by residual jet lag, from which he had awakened late that morning. He saw himself ordering and then eating breakfast by his window, saw himself showering, shaving, and dressing, saw himself asking the man behind the reception desk to direct him to a street or path that would lead him up into the hills. He wanted to make the last part of this journey on foot, and that is how he went, finding his way, then losing his way, and then finally coming to a cresting road that delivered him to the bench on which he was now sitting.

He was certain it was the bench Costanza had told him about, because it so closely fit her description. As an object it was unspectacular. Its sides were made of iron, its slats of weathered wood. Its back was canted and its seat worn smooth. The notable thing about the bench was where it was set, just so in a widening alongside the road that could hardly be called a piazza. The bench anchored this small level triangle of land, which was paved with slate and planted with shrubs and trees and edged, on the water side, with a metal railing. Beyond it the level land fell away sharply and slid into the sea.

The water had lapped against these rocks long before Henry came along to watch it, and it would go on lapping against them, shaping and reshaping them, after he went away again and long after that, when he was no more. The thought came to him easily and was a relief. A comfort, almost.

An old woman joined him. She was wearing a gray-and-white housedress with a bulky cardigan buttoned over it. Her thick sturdy legs did not seem to go with her surprisingly stylish black pumps. She was carrying two bags of groceries, which she set down on the seat between them.