I try in another direction but there are only banks and food stores, all locked up. Soon I realize I’m going to have to go back down to the area round the railway station. I cross the road to avoid the prostitutes on the corner of Via Seggio del Popolo, not because of any spurious moral judgment but just because it seems I should go out of my way to avoid trouble, so easy is it innocently to court disaster in a foreign country. But in crossing the road I walk into a problem. There’s a young woman standing in a doorway whom in the darkness I had failed to see. She moves swiftly out of the doorway into my path and I gasp in surprise. The streetlamp throws the dark bruises around her eyes into even deeper perspective. Her eyes are sunken, almost lost in her skull, and under her chin are the dark, tough bristles of a juvenile beard. She speaks quickly, demanding something and before I’ve collected my wits she’s produced a glittering blade from her jacket pocket which she thrusts toward me like a torch at an animal. I react too slowly and feel a sudden hot scratch on my bare arm.
My jacket’s over my other arm so I’m lucky that I don’t drop it and give the woman the chance to strike again. She lunges but I’m away down the street running for my life. When it’s clear she’s not chasing me I stop for breath. One or two passersby look at me with mild curiosity. I head back in the direction of the railway station. Down a side street on my right I recognize one of the hotels I saw earlier—the Esedra. Then I hadn’t liked the look of it, but now it’s my haven from the streets. I approach the glass doors and hesitate when I realize there are several men in the lobby. But the thought of the drugged-up woman makes me go on. So I push open the door and the men look up from their card game. I’m about to ask for a room when one of the men, who’s had a good long look at me, says something to the man behind the little counter and this man reaches for a key from room 17’s pigeon hole. I realize what’s happening—they’ve mistaken me for someone who’s already a paying guest—and there was a time when I would have been tempted to accept the key in the desire to save money, but these days I’m not short of cash. So, I hesitate only for a moment before saying that I’m looking for a room. The man is momentarily confused but gets me another key—room 19—from a hook and quotes a price. It’s cheap; the hotel is probably a haunt of prostitutes but right now I don’t care. I just need a bed for the night.
“It’s on the third floor,” the man says. I pay him and walk up. There are lightbulbs but they’re so heavily shaded the stairs are darker than the street outside. On each landing there are four doors: three bedrooms and one toilet cum shower. I unlock the door to room 19 and close it behind me.
I have a routine with hotel rooms: I lock myself in and switch on all the lights and open all the cupboards and drawers until I feel I know the room as well as I can. And I always check the window.
There are two single beds, some sticks of furniture, a bidet and a washbasin—I open the cold tap and clean up the scratch on my arm. The window is shuttered. I pull on the cord to raise the shutter. I’m overlooking the Corso Uberto I which runs up to the railway station. I step on to the tiny balcony and my hands get covered in dust from the wrought-iron railing. The cars in the street below are filmed with dust also. The winds blow sand here from the deserts of North Africa and it falls with the rain. I pull a chair on to the balcony and sit for a while thinking about Flavia. Somewhere in this city she’s sitting watching television or eating in a restaurant and she doesn’t know I’m here. Tomorrow I will try to find her.
I watch the road and I’m glad I’m no longer out there looking for shelter. Small knots of young men unravel on street corners and cross streets that don’t need crossing. After a while I start to feel an uncomfortable solidity creeping into my limbs, so I take the chair back inside and drop the shutter. I’d prefer to leave it open but the open window might look like an invitation.
I’m lying in bed hoping that sleep will come but there’s a scuttling, rustling noise keeping me awake. It’s coming from the far side of the room near the washbasin and the framed print of the ancient city of Pompeii. It sounds like an insect, probably a cockroach. I’m not alarmed. I’ve shared hotel rooms with pests before, but I want to go to sleep. There’s no use left in this day and I’m eager for the next one to begin.
Something else is bothering me: I want to go and try the door to room 17 and see why the proprietor was about to give me that key. The scratching noise is getting louder and although I can’t fall asleep I’m getting more and more tired so that I start to imagine the insect. It’s behind the picture where it’s scratched out its own little hole and it’s lying in wait for me to go and lift the picture aside and it will come at me, slow and deadly, like a Lancaster bomber. The noise works deeper into my head. The thing must have huge wings and antennae. Scratch… scratch… scratch. I can’t stand it any more. I get up, pull on my trousers and leave the room.
The stairs are completely dark. I feel my way to the next landing and switch on the light in the WC to allow me to see the numbers on the doors. I push open the door to room 17, feeling a layer of dust beneath my fingertips, and it swings open. The chinks in the shutter admit enough light to paint a faint picture of a man lying on the bed who looks not unlike me. I step into the room and feel grit on the floor under my feet. As I step closer the man on the bed turns to look at me. His lips move slowly.
“I came straight here,” he says, “instead of walking into the city to find something better.”
I don’t know what to say. Pulling up a chair I sit next to him.
“I found her,” he continues. “She lives above the city on the west side. You can see Vesuvius from her window.”
I grip his cold hand and try to read the expression on his face. But it’s blank. The words rustle in his mouth like dry leaves caught between stones.
“She’s not interested. Watch out for Vesuvius,” he whispers, then falls silent. I sit there for a while watching his gray face for any sign of life but there’s nothing. Feeling an unbearable sadness for which I can’t reasonably account I return to my room and lie flat on my back on the little bed.
The unknown insect is still busy scratching behind the ruins of Pompeii.