Not that he had any excuse for feeling hungry. They’d fed him something called ‘breakfast’ on the flight to Denmark, and something else called ‘a snack’ on the connecting plane to Fiumicino. But this wasn’t a question of physical hunger. His needs were deeper and more complex than that, and luckily he knew just how to satisfy them. He crossed the busy street, delighting in several near misses and a very ripe insult from one of the drivers vying for position, then headed towards Piazza della Repubblica. After a few more life-enhancing, near-death traffic experiences, he turned left along Via Viminale, humming a sprightly melody he eventually identified as the national anthem, last heard in truncated electronic form emanating from Snæbjörn Guðmundsson’s cellphone. ‘L’Italia chi-amò, stringiamoci a coorte, siam pronti alla morte …’ Opposite a curvaceous section of a redbrick rotunda, once the southern corner of a vast complex of public baths erected by some Roman emperor, stood a poky little establishment about the size of a neighbourhood barber’s shop.
