When I came to this apartment they looked brown and melancholy, like so much else in Hav. Then, almost as I watched, they became perceptibly greener and happier. And yesterday, when I went out on to my balcony with my morning coffee, lo! they were a magical blush of pinks, blues and yellows. ‘The spring of Hav!’ announced Signora V. emotionally. ‘It is not’, she added, as she invariably adds, ‘as it used to be’ (‘in the Duce’s day’, I almost interjected), ‘but still it is a kind of miracle. How wonderful nature is even in these distant places.’ I have acquired a car now. It is a 1971 Renault, and according to Fatima, who arranged the deal for me, it was once the tunnel pilot’s transport. So in the afternoon I drove out to the hills to see the spring flowers for myself — swiftly through the wrinkled alleys of the Medina, along the fine big road the Russians built to take them to their pleasures, across the remains of the Spartan canal until the low hills rose on either side of me, speckled with neglected olive trees, decrepit villas and overgrown gardens.
