‘I can do little for them. There are so many grave public matters to attend to. But one thing is preying on my mind. It is a private matter, a family matter, perhaps I should ignore it, but it won’t leave me be.’ He asked me to make enquiries, as discreetly as possible, to try and find out what had happened to his young nephew, his brother’s son, who was sent to prison as a child and of whom no word had been heard for years. ‘I don’t expect good news,’ he said. ‘But we should know something – when he died, where he is buried . . . At least we should not accept knowing nothing and forget all about him.’ This meant at least another month away from Italy, but I undertook the commission out of duty and curiosity and pity as well. I thought of my own two dead children, my newborn son and daughter who – I sometimes had the impression – came to me in dreams, bidding me not to forget them entirely either. I set to work at once. Here was another new role, and one for which I was peculiarly unfit.
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