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instead explored the Villa Borghese. I moved out of the big five-star hotel where the conference delegates were staying, and moved to Dinesens’ Guest House where Karen Blixen once used to be a regular guest. I flew from Rome convinced that I would never return.
    â€˜Is that all?’
    â€˜That’s all. I wasn’t thinking about anything else.’
    But that wasn’t true. I had in fact returned to Rome two years later. The major catastrophe had taken place,and I rushed away from Stockholm in a frenzy in order to find peace and quiet. I remember dashing to Arlanda airport without a ticket. The next flights to southern Europe were to Madrid and Rome. I chose Rome because the travelling time was shorter.
    I spent a week wandering round the streets, my mind full of the great injustice that had stricken me. I drank far too much, occasionally got into bad company, and was mugged on my last evening. I returned to Sweden severely beaten up, with my nose looking like a blood-soaked dumpling. A doctor at the Southern Hospital straightened it out and gave me some painkillers. After that, Rome was the last place on earth I ever wanted to visit again.
    â€˜I’ve been to Rome,’ said Harriet. ‘My whole life has revolved around shoes. What I thought was just a coincidence when I was young, working in a shoe shop because my father had once worked as a foreman at Oscaria in Örebro, turned out to be something that would affect the whole of my life. All I’ve ever done, really, is wake up morning after morning and think about shoes. I once went to Rome and stayed there for a month as an apprentice to an old master craftsman who made shoes for the richest feet in the world. He devoted as much care to each pair as Stradivari did to his violins. He used to believe feet had personalities of their own. An opera singer – I can no longer remember her name – had spiteful feet that never took their shoes seriously or showed them any respect. On the other hand, a Hungarian businessman had feet that displayed tenderness towards their shoes.I learned something from that old man about both shoes and art. Selling shoes was never the same again after that.’
    We set off again.
    I had started to think about where we should spend the night. It wasn’t dark yet, but I preferred not to drive in bad light. My sight had deteriorated in recent years.
    The winter landscape’s uniformity gave it a special kind of beauty. We were travelling through country where practically nothing happened. Though now as we passed over the brow of a hill we both noticed a dog sitting by the side of the road. I braked in case it suddenly darted out in front of the car. When we’d passed it, Harriet remarked that it had a collar. I could see in the rear-view mirror that it had started following the car. When I slowed again, it caught up with us.
    â€˜It’s following us,’ I said.
    â€˜I think it’s been abandoned.’
    â€˜Why do you think that?’
    â€˜Dogs that run after cars usually bark. But this one isn’t barking.’
    She was right. I pulled up on the hard shoulder. The dog sat down, its tongue hanging out of its mouth. When I reached out, it didn’t move. I took hold of its collar, and saw that it had a disc with a telephone number. Harriet took out her mobile phone and dialled the number. She handed the phone to me. Nobody answered.
    â€˜There’s nobody there.’
    â€˜If we drive off, the dog may run after us until it drops dead.’
    Harriet took the phone and called directory enquiries.
    â€˜The owner is Sara Larsson, who lives at Högtunet Farm in Rödjebyn. Do we have a map?’
    â€˜Not a sufficiently large-scale one.’
    â€˜We can’t just leave the dog on the road.’
    I got out and opened the back door. The dog immediately jumped in and curled up. A lonely dog, I thought. No different from a lonely person.
    After five or six miles we