"Bombs on Baghdad? There aren’t any in A Thousand and One Nights."

"There was a war, the Gulf War. It’s over now. Or maybe not. Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Western nations intervened. You don’t recall any of it?"

"The doctor said that episodic memory-the kind that seems to have gone tilt-is tied to the emotions. Maybe the bombing of Baghdad was something I felt strongly about."

"I’ll say. You’ve always been a devout pacifist, and you agonized over this war. Almost two hundred years ago Maine de Biran identified three types of memory: ideas, feelings, and habits. You remember ideas and habits but not feelings, which are of course the most personal."

"How is it you know all this good stuff?"

"I’m a psychologist, that’s my job. But wait a second: you just said that your episodic memory had gone tilt. Why did you use that phrase?"

"It’s an expression."

"Yes, but it’s a thing that happens in pinball and you are… you were fanatical about pinball, like a little kid."

"I know what pinball is. But I don’t know who I am, you see? There’s fog in Val Padana. By the way, where are we?"

"In Val Padana. We live in Milan. In the winter months you can see the fog in the park from our house. You live in Milan and you’re an antiquarian book dealer. You have a studio full of old books."

"The curse of the pharaoh. If I was a Bodoni and they baptized me Giambattista, things couldn’t have turned out any other way."

"They turned out well. You’re considered very good at what you do, and we’re not billionaires but we live well. I’ll help you, and you’ll recover a little at a time. God, if I think about it, you might have not woken up at all. These doctors have been excellent, they got to you in time. My love, can I welcome you back? You act as if you’re meeting me for the first time. Fine, if I were to meet you now, for the first time, I’d marry you just the same. Okay?"

"You’re very sweet. I need you. You’re the only one who can tell me about the last thirty years."