Dante on the Move

Tag: life

  • Tuna and Cheese? From Monte Romano to Marradi

    A short walk today ended in a disaster when one of my hiking poles broke, and I made a faux pas ordering fish with cheese.

    I woke up for breakfast at 7am and was thrilled to meet Enrico’s wife, Daniela, who had returned from saluting the late Pope in Rome. After setting off early at 2am, she had only had to wait two hours in line. I thought of when the Queen had died and the epic queues I had witnessed on TV. David Beckham had spent a day among the plebs waiting to pay his respects to her. 

    I secretly wanted the Beckhams to become to new Royal Family. Though, in an early communist rebellion perhaps, I had cut Posh Spice out of my posters, she was now my favourite Spice Girl. I admired their family and the way she and David shared a mutual work ethic.

    Enrico and Daniela explained to me that their dog, Mia, with whom I’d shared cuddles the evening before, had been named after the song ‘Romagna Mia’ which had become a hit during the floods of 2023 to give strength to the local people. Their other dog, Cillian, meanwhile, was named after the Gallic for warrior.

    The Romagna people are definitely proud of their heritage. Their territory spans half of Emilio Romagna towards the sea and their language, or dialect, is quite specific. 

    Dante was sensitive to these vagaries in language as he wrote in his Latin treatise on language, De Vulgari Eloquentia. Written between 1303 and the first months of 1305, his work was perhaps the first published European socio-linguistic research.

    Over breakfast, Enrico and Daniela revealed that they were seasoned travellers who had visited over 100 countries, often to chase a solar eclipse. They had been to Sudan, Libya… I thought of the way my own parents had taken me travelling to exotic locations as a child. This was a real home stay alright. I couldn’t have felt more at home if I’d tried.

    I drank nearly a whole family pot of espresso and ate a banana at Alina’s recommendation to alleviate the cramps in my feet. I had a Zoom meeting with a student whose dissertation was on Chinese, UK and US medical care models which felt somewhat discordant from this place of Paradiso. Then I did some gentle yoga stretches and massaged my feet. Today was a relatively short day of walking but I still felt my feet resist.

    I slept for another hour.

    At 11 o’clock, outside, me, Enrico and Daniela took pictures. 

    ‘The sky is so huge it can reduce the pain of everyone,’ counselled Enrico.

    ‘You feel tiny and so do your problems. It is a tiny comfort for us to see the stars.’

    I hesitated, then went for it: I asked about how the two of them reconciled their love for science with religion.

    ‘Something was put it in motion,’ came Daniela’s reply.

    Although I was not collecting stamps in a passport on my Dante journey, Enrico gave me one along with a pretty star decoration that I would put upon my Christmas tree. 

    I was grateful beyond belief.

    Enrico walked with me the first kilometre to the Dante trail with his two dogs. At one point Cillian started barking in a frenzy and then, there it was, a deer! 

    Enrico identified it as a female as it had no horns.

    How wonderful. I’d only ever seen them in the wild in Salmon Lake in California. She skitted across the hills gracefully as if she were aboard my nephew’s pogo stick.

    It was nice to walk alongside Enrico. The family had two pilgrims expected that night and also a family who were returning. They had come last year during the cammino and were coming back to see the stars. I knew I’d also be back. Hopefully with my mum.

    There was the patch of woodland where he collected mushrooms, indicated Enrico.

    And here was the crest I would traverse today.

    At the crossroads, I turned left towards Florence and saluted Enrico. I put on my waterproofs and covered my bag thinking, suspiciously, that then it wouldn’t rain.

    I’d made the right decision to sleep a bit more. I would follow the crest and then descend into the valley of Marradi.

    I passed the church and I was back on the Cammino de Dante. A familiar cuckoo sung its heart out, seeking to attract the midday sun.

    I stopped to meditate on the view and sent my French friend Marie a Happy Birthday message. It had been too long since we’ve been in touch. 

    After 3 kilometres I stopped to dry the sweat off of my forehead. Had my face ever been this red? It had. At 15 I had been national karate champion and one of my unintentional tactics had been to scare the opponent with my red, sweaty face. Now my niece, at 12, was a green belt, taking on the mantle. It had been agonizing attending her recent karate competition. 

    ‘Don’t you dare cheer, Auntie Jenny.’ She’d warned.

    I’d had to put my hands in my mouth. As it was, she had come out with a gold and I had had a little happy cry in the carpark. 

    Kelsey sent me some videos from the lesbian conference she was attending in Rome. A gaggle of women were singing Bella Ciao and the chant, We Are All Antifascist!

    I thought back to singing Bella Ciao at my old school on one of the many occasions I had gone to visit to give talks to aspiring pupils. Lord Grey Could, went the motto. If I had got into Oxford, they would too. 

    I was relieved that my feet seemed OK. I would take it slowly and I had the delightful knowledge that, tonight, I would be staying at a pizzeria. 

    After an hour of walking, I stretched out my feet as my nurse mother had advised me (yes, she had practiced as both a geologist and a nurse). I was determined to avoid cramps today, ready for tomorrow’s epic hike. I had to make it to Florence, I had to. Now it was written in the stars.

    A guy passed on a mountain bike coming full force up the hill. I was impressed, I signalled.

    I reflected, as I walked, of how Enrico had told me that his daughter had done her thesis on the French writer, Flaubert. I had loved Madame Bovary. I thought about my relationship to France. When had Italy taken over as my soul place?

    I recalled the quote I loved so much from his famous novel,

    ‘Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.’

    La parole humaine est comme un chaudron fêlé où nous battons des mélodies à faire danser les ours, quand on voudrait attendrir les étoiles.

    And with that thought I realized I’d gone wrong. I went back up the hill, annoyed at the 10-minute detour.

    On the woodland path were mounds of excrement full of seeds. A broad-leaved anemone, neon pink, shot up from the verge.

    The puddles of sunlight on the path appeared briefly then disappeared again, a kaleidoscope of light.

    From a prairie, I descended to flat vertical rocks which looked like lava slipping down the hill.

    I ate some bread, cheese, and tzatziki in the tentative sunlight.

    There were three different types of purple flowers. A yellow butterfly with orange tips saluted me. An ant ran across my bag and a bee buzzed.

    The sun felt great on my skin, though I had left my moisturizer at a previous B&B. The bee who hovered around my lunch was a really fluffy light brown.

    The view of the Apennines was striking.

    I enjoyed the crunch of the crisps with the soft cheese and bread. The spectre of work was haunting me, but I tried to focus on the soft buzz of the flies.

    Oh, I could lie here in the sun all day.

    But I was only about halfway. The sun momentarily went in and I took my leave.

    I felt steady on my feet today, maybe tomorrow I’d be OK.

    After another 2 kilometres, I cracked open the pistachio nuts that I’d been lugging around. Then there were five cereal bars, and some trail mix, that had accompanied me from the start. I was wary of slipping on the hazardous vertical rocks and wanted to make sure that I was strong. I stuffed them into my mouth.

    Two bees were mating, tumbling over one another on the ground in a cartwheel of evolution.

    The shadow of the leaves decorated the rocks.

    I turned the corner, past an abandoned house, and rolled my socks down. My black leggings were calf length and the wind felt good against the inch of leg that was bared. Why on earth had I been heaving around two pairs of shorts, I wondered. Only one had even seen the light of day.

    I lightly twisted my ankle as I descended the uneven terrain which led to more derelict houses. These ones were for sale. I stopped again to massage my feet. A. black beetle crossed the path before me.

    I exited the woods into a panoramic landscape with 180 degree views of the beautiful rolling mountains. The sound of birdsong warmed my heart.

    Then, fuck.

    One of my hiking poles had got stuck in the mud and had broken half way down. The expandable mechanism had completely detached.

    I thought of what I had in my pack to repair it – the sellotape Alina had left me – nope, not strong enough. Some plasters? Again, too weak.

    I would have to continue today’s gentle walk with only one stick, but what on earth would I do tomorrow which was famously one of the most difficult days of the trail?

    I tried not to cry, recalling how when I was hiking with Alina for the first four days I hadn’t used them. And I’m quite sure Dante hadn’t had silicone hiking poles.

    I was now starting the descent. I used my one stick to navigate the hard tug of the mud.

    It was a steep rock path down and, without two sticks, my knees were taking the full thrust of the incline. There was a quarry to my right. I late some dark chocolate and listened to Romagna Mia on repeat to lift my mood.

    I was struck again by the ubiquity of white snail shells on the path. Were they made that way or had their shells been bleached like my hair which was ever more blonde with every day of the cammino?

    There was moss snuggled between slabs of rock.

    I pulled my socks back up to cover my legs as I traversed a patch of brambles. In the distance, I could see Marradi. There was still quite a descent.

    Without my pole I felt weak. It was like losing a limb. I’d been a four-legged insect this whole time. Perhaps at the B&B they’d have some superglue.

    I let a cyclist past and continued on my downwards route. The path had been reinforced by wooden logs like staggered steps. A thin arch was constructed at one junction which I found it impossible to fit through. I jumped the fence.

    And here was that hideous orange netting again, signaling a landslide.

    Now there were also troughs in the road to catch the water.

    I was nearly there.

    I walked sideways for the last bit. It was steep and treacherous, and I’d already fallen once today – the incident where I’d broken my trail stick. 

    Then a winding path led me into the town where I heard the hum of cars and the roar of the stream. There was a sign boldly featuring a lily – I was back in Tuscany, alright.

    Marradi was an old medieval city that had been decimated in 1616 by an earthquake. 1775 had heralded the start of its neoclassical architectural reconstruction.

    A house to my left was decorated with pretty succulents, stone sculptures and shells, and poetry was displayed upon the wall next to a sign that read,

    ‘Here live anti-fascists!’

    I thought of Kelsey at her conference and how I should make more of my front garden back home as a kind of public art exhibition. As it was, I had decorated it with some of my mosaics and a fuchsia or two.

    There was the smell of a plant I struggled to identify – it was sweet like grapes – and vegetable gardens were staggered to my right.

    One poem, by Bruno Baracani read:

    Good Day

    Good day to those who pass by
    This street to breathe the scents of
    Spring as if it were speaking.
    The air, in the shade of those leaves
    From the song of the birds makes
    Cheerful the day, the first
    Leaves turn from green, to yellow.
    In the middle the chestnuts fruit
    From the tree, and the first
    Petals white as roses
    Cover the ground, in that
    Magical splendor that the mountain breeds.
    I send you wishes of a good day in peace
    Of so much love that accompanies you.


    (April 2023).

    




    A second poem on the wall read: 
    




    




    

    War of 1915-1918, 100 years after
    




    




    From those mad minds, the wretched, 
    




    The crooked furrows, traffic jams
    




    More a light color, now, only
    




    Reddish waiting for life.
    




    In a macabre disaster
    




    Afloat with rotten leaves
    




    A gray-green dress brings with
    




    It the buds, most of which will bloom.
    




    Now a smoke stinks of the dead
    




    Acrid dirt, even if, the sharp mountains,
    




     Green pines snuggle between them.
    




    Grass is haggard, now to speak: a mute
    




    Silence, everything is quiet.
    




    Only the wind has the strength to whistle. 
    




    




    (October 2017).
    

    




    




    My phone battery died just as I was entering the town, so I plugged in my power bank. Pink blossom decorated the road like frosting on a cake.
    




    Tiny succulents sprouted from in between bricks. Someone had graffitied a smiley face onto an electricity box similar to those my dad would draw on my prominent mole as a child. A rosette on a door announced the birth of a boy child.
    




    




    As I passed the church, the stream ran into the river. A man was reading a book in the Square and a palm tree sprung from someone’s garden which was also decorated with Italian flags for Independence Day. It felt good to be in the city again and to see the Tuscan shield. 
    




    I stopped at a bar on the corner, Café Teatro. Reggaeton music was blaring. There was a gaggle of other walkers who were accompanied by a brown dog and a guy with a crystal around his neck and palm trees on his shirt. He was chatting to a girl with braids with gold beads, a belly button piercing and a miniskirt. She wore big gold hoop earrings and leather boots. They were drinking tequila shots. 
    




    




    I passed an opticians on my left and then climbed some steps to arrive at my destination, Pizzeria and B&B Le Scalelle.
    




    I rang the bell and waited five minutes but no one came. I tried phoning the number on the door. 
    




    ‘Arrivo!’
    




    Now, someone was coming.
    




    I watched a little boy with a helmet on playing with his scooter in the square. 
    




    Finally, Franco welcomed me and led me into a room which was filled with smoke from the fire he had just lit in the restaurant. Did I want a coffee? 
    




    




    My room was just by the toilets. So much, I thought, for an early night.
    




    Then here it came again, ‘Are you alone?’
    




    I’d caught the sun today. I wanted to buy some more sunblock  along with paracetamol for my foot cramps but the pharmacy was closed. Of course it was, it was a Friday.
    




    On a little wander, I discovered two ice cream shops. Oliver had sent me a message to enquire after my feet. He remembered then.
    




    That night, I ate a huge parmigiana pizza with fries. The waiter, Kevin, asked abount my laptop. His sister lived in England and he was a student of IT.
    




    I washed my socks and knickers in the bidet and put them to dry on the abundant heater for which I was glad. These kind of things had become extremely precious to me.
    




    I drank a bottle of fizzy water and used the special throat medication Kelsey had left me preventatively. 
    




    Tomorrow would be hard, but I would do it. I had to do it. 
    




    Before I went to bed I asked Franco to make me a sandwich for lunch the next day. 
    




    ‘Tuna and tomatoes is ok?’ he’d asked.
    




    ‘Could you also add some cheese,’ I’d responded.
    




    Fish and cheese, together, in Italy. What had I been thinking.
    




    And this was my last thought before, at 10pm, I fell into a deep, deep sleep.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    A Divided Sky: From Oriolo dei Fichi a Brisighella
    
			
    

    Today’s mix of sunshine and rain left me in a melancholy mood which was not alleviated by the hotel’s awful spa.
    




    




    I woke up to a horrible dream which put me on edge. And, typical: I’d left my mosquito repellant with Kelsey to offload some weight and now, in the night, they had assaulted me. It was my own fault – it was a balmy evening and I’d left the window open to hear the cicadas.

    I received news from Stefano and Donatella that Oliver’s memory was returning and shortly after he sent me a Whatsapp message. Thank God. 
    




    The aftershocks of yesterday’s drama were still hitting me. 
    




    The rain fell lightly on the vineyards surrounding the agriturismo, la Sabbiona, which had a swimming pool and children’s play area for the summer. There was a bench made of wooden crates from which you could enjoy them, though something like a large football net obscured the view.
    




    




    Over breakfast, I got chatting to Chris and Carey, a retired American engineer and teacher couple from Colorado who were vacationing in the region. We discussed Trump and their plans to keep travelling until his four-year reign was over. I thought of the schismatics and sewers of civil discord in Dante’s Inferno who are punished by having their body parts mutilated. 
    




    

    ‘Who, even with untrammeled words and many
    attempts at telling, ever could recount
    in full the blood and wounds that I now saw?…
    




    And then, were one to show his limb pierced through
    and one his limb hacked off, that would not match
    the hideousness of the ninth abyss.
    




    No barrel, even though it’s lost a hoop
    or end— piece, ever gapes as one whom I
    saw ripped right from his chin to where we fart:
    




    his bowels hung between his legs, one saw
    his vitals and the miserable sack
    that makes of what we swallow excrement.’
    

    




    The prophet Mohemmed shows his entrails to Dante and Virgil while on the left stands his son Ali, his head cleft from chin to forelock. Some other souls have their heads on backwards. That might be more suitable for Trump, I thought.
    




    Breakfast consisted of homemade juices – I chose raspberry and grape – that came in plastic cups (Italians really like their plastic cups) and a range of home-baked pastries. There were some pretty flowers in a little boxes set out on the table in a line. Perhaps there would be a wedding. I realized as this thought transpired that I was thinking in Italian – un matrimonio.

    I was eager to get back on the cammino after a couple of days of not walking but I was also tired. Yesterday had taken it out of me, even if I had slept all night. I had a headache and my stomach was playing up, so I took some paracetamol.
    




    




    As I set off, I was rewarded with the familiar sight of olive, rosemary and fruit trees. When I passed guard dogs, now I greeted them familiarly, converted by my experience in Forlí.

    The lizards were back and the thistles, poppies and sticky weed. Some wild verbena sprouted on the roadside. 
    




    A sign announced that we were in the land of ‘flavours and wine’.

    Once I’d passed the little church of Sant’Apollinare, which had been reconstructed in 1946 after bombardments in World War Two, I passed onto a dirt road where poems had been pinned upon the tree barks and lamposts. One called ‘crickets’ by Nino da Oriolo read:
    




    

    ‘In the red of evening
    




    The crickets serenade the moon
    




    In a row with elms they stand on top of the hill,
    




    They greet my day of work.
    




    I feel them close,
    




    They live in my land,
    




    They live in my sun,
    




    They feel my wind,
    




    We enjoy the pleasure of living.
    




    In silence they accompany me on my way.
    




    I am not alone, we are not alone.’
    

    




    




    I felt alone today, though now I had met Giordano, Marcello and Oliver, the guardians of the trail, I had a new appreciation for every marker on a tree or lamppost to which they had put their generous hands. I recalled how Giordano and his son both had strong, thick fingers like tree branches.
    




    I tried to religiously keep my feet dry as I navigated the mud which was embroidered with tractor tracks here and there. 
    




    Marco, who I had met at Fattoria Chiocce Romagnole, who had set off on the cammino from Ravenna, had written to warn me about the roads which were muddy and diverted in several places, and today, as I walked along, knocking over the daisies with the tip of my boot, I felt some comfort knowing that they had walked before me here.
    




    




    The path weaved in and out of the vines. A butterfly decorated some dog excrement and a man ate a brioche on a stationary tractor by the side of the road. The sun was strong up in the sky. 
    




    An explosion of poppies lined the margins of the path making me think back to the schismatics and of war. 
    




    My feet felt surprisingly OK. My shoes had fully dried out and I’d applied blister plasters preemptively before setting off. The wounds on the top of my toes had hardened into scabs. 
    




    It seemed like the world and his wife were mowing their lawns today in Oriolo. From everywhere emanated the smell of freshly cut grass. 
    




    




    A message from Kelsey arrived to say that the UN Lesbian March she had been organizing for this coming Saturday had been cancelled because some 250,000 people, including Trump, were expected to descend on Rome for Pope Frances’ funeral. Even from the grave it seemed he had it in for the gays. 
    




    I missed Kelsey. 
    




    Back on the tarmac, there appeared a pretty terracotta farmhouse to my right the colour of my bathroom and huge thistles the size of small children lined the road. 
    




    After an hour, I stopped for a caffé macchiato at Manueli restaurant which featured pretty frescos on the walls. My back was already sweating into my t-shirt. I contemplated stopping to write awhile but decided to continue on. Writing and walking had come to be, for me, one and the same. 
    




    




    I crossed the river Manogue and spied a lizard that had been run over. Its skin and guts were spilled out onto the pavement. It was an iridescent hue, green and blue, like an oil spill.
    




    A dusty blue Fiat Panda sped past and a lady in a straw hat who was cultivating romagnole artichokes wished me a buon cammino. 
    




    Everything in this region is ‘Romagnole’ – there’s a deep sense of pride. 
    




    A peacock strutted across the road next to a tractor as I passed over another river following the Via della Uccellina – the path of the little bird. 
    




    




    I looked back at the city of Faenza from where puffs of industrial smoke rose into the sky, merging with the clouds which were pooling grey and white. I’d visited Faenza with my Reading Dante with Refugees class and remembered vividly Sahra dancing on the stage of the spectacular theatre. I pinged her a message to see how she was getting on.
    




    It was relatively flat on the path though I was surrounded by undulating hills. The landscape reminded me somewhat of Le Marche where I had spent several summers at my friend Harriet’s house enjoying quality time with University friends. 
    




    I listened to some gentle Indie rock as I sweated under the midday sun.
    




    A big white car pulled out of physiotherapist’s office which I found  odd to be located in the middle of the countryside. 
    




    The livid poppies made it look like the hill was aflame.

    The trees were embracing one another on either side of the path to make a tunnel.
    




    




    As Brisighella came into view before me, there were quite a few cars on the road. 
    




    Pink, yellow and purple irises bloomed from a garden to my right. I felt the rub of the end of my second toes inside my boots. 

    Throughout history, different cultures have attached meaning to the length of toes, including the second toe. The Greeks, known for their appreciation of beauty and mathematical harmony, considered a longer second toe, also known as Morton’s toe, as an aesthetic ideal. Greek sculptures, such as the Venus de Milo, often depicted figures with Morton’s toe, further perpetuating its cultural significance. French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi studied Greek and Roman sculptures, which resulted in the Statue of Liberty’s longer second toe.
    




    




    As the mountains came into view beneath a purple sky which was heavy with rain, I thought again of items I could get rid of before the climb ahead. My hoody perhaps? Or my deodorant?

    Olive trees marked the perimeter of the vineyard and a familiar cuckoo sounded out.

    I stubbed my swollen toes on a crack in the road and stopped for lunch, looking back over Faenza and forward towards the towering peaks. I bit into a blood orange which burst in an ecstasy of sugar in my mouth. I was tired and I wanted to take a nap but the rain was coming, so on I went. The sky was divided in two: here in front it was dark and brooding, the colour of a whale; there behind me it was light, the colour of delphiniums. 

    As I continued, the road collapsed down to the left. The hills were cut with ridges and valleys like slices of an apple. 
    




    




    A blackbird sang out and the leaves on the trees began to rustle in the light wind.
    




    I had come to recognize the smell of oncoming rain. The butterflies had disappeared and, was that thunder I heard in the distance?
    




    The overcast sky made the hillside look emerald green rather than the more vibrant pea green of earlier in the day. A ruined brick house emerged from among the foliage.
    




    After about ten minutes of walking downhill, I realized I had missed a turning but I decided to proceed down the road along via Carla. I would pick up the trail later on.
    




    I stopped to cover my backpack at the touch of the first drops of rain, outside a house with peppermint green shutters. A huge beetle crossed in front of me and my phone pinged with the offer of a discount from a takeaway back home.
    




    




    At a junction where there was a Cammino de Dante sign, I stopped briefly to converse with a woman called Stefania who was pruning her roses. She greeted me warmly and I petted her dog, Pepe. She said I was the first person she’d seen pass this year. A man in overalls asked me if I’d come from England to salute the Pope.
    




    ‘I’ll let you go before the rain comes down any stronger,’ she said, ‘do you need anything, water?’
    




    She was particularly impressed that I was tackling the cammino alone as a woman.
    




    ‘You must have strong legs and a strong will!’ she said. 
    




    A bonfire in a farm to the right reminded me of one of my favourite Italian books, La luna e i Falò (The Moon and the Bonfires) by Cesare Pavese.
    




    ‘We all need a homeland,’ reads one line, ‘if only for the pleasure to leave it.’
    




    A tractor on the right was mowing in between the vines and the rain was starting to hit hard. I was rushing, trying to arrive at my destination, which was suitably called Modus Acquae, for a four o’clock zoom meeting.
    




    An impressive railway bridge on the right marked my entry into the city along with some tennis courts and recycling bins. 
    




    




    The river Lamone was opaque and surprisingly low given recent rainfall.
    




    I passed beneath the railway bridge and by some apartments with pretty flowers on the balcony and decorative windmills spinning in the breeze.
    




    A billboard advertised a pork festival, another steel sign announced that I’d arrived in the city of olive oil. The town sat in a nest of hills.
    




    I popped into a big Conrad supermarket to stock up on dinner and lunch for tomorrow and giggled at the significant section of Italian Mills and Boon novels which had titles including ‘The Seduction of Fire’ and ‘Undeniable Alchemy’. I treated myself to some smoked salmon, strawberries and dark chocolate.
    




    




    I made it just in time for my meeting with five minutes spare to untie my braids for a more formal look. It was about the presentation of some research on asylum appeals to the English judiciary. As part of the project, I’d observed 100 asylum appeals – an experience that had left me with a profound sense of moral injury at the injustice of it all. 
    




    After the meeting, I visited the hotel’s spa which had nothing on my blissful experience at the Hotel Granduca in Campigna. In fact, it was pretty awful. The view encompassed some orange tape, a ping-pong table and some camper vans that were stationed in the car park. The sauna was tepid at best and only one of the three jacuzzi functions worked. 
    




    




    Back in my room, I peeled the blister plasters off my socks into which they had unhelpfully melted and took a Coke Zero from the mini bar. There was no question about it, I was going to lose my second toenails from the rub, rub, rub of my boots. 
    




    The rain bounced off the cover of the swimming pool and an ant scurried across my balcony to find shelter. I would have to email my local book group to let them know I would miss tomorrow’s session on Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a migratory novel that I’d loved. 
    




    I felt a bit lonely as the rain stopped and the evening sunlight poured into my room. I looked out into the courtyard at an abandoned skateboard and starkly pruned tree. A Spanish girl in a princess crown was showing another how to ride a bike,
    




    ‘Go, Maria, go!’
    




    I checked my phone to see a message from Alina and another from Oliver. Alina’s news was bad: her mother’s house in Ukraine had been hit by shelling. The news from Oliver was good: he had been discharged from hospital and was finally home.