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Gazing at him, the student ground his teeth in remembrance. He was tempted quickly to hide, and unobserved, observe the thief; but his impatience, after the long unhappy search, was too much for him. With controlled trepidation he approached Susskind on his left as the refugee was busily engaged on the right, urging a sale of beads upon a woman drenched in black.
    “Beads, rosaries, say your prayers with holy beads.”
    “Greetings, Susskind,” Fidelman said, coming shakily down the stairs, dissembling the Unified Man, all peace and contentment. “One looks for you everywhere and finds you here. Wie gehts?”
    Susskind, though his eyes flickered, showed no surprise to speak of. For a moment his expression seemed to say he had no idea who was this, had forgotten Fidelman’s existence, but then at last remembered—
somebody long ago from another country, whom you smiled on, then forgot.
    “Still here?” he perhaps ironically joked.
    “Still.” Fidelman was embarrassed at his voice slipping.
    “Rome holds you?”
    “Rome,” faltered the student, “—the air.” He breathed deep and exhaled with emotion.
    Noticing the refugee was not truly attentive, his eyes roving upon potential customers, Fidelman, girding himself, remarked, “By the way, Susskind, you didn’t happen to notice—did you?—the brief case I was carrying with me around the time we met in September?”
    “Brief case—what kind?” This he said absently, his eyes on the church doors.
    “Pigskin. I had in it—” here Fidelman’s voice could be heard cracking, “—a chapter of a critical work on Giotto I was writing. You know, I’m sure, the Trecento painter?”
    “Who doesn’t know Giotto?”
    “Do you happen to recall whether you saw, if, that is—” He stopped, at a loss for words other than accusatory.
    “Excuse me—business.” Susskind broke away and bounced up the steps two at a time. A man he approached shied away. He had beads, didn’t need others.
    Fidelman. had followed the refugee. “Reward,” he muttered up close to his ear. “Fifteen thousand for
the chapter, and who has it can keep the brand-new brief case. That’s his business, no questions asked. Fair enough?”
    Susskind spied a lady tourist, including camera and guide book. “Beads—holy beads.” He held up both handsful, but she was just a Lutheran passing through.
    “Slow today,” Susskind complained as they walked down the stairs, “but maybe it’s the items. Everybody has the same. If I had some big ceramics of the Holy Mother, they go like hot cakes—a good investment for somebody with a little cash.”
    “Use the reward for that,” Fidelman cagily whispered, “buy Holy Mothers.”
    If he heard, Susskind gave no sign. At the sight of a family of nine emerging from the main portal above, the refugee, calling addio over his shoulder, fairly flew up the steps. But Fidelman uttered no response. I’ll get the rat yet. He went off to hide behind a high fountain in the square. But the flying spume raised by the wind wet him, so he retreated behind a massive column and peeked out at short intervals to keep the peddler in sight.
    At two o’clock, when St. Peter’s closed to visitors, Susskind dumped his goods into his raincoat pockets and locked up shop. Fidelman followed him all the way home, indeed the ghetto, although along a street he had not consciously been on before, which led into an alley where the refugee pulled open a left-handed door, and without transition, was “home.” Fidelman,
sneaking up close, caught a dim glimpse of an overgrown closet containing bed and table. He found no address on wall or door, nor, to his surprise, any door lock. This for a moment depressed him. It meant Susskind had nothing worth stealing. Of his own, that is. The student promised himself to return tomorrow, when the occupant was elsewhere.
    Return he did, in the morning, while the entrepreneur was out selling religious articles, glanced around once and was