Chapter 2, In Near Ruins Summary

Caravaggio is in a hospital in Rome. Caravaggio overhears some doctors talking about a woman who has insisted on staying behind at an abandoned field hospital with a patient. When Caravaggio asks about this woman, he learns that the other doctors and nurses think she is insane, that the patient could have been moved despite her insistence that he could not, and that she had basically deserted her duties by staying. Caravaggio learns exactly where she is and decides he must go to her. Caravaggio arrives at Villa San Girolamo, and Hana is surprised to see this old friend of her father's, but she does not send him away.

Caravaggio has lost both his thumbs. Slowly, over a number of visits, Caravaggio tells Hana about how this has happened. Caravaggio worked for the British Intelligence, stealing for...