The girls were bored by Pompeii — except for the corpses in glass display cases. I was overcome with a strange sadness when it occurred to me that well into the first century BCE, in a town colonised by Greeks, Greek was the preferred language. Former Roman legionnaires had donated money to build an amphitheatre. Bit by bit, gladiator games replaced performances of tragedies. Although the Greeks were no less brutal in war than the Romans, you still had an inkling of how everyday life can undergo such brutalisation in just one lifespan. The reconstructed amphitheatre was closed; bars now blocked the entrances through which those doomed to die had been forced inside. It stank. It seemed to me an eternal stench, as if the fear of death had lived on, had seeped into the stones along with the urine and shit.

Vesuvius stood out clearly against the afternoon sky. What would we do if it suddenly erupted? I wondered if Ralf would lend us a hand as he had in the metro the day before. And what about us? Would we leave him behind injured, just so we could save the girls and ourselves? And what was that moment like, when — with the children in our arms — we understood that there was no escape? I thought about the scene in Kill Bill where Uma Thurman is buried alive and still manages to work her way out of the coffin and back to the surface. Even though I knew better, I couldn't imagine our fate to be any different: we too would dig our way up and out, over and over again.

We had crossed paths with a group of young Japanese women several times, the last time, just as dusk was falling, in the Villa dei Misteri. The mural was painted in perspective, but with the focal point shifted slightly off-centre, lending it a modernity that provoked our speculations. What would have been lost to us if this art had not adorned one of the few intact houses of a provincial backwater? One of the Japanese girls entered the room, cast a glance at the mural, and vanished again. I couldn't control myself. "There is nothing better than this," I shouted in English and ran after her a few steps. Whether her vacation was short or long, she would not see art like this. "Look into the eyes of these women," I wanted to say, "look at these gestures, the raised arms and the little basins in their hands. Doesn't it seem as if that were only yesterday?"

The Japanese woman turned around in fright, hesitated briefly. I waved for her to come back, but she scampered away like a nymph fleeing Pan.

Natalia proposed that it would be charming to go on a trip that left out all the major sights, as Roussel is said to have done, who let himself be driven everywhere, but never left the car, not even in Egypt, just pulled the window curtain back a bit. I said that I didn't see anything charming about that, not really. Ralf evidently didn't know which side to take. But suddenly, for no obvious reason, he spread his arms wide, traced circles with his hands, and began to dance in small steps across the stone floor in front of the barrier. With eyes closed, he slowly raised his arms, his fingers intertwined, his head nestled first against one shoulder, then the other, once even pressed to his bicep. Then he snapped his fingers and did a couple of spins, arms outstretched at his side and making snaky motions.

His dance lasted no longer than 30 seconds. After a final tippety-tap with his feet, he opened his eyes again.

"Where did you learn that?" Natalia asked. "At the beach," he said, "last summer."

Not even the girls could talk Ralf into a repeat performance, but he promised to dance with them in our hotel room.

Nothing came of that, however, because after we returned home, he said goodbye and took off to see something of the city.