Summary

The next morning after the shared meal, in the hotel lobby, waiting for a bus to take them to the day’s events, a man named Eduardo – another participant in the literary festival – told Faye a story about friends of his, who had driven to Italy from their home, in Holland, with the help of a G.P.S. unit. On their return trip, their G.P.S. wasn’t working, and they realized suddenly that they were lost. He then started to discuss the weather – it was a strangely cloudy day – and noted that the unsettled quality of the day would be good for his son, who was a surfer. He explained to Faye that his children were different from himself, that they have “no more ambition than a colony of seals…who go where the forces of nature direct them,” in...