I think of Baldwin arriving on the Left Bank with virtually nothing, just after the war, and how almost immediately he fell gravely ill. He lay in his grim hotel room and might have died if the Corsican woman who owned it had not decided to nurse him; to climb the stairs each day and make sure that he had food, that he was still alive.

“I cut out the crown of the pomegranate, and then score along the fruit’s five ridges before pulling the six bloody pieces apart. The rind and pith goes into the white bowl, and the seeds collect into the blue.”