Caravaggio slips the book out of the man's hands.

"When you crashed in the desert--where were you flying from?"
"I was leaving the Gilf Kebir. I had gone there to collect someone. In late August. Nineteen forty-two."
"During the war? Everyone must have left by then."
"Yes. There were just armies."
"The Gilf Kebir."
"Yes."
"Where is it?"
"Give me the Kipling book . . . here."

On the frontispiece of Kim was a map with a dotted line for the path the boy and the Holy One took. It showed just a portion of India--a darkly cross-hatched Afghanistan, and Kashmir in the lap of the mountains.

He traces his black hand along the Numi River till it enters the sea at 23 30 latitude. He continues sliding his finger seven inches west, off the page, onto his chest; he touches his rib.

"Here. The Gilf Kebir, just north of the Tropic of Cancer. On the Egyptian--Libyan border."

-- Excerpt from The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.