I first saw her sitting outside a local wine bar, listening to a couple playing the guitar and singing duets. The waitor was attendong to her and making sure she had enough water, but she did not appear to be drinking wine.

She was wearing linen trousers and a white blouse with embroidered flowers. Sitting by herself on a simple chair in the doorway, the other guests were placed in groups against the building opposite her, sipping their wines and enjoying the music.

I watched her from my seat across the alley. I felt some kinship with her, since we seemed to be the only ones there on our own.

She must have been somewhere in her seventies, or maybe eighties. With perfect posture and parts of her face hidden below a hat, it was hard to tell.

The couple finished their song, and the audience applauded. They spoke in italian, and must have said it was their last one, since people started leaving.

I stayed around for a bit, enjoying the rest of my wine and the mood of a late night among strangers in a country much warmer than my own.

My solitude was broken by the women speaking to me, in Italian. She gestured for me to join her, so I pulled my chair up besides her.

The waitor appeared in time to translate. Her name is Valentina, he said. But everybody calls her Nina.

I noticed you sitting alone, she said, by way of the waitor translating. I could see how much you were enjoying the music on your own, he translated. Like me, she said, my minimal grasp of Italian saving the waitor from having to translate.

Most of the other guests had left by then. But she wanted to know more about me. Where I was from. Was I travelling alone. She seemed to genuinely care.

Our short encounter must have been more interaction than she was used to, because suddenly Nina started getting up from her chair and said it was lovely to meet, but that she had to get home.

I thanked her. She kissed my cheeks goodbye and turned around, walking calmly away, down the cobblestoned street.