When I recently read a letter from Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini to Umberto Eco, I was reminded of Jon. I knew him thirty years ago.

He was someone who always had a knife tucked in his belt. Almost every night he would drop by Sarini’s food stall, her portable rice baskets sandwiched between six flower stalls, near the unused railway line and a near-black river. "My name’s Jon", he said.

His hair was disheveled, his moustac