religion have little power in a world a power politics and nationalism, but within the villa, with no formal religious ties, it can still be a healing place where the characters seek redemption through simply helping others. This is certainly the case for Hana who dedicates herself to the dying English patient, while Caravaggio also overcomes his hatred and plans of revenge, finally accepting the English patient as no longer responsible for the torture he suffered. Hana and Kip also find love here and it is only events in the outside world, so momentous as the dropping of the atomic bomb that separates them. Another important aspect of the villa is that it had long lost the divisions, the borders that separated one room from another or the inside from the outside. In many ways the villa and the garden flowed into one another - 'There seemed little demarcation between house and landscape, between damaged building and the burned and shelled remains of the earth. To Hana the wild gardens were like further rooms.' (43 ) This suggests metaphorically that unlike the outside world where nationalities are divided up according to border lines the Villa San Girolama is a place free of these impositions and all the characters are finally able to transcend their constructed national identities. The other important setting in the novel is the desert. Unlike Europe it had no borders and was a place where one could lose all notions of identity and nationality. According to the