She didn't tell me who they were. She didn't tell me why they considered her a target, or what they planned to do with her if they caught her. I didn't ask. I should've asked her, of course.

It would've saved me a lot of trouble. In the long run, it mightVe saved a life or two. But I wasn't really interested in Ulla. I wanted to know about Karla.

"She's in Goa," Ulla said, when we'd checked her out of her hotel.

"Where in Goa?"

"I don't know. One of the beaches."

"There's a lot of beaches in Goa, Ulla."

"I know, I know," she whined, flinching at my irritated tone.

"You said you know where she is."

"I do. She's in Goa. I know she's in Goa. She wrote to me, from Mapusa. I got her last letter only yesterday. She's somewhere near Mapusa."

I relaxed a little. We loaded her belongings into the waiting cab, and I gave the driver directions to Abdullah's apartment in Breach Candy. I checked the streets around us carefully, and was fairly sure that we weren't being watched. When the cab moved off I sat back in silence for a while, watching the dark streets run in the window.

"Why did she leave?"

"I don't know."

"She must've said something to you. She's a talkative girl."

Ulla laughed.

"She didn't say to me anything about leaving. If you want to know what I think, I am in the opinion that she left because of you."

My love for Karla cringed at the thought. My vanity preened itself in the flattery. I smothered the conflict in a harsher tone.

"There must be more to it. Was she afraid of something?"

Ulla laughed again.

"Karla's not afraid of anything."

"Everyone's afraid of something."

"What are you afraid of, Lin?"

I turned, slowly, to stare at her, searching in the faint light for some hint of spite, some hidden meaning or allusion in the question.

"What happened on the night you were supposed to meet me at Leopold's?" I asked her. "I couldn't make it that night. I was prevented from coming there. Modena, him and Maurizio, they changed their plans at the last minute, and they stopped me."

"I seem to recall that you wanted me there because you didn't trust them."

"That's true. Well, I trust Modena, you know, kind of, but he is not strong against Maurizio. He can't stay in his own mind, when Maurizio tells him what to do."

"That still doesn't explain it," I grumbled.

"I know," she sighed, clearly upset. "I'm trying to explain it.

Maurizio, he had a deal planned-well, actually, he had a rip-off planned-and I was the one in the middle. Maurizio was using me because the men he was planning to steal money from, they liked me, and they kind of trusted me, you know how it is."

"Yeah, I know how it is."

"Oh, please, Lin, it wasn't my fault that I wasn't there that night. They wanted me to meet the customers, alone. I was afraid of those men, because I knew what Maurizio was planning to do, and that's why I asked you to be with me, as my friend. Then, they changed their plans and we had the meeting all together, in another place, and I couldn't get away to let you know about it.

I tried to find you the next day, to explain to you and make an apology, but... you were gone. I looked everywhere, I promise you I did. I was very sorry that I didn't go there to meet you at Leopold's, like I promised you that night."

"When did you find out that I was in jail?"

"After you got out. I saw Didier, and he told me that you looked terrible. That was the first thing that I... just a moment... do you... do you think _I had something to do with you going in the prison? Is that what you think?"

I held the stare for a few seconds before replying.

"Did you?"

"Oh, fuck! Oh, God!" she moaned, creasing her lovely face in miserable distress. She rocked her head from side to side swiftly, as if trying to prevent a thought or feeling from taking root. "Stop the car! Driver! Band karo! Abi, abi! Band karo!"

Now, now! Stop!

The cab driver pulled over to the pavement beside a row of shuttered shops. The street was deserted. He switched off the cab, and watched us in his rear-vision mirror. Ulla tried to wrestle open the door. She was crying. In her agitation, she jammed the door handle, and the door wouldn't open.

"Take it easy," I said, prizing her hands gently from the handle and holding them in my own. "It's okay. Take it easy."

"Nothing's okay," she sobbed. "I don't know how we got in this mess. Modena, he's not good at business. They messed everything up, him and Maurizio. They were cheating a lot of people, you know, and they just were always getting away with it. But not with these guys. They're different. I'm so scared. I don't know what to do. They're going to kill us. All of us. And you think I put the police on you? For what reason, Lin? Do you think I am such a person? Am I so bad that you can think such a thing about me? What do you think I am?"

I reached across to open the door. She stepped out, and leaned against the side of the car. I got out and joined her. She was trembling and sobbing. I held her in my arms until she cried it out.

"It's okay, Ulla. I don't think you had anything to do with it. I didn't ever think you did-not really-not even when you weren't there, at Leopold's that night. Asking you... it was just a way of closing a door on it. It's just something I had to ask. Do you understand?"

She looked up into my face. Streetlights arced in her large, blue eyes. Her mouth was slack with exhaustion and fear, but her eyes were drawn to a distant, ineradicable hope.

"You really love her, don't you?"

"Yes."

"That's good," she said dreamily, wistfully, looking away. "Love is a good thing. And Karla-she needs love, very much. Modena loves me too, you know. He really and truly loves me..."

She drifted in that reverie for a few moments and then snapped her head back to stare at me. Her hands gripped my arms as I held her.

"You'll find her. Start at Mapusa, and you'll find her. She will stay in Goa for some little time yet. She told me so, in her letter. She is somewhere exactly on the beach. In her letter she told me she can see the ocean from her front door. Go there, Lin, and find her. Look for her, and find her. There is only love, you know, in the whole world. There is only love..."

And they remained with me, Ulla's tears, swarming with light, until they dissolved in the glittering, moonlit sea off the ferry. And her words, there is only love, passed like prayer-bead wishes on a thread of possibility as the music and laughter crashed around me.

When the light on that long night became the dawn, and the ferry docked at the Goan capital of Panjim, I was the first to board a bus to Mapusa. The fifteen-kilometre journey from Panjim to Mapusa, pronounced as Muppsa, wound through lush, leafy groves, past mansions built to the styles and tastes of four hundred years of Portuguese colonial rule. Mapusa was a transportation and communication centre for the northern region of Goa. I arrived on a Friday, market day, and the morning crowds were already busy with business and bargains. I made my way to the taxi and motorcycle stands. After a bout of bartering that invoked an august assembly of deities from at least three religions, and incorporated spirited, carnal references to the sisters of our respective friends and acquantainces, a dealer agreed to hire out an Enfield Bullet motorcycle for a reasonable rental. I paid a bond and a week's rent in advance, kick-started the bike, and set off through the market's maul toward the beaches.

The Enfield of India 350cc Bullet was a single-cylinder, four stroke motorcycle, constructed to the plans of the original 1950s' model of the British Royal Enfield. Renowned for its idiosyncratic handling as much as for its reliability and durability, the Bullet was a bike that demanded a relationship with its rider. That relationship involved tolerance, patience, and understanding on the part of the rider. In exchange, the Bullet provided the kind of soaring, celestial, wind-weaving pleasure that birds must know, punctuated by not infrequent near death experiences.