O'Rourke turned the motorcycle around and drove back into the city. It was already early afternoon and Kate's stomach was growling. She had eaten no real breakfast and she could remember only a few spoonfuls of soup the night before.

There were bread shops along this main street of Bulevardul Pacii, but they were empty and had been since seven A.M. Aggressive streetcars, ignoring other traffic, made O'Rourke swerve across uneven brick and cracked asphalt, and Kate thought that the sidecar was going to flip over more than once: She saw a truckers' restaurant open near the railroad tracks and pointed it out to the priest. Once in the parking lot, with the motorcycle engine quieted, O'Rourke took off his flying helmet and rubbed a sweaty forehead.

“Do we dare go in?” asked Kate.

“If you're as hungry as I am, you'll dare,” said O'Rourke. They left their goggles and his helmet in the sidecar and went inside.

The space was cavernous, cold, and filled with smoke from a hundred cigarettes. Waiters hurried from table to table, carrying large bottles of beer. Each trucker had half a dozen empty beer bottles in front of him and seemed intent upon ordering half a dozen more.

“Why so many at once?” whispered Kate as they found a table near the kitchen.

O'Rourke smiled. Kate noticed for the first time that he had removed his Roman collar and was wearing just a dark shirt and pants under the heavy wool coat. “They're afraid the place will run out of beer,” he said. “And they will before dinnertime.” He tried to wave down a waiter but the men in dark vests and grimy white shirts ignored him. Finally the priest stood and planted himself in front of one of the hurrying men.

“Datine supa, va rog,” said O'Rourke. Kate's stomach rumbled at the thought of a large bowl of soup.

The waiter shook his head. “Nu . . .” He snapped off an angry string of syllables, obviously expecting O'Rourke to move aside. He did not.

“Mititei? Brinzd? Cirnafi?” asked the priest.

As nervous as Kate was, her mouth watered at the thought of sausage and cheese.

“Nu!” The waiter glared at them. “American?”

Kate stood and took a twenty-dollar bill from her purse.

“Ne puteti servi mai repede, va rog, ne grabim!”

The waiter reached for the bill. Kate folded it back between her fingers. “When we get the food,” she said. “Mititei. Brinzd. Salam. Pastrama.”

The waiter glared again but disappeared into the kitchen. O'Rourke and Kate stood until he returned. Truck drivers stared at them.

“Nothing like being inconspicuous,” whispered the priest.

Kate sighed. “Would you rather we starved?”

The waiter returned with a less surly manner and a greasy white bag. Kate looked in, saw the wrapped sausages, stuffed eggs, and slices of salami. He reached for the twenty dollars again but Kate held up one finger. “Bduturd?” she said. “Something to drink?”

The waiter looked pained.

“Niste apd,” said Kate. “Apa minerals.”

The waiter, nodded tiredly and looked at O'Rourke. “Beer,” said the priest.

The waiter returned a minute later with two large bottles of mineral water and three bottles of beer. He obviously wanted the transaction to be over. O'Rourke took the bottles; the waiter took the twenty-dollar bill. The truckers resumed their conversations.

Outside, it was drizzling again. Kate stuffed the food and bottles under the cowl of the sidecar. O'Rourke was out on the street and headed east in a minute. “I don't know what to do except head back into town,” he shouted.

Kate was watching the trolley and train tracks that ran parallel to the road here. There were graveled ruts running alongside them. “The tracks run west here!” she shouted and pointed.

O'Rourke understood immediately. He wheeled the motorcycle in front of an oncoming streetcar, bounced across a curb, pounded across a littered field, and swerved onto the graveled track. In a minute they were echoing between the backs of Stalinist apartment buildings. The priest tried to avoid the broken bottles and jagged bits of metal along the track.

Near the edge of town, the graveled path turned to mud and then died out altogether. “Hang on!” shouted O'Rourke and jerked the motorcycle up onto a crossing, then down onto the railroad ties. Kate's sidecar hung over the rail.

They bounced along for three or four miles, Kate sure every inch of the way that her fillings were going to vibrate out. She could not imagine how O'Rourke could see; her own vision was a vibrating triple image dulled by the goggles and drizzle. “What if a train comes?” she shouted as they passed the last of the outlying peasant homes. Only a few old men in their gardens had looked up.

“We die!” O'Rourke shouted back.

Five miles out of the city and at least three miles beyond the roadblock, they stopped at a junction with a muddy dirt road that led north and south. Ahead of them, around a thick copse of trees, a train's whistle seemed very loud.

“Guess we get off here,” said O'Rourke and swung north on the road. The track was muddy and Kate had to get out and push twice before they reached a junction with Highway E 70, running northwest like an abandoned and unpatched Interstate. It seemed like a century since O'Rourke had driven her to Pitesti along this road to see the babybuying in action last May.

There were no police cars on the westbound lane. They saw no black Mercedes when they switched to a narrow and bumpy Highway 72 beyond the large village of Gaesti. The sign said TIRGOVI~TE 30 KM.

No longer speaking above the engine roar, Kate's head throbbing from the beating along the railroad tracks, they drove north toward the mountains and the gathering dark.

They stopped to eat along the Dimbovita River, less than ten kilometers from Tirgoviste. Highway 72 was narrow, winding, and unencumbered by villages larger than a few modest homes tucked next to the road. O'Rourke parked the motorcycle deep under the trees, near the slowmoving river. The cheese was sharp, the sausage old, and the oua umpluti the stuffed eggsstuffed with something neither of them recognized. The meal was one of the most delicious Kate could ever remember, and she drank straight from the mineral water bottle to wash it down. The rain had stopped, and although the sun showed no sign of coming out, it seemed warmer than it had been in days. Kate found bits of her clothing that were actually dry.

“Your Romanian seems to have worked back at the restaurant,” said O'Rourke. He seemed to be savoring the beer.

Kate licked her fingers. “Basic survival tactics last spring. Not all my meals were at the hospital restaurant.” She paused before attacking her last bit of stuffed egg. “I hope those truckers were at the end of their haul rather than the beginning. “

O'Rourke nodded. “The beer, you mean? Yes. Well, driving sober is a rarity in this country.” He glanced at his own almostempty bottle. “I guess I'll stop with one.”

Kate took off her scarf. “You said `shit' twice today and now you're swilling beer. Hardly the behavior of a proper priest. “

Instead of laughing, O'Rourke looked out at the river. His eyes were a lustrous gray and in that second Kate caught a glimpse of the handsome boy in the tired and bearded face of the man. “It's been a long time,” he said, “since I was a proper priest.”

Kate hesitated, embarrassed.

“If the Romanian trip hadn't come up two years ago, putting me in touch with the orphan problem here,” he went .on, “I would have resigned then.” He took another drink.

“That sounds funny,” Kate said. “The word `resigned,' I mean. One doesn't think of priests resigning.”

O'Rourke nodded slightly, but kept his eyes on the river.

“Why would you leave the priesthood?” Kate said very softly. There was no traffic on the road and the river made little noise.

O'Rourke spread his fingers and Kate realized how large and strong his hands looked. “The usual reason,” he said. “Inability to suspend one's' disbelief. “ He lifted a stick and drew geometric shapes in the soft loam.