"And Suukmel still lives?" Emilio asked, knowing this would be Rukuei’s first question.

"Yes," said Patras, "as of four years ago, at least."

"And the music? On Rakhat?"

"There are disputes over adding lyrics to it," Patras told him. "I suppose that was inevitable."

"Has anyone asked Isaac what he thinks about that?"

"Yes. He said, ’That’s Rukuei’s problem.’ Isaac is studying library files on South American nematodes now," Patras reported dryly. "Nobody has the faintest idea why."

Sandoz asked more questions, received thorough answers, and agreed that it sounded as though everything was under control.

"Thank you," Patras said, gratified by the recognition. He had, in fact, worked himself to exhaustion trying to make things right. "Let me show you the rooms we’ve prepared for Mr. Kitheri," he suggested, and led the way down a toroidal accessway. "As soon as you’ve gotten some rest, the Mother General would like to speak with you—"

"Excuse me?" Sandoz said, coming to a halt. "The Mother General?" He snorted. "You’re joking!"

Patras, already a few steps down the hall, turned back, brows up curiously: Is there a problem? Sandoz stared at him, dumbfounded.

"Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I am joking," Patras said then, delighted when Sandoz burst into laughter.

"You know, it’s not nice to tease old people," Emilio told him as they resumed their walk. "How long have you been waiting to use that line?"

"Fifteen years. I have a Ph.D. from Ganesh Man Singh University— mission history, with an emphasis on Rakhat. You were my thesis topic."

For the next few hours, they concentrated on the process of introducing Rukuei to new companions and new surroundings. In the press of duties, personal considerations were laid aside, but before the end of that long first day, Emilio Sandoz said to Patras Yalamber Tamang, "There was a woman—"

Inquiries followed; databases were searched. She had, evidently, remarried, changed her surname; had shunned publicity and lived as private a life as wealth could buy and guilt enforce. It was remarkably difficult to find even a minimal actuarial mention of her.

"I am so very sorry," Patras told him weeks later. "She passed away last year."

ARIANA FIOR HAD ALWAYS ENJOYED THE DAY OF THE DEAD. SHE LIKED the cemetery, tidy and rectilinear, with its stone paths freshly swept between rows and rows of high-walled burial niches—an island of grace amid the noise of Naples. The vaults themselves, stacked six high, were always brushed and dustless on November first, golden in autumnal sunlight or gleaming in silvery rain. She was an archaeologist, accustomed to the presence of the dead, and savored this orderliness, taking pleasure in the sharp scent of chrysanthemums mingling with the deeper musk of fallen leaves.

Some of the loculi were simple: a polished brass plaque with a name and dates, the tiny luminos kept burning for a time after the death. The proud and the prosperous often added a small screen that could be activated with a touch, and she’d have liked to go from vault to vault, meeting the inhabitants, hearing about their lives, but resisted the impulse.

All around her, there were low voices and the crunch of footsteps on gravel paths. "Poveretto," she heard now and then, as flowers were placed with a sigh in a loculo’s little vase. Old affections, grudges, attachments and debts were silently acknowledged and then put aside for another year. Adults gossiped, children fidgeted. There was a sense of occasion and a formality that appealed to Ariana, but the cemetery was not a scene of active grief.

Which is why she noticed the man sitting on the bench in front of Gina’s vault, gloved hands limp in his lap. Alone among the mourners on this cool and sunny day, he was crying, eyes open, silent tears slipping down a still face.

She had no wish to impose herself on this stranger, had not even been certain that he would come today. His first months out of isolation were a circus, a whirlwind of public interest and private receptions—every moment accounted for. Ariana had waited a long time, but she was patient by nature. And now: here he was.

"Padre?" she said, soft-voiced and certain.

Solitary in sorrow, he hardly glanced at her. "I am not a priest, madam," he said as dryly as a crying man could, "and I am no one’s father."

"Look again," she said.

He did, and saw a dark-haired woman standing behind a baby stroller, her son so young that he still slept curled, in memory of the womb. There was a long silence as Emilio studied her face—blurred and shifting in the dampness—a complex amalgam of the Old World and the New, the living and the dead. He laughed once, and sobbed once, and laughed again, astonished. "You have your mother’s smile," he said finally, and her grin widened. "And my nose, I’m afraid. Sorry about that."

"I like my nose!" she cried indignantly. "I have your eyes, too. Mamma always told me that when I got angry: You have your father’s eyes!"

He laughed again, not quite sure how to feel about that, "Were you angry a lot?"

"No. I don’t think so. Well, I have my moods, I suppose." She drew herself up formally and said, "I am Ariana Fiore. You are Emilio Sandoz, I presume?"

He was really laughing now, the tears forgotten. "I can’t believe it," he said, shaking his head. "I can’t believe it!" He looked around, dazed, and then moved over on the bench and said, "Please, sit down. Do you come here often? Listen to me! I sound like I’m trying to pick you up in a bar! Do they still have bars?"

They talked and talked, as the afternoon light washed their faces with gold, Ariana filling him in on the barest outlines of the years of his absence. "Celestina’s the chief set designer at the Teatro San Carlo," she told him. "She’s been married four times so far—"

"Four? My God!" he said, eyes wide. "Has it ever occurred to her that she should rent, not buy?"

"That is exactly what I told her!" Ariana cried, feeling as though she had known this man all her life. "To be honest," she said, "I think perhaps—"

"She leaves them before they can leave her," he suggested.

Ariana grimaced, but then confided, "Honestly—she is such a drama queen! I swear she gets married because she likes the weddings. You should see the parties she throws! You probably will, before long— she’s on tour with the opera company right now, and that’s usually bad news for her current husband. Now, when Giampaolo and I got married, we had five friends and the magistrate—but we really earned the party we had for our tenth anniversary last year!"

Roused by the talk and the laughter, the baby stretched and whimpered. They both watched, quiet and in suspense. When it seemed likely that the child would not awaken, Ariana spoke again, very softly now. "I finally got pregnant just after Mamma died. You know what we say at New Year’s?"

"Buon fine, buon principio," he said. "A good end, a good beginning."

"Yes. I was hoping for a girl. I thought it would be as though Mamma had come back, somehow." She smiled and shrugged, and reached out to touch the baby’s plump and downy cheek. "His name is Tommaso."

"How did your mother die?" he asked at last.

"Well, you know she was a nurse. After I started school, she went back to work. You left us very well provided for, but she wanted to be of use." Emilio nodded, face still. "Anyway, there was an epidemic—they still haven’t isolated the pathogen—it’s all over the world now. For some reason, older women were hit hardest. They called it the Nonna Disease here in Naples because it killed so many grandmothers. The last coherent thing Mamma said was, ’God’s got a lot of explaining to do.’»

Emilio wiped his eyes on his coat sleeve and laughed. "That sounds like Gina."

For a long while, they did not speak but only listened to the birdsong and the conversations around them. "Of course," Ariana said as though no time had passed, "God never explains. When life breaks your heart, you’re just supposed to pick up the pieces and start over, I guess."