Something quieted in me for the first time in minutes. I loved India's stories.

"Paul and I were driving way off in the country somewhere. Just driving around. Anyway, we came over this rise, and out of nowhere this goddamned bear loomed up in the middle of the road. At first I thought it was some crazy guy in a gorilla suit or something, but it was a bear all right."

"What did Paul do?" We passed through Bimplitz and it was ghastly all right.

"Oh, he loved it. Slammed on the brakes and pulled up next to it as if he were going to ask for directions."

"What'd he think it was, a safari park?"

"I don't know. You know what Paul was like. Stanley and Livingstone personified."

"What happened?"

"So he pulled up next to it, but by then these two guys had appeared out of nowhere and were standing next to the thing. One of them was holding a big thick chain that was attached to a brass ring through the bear's nose. Both guys started screaming out, 'Pho-to! Pho-to!' and the bear did a little dance."

"That's what they were there for? They stopped cars so you could take a picture of yourself with their bear?"

"Sure, that's how they made their living. The problem was, they were out there in the middle of cloud-cuckooland, and I don't know how many cars went down that road every day, much less tourists."

I knew the answer to my next question, but I asked anyway. "Did Paul do it?"

"Do it? He loved it! Didn't you ever see the picture on the living room wall? He showed it to everybody fifteen times. Mr. Big Game Hunter. Frank Buck."

Why did India like me? The stories she told about her dead husband made him sound like the perfect companion – witty, adventurous, thoughtful, loving. If I had seen a bear in the road I would have run all the way home. The five o'clock blues seeped through my pores; even her presence didn't help.

"Look, Joey, that's the name of our town, isn't it? It's only ten kilometers."

The car did another squiggle on the ice, but seeing the sign made me feel a little better. Maybe the owners of the gasthaus would lend me a gun so I could go out and shoot myself before dinner. I reached over and turned on the radio. A disco tune leaped out of the dashboard, strange and out of place in these surroundings. India turned it up and started singing along. She knew every word.

"Do just what you have to do,

but don't tell me no lie.

Soon the time is here again,

Sundays in the sky."

It was a good song that made you want to hop around and dance, but I was surprised she knew every verse. She was still humming the tune when we arrived.

Our gasthaus was set back from the road and up a small hill, which the car gladly climbed, knowing its job was over for the day. I got out and stretched out of my neck the tension cramps that had been gathering all afternoon. The air was silent and full of the smell of woodsmoke and pine. Standing there, waiting for India to gather her things from the back seat, I looked at the mountains that swept the horizon. I was filled with a contentment that brought tears to my eyes. It had been a long time since I had felt that way. The night we'd be spending together smiled at me with white teeth and diamonds in its hands. We would go up to a room with white-and-red-flowered curtains, wood floors that rose and fell under your bare feet as you crossed to the bed, and a small green balcony that made you stand close together if you wanted to be out there at the same time. I had been to the place by myself several times and had vowed to take India there when the snows came and the area was at its most beautiful.

"Joey, don't forget the radio."

Her arms were full of coats and her hiking boots. She smiled so knowingly I almost thought she'd read my mind.

We walked up to the gasthaus; the clack of her wooden clogs on hard ground was the only sound.

An attractive woman in a loden and velvet suit was behind the reception desk and seemed genuinely glad to see us. Without thinking, I signed us in as Joseph and India Lennox. There was a section on the registration form that asked for our ages, but I left it blank. India was looking over my shoulder as I put the pen down. She gave me a nudge and told me to fill that part in, too.

"Just write at the bottom you like older women."

She walked up the wide wooden staircase. I followed, watching her lovely body move from side to side in a comfortable slow sway.

The woman let us into our room and before leaving said dinner would be served in an hour.

"You done us good, Joe. I like it very much." She touched the curtains and opened one of the balcony doors. "Paul and I were once in Zermatt, but there were too many damned people around. I kept trying to see the Matterhorn, but some jerk was always blocking my view. What town did you say this was?"

"Edlach." I came up behind her. I kept my hands in my pockets, not knowing if she wanted to be touched.

Paul had been dead a month. In that time of pain and forced readjustment, I'd circled her warily and tried to be there if she needed me, gone when she gave even the slightest indication that she wanted to be alone. Often it was hard to tell how she was taking things, because she moved cautiously through that time, her volume turned way down, and a kind of dulled expression owned her face. We hadn't made love since Paul's death.

India folded her arms over her chest and leaned against the balcony railing.

"Do you know what today is, Joe?"

"No. Should I?"

"A month ago today Paul was buried."

I had a coin in my hand and realized I was squeezing it with all my might. "How do you feel?"

She turned to me; her cheeks were red. From the cold? Sadness?

"How do I feel? I feel as if I'm very glad we're here. I'm glad Joey brought me to the mountains."

"Are you really?"

"Yes, pal. Vienna was beginning to make me sad."

"Sad? How?"

"Oh, you know. Do I really have to explain?"

She put her hands on the balcony railing and looked out over the sweep of snow-covered land. "I'm still trying to put all my blocks back in their right places. Sometimes I pick one up and look at it as if I've never seen it before. It makes me nervous. Vienna is always reminding me of something else, of another block I can't find the hole for."

The dining room was decorated like a mountain hut. Enormous exposed beams, a floor-to-ceiling porcelain stove in one corner, and rough Bauern furniture that must have been around since the 1700s. The food was heavy, steaming, and good. Whenever we dined together I marveled at how much India ate. She had the appetite of a lumberjack. This time was no exception. Sad or not, she tucked into it with glee.

We finished with ice cream and coffee, then sat across the table from each other, both looking sheepishly at the exhausted battlefield of empty plates in front of us. Just as things were getting a little too quiet, I felt a bare foot going up my leg.

India looked at me, her face a castle of innocence. "What's the matter, bub, you nervous or something?"

"I'm not used to cuddling under the table."

"Who's cuddling? I'm giving you an extended knee rub. They've very therapeutic."

As she spoke, her foot kept moving up my leg. No one was in the room, and after a quick scan around, she slid down in her seat; her foot went higher. She looked me squarely in the eye the whole time.

"Are you trying to torture me?"

"Is this torture, Joey?"

"Extreme."

"Then let's go upstairs."

I looked at her as hard as I could, searching for truth behind her very naughty expression.

"India, are you sure?"

"Yup." She wiggled her toes.

"Tonight?"

"Joe, are you going to play Twenty Questions or are you going to take me up on my offer?"