Hana disapproved of Hel’s ingracious tone, so she took control of the dinner talk as she brought Hannah’s plate to the sideboard to replenish it. “My English is imperfect. There is more than one asparagus here, but the word ‘asparaguses’ sounds awkward. Is it one of those odd Latin plurals, Nicholai? Does one say asperagae, or something like that?”

“One would say that only if he were that overinformed/undereducated type who attends concerti for celli and afterward orders cups of capuccini. Or, if he is American, dishes of raspberry Jell-I.”

“Arrêtes un peu et sois sage,” Hana said with a slight shake of her head. She smiled at Hannah. “Isn’t he a bore on the subject of Americans? It’s a flaw in his personality. His sole flaw, he assures me. I’ve been wanting to ask you, Hannah, what did you read at university?”

“What did I read?”

“What did you major in,” Hel clarified.

“Oh. Sociology.”

He might have guessed it. Sociology, that descriptive pseudo-science that disguises its uncertainties in statistical mists as it battens on the narrow gap of information between psychology and anthropology. The kind of non-major that so many Americans use to justify their four-year intellectual vacations designed to prolong adolescence.

“What did you study in school?” Hannah asked her hostess thoughtlessly.

Hana smiled to herself. “Oh… informal psychology, anatomy, aesthetics—that sort of thing.”

Hannah applied herself to the asparagus, asking casually, “You two aren’t married, are you? I mean… you joked the other night about being Mr. Hel’s concubine.”

Hana’s eyes widened in rare astonishment. She was not accustomed to that inquisitive social gaucherie that Anglo-Saxon cultures mistake for admirable frankness. Hel opened his palm toward Hana, gesturing her to answer, his eyes wide with mischievous innocence.

“Well…” Hana said, “…in fact, Mr. Hel and I are not married. And in fact I am his concubine. Will you take dessert now? We have just received our first shipment of the magnificent cherries of Itxassou, of which the Basque are justly proud.”

Hel knew Hana was not going to get off that easily, and he grinned at her as Miss Stern pursued, “I don’t think you mean concubine. In English, concubine means someone who is hired for… well, for her sexual services. I think you mean ‘mistress.’ And even mistress is sort of old-fashioned. Nowadays people just say they are living together.”

Hana looked at Hel for help. He laughed and interceded for her. “Hana’s English is really quite good. She was only joking about the asparagus. She knows the difference among a mistress, a concubine, and a wife. A mistress is unsure of her wage, a wife has none; and they are both amateurs. Now, do try the cherries.”

Hel sat on a stone bench in the middle of the cutting gardens, his eyes closed and his face lifted to the sky. Although the mountain breeze was cool, the thin sunlight penetrated his yukata and made him warm and drowsy. He hovered on the delicious verge of napping until he intercepted the approaching aura of someone who was troubled and tense.

“Sit down, Miss Stern,” he said, without opening his eyes. “I must compliment you on the way you conducted yourself at lunch. Not once did you refer to your problems, seeming to sense that in this house we don’t bring the world to our table. To be truthful, I hadn’t expected such good form from you. Most people of your age and class are so wrapped up in themselves—so concerned with what they’re ‘into’—that they fail to realize that style and form are everything, and substance a passing myth.” He opened his eyes and smiled as he made a pallid effort to imitate the American accent: “It ain’t what you do, it’s how you do it.”

Hannah perched on the marble balustrade before him, her thighs flattened by her weight. She was barefoot, and she had not heeded his advice about changing into less revealing clothes. “You said we should talk some more?”

“Hm-m-m. Yes. But first let me apologize for my uncivil tone, both during our little chat and at lunch. I was angry and annoyed. I have been retired for almost two years now, Miss Stern. I am no longer in the profession of exterminating terrorists; I now devote myself to gardening, to caving, to listening to the grass grow, and to seeking a kind of deep peace I lost many years ago—lost because circumstances filled me with hate and fury. And then you come along with a legitimate claim to my assistance because of my debt to your uncle, and you threaten me with being pressed back into my profession of violence and fear. And fear is a good part of why I was annoyed with you. There is a certain amount of antichance in my work. No matter how well-trained one is, how careful, how coolheaded, the odds regularly build up over the years; and there comes a time when luck and antichance weigh heavily against you. It’s not that I’ve been lucky in my work—I mistrust luck—but I have never been greatly hampered by bad luck. So there’s a lot of bad luck out there waiting for its turn. I’ve tossed up the coin many times, and it has come down heads. There are more than twenty years’ worth of tails waiting their turn. So! What I wanted to explain was the reason I have been impolite to you. It’s fear mostly. And some annoyance. I’ve had time to consider now. I think I know what I should do. Fortunately, the proper action is also the safest.”

“Does that mean you don’t intend to help me?”

“On the contrary. I am going to help you by sending you home. My debt to your uncle extends to you, since he sent you to me; but it does not extend to any abstract notion of revenge or to any organization with which you are allied.”

She frowned and looked away, out toward the mountains. “Your view of the debt to my uncle is a convenient one for you.”

“So it turns out, yes.”

“But… my uncle gave the last years of his life to hunting down those killers, and it would make that all pretty pointless if I didn’t try to do something.”

“There’s nothing you can do. You lack the training, the skill, the organization. You didn’t even have a plan worthy of the name.”

“Yes, we did.”

He smiled, “All right. Let’s take a look at your plan. You said that the Black Septembrists were intending to hijack a plane from Heathrow. Presumably your group was going to hit them at that time. Were you going to take them on the plane, or before they boarded?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Avrim was the leader after Uncle Asa died. He told us no more than he thought we had to know, in case one of us was captured or something like that. But I don’t believe we were going to meet them on the plane. I think we were going to execute them in the terminal.”

“And when was this to take place?”

“The morning of the seventeenth.”

“That’s six days away. Why were you going to London so soon? Why expose yourself for six days?”

“We weren’t going to London. We were coming here. Uncle Asa knew we didn’t have much chance of success without him. He had hoped he would be strong enough to accompany us and lead us. The end came too fast for him.”

“So he sent you here? I don’t believe that.”

“He didn’t exactly send us here. He had mentioned you several times. He said that if we got into trouble we could come to you and you would help.”

“I’m sure he meant that I would help you get away after the event.”

She shrugged.

He sighed. “So you three youngsters were going to pick up your arms from your IRA contacts in London, loiter around town for six days, take a taxi out to Heathrow, stroll into the terminal, locate the targets in the waiting area, and blow them away. Was that your plan?”

Her jaw tightened, and she looked away. It did sound silly, put like that.