“Well?” he asked again. “What did you make of all that?”

She shook her head. “I had no idea they were so… organized; so… cold-blooded. I’ve caused you a lot of trouble, haven’t I?”

“I don’t hold you responsible for anything that has happened so far. I have long known that I have a karma debt. Considering the fact that my work has cut across the grain of social organization, a certain amount of bad luck would be expected. I’ve not had that bad luck, and so I’ve built up a karma debt; a weight of antichance against me. You were the vehicle for karma balance, but I don’t consider you the cause. Do you understand any of that?”

She shrugged. “What are you going to do?”

The storm was passing, and the winds behind it blew in from the garden and made Hannah shudder in her wet dress.

“There are padded kimonos in that chest Get out of those clothes.”

“I’m all right”

“Do as I tell you. The tragic heroine with the sniffles is too ludicrous an image.”

It was consonant with the too-brief shorts, the unbuttoned shirt front and the surprise Hannah affected (believed she genuinely felt) when men responded to her as an object that she unzipped and stepped out of the wet dress before she sought out the dry kimono. She had never confessed to herself that she took social advantage of having a desirable body that appeared to be available. If she had thought of it, she would have labeled her automatic exhibitionism a healthy acceptance of her body—an absence of “hangups.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked again, as she wrapped the warm kimono about her.

“The real question is what are you going to do. Do you still intend to press on with this business? To throw yourself off the pier in the hopes that I will have to jump in after you?”

“Would you? Jump in after me?”

“I don’t know.”

Hannah stared out into the dark of the garden and hugged the comforting kimono to herself. “I don’t know… I don’t know. It all seemed so clear just yesterday. I knew what I had to do, what was the only just and right thing to do.”

“And now…?”

She shrugged and shook her head. “You’d rather I went home and forgot all about it, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes. And that might not be as easy as you think, either. Diamond knows about you. Getting you safely home will take a little doing.”

“And what happens to the Septembrists who murdered our athletes in Munich?”

“Oh, they’ll die. Everyone does, eventually.”

“But… if I just go home, then Avrim’s death and Chaim’s would be pointless!”

“That’s true. They were pointless deaths, and nothing you might do would change that.”

Hannah stepped close to Hel and looked up at him, her face full of confusion and doubt. She wanted to be held, comforted, told that everything would be just fine.

“You’ll have to decide what you intend to do fairly quickly. Let’s go back to the house. You can think things out tonight.”

They found Hana and Le Cagot sitting in the cool of the wet terrace. The gusting wind had followed the storm, and the air was fresh and washed. Hana rose as they approached and took Hannah’s hand in an unconscious gesture of kindness.

Le Cagot was sprawled on a stone bench, his eyes closed, his brandy glass loose in his fingers, and his heavy breathing occasionally rippling in a light snore.

“He dropped off right in the middle of a story,” Hana explained.

“Hana,” Hel said. “Miss Stern won’t be staying with us after tonight. Would you see to having her things packed by morning? I’m going to take her up to the lodge.” He turned to Hannah. “I have a mountain place. You can stay there, out of harm’s way, while I consider how to get you back to your parents safely.”

“I haven’t decided that I want to go home.”

Instead of responding, Hel kicked the sole of Le Cagot’s boot. The burly Basque started and smacked his lips several times. “Where was I? Ah… I was telling you of those three nuns in Bayonne. Well, I met them—”

“No, you decided not to tell that one, considering the presence of ladies.”

“Oh? Well, good! You see, little girl, a story like that would inflame your passions. And when you come to me, I want you to do so of your own will, and not driven by blinding lust. What happened to our guests?”

“They’ve gone. Probably back to the United States.”

“I am going to tell you something in all frankness, Niko. I do not like those men. There is cowardice in their eyes; and that makes them dangerous. You must either invite a better class of guests, or risk losing my patronage. Hana, wonderful and desirable woman, do you want to go to bed with me?”

She smiled. “No, thank you, Beñat.”

“I admire your self control. What about you, little girl?”

“She’s tired,” Hana said.

“Ah well, perhaps it’s just as good. It would be a little crowded in my bed, what with the plump Portuguese kitchen maid. So! I hate to leave you without the color and charm of my presence, but the magnificent machine that is my body needs draining, then sleep. Good night, my friends.” He grunted to his feet and started to leave, then he noticed Hannah’s kimono. “What’s this? What happened to your clothes? Oh, Niko, Niko. Greed is a vice. Ah well… good night.”

Hana had gently stroked the tension from his back and shoulders as he lay on his stomach, and now she tugged his hair until he was half asleep. She placed her body over his, fitting her lap to his buttocks, her legs and arms over his, her warm weight protecting him, comforting, forcing him to relax. “This is trouble, isn’t it?” she whispered.

He hummed in affirmation.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” he breathed. “Get the girl away from here first. They may think that her death would cancel my debt to the uncle.”

“You are sure they won’t find her? There’s no such thing as a secret in these valleys.”

“Only the mountain men will know where she is. They’re my people; and they don’t talk to police, by habit and tradition.”

“And what then?”

“I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”

“Shall I bring you pleasure?”

“No. I’m too tense. Let me be selfish. Let me bring you pleasure.”

Larun

Hel was awake at dawn and put in two hours of work on the garden before he took breakfast with Hana in the tatami ’d room overlooking the newly raked sea gravel that flowed down to the edge of the stream; “In time, Hana, this will be an acceptable garden. I hope you are here to enjoy it with me.”

“I have been giving that matter consideration, Nikko. The idea is not without its attractions. You were very thorough last night.”

“I was working out some stresses. That’s an advantage.”

“If I were selfish, I would hope for such stresses always.”

He chuckled. “Oh, will you telephone down to the village and arrange for the next flight back to the United States for Miss Stern? It will be Pau to Paris, Paris to New York, New York to Chicago.”

“She is leaving us then?”

“Not just yet. I don’t want her in the open. But the reservations will be stored in the airline’s computer bank, and will be immediately available to Fat Boy. It will throw them off the track.”

“And who is ‘Fat Boy’?”

“A computer. The final enemy. It arms stupid men with information.”

“You sound bitter this morning.”

“I am. Even self-pitying.”

“I had avoided that phrase, but it is the right one. And it’s not becoming in a man like you.”

“I know.” He smiled. “No one in the world would dare correct me like that, Hana. You’re a treasure.”

“It’s my role to be a treasure.”

“True. By the way, where is Le Cagot? I haven’t heard him thundering about.”