You know the Pieta? Michelangelo? It looked exactly like that. It was so strange. It really shook me up. Some things are so weird they make you angry, you know?"
"What did she want?" "What do you mean?"
"Why did she call you to the hotel?"
"Oh, I get it," she said, with a little smile. "Ulla always wants something."
I raised an eyebrow, returning her stare, but said nothing.
"She wanted me to arrange a passport for Modena. He's been here for years. He's an overstayer. And he's got a few problems with the Spanish police, under his own name. He needs a new passport to get back into Europe. He could pass for Italian. Or maybe Portuguese."
"Leave it to me," I said calmly, thinking that I knew the reason, at last, why she'd asked me to meet with her. "I'll get on it tomorrow. I know how to get in touch with him, for photos and whatever-although there'd be no mistaking his face at a customs check. I'll fix it."
"Thanks," she said, meeting my eyes with such fervent intensity that my heart began to beat hard against my chest. It is always a fool's mistake, Didier once said to me, to be alone with someone you shouldn't have loved. "What are you doing, Lin?"
"Sitting here with you," I replied, smiling.
"No, I mean, what are you going to do? Are you going to stay in Bombay?"
"Why?"
"I was going to ask you... if you want to come with me, to find Khaled."
I laughed, but she didn't laugh with me.
"That's the second-best offer I've had today."
"The second best?" she drawled. "What was the first?"
"Someone invited me to go to the war, in Sri Lanka."
She clamped her lips tightly around an angry response, but I held my hands up in surrender, and spoke quickly.
"I'm just kidding, Karla, just kidding. Take it easy. I mean, it's true about the invitation to go to Sri Lanka, but I'm just ... you know."
She relaxed, smiling again.
"I'm out of practice. It's been a long time, Lin."
"So... why the invitation now?"
"Why not?"
"That's not good enough, Karla, and you know it."
"Okay," she sighed, glancing at me and then looking away to follow the breeze weaving wave-patterns on the sand. "I guess I was hoping to find something like... like what we had in Goa."
"What about... Jeet?" I asked, ignoring the opening she'd given me. "How does he feel about you going off to find Khaled?"
"We lead separate lives. We do what we want. We go where we want."
"Sounds... breezy," I offered, struggling to find a word that wasn't a lie, but wouldn't offend. "Didier made it sound more serious than that-told me the guy asked you to marry him."
"He did," she said flatly.
"And?"
"And what?"
"And will you-marry him, I mean?"
"Yes. I think I will."
"Why?"
"Why not?"
"Don't start that again."
"Sorry," she said, sighing through a tired smile. "I've been running with a different crowd. Why marry Jeet? He's a nice guy, he's healthy, and he's loaded. And, hey, I think I'll do a better job of spending his money than he does."
"So what you're telling me is that you're ready to die for this love."
She laughed and then turned to me, suddenly serious again. Her eyes, pale with moonlight; her eyes, the green of water lilies after the rain; her long hair, black as forest river stones; her hair that was like holding the night itself in the wrap of my fingers; her lips, starred with incandescent light; lips of camellia-petal softness warmed with secret whispers. Beautiful.
And I loved her. I loved her still so much, so hard, but with no heat or heart at all. That falling love, that helpless, dreaming, soaring love, was gone. And I suddenly knew in those seconds of ... cold adoration, I suppose... that the power she'd once held over me was also gone. Or, more than that, her power had moved into me, and had become mine. I held all the cards. And then I wanted to know. It wasn't good enough to just accept what had happened between us. I wanted to know everything.
"Why didn't you tell me, Karla?"
She gave an anguished little sigh, and stretched her legs out to bury her bare feet in the sand. Watching the small cascades of soft sand spill over her moving feet, she spoke in a dull, flat tone, as if she was composing a letter-or recalling a letter, perhaps, that she'd written once and never sent to me. "I knew you were going to ask me, and I think that's why I've waited so long to get in touch with you. I let people know that I was around, and I asked after you, but I didn't do anything, until today, because... I knew you'd ask me."
"If it makes it any easier," I interrupted, sounding harder than I'd intended, "I know you burned down Madame Zhou's place-"
"Did Ghani tell you that?"
"Ghani? No. I figured that one out myself."
"Ghani did it for me-he arranged it. That was the last time I spoke to him."
"The last time I spoke to him was about an hour before he died."
"Did he tell you anything about her?" she asked, perhaps hoping that there were some parts of it she wouldn't have to tell me.
"About Madame Zhou? No. He didn't say a word."
