the layers peel away, I'm not sure whom I'm talking to. I have to accept Freddie, and NATO, and Harry, and the subterranean way you got to Paris, but why do I have the feeling that there's something else that's driving you?"
"It's your imagination because you live in a world of probables and improbables, possibles and impossibles, what's real and what isn't. I've told you everything you have to know about me, isn't that enough?"
"For the moment it has to be," said Latham, his eyes locked with hers.
"But my instinct says there's something else you won't tell me.. .. Why don't you laugh more? You're goddamned radiant when you laugh."
"There hasn't been that much to laugh about, has there?"
"Come on, you know what I mean. A little laughter now and then relieves the tension. Harry once told me that, and we both believed Harry. Years from now, if we run into each other, we'll probably laugh at the Bois de Boulogne. It had its funny moments."
"A life was taken, Drew. Whether it was the life of a good man or a bad man, I killed him, I cut short the life of a very young person. I've never killed anyone before."
"If you hadn't, he would have killed me."
"I know that, I keep telling myself that. But why does the killing have to go on? That was Freddie's life, not mine."
"And it shouldn't have to be yours. But to answer your question logically-logic being a part of your lexicon-if we don't kill when it's necessary, if we don't stop the ncos, ten thousand times the killings will take place. Ten thousand, hell, let's start with six million.
Yesterday they were Jews and Gypsies and other 'undesirables."
Tomorrow they could be Republicans and Democrats in my country who can't stomach their bilge. Don't kid yourself, Karin,
they get a foothold in Europe, the rest of this discontented world goes down like a row of dominoes, because they're constantly, incessantly, appealing to every zealot who wants 'the good old days." No crime in the streets because even the onlookers are shot on sight; executions rampant because there are no appeals; no habeas corpus because it's not necessary; the presumed innocent and the guilty are lumped together, so let's get rid of them both, prison being more expensive than bullets. That's the future we're fighting against."
"Youthink I don't know that?" said Karin.
"Of course I do, you sermonizing fool! Why do you think I've lived as I have my entire adult life?"
"But the exalted Freddie notwithstanding, there's something else, isn't there?"
"You have no right to probe. May we stop this conversation?"
"For now, sure. But I think I've made clear my feelings for you, returned or not, so it may come up again."
"Stop it!" said De Vries, tears slowly falling from her blinking eyes.
"Do not do this to me."
Latham ran to her, kneeling by her chair.
"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I wouldn't do that. "
"I know you wouldn't," said Karin, composing herself and cupping his face with her hands.
"You are a good person, Drew Latham, but don't ask any more questions -they do hurt too much.
Instead .. . make love to me, make love to me! I so need someone like you."
"I wish you'd eliminate the 'someone," and just say 'you." @,
"Then I say it. You, Drew Latham, make love to me."
Gently, Drew helped her from the chair, then lifted her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom.
The rest of the morning was one of sexual excess. Karin de Vries had been too long without a man; she was insatiable. At the last, she threw her right arm over his chest.
"My God," she cried, "was that me?"
"You're laughing," said Latham, exhausted.
"Do you know how wonderful you sound when you laugh?"
"It feels wonderful to laugh."
"We can't go back, you know," said Drew.
"We have something now, we are something now, that we weren't before. And I don't think it's the bed alone."
"Yes, my darling, and I'm not sure it's wise."
"Why isn't it?"
"Because I must operate coldly at the embassy, and if you're involved, I don't think I can act coldly."
"Am I hearing what I want to hear?"
"Yes, you are, you American naif."
"What does that mean?"
"I believe, in your parlance, that it means I think I'm in love with you."
"Well, as a good old boy from Mississippi once said, 'if that don't beat hens a-wrastlin'!"
"What?"
"Come here and I'll explain it to you."
It was twelve minutes to two in the afternoon when Claude Moreau