It’s not something your people do very well.”

“No garbage truck?”

M. Beret poured some more wine into my glass. “I don’t know why, exactly, but I’m trying to help you.”

“One minute you don’t care if a hurricane blows me away. The next minute you’re trying to help me.”

“You are a smart man, Inspector.”

“But what?”

“Are you so sure there is something else to that thought? Don’t you take compliments, unqualified?”

“But what? M. Beret, no one begins or ends a sentence like that unless he has something else to say.”

Silence for a moment. I could see he was deciding whether to let me be right or to prove me wrong.

“Very well,” he said at last. “You are a smart man, so why do you stay?”

“Go on.”

“That’s it. That’s all. Fin.”

“No, it’s not. It might be all in some other place, under other circumstances. Not here, and not from you. Please continue, M. Beret.”

He sighed. “Very well. You stay, that is, you won’t leave because you are a patriot, I suppose.”

“One supposes.”

“Why else?” I didn’t reply. “Well, then,” he went on, “if it were possible to do something, would you? Wouldn’t you get out of the way of a hurricane if you could? Wouldn’t you help warn other people?”

“Go on.”

“How bad do things have to get, Inspector?”

“We are back to ‘you are a smart man,’ aren’t we?”

“No, I misspoke. I think you are a man of morality.”

“No longer smart?”

“You cannot keep dodging the point. Yes, you know it, Inspector. You cannot come outside and go back exactly the same, ever again. Nothing can look the same when you go home. Especially now.”

“But I will go home.”

“Yes, we’ve established that, haven’t we? And once there, once you get back, what then? How will you pull up the mental drawbridge and lock it tight? Are you going to forget everything you’ve learned about the rest of the world? Empty your brain as you step across the border?”

“I can only do what I can.”

He took off his beret. Without it, he looked older, but he seemed to feel less constrained. “Compromise with evil is an awful thing, Inspector.”

“Do you know, M. Beret”—I hesitated because I knew that wasn’t his name and it seemed wrong to call him that at this moment—“but surely you must, that the starkest moral positions are the easiest to state? Truth to be palatable cannot sit in a complex sentence. Truth must be simple, don’t you agree? It must be something that does not need to be chewed. It should simply slip down the throat. ‘Do not compromise with evil.’ Simple, easy to remember, even easier to say. Tell me, is there a tattoo parlor nearby? It wouldn’t be too painful, would it? We could put it on your wrist, perhaps.”

“My wrist?”

“Oh, I’ve read my history, M. Beret.” I didn’t give a damn what his name was anymore. Sohn was in their morgue, and they were using that as their opening to get to me. They’d have spent the past week arguing how to do it, watching for an opportunity, comparing notes on where I went, what I ate, whether I looked at the sky in the morning, trying to figure out who I was. Go slow and sideways, that’s what they’d concluded. Work his mind, find the intellectual buttons. He doesn’t like Portuguese boys, so that’s out. What’s left? Maybe talk to him about morality and evil, that sort of thing. Nothing too direct, just enough to provoke him. Make him mad, confuse him, throw a little dust on his internal compass. What kind of idiot did they take me for? “I’m quite clear on the subject, as I’m sure your countrymen have always been. Compromise with evil, or just keep it over the border. Very tidy, except for the people you turn away.”

He put the beret back on his head. “Sohn had eyes for Ahmet’s daughter. More than eyes, actually.”

They really did want to provoke me. I buttoned everything down, went right down the checklist of emotions and buttoned each one down. “I can imagine a long line of men with eyes for Ahmet’s daughter, M. Beret. A few might even be Swiss, am I right?”

“She can charm the pants off of anyone she chooses. I would be very careful, were I you.” No, being careful with Dilara was out of the question. But it didn’t matter.

“Were you me, M. Beret, you would have a headache from the wine. You’re right. It’s too young.”

He put his hands together and sighed deeply.