and brushed against me. “Well, take it easy, comrade. Buy a hat or something. Green felt is on sale this time of year. See you around.”

He walked back in the direction I had come, toward the mission. I waited until he was out of sight. I was already so wet, it didn’t make any sense to hurry. There was a café open just at the end of the bridge. It looked quiet enough. The coffee had just been set in front of me when M. Beret sat down at the next table. He had a large umbrella, which he hung on the back of his chair. “A good afternoon to you, Inspector. You look a little damp. Go ahead and drink something hot. Do you take sugar in your coffee? Of course you do, one spoonful, then you stir it slowly, counterclockwise. Usually five times, six if you are feeling pensive. You don’t drink espresso. Well, once you did, but after a single sip you made a face, a very funny face, and left the rest of the cup. Brioche?” He took a croissant from his pocket and tore it in half.

“That’s not a brioche. I know the difference.”

M. Beret laughed. “Good for you, Inspector. Those talks, the ones that make your eyes glaze over, are almost wrapped up, I hear. Whatever you came to do, you’ll have to hurry because it seems that so far, you’ve gotten nothing done.” He pointed a finger at me. “If the talks end, then what? What is your final report going to look like? All those miles, all that travel money, all for nothing? Perhaps I could help. Should we conspire? Eh?”

I stirred my coffee, three times. “Is your service so short of things to do that the chief has time to follow me around personally? Nothing more important?”

“Three times, unusual, must be when you are agitated. Or wet.” He took out a notebook and wrote something down. “It’s not that I’m meticulous in all things, Inspector. But I want to take you apart like a Swiss watch, lay out all the pieces and examine them. Tick tock tick tock. What makes your machinery work? Things are grim at home these days, I take it. Tick tock tick tock. Pretty soon these talks you’re in will end, and you’ll be ordered back to your fatherland. Tick tock tick tock. What then?”

I took off my watch and dropped it in the coffee. “I’m sure I’ll think of something,” I said and walked out. The gesture made me feel good for a couple of minutes, but then I wished I had drunk the coffee. It had started to snow.

4

I spent the rest of the day in my room, trying to warm up. When I called the mission to find out whether we were on schedule for the afternoon session, they told me the “instructions” hadn’t arrived yet and everything was postponed until tomorrow. I could almost hear M. Beret’s listeners scratching notes on a pad: “Instructions late.” The delayed arrival of nonexistent diplomatic traffic suited me. About three o’clock the maid knocked at the door, but I told her to go away. I kept the curtains shut, though it didn’t much matter, there wasn’t any sun anyway. Shortly before dusk the snow stopped. It drizzled for a few minutes, but then the clouds decided to call it a day and drifted off toward France. When night fell, I put on my shoes and went down the stairs to the tiny lobby. The girl behind the desk looked up. “Are you sick?”

“No. I need another bar of soap. The little one you gave me has dissolved.”

“You were in your room all afternoon. Maybe you feel sick.”

“No, I feel fine.”

“Because if you are sick, we might have to get a doctor. I hope you don’t have one of those Asian flu bugs.”

“Thank you for your concern.”

“Because if you do have one of those Asian bugs, we’ll have to clean everything in your room, and for that we’ll have to pay the maid extra. She’s Romanian, and she knows the law. It could be quite a bother.” I left before she could spin out the rest of the complaint.

This time my brother was waiting for me in the darkness. “There’s a bench down the way, where the street bends. We can sit and talk, probably for about five minutes before the Swiss show up. That will be long enough if you don’t interrupt me.”

“Good, let’s get it over