"No. I made it up myself."

"Well, that's what I mean. I don't think I could repeat anything that the others said, and be sure of getting it exactly right.

But that line of yours-I'll never forget it."

"Do you agree with it?"

"What-that the truth is a bully we all pretend to like?"

"Yes."

"No, I don't, not at all. But I love the idea, and the way you put it."

Her half-smile held my stare. We were silent for a few moments, and just as she began to look away I spoke again to hold her attention. "Why do you like Biarritz?"

"What?"

"The other day, the day before yesterday, you said that Biarritz is one of your favourite places. I've never been there, so I don't know, one way or the other. But I'd like to know why you like it so much."

She smiled, wrinkling her nose in a quizzical expression that might've been scornful or pleased.

"You remember that? Then, I guess I better tell you. Biarritz... how to explain it... I think it's the ocean. The Atlantic. I love Biarritz in the wintertime, when the tourists are gone, and the sea is so frightening that it turns people to stone. You see them standing on the deserted beaches, and staring at the sea- statues, scattered along the beach between the cliffs, frozen stiff by the terror they feel when they look at the ocean. It's not like other oceans-not like the warm Pacific or the Indian.

The Atlantic there, in winter, is really unforgiving, and ruthlessly cruel. You can feel it calling to you. You know it wants to drag you out and pull you under. It's so beautiful, I just burst into tears the first time I really looked at it. And I wanted to go to it. I wanted to let myself go out and under the big, angry waves. It's the scariest thing. But the people in Biarritz, they're the most tolerant and easy-going people in Europe, I think. Nothing freaks them out. Nothing is too over- the-top. It's kind of weird-in most holiday places, the people are angry and the sea is calm. In Biarritz, it's the other way around."

"Do you think you'll go back there one day-to stay, I mean?"

"No," she said quickly. "If I ever leave here, for good, it'll mean going back to the States. I grew up there, after my parents died. And I'd like to go back, some day. I think I love it there, most of all. There's something so confident and open-hearted and ... and brave about America, and the American people. I don't feel American-at least, I don't think I do-but I'm comfortable with them, if you know what I mean, more than I am with any other people, anywhere."

"Tell me about the others," I asked, wanting to keep her talking.

"The others?" she asked, frowning suddenly.

"The crew at Leopold's. Didier and the others. Tell me about Letitia, to start with. How do you know her?"

She relaxed, and let her eyes roam the shadows on the far side of the street. Still thinking, still considering, she lifted her gaze to the night sky. The blue-white light from a street lamp melted to liquid on her lips and in the spheres of her large eyes.

"Lettie lived in Goa for a while," she began, affection playing in her voice. "She came to India for the usual mix-parties and spiritual highs. She found the parties, and she enjoyed them, I think. Lettie loves a party. But she never had much luck with the spiritual side of things. She went back to London-twice in the same year-but then she came back to India for one last try at the soul thing. She's on a soul mission. She talks tough, but she's a very spiritual girl. I think she's the most spiritual of all of us, really."

"How does she live? I don't mean to pry-it's what I was saying before, I just want to learn how people make a living here. How foreigners get by, I mean."

"She's an expert with gems-gemstones and jewels. She works on a commission basis for some of the foreign buyers. It was Didier who got her the job. He has contacts everywhere in Bombay."

"Didier?" I smiled, genuinely surprised. "I thought that they hated each other-well, not hate exactly. I thought they couldn't stand each other."

"Oh, they annoy one another, sure. But there's a real friendship there. If anything bad happened to one of them, the other would be devastated."

"How about Maurizio?" I asked, trying to keep my tone even. The tall Italian was too handsome, too confident, and I envied him for what I saw as his deeper knowledge of Karla, and his friendship with her. "What's his story?"

"His story? I don't know what his story is," she replied, frowning again. "His parents died, leaving him a lot of money. He spent it, and I think he developed something of a talent for spending money."

"Other people's money?" I asked. I might've seemed too eager for that to be true, because she answered me with a question.

"Do you know the story of the scorpion and the frog? You know, the frog agrees to carry the scorpion across the river, because the scorpion promises not to sting him?"

"Yeah. And then the scorpion stings the frog, half way across the river. The drowning frog asks him why he did it, when they'll both drown, and the scorpion says that he's a scorpion, and it's his nature to sting."

"Yes," she sighed, nodding slowly until the frown left her brow.

"That's Maurizio. And if you know that, he's not a problem, because you just don't offer to carry him across the river. Do you know what I mean?"

I'd been in prison. I knew exactly what she meant. I nodded, and asked her about Ulla and Modena.

"I like Ulla," she answered quickly, turning that half-smile on me again. "She's crazy and unreliable, but I have a feeling for her. She was a rich girl, in Germany, and she played with heroin until she got a habit. Her family cut her off, so she came to India-she was with a bad guy, a German guy, a junkie like her, who put her to work in a very tough place. A horrible place. She loved the guy. She did it for him. She would've done anything for him. Some women are like that. Some loves are like that. Most loves are like that, from what I can see. Your heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and your independence.

After a while you start throwing people out-your friends, everyone you used to know. And it's still not enough. The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it's going to take you down with it. I've seen that happen to a lot of girls here. I think that's why I'm sick of love."

I couldn't tell if she was talking about herself, or pointing the words at me. Either way, they were sharp, and I didn't want to hear them.

"And how about Kavita? Where does she fit in?"

"Kavita's great! She's a freelancer-you know that-a freelance writer. She wants to be a journalist, and I think she'll get there. I hope she gets there. She's bright and honest and gutsy.

She's beautiful, too. Don't you think she's a gorgeous girl?"

"Sure," I agreed, recalling the honey-coloured eyes, the full and shapely lips, and the long, expressive fingers. "She's a pretty girl. But they're all good-looking people, I think. Even Didier, in his crumpled-up way, has got a touch of the Lord Byron about him. Lettie's a lovely girl. Her eyes are always laughing- they're a real _ice-blue, her eyes, aren't they? Ulla looks like a doll, with those big eyes and big lips on such a round face.

But it's a pretty doll's face. Maurizio's handsome, like a magazine model, and Modena's handsome in a different way, like a bullfighter or something. And you're... you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen with my own eyes."

There, I'd said it. And even in the shock of speaking the thought out loud, I wondered if she'd understood, if she'd pierced my words about their beauty, and hers, to find the misery that inspired them: the misery that an ugly man feels in every conscious minute of love.

She laughed-a good, deep, wide-mouthed laugh-and seized my arm impulsively, pulling me along the footpath. Just then, as if drawn from the shadows by her laughter, there was a clattering rattle of noise as a beggar, riding on a small wooden platform with metal ball-bearing wheels, rolled off the footpath on the opposite side of the street. He pushed himself forward with his hands until he reached the centre of the deserted road, wheeling to a stop with a dramatic pirouette. His piteously thin mantis- legs were folded and tucked beneath him on the platform, which was a piece of wood no bigger than a folded newspaper. He wore a boy's school uniform of khaki shorts and a powder-blue shirt.