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moving him toward the door, awkwardly, as if he were a heavy piece of furniture. They took their time, five finely dressed American tourists, out of place in the café. They were through the door at last when the blond woman turned and looked Thomas up and down as if she were appraising a piece of meat.
    You were a big help. There was a time, Americans stuck together, members of the same tribe. Cut one, the others bleed.
    I don't remember that time, Thomas said. When was that? Pearl Harbor?
    New York, she said. Right now. This minute. It's beautiful.
    So is St. Michel du Valcabrère, he said.
    What's that?
    The village you're in.
    Shit, she said and laughed.
    He said, It was a terrible thing, nine-eleven, but—
    But nothing. But
nothing.
Jock's life is ruined. And he's angry. He's going to stay angry and that's his right because his life is ruined. He might have been you, except you don't live in New York. You jerk.
    The others stood in the doorway, listening. The blind man, towering above them, had his back turned so he was facing the street, though perhaps he didn't know that.
    Come on, Helen. Leave them to their racehorse piss.
    Old Bardèche asked Thomas to translate.
    Thomas said, They're sorry for the damage.
    Bardèche said, Tell them to leave at once.
    They're leaving, Thomas said.
    Watch your mouth, asshole, the woman said.
    Close the door behind you, Thomas said.
    The blind man turned. Thomas noticed that in his mirrored dark glasses, the interior of the café was caught in a frozen moment. He moved his head left and right. It seemed to Thomas that he was straining to see what was before him.
    Goodbye, Thomas said.
    Bardèche watched them leave, then slowly turned and walked back to his place behind the bar.
    When Thomas returned to their table, Florette embraced him. Everyone in the café was talking, the noise level rising like that of an excited theater audience at the end of a powerful performance. No one knew precisely what they had just witnessed. Did the gravely injured have special rights? There was something mortifying about the blind man, lunging and missing, swinging at Thomas and missing again. He must have had a terrible ordeal, the tiny scars and the long scar and the sneer on his mouth. You sympathized with him even as you realized he was out of control. Well, they were gone now but there was no guarantee they would not return. Men crowded around their table congratulating Thomas. They had no quarrel with Americans generally but these Americans were no good. There were bad apples in every nationality, the Germans and the Belgians especially, and the Dutch. All nations had bruta figuras, even Italy. When old Bardèche sent over a bottle of the racehorse piss, everyone drank to Thomas's good health and Florette's also.
    When they were alone at last, Thomas and Florette sat in a zone of silence, working the incident in their minds. There seemed nothing of it to discuss usefully except the question of forgiveness, mercy offered to a man living in darkness and hating every second, knowing all the while that those most directly responsible were dead and could not be called to account. He was an awful son of a bitch but his situation was not enviable. Grievous injury did not ennoble a man except in special circumstances. Later they would refer to the incident often, how it began and how it ended and Thomas's role in the departure of the Americans, everyone in the café crowded at the windows watching them climb into their Mitsubishi van and speed away, the blind man in the front passenger seat, the others in the two rear seats.
    Will you marry me? Thomas asked.
    Of course, Florette said.

    Her body showed no signs of exhausting its pain ration but the memory of the Sunday afternoon in the café with the wretched
Americans and his proposal at the end of it warmed her and brightened her spirits. Thomas would not fail her but she wondered again what had detained him. They were so close.