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and Ale Bar. He arrived first and ordered a Bud. Later, when she got there, she ordered an Evian over the noise of the popular bar, but didn't wait for it to be served. She started suddenly on the subject that had brought her to this meeting.
        "What do we have between us, you and I?"
        Rafael looked at her as if he hadn't understood.
        "What do we have together, you and I?" Sarah repeated. "I know you're a priest . . . that you have a relationship with . . ." She felt con fused. God, Christ, the church? All at the same time? "Huh . . . but I also know I'm not indifferent to you." Here Sarah looked at him to get some reaction. Rafael remained impassive, listening to her. He could be a bastard when he wanted. Sarah felt increasingly nervous. "I know we got to know each other under unfortunate circumstances." She plowed on, or so she thought, "I know that we went through a lot, our lives in danger, and that probably that gave me the opportunity to know you better than anyone. That made me fall in love with you." When she realized what she'd said, the words had already left her mouth. She thought he would have something to say, but she didn't hear anything from him. Should she have declared, clearly and out loud, what she felt? She stared at him even more intently to find some reaction. What she saw was the same Rafael as always: calculating, unemotional . . . impervious.
        At a certain point a roar of delirious, shouting voices was heard from inside the bar. The "blues" team had just scored a goal at Stam ford Bridge and some of those present had been swept away by the images repeated on the television screens throughout the bar.
        At that instant the waitress brought the water, after a long wait. Or at least to Sarah it seemed so, an eternity, hours. Really only a few minutes had passed, but when you've stuck your hand in the fi re, a brief time seems much longer.
        "It's not an ordinary situation, I know. Nothing is with us," Sarah went on after wetting her lips. "I'm not asking you to divorce God. I'd never do that, but I had to tell you. I know you're perceptive enough to have already noticed." She looked at him again. "Anyway, let's return to my first question. What is it that you and I have for each other? You're not indifferent to me, are you?" It hadn't occurred to her until that moment that she could be hasty. Rafael might simply not feel anything for her. Seeing him take another sip of beer without offering a word made her feel even smaller, like a girl who confesses her love and gets her first rejection. Not verbally in this case, which made it harder. Had Sarah misunderstood everything? Had she deliberately exaggerated the signs? No way. She was intelligent, successful, the editor of interna tional politics at the T imes, author of two highly regarded books. Had she been deceived by her feelings? Now it was too late. She couldn't do anything. She'd revealed herself. She had to stay firm until the end.
        "Aren't you going to say anything, Rafael?"
        Only another sip of beer.
        "You let me do all the talking and say nothing? Aren't you going to stop me? Put me in my place?"
        Rafael wanted to talk badly, and he spoke, but Sarah didn't hear him now. She was leaving after throwing down a ten-pound note to pay for the Evian she'd hardly drunk.
        "It's good we had this conversation," Sarah declared. "Now I can go on with my life and put this behind me." She left as fast as possible, infuriated. It was her right to feel exasperated.
        If she'd stayed a few moments longer, not gone to the door so quickly, so far from the bar, so far from Rafael, if, if, if . . . probably she would have heard him. A timid, faint "I can't."
        The editor of international politics of the T imes, more sought after than she would have liked, soon found reasons to forget Father Rafael, who returned to Rome. And if, at rare times, she remembered the con