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me.”
    “Nor the world at large,” Nicholai said
    She refilled his wine glass, then her own, lifted it and said, “To better times.”
    “To better times.”
    “You must learn to smoke, Nicholai,” she said. “All Frenchmen smoke.”
    “I sneaked cigarettes when I was a boy in Shanghai,” Nicholai answered. “The Chinese smoke like chimneys. Smoke, and spit.”
    “We can do without the spitting, I think.”
    After lunch he strolled in the garden.
    It had been very well done, indeed. Pathways led around an area of gravel carefully raked to replicate the ripples of the ocean. A small “island,” of short grass and stone, in the middle of the “sea,” represented the mountains of Japan. Shrubs had been perfectly placed around the path to offer a fresh perspective at every curve.
    Like life itself, Nicholai thought.

7
    T HE NEXT FEW WEEKS passed in pleasant routine.
    Nicholai woke early and went into the garden to meditate. When he came out, Solange had a café au lait and a croissant ready for him, and while it took him some time to get used to the concept of bread for breakfast, he came to enjoy it. After breakfast they engaged in conversation, during which she corrected his accent and suggested current slang and vernacular. Solange was an exacting taskmistress, which Nicholai appreciated.
    For her part, Solange knew that the slightest slip, a careless anachronism or a lapse into a stilted formality, could cost him his life. So she pushed him hard, insisted on perfection, challenged his intellect and considerable talent for languages. He exceeded her expectations — his pride made him a superb student.
    They conversed through lunch, and then Nicholai took his customary walk in the garden. Knowing that he needed solitude, she was discreet enough never to accept his polite invitation to join him. Instead, she had a small rest before starting preparations for dinner. When he came back, they would go over maps of Montpellier, photographs of certain cafés, restaurants, and landmarks that a native would know. She quizzed him about the Place Ste.-Anne, the marketplace, who sold the best peaches, where one could get a decent bottle of wine for a price.
    Following the afternoon study session, Nicholai repaired to his room to rest, study, and bathe, which he did in a gloriously hot Japanese tub. He emerged from the near-scalding water delightfully refreshed, and then dressed for dinner, which was always French and always superb. After dinner they had a coffee and a cognac, conversed casually, perhaps listened to a little radio until Solange retired to her bedroom.
    Then Nicholai changed into a gi and went out into the garden for his nightly ritual. At first, Solange peeked through her window blinds to watch him perform the intricate maneuvers of the kata — the repetitive martial arts routines — of hoda korosu, “naked kill.” He appeared to be dancing, but after a few nights of watching Solange started to perceive that he was fighting numerous imaginary enemies coming at him from all directions, and that the motions of the “dance” were in fact defensive blocks followed by lethal strikes. If it was a dance, it was a dance of death.
    Nicholai enjoyed these sessions very much — it was a joy to exercise in the garden, it calmed his mind and spirit, and besides, his instinct told him that he might very well need to polish his rusty skills to survive the mission, the target of which Haverford would still not disclose.
    So Nicholai exercised with a purpose, glad to find that his mind and body responded even after the years of relative inactivity — although he did thousands of press-ups and sit-ups in his cell — and that the complicated and subtle movements of the hoda korosu kata came back to him.
    He had started studying “naked kill” during his second year in Tokyo. The rarefied form of karate — which itself means “empty hand” — was taught by an old Japanese master of the lethal art who at first