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indoctrination. They never managed to instill enough guilt to keep me loyal. Anyway, how come you know so much about it?”
    “These things just interest me, I guess. What makes people obey rules, what makes them keep coming back for more.”
    “You sound as if you admire it.”
    “Not admire exactly, but I’m a little impressed by its Machiavellian effects, yes. Catholicism has kept Latin America as firmly enthralled as sacrificing virgins to the sun did four centuries ago. You have to have respect for that kind of power, don’t you think?”
    “No, not necessarily.”
    We stood for a moment, looking at each other. My God, I thought, I’m having a conversation with a Westerner and we haven’t yet mentioned how long we’ve been on the road or where we’re going next. This hasn’t happened to me for months. And I was feeling amazingly light and reborn, which had nothing to do with Easter.
    He smiled at me, and I remember thinking he was beautiful. Or rather that I fancied him. And I wondered what should I say next to make him stay. I needn’t have worried.
    “I don’t know about you,” he said. “But I could do with a cup of coffee. Or even something a little stronger. In which case it’ll have to be my hotel. There aren’t a whole load of places where they let atheists celebrate on Good Friday.”
    I thought of the small change rattling under my left breast and the prices on the hotel drinks list. Then we both thought of a secondhand
International Herald Tribune
. “But,” he added, shaking his head, “this one has to be on me, right? After all, if I hadn’t forced you in there you wouldn’t need a drink. OK?”
    Inside somewhere I was laughing, with an old-fashioned kind of delight. I knew it was regressive, a woman bought with chivalry and wine. But, as I said, I was looking to be wooed. Like any old-fashioned girl. And so I accepted his offer.
    And as we walked back out of the path of the worshipers, it began to rain: cold, Colombian rain with a hint of the mountainsin it. A clock struck three. I remember thinking that God was keeping a firm eye on the proceedings, even down to the special effects. And so we went back to his hotel.
    O ut on the New York balcony, Elly stopped talking and stared at her hands folded in her lap. I sat marble still. To tell stories is to relive them. And we had just got to the part which would be hardest to tell.
    Time passed. I got up and went into the sitting room, collecting the bottle of bourbon from the table. I filled her glass and then my own. She looked up at me. Her foot, I remember, made a tiny nervous gesture.
    “There’s too much of it, Marla. Let’s leave it till tomorrow.”
    I sat down and crossed my arms. “In the mead halls of old England, storytellers used to recite all night. Let’s tell it now.”

four
    W hat can I say? You know what happened next. It’s what comes before the “happily ever after” bit. We had coffee in the coffee shop, then a drink in the bar, then dinner in the restaurant. We drank European wine—which I had not tasted for eight months—and brandy, and then we went to bed. And I think the truth of the matter is that I “fell in love,” whatever that means, that very night. Not because of the sex. No. That was the usual, messy first-night affair—strung-out desire and no finesse. No, not because of the sex. I think it was more because of the conversation.
    You have to imagine how it was for me. You have to remember how starved I was for that kind of communication, thatedge of sharpness, that intellect. I had got used to the meanderings of dopers, following smoke rings and getting off on diversions rather than destinations. Maybe I just wasn’t as stoned as they were, but God, it had got boring. With him it was different. He was bright, shiny, and very fast. He knew things. And they didn’t come out of the latest
Time
magazine. Colombia wasn’t just the next country on a map for him. He had studied it, knew chapter and