The girl pulled a pack of Drum from her leather jacket, pinched tobacco into paper, and expertly rolled a cigarette and ran her tongue along the edge. She offered it to Ana. Then rolled another for Pars and plucked her own from behind her ear. She elbowed herself off the rock, produced a pink lighter and thumbed the roller, but the flame kept quitting in the wind.

Here, Pars said.

He stepped close to the girl, wrapped his fingers around her small palms, and made a perfect cave with his own.

Now try.

She thumbed the lighter, and this time the fire stayed, a flower inside their four hands. A stamen of flame.

Ana bent to the lighter—a bee sucking nectar—and came away with a glowing cigarette; Pars gestured for Claartija to go ahead, and she dipped hers inside, and he lit his last; all three of them with their own fires; and this seemed to Ana a small accomplishment, a campfire, something to ring themselves around. The smoke from their cigarettes caught the quartering breeze, and they watched it disperse—three scarves of smoke—emptying across the rocks.

Down below, people dotted the boulders now. The Hasidic boy led his mother to the water’s edge, took something from his pocket, and tossed it gingerly into the surf. A woman accompanied a small girl in a purple dress to the same spot. The girl clutched one of the teddy bears from the tent. She tried underhanding the bear into the water, but it fell only halfway and landed on one of the slippery rocks. The girl pointed to the stuffed animal and stamped her feet. Clearly she wanted to retrieve it and try again so it could join the other bears already tossed into the sea. It was too hazardous on the rocks, however, and her mother wouldn’t let her go, and the girl began to wail.

Pars, who’d been watching the scene, ground his cigarette against a rock, and started toward the boulders.

What are you doing? Ana inquired.

He didn’t answer. He was already jogging across the rocks.

Claartija picked a piece of tobacco from her tongue.

Fucking bears, she mumbled.

They watched Pars in his tweed coat; he looked suddenly athletic, leaping from boulder to boulder, backlit, the surf splashing. He was down by the girl and her mother. Ana watched with growing dread. He had to time each leap. The Mountie had run over—the same one who had chastised Ana—and was shouting now at Pars. Pars looked like a high-wire artist, arms held out at either side.

Christ, Ana whispered and wondered what kind of ritual this was, the drowning of plush toys. A gull plunged at the bear. Pars slipped, recovered, reached the toy, and tossed it over his head out to sea.