“I told him your schedule is full, which he didn’t take very well. He wouldn’t be denied, so I’ve slotted him in for two o’clock. Sorry to cut your lunch short.”

“Thank you, Julien.”

“I must warn you, professor. Don’t expect to recognize your old friend. He is a mess.”

Not a day went by without a thought for Artopoulos. The word friend could barely contain the nature of our former bond. At one time, we had been more like brothers, with all the uneasiness brotherhood entails, but in the almost three years since the outbreak of war I’d only seen him a couple of times, by happenstance, while he was on leave. What had become of him? What had the war done to him? I took my coat and went for a walk in the park, my mind bursting with memories of a bygone friendship that stretched back seventeen years, to the time of my return to Paris.

Moments after my crossing with Madame Édmonde in the train seventeen years earlier, I decided I must vanish. She and I had been seen speaking at length in the parlor car, and in my velvet smoking jacket, turban, and walrus mustache, I attracted attention. I wished to avoid any suspicion that her sudden illness was attributable to our recent acquaintance. The last thing I wanted was to end up stuck in a Midwestern prison.