“Because I was starting to take myself too seriously.”

Muir stuttered a few times, trying to say something meaningful, the nurturing mundanity of his own life not having equipped him to understand how Condley might be feeling at that moment. “That’s a terribly ungrateful thing for her to do,” he finally managed to say.

“Not really,” shrugged Condley. “It took guts, actually. She saw the brass ring and she grabbed it.” He walked into the bathroom and retrieved the bottle of perfume, ceremoniously handing it to Muir. “Here, Professor. A present for your wife, from Francois Petain.”

Muir took it, daring now to smile. “Tigress,” he said, reading the label. “Whooee. It must make you go wild, huh, Brandon? I’m almost afraid to let my wife put some of this on.” He gave Condley a concerned look. “Are you all right? What are you going to do?”

“About Van?” He shrugged. “Nothing for now. I’ve got a lot of things to worry about before tonight. She doesn’t even make the top five.”

Muir pocketed the perfume. “Do you need my help?”

“Go take your nap, Professor.”

The doorman at the hotel told him that a large white man about his age had picked Van up about an hour before. The man seemed to have been an American, spoke pretty good Thai, and had arrived in a chauffeur-driven black BMW. Simolzak was not in his office when Condley called, and he decided not to leave a message. He knew where his old friend lived.

As the hotel ferry made its way upriver he sat alone on the fantail, leaning grandly back against the seat cushions with his arms spread wide on either side of him. Just above his head, a large Thai flag flapped lazily in the dank and gentle wind. The sun beat heavily against his face and arms, hot as a lightbulb. He ignored the dozens of nearby tourists. He had absolutely nothing in common with them. They were zoo-kept, sitting with their sun hats and their street maps along the canopied side rails of the boat, pointing and chattering as if the fifteen-minute ride to the Oriental Hotel’s dock were somehow a grand Asian adventure. And he was certifiably wild, country-bred and jungle-trained, as untamable as a mountain lion.

The ferry churned against the wavelets and his mind floated above him to a place that neared nirvana, asking him when he would finally cease all this incessant struggling. The river surrounded him, timeless, deep, and powerful, its current no different than when he had first seen it or even when Rudyard Kipling had sat on the grand old Oriental Hotel’s veranda more than a century before and penned his poetry.

Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,

Where there aren’t no Ten Commandments an’ a man can raise a thirst;

For the temple-bells are callin’, an’ it’s there that I would be—