She wore white Capri pants and a satin blouse of pale blue tied at her slender waist. Viewed from behind, she might have been mistaken for a girl in her twenties. Only when she turned, revealing the wrinkles around her eyes and the streak of gray in her dark hair, did one realize she was a middle-aged woman. She wore bangles on her wrists and a large silver pendant around her long neck. Her skin was olive-complected and her eyes nearly black. She greeted everyone in the same manner, with a kiss on each cheek and a whispered confidence. Gabriel had seen many versions of her before, the woman who moves from villa to villa and party to party, who stays permanently tanned and permanently thin and cannot be bothered with a husband or children. Gabriel wondered what on earth she was doing in Cairo.

The Moroccan quintet took a break and threatened to return in ten minutes. The houselights came up slightly, as did the volume of the conversation. The woman detached herself from the bar and began working the room, moving effortlessly from table to table, alcove to alcove, as a butterfly floats from one flower to the next. Old acquaintances she greeted with kisses and a whisper. New friends were treated to a long handshake. She spoke to them in Arabic and English, in Italian and French, in Spanish and respectable German. She accepted compliments like a woman used to receiving them and left no turbulence in her wake. For the men, she was an object of cautious desire; for the women, admiration.

She arrived at the table of Herr Klemp as the band was filing back onto the stage for a second set. He stood and, bowing slightly at the waist, accepted her proffered hand. Her grip was firm, her skin cool and dry. Releasing his hand, she pushed a stray lock of hair from her face and regarded him playfully with her brown eyes. Had he not seen her give the same look to every other man in the room, he might have assumed she was flirting with him.

“I’m so glad you could join us this evening.” She spoke to him in English and in the confiding tone of a hostess who had thrown a small dinner party. “I hope you’re enjoying the music. Aren’t they wonderful? I’m Mimi, by the way.”

And with that she was gone. Gabriel turned his gaze toward the stage, but in his mind he was back in Natan Hofi’s underground lair, listening to the recordings of the mysterious woman with a friend named Tony.

I’m Mimi, by the way.

No, you’re not, thought Gabriel. You’re Madeleine. And Alexandra. And Lunetta. You’re the Little Moon.