Cover

Dedication

I dedicate this novel to my mother, Jutta Marianne George (May 18, 1939–September 27, 2017), and beloved wife of Broad Jo.

She always delighted in traveling to all kinds of imaginary worlds with me.

Maybe our lives are nothing but stories that are being read by other people.

DAY ONE

Henri

I jump.

The fall only lasts a few seconds. I can hear the engines of the cars above me on Hammersmith Bridge. Rush hour. I smell the city, the fading fragrance of spring, of dew on the leaves. Then I plunge into the cold water and it closes over my head. I strike out with my arms, gathering speed as the receding tide carries me with it. Despite being more than thirty miles away, the sea sucks the river toward it. My body has not forgotten the tug of the tide; it’s as if I never left the sea, although it’s over twenty-five years since I last bathed in the Atlantic.

Finally I reach the girl.

The river is dragging her along. It wants to own her. It’s intent on breaking down her body into its constituent parts, severing her hopes from her fears, ripping the smile from her lips, and cutting off her future.

She’s sinking into the muddy waters. I dive and pull her closer by her hair. I manage to catch hold of a slender, slippery upper arm. I tighten my grip and gather my breath for the coming struggle. Salty, ice-cold water floods into my mouth. The Thames wraps me in its embrace.

Her face, with eyes the color of the wintry sea, floats toward me. She’s pinching her nose shut with the fingers of one hand, as if she had merely jumped into the lukewarm, chlorine-tinged water of a swimming pool. In fact, she has fallen overboard, one of the many pleasure craft carrying tourists along the Thames. After climbing onto the second-highest bar of the boat’s railings, the girl had tilted her face to catch the May sunshine when a chance wave slapped against the hull, raising the stern and tipping the whole boat forward. The girl didn’t make a sound, but her eyes were brimming with boundless curiosity.

From Hammersmith Bridge we watched her fall—the kissing couple, the beggar in the threadbare tuxedo, and me.

The beggar jumped up from his “turf,” a piece of cardboard in a sunny spot against the suspension bridge’s green rail. “Oh my God!” he whispered. The couple turned to me. Neither they nor the beggar moved a muscle—they simply stared at me. So I clambered over the green cast-iron railing, waited until the small figure surfaced below me, and jumped.

The girl is gazing at me with more trust and hope than a man like me deserves. Of all the people in this city who might have been in a position to rescue her, it had to be me.