"Did you know that there's someone watching?"

He extinguished his cigarette, then lit another. "So you've noticed."

"Who is he?"

"Difficult to say."

"What does he want?"

"Me."

She let the curtain fall and looked at him. "You're in trouble, aren't you?"

He slipped out of bed and moved to her side. "Not really."

"Then why are they watching you?"

He dropped his cigarette in her water glass, then slid his hand inside her robe, one finger circling a nipple. "Because that's the game."

She managed to slip away from him, crossing the room and kneeling on the divan. She felt him looking at her thighs, at her hardened nipple through the fabric of her gown. She shook her head, holding a cushion to her breasts. "I don't like it, Rudy. It frightens me."

He smiled that composed cat's smile of his. Don't be frightened. They watch us, we watch them ... a game."

"Who sends them?"

"Difficult to say."

"Are they English?"

"Perhaps."

"French?"

"I think more likely English."

"So then it's political, isn't it?"

"Yes, you could say it's political."

"Well, I still don't like it. I don't."

He moved to her side again, but only to take her hand, to brush a stray lock of hair from her eyes. While she thought: I suppose this is my weakness, like a disease, and nothing will ever change it—

"Margaretha, I want you to listen to me very carefully."

As if his voice hadn't always hypnotized her.

"This has nothing to do with you, nothing to do with us. They're just playing children's games. Do you understand? They're just acting out a fantasy."

As if children didn't also play for keeps, as if fantasies didn't demand fulfillment.

Sometime after midnight he took her back down to the streets again—dream streets filled with blistered paint and twisted iron. She did not see the men watching from doorways and windows.

And it seems that Dunbar's account, along with the sinister parts, contained nothing of the genuine affection, nothing of his commitment, nothing of her need. Dunbar, after all, could not bear to find or report that.

Spangler waited until the second week before suggesting that she return with him to Berlin, saying, as if the idea had only recently occurred to him, "Live with me in Germany, at least until the summer."

It was late. His arms were laced around her naked waist. His head was resting on her belly. Since their first night together she had tended to see this affair as a dream ... a disconnected adventure out of the mainstream of real life.

She ran a finger along his hip. "Oh God, what would I do in Berlin?"

"Dance. You can dance at the Winter Garden."

"They'd never hire me."

"But of course they will."

She slipped out of his arms, reaching for a dressing gown.

"But I don't know anyone in Berlin."

He smiled. "What does that matter? They'll know you."

"And I've got commitments in Paris."