After a moment, Ha continued: “There is something I want to tell you as well. Something I’ve never told anyone—not even Kamran, not even knowing he wasn’t real and could tell no one else. But you trusted me with this … and I know I can have the same trust in you.”

“Yes. You can tell me.”

“Back when I was here on Con Dao, as a girl … something happened. Not at the tiger cages, but the night before that. A bunch of us snuck out of the hotel where we were staying, and went down to the beach. We built a bonfire down there, and drank some beers someone had managed to get, and laughed and danced around. I think our chaperones knew, but they didn’t try to stop us. It was good: I felt a part of everything in a way I hadn’t for a while.

“I don’t even know how it happened. He saw me looking at him, maybe, through the flames, and he looked back at me. Finally saw me. Finally looked back at me. He stood up, and came around the fire.

“It was like there was just us in the world: no one even saw us when he touched my shoulder and I stood up. No one saw us when we went off together, into the dark. It was just the way I had imagined it might be. He didn’t say anything at all.

“We found a place away from the others. I could still hear the laughter, and see the bonfire—the sparks rising, drifting out over the sea and dying. We sat for a while, not talking. Just sitting there. Then we lay down on the sand.

“It was my first time. And I wanted to, and it didn’t really hurt or anything. Afterward he touched my shoulder and smiled, and said we should go back to the fire, but separately. Which seemed right. Why should the rest of them know? This was only for us. So I waited a few minutes, there in the dark, and followed. But he and a few of his friends had already gone.”

Ha paused. Evrim, motionless, eyes on her, said nothing, waiting for her to finish.

“The next day, at breakfast, he was the same as before—exactly the same. He never caught my eye, no matter how many times I looked at him. I had this smile ready for him. I had practiced it. I was holding it inside, just waiting to use it.

“But I never got to use it. Because he never looked at me again. Never. Not at breakfast, or afterward. Not ever. That smile I was waiting to use just died in my mouth, and I swallowed it.