“I’m not cold.” But she put the glass to her lips anyway. “I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Of what I’ve done. Of what it means.”

“It can mean whatever you want it to mean.” He kissed her shoulder. “My sweet girl.”

“You’re a sweet, sweet thing…”

“I’m talking about my marriage.”

He took a swig straight out of the flask, and she noticed a tattoo on the inside of his arm.

“Let me see that.”

It was a skull. A black skull.

“I had it done in North Africa. It’s part of a pact I have with someone.”

“What kind of a pact?”

“A death pact.”

Part of her wanted to ask more, but the rest of her didn’t want to know. It was too spooky. He offered her the flask again, but she shook her head. The whiskey was too much now. The smell of it on his breath, on her own body where he’d kissed and licked her. Saying she needed some water, she wriggled over him and got out of the bed, hating the fact that he was watching her while she struggled into her crêpe de chine lace-edged chemise, clambered into her absurdly formal, crumpled suit.

The tap squeaked in the kitchen and the water looked a little rusty, but she drank it down all the same.

“Bathroom?” She had her hand on the knob of one of the doors.

“That’s right,” he said lazily. But it was a broom cupboard. She tried the other door, increasingly uneasy.

From the bathroom, where she peed, washed her face and hastily reapplied her makeup, she heard him talking.

“Have you read any of my poetry? It’s kind of metaphysical, but it’s not quite there yet. I can’t seem to reach the right state in which to truly touch the thing that needs to be touched. Opium is useful, but it’s not enough. Have you tried opium?”

“No,” she called out. Her face, in the mirror, looked foolish. She thought wistfully of Robert. He might already be back from his evening out. He could be sitting with the papers—the New York Times, the Boston Chronicle and Le Monde, with a cigar in his mouth, slippers on his feet and a cup of coffee or a bourbon at his side. She wanted to be home with him now, curled up with a book in the Pirogue couch. She wanted everything to be as it was before.

Most likely, he wasn’t home yet. If she went straight back, she could draw a bath and wash it all away—the smoke, the whiskey, the sweat.

“You stupid girl,” she whispered to her bedraggled reflection. “I can’t wait to meet Sylvia,” came Monteray’s voice.

She frowned. “But…” But this was Sylvia’s apartment. Over Sylvia’s shop. He had surely met her already. He must have.