Diving had been her sport since she was ten. A sport without a team. And no racing side-by-side against a competitor. Everything up to her alone, under her control, for better or for worse. No gyrating markets, no clients, no men, except her father, always there, always supportive (always him, not her brittle, unpredictable mother). And even he was not on her mind when she was alone on the board, then alone in the air. “Oh,” someone once said to her, “just you alone, like a golfer staring at a ball.”

“Yes,” she’d said. “But no.”

Up in the air, the board below her, she tucked and flipped into a somersault, once, twice, three times. Flying. Using muscles most people didn’t know they have. Then coming out of her tuck and bringing her hands together to slice into the pool, her pointed toes pulling the water above her downward. And the dive still not over. Most people didn’t understand that. Submerged, she somersaulted again, then rode the air bubbles her entrance had created back to the surface, her body above them, dispersing them to minimize the size of their eruption.

The finale of a perfect dive.

No splash.

Stavro

STAVRO

Passengers arriving at the Geneva airport have their choice of which country to walk out to—Switzerland or France. Stanley Pleski was waiting for someone on the Swiss side. Behind the usual scrum of limo drivers holding signs, he sat on a bench next to a kiosk selling low-end Swiss watches at inflated prices. He was holding the day’s Tribune de Genève, open to his favorite section. His French was practically nonexistent but he had no difficulty understanding the ads. “Jolie française, tous fantasmes, fellation, 69.” What a country, he thought. You throw a cigar butt on the sidewalk and the cops are all over you, but hookers are legal.

A flight from Chicago had landed a few minutes before, and passengers were starting to exit the arrivals area. A man in a suit was greeted by his wife and toddler daughter holding a pink balloon. An athletic young couple, headed for the mountains, exited with backpacks and trekking poles. A short man wearing jeans and a leather jacket, carrying a small duffel bag over his shoulder, appeared and walked toward the watch kiosk. He took a seat on the bench next to Pleski, laying his bag on the floor between them. He pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose. Put the handkerchief back in his pocket. Rubbed his right eye. Scratched his chest. Coughed. Then got up and walked away. Without the bag.

Pleski watched him go. Then he folded his newspaper and stood up and picked up the bag.