Why N. insists on this slavish servitude, as if I were a sultana, I’m not quite sure. Of course, he’s the sultan, so I suppose it’s a matter of his image, his ego, not mine. I exist for greeting and planning and hostessing and being decorative around his kowtowing friends and underlings and big-belly business associates from Europe, North Africa, the Middle East-a kind of glorified five-star housekeeper, as P. truly calls me (but not in N.’s hearing!).

There, I’ve got rid of the poor thing for tonight, anyway. I had to reassure her that the signore would never, never know. Maybe we could work out an accommodation, Editta and I, for the future. Happy, wishful thought. She’s so dad-blamed, all-fired scared of Nino, all he has to do is give her one of those evil-eye looks of his and she wets her mutandine, as Julio says with his customary refinement. And not from passion, either, she’s past the age. Poor Editta.

Poor me. A bitch of a day, I repeat. My “cover,” as the spy boys call it (don’t they? or am I misusing the term? I must consult P., he knows everything)-anyway, my cover, or cover-up, or excuse, or alibi, or whatever, was that I was to do some Christmas shopping (Saks,

Bergdorf’s, Bonwit’s, Georg Jensen, Mark Cross, Sulka, Brentano’s-the circuit), which would put me out of range of Crump’s Halloween eyes and Editta’s bunny nose and into the blessed pollution of Fifth Avenue, the tintinnabulation of the Santa bells, and the trivial perils of purse snatchers, panhandlers, and muggers. And with N. skillions of miles away, in West Berlin or Belgrade or Athens or wherever, scheming how to make his millions propagate more millions-what did Julio, or was it Marco, say yesterday the conglomerate is now worth, cold turkey? close to half a billion dollars? how does anyone digest sums like that!-with him on the other side of an ocean I was free… free to spend most of the day with Peter! Even to be reckless. Such as now, writing his name full out and fancied up like H*y*m*a*n K*a*p*l*a*n’s… P*E*T*E*R. p*jr*rp*E*R E*N*N*I*S.