“On?”

“The tastes and qualities of the woman involved. What she reads, for instance. How many languages she speaks.”

“What’s German food?” I asked him, because he had gotten married at a young age to a German woman named Anastasia and had his two beautiful girls-five-year-old twins-by her, and the breakup of that union had been so spectacularly awful for him and for Anastasia and for the twins that it hung around his neck like a great weight of guilt and hurt and he still talked about it too much.

“Heavy,” he said, without missing a beat. “Sticks to you.”

“Good. I’ll remember. Seeing the twins this weekend?”

“You should see your face when you ask about them, Colonel.” He looked up at the television screen, but he was not really paying attention to it. “You would be the father of fathers, you know that, don’t you?”

“You’re kicking my bruise.”

“Sometimes a bruise needs a good kick,” he said. “I’ll call you tonight, either just before midnight or just after.”

“Don’t.”

“I will, though. I know myself.”

5

AT FIVE MINUTES to seven I gave a dollar to the valet attendant at Diem Bo and straightened the lapels of my sport jacket. It was a beautiful September night, clear and warm, with enough summer still in it to make you believe the world was a good and happy place, and the couples you saw strolling on New-bury Street were destined for long peaceful lives together.

As I was walking up Diem Bo’s brick front steps, I was greeted by an imaginary messenger from the world of ugly thoughts. A troll, a goblin, an ugly little creature from the kingdom of fear. His message went something along the lines of: Why this again? But I knew why. For the previous twelve months I had been skating over the surface of things, and I worried that, if I kept at it