The 2084 Precept

  ***

  I was lying on my stomach and had to turn my head in order to identify to whom the hand lightly scratching my shoulder was attached.

  It was Céline.

  My body reacted by rolling over onto its back in panic. It then just lay there staring at her while my panic-stricken neurons desperately searched for information as to the correct manner in which to greet another guy's fiancée. The pathetic result was some kind of a gurgle, a desperately weird kind of gurgle.

  "Shhh…Peter," she said. "He was a good man…is a good man…but I don't love him. I thought I did and I tried, I tried very hard, but it didn't work anymore. It wasn't possible. It's because of you. I am…I think I am in love with you, Peter. Probably. Even though we don't know each other. Do you think that's stupid?" she finished.

  And she stood there, not smiling, her eyes full of query and doubt about what I might have to say. And she pushed her glasses up higher on her nose, and that made me smile, and that made her lean over me and kiss me gently and tenderly and softly and it was as if we had never been apart, as if we had been together for a long time, and as if we might never be apart again.

  DAY 46

  If incredible sex is one of the ingredients required to justify the use of that nebulous and frequently misapplied word love, then I was in love—maybe. And whether that nebulous and oft misapplied word exists as a long-term concept, or whether it must be restricted to the characterization of a short-term emotional state whose duration is limited to a period of a few days or a few months or even a few years, I don't know. And since I don't know, I reserve my judgment.

  But incredible sex can sometimes be the cause of aching bones and also of aching non-bones, and of a pleasurable and languid weariness, and that was the state I was in when I woke up. Céline was still fast asleep, she was mightily tired from her extensive travels of the day before, and from ending her day at 4 a.m. on the morning after.

  She had feigned illness to absent herself from school for a few days—only a mammoth emergency would cause her to do something as dishonest as that, she explained—and she had travelled from Rouen to Okriftel to find me. And the kindly, gracious, wonderful Monika, and it may have broken her heart a little to do it, had given her some coffee and some Sahnertorte, and she had also given her my address here in Mallorca. And Mr. Brown had swamped her with his goodbye dog-kisses and she had taken two buses to Frankfurt airport and she had bought herself an inexpensive Air Berlin ticket to Palma and then she had taken a bus to the Palma city center and then another one to get to Illetas and then she had walked down the road to my hotel.

  The night had been a long one. We had done this and we had done that and we had done other things as well. And in between the bouts of doing this and that and other things, we had also talked a lot. And that is how I came to learn about Amélie. Amélie was a friend of Céline’s. And she could come to visit us soon n’est-ce pas? Mais naturellement, of course she could. Amélie had been in London for some time, living in Barons Court and studying at the LSE. And Amélie had had an amazing experience. She had had to go to the police because she was frightened of a man who had credited her bank account with the sterling equivalent of €100,000 for no good reason. The police had asked her not to return the money while they were investigating. And she had police protection in the meantime. It would do her good to get away for a while.

  Well…now how about that? Oh yes indeed, Mr. Jeremy Parker, you are going to have to create some more of your astounding delusions the next time we meet in order to explain away the bewildering connections between Céline, Amélie, United Fasteners, Naviera Pujol, and myself and yourself. There is more to this than meets the eye. I am truly and truthfully agog—or en gogues as the Middle French, whence we stole the word, would have it. It will, no doubt about it, be another fascinating experience for me to hear what he comes up with this time.