Babayaga

of those modern men, you know, he’s used to passing women around like candies at a party.”
    He pulled her close. “I’m not like that.”
    “Really?” She smiled and kissed him again.
    The toilet flushed and Oliver came striding back into the room. “Will,” he said, “before we go, I suggest you use your washroom here, they’ve got one where we’re headed but it will make your flesh crawl.”
    “No thanks, I’m fine,” Will said. Zoya suspected Oliver was trying to create a moment alone with her, which she was happy to avoid. Jealousy could be declawed and defanged with simple tricks, though she suspected Oliver only wanted some token acknowledgment that despite her moving on, their exchange had not been completely superficial. She found even the most cavalier sorts still hated to let things pass completely unspoken. Everyone wanted to put a meaning to things.
    “Okay, then let’s be off. The cab should still be out front. I’ll go make sure. Zoya, what a nice surprise to see you. Amazing and wonderful.” Oliver kissed her on the cheek and left, clearly in a hurry.
    Zoya took Will by the lapels of his jacket and kissed him hard. “Why don’t you come to my apartment tonight, whenever you finish with him.”
    “I don’t know how long we’ll be, last time I went off with Oliver, I was gone all day.”
    “Later is probably better, right?” She smiled. “Come by anytime; if it’s after dinner I’ll give you dessert.”
    “Okay, after dinner, then.” He grinned and kissed her.
    She scribbled down the address and slid it across the table. She felt bad playing this trick on him, she could sense it was unnecessary. But again ancient habits drove her to a well-practiced routine, for whenever circumstances allowed it, she liked to have new lovers stay in her bed for one night. When they saw the sad conditions she lived in, generally shabby, run-down lodgings in unsavory quarters, the men’s protective impulses took over and they pulled her in closer to their lives. She remembered how poor Leon had spent less than an hour in the squalid hovel she had behind the park stables before announcing that he would lease her that apartment in the 5th.
    She felt a little guilty watching Will fold up her address and tuck it into his wallet. She was still tempted to stop him, to hold back the spells and let things unfold naturally, if only to see where they would go, but she knew it was too late for that and so she bit her tongue, staying silent as he took his gray hat off the hook, kissed her cheek, and went out the door.
    Once she was alone, Zoya caught her breath. The work was done. There was no room for romantic sentiment, she reminded herself, it was only about survival. But the feeling that she had committed some unseen error nagged at her, for the emotions she held for her rabbit were becoming quite real and substantial; small lightning sparks jolted about in her blood at the simple thought of him. This wasn’t good. She sniffed the air, and all she smelled was trouble.
    VI

    Riding along in the taxi, Oliver was already focused on other things. “Do you know anything about dementia?”
    “Not much.” Will shrugged, relieved that they wouldn’t be talking about Zoya.
    “As you’ll recall, I asked Ned’s friends, the jazz boys, to keep an eye out for her. Well, they found her, or rather the hotel owner did and called them up. Apparently Ned was discovered lying in the common bathtub at the end of the hallway talking incoherent gibberish. The woman said she is sounding completely bonkers. Ned, I mean, not the hotel owner. Actually, the whole thing is a bit loony. First Boris and now this, well, one doesn’t need to be paranoid…”
    As the cab took them over the river and they headed up toward the Latin Quarter, Will tried to recall all that had happened over the past week. If these really were the last days he would spend in France, it was quite a way to go. Paris had always provided more than he could hope for: from afternoons spent walking in the Parc Monceau to evenings with hot beef bourguignon to nights with curvaceous brunettes taking off their cotton slips in his apartment, the city had given generously. Now, though, he was experiencing bewildering new dimensions of life here, far beyond anything he had ever imagined.
    He had read somewhere about how reporters during the wars grew addicted to the intense, chaotic drama inherent to battle and once peacetime arrived these journalists