The Messenger

time.”

    H E STARTED SLOWLY , a climber plodding his way through the foothills, conserving his strength for the unseen perils that lay ahead. His questions were short and efficient and methodically posed, as though he were reading them from a prepared list, which he wasn’t. He devoted the first hour to her family. Her father, the high-flying Citicorp executive who’d had no time for his children but plenty of time for other women. Her mother, whose life had crumbled after the divorce and who was now living like a hermit in her classic-eight Manhattan apartment on Fifth Avenue. Her older sister, whom Sarah described as “the one who got all the brains and beauty.” Her little brother, who had checked out of life early and, much to her father’s disappointment, was now working for pennies in a ski-rental shop somewhere in Colorado.
    After family came another hour devoted solely to her expensive European schooling. The American in St. John’s Wood, where she’d done her elementary years. The international middle school in Paris, where she’d learned how to speak French and get into trouble. The all-girls boarding school outside Geneva, where she’d been incarcerated by her father for the purpose of “sorting herself out.” It was in Switzerland, she volunteered, where she discovered her passion for art. Each of her answers was greeted by the scratching of his pen. He wrote in red ink on a legal pad the color of sunflowers. At first she thought he was scribbling in shorthand or some form of hieroglyphics. Then she realized he was making notes in Hebrew. The fact that it was written right to left—and that he could write with equal speed with either hand—served to reinforce her impression that she had passed through the looking glass.
    At times he seemed to have all the time in the world; at others he would glare at his wristwatch and frown, as though calculating how much farther they could push on before making camp for the night. From time to time he slipped into other languages. His French was quite good. His Italian faultless but tinged with a vague accent that betrayed the fact he was not a native speaker. When he addressed her in German a change came over him. A straightening of his back. A hardening of his severe features. She answered him in the language of his question, though invariably her words were recorded in Hebrew on his yellow legal pad. For the most part he did not challenge her, though any inconsistencies, real or imagined, were pursued with a prosecutorial zeal.
    “This passion for art,” he said. “Where do you think it came from? Why art? Why not literature or music? Why not film or drama?”
    “Paintings became a refuge for me. A sanctuary.”
    “From what?”
    “Real life.”
    “You were a rich girl going to the finest schools in Europe. What was wrong with your life?” He switched from English into German in mid-accusation. “What were you running from?”
    “You judge me,” she responded in the same language.
    “Of course.”
    “May we speak in English?”
    “If you must.”
    “Paintings are other places. Other lives. An instant in time that exists on the canvas and nowhere else.”
    “You like to inhabit these places.”
    It was an observation, not a question. She nodded in response.
    “You like to lead other lives? Become other people? You like to walk through Vincent’s wheat fields and Monet’s flower gardens?”
    “And even through Frankel’s nightmares.”
    He laid down his pen for the first time. “Is that why you applied to join the Agency? Because you wanted to lead another life? Because you wanted to become another person?”
    “No, I did it because I wanted to serve my country.”
    He gave her a disapproving frown, as if he found her response naïve, and then shot another glance at his wristwatch. Time was his enemy.
    “Did you meet Arabs when you were growing up in Europe?”
    “Of course.”
    “Boys? Girls?”
    “Both?”
    “What sort of Arabs?”
    “Arabs who walk on two legs. Arabs from Arab countries.”
    “You’re more sophisticated than that, Sarah.”
    “Lebanese. Palestinians. Jordanians. Egyptians.”
    “What about Saudis? Did you ever go to school with Saudis?”
    “There were a couple of Saudi girls at my school in Switzerland.”
    “They were rich, these Saudi girls?”
    “We were all rich.”
    “Were you friends with them?”
    “They were hard to get to know. They were standoffish. They kept to themselves.”
    “And