"That's a long story. I suppose the simple answer is that I've never really felt I belonged anywhere. Except out there." He glanced seaward. "And even there..."

For the first time since they'd begun this conversation, she sensed his attention wandering, as though this talk of things far off was making him yearn for them. Perhaps not for the specific of Samarkand; simply for something remote from the here and now. She touched his arm.

"Come back to me," she said.

"Sorry," he replied. "I'm here."

They'd reached the end of the jetty. The boat was before them, rocking gently in the arms of the tide.

"Are we going aboard then?" she asked him.

"We surely are."

He stepped aside, and she climbed the narrow plank laid between the jetty and the deck. He followed her, "Welcome," he said with no little pride. "To my Samarkand."

The tour of the boat didn't take long; it was in most regards an unremarkable vessel. There were a few details of its crafting he pointed out to her as having been difficult to fashion or pretty in the result, but it wasn't until they got below deck that she really saw his handiwork. The walls of the narrow cabin were inlaid with wood; the colors, the grain and even the knotholes in the timber so chosen and arranged that they almost suggested images.

"Is it my imagination," Rachel said, "or am I seeing things in the walls?"

"Anything in particular?"

"Well... over there I can see a kind of landscape, with some ruins, and maybe some trees. And there's something that could be a tree, but might be a person..."

"I think it's a person."

"So you put it there?"

"No. I did all of this work thinking I was just making patterns. It wasn't until I was a week into my next voyage I started to see things.""It's like looking at inkblots-" Rachel said.

"-or clouds-"

"-or clouds. The more you look the more you see."

"It's useful on long voyages," Galilee said, "when I'm sick of looking at the waves and the fish I come down here, smoke a little, get a buzz going, and look at the walls. There's always something I hadn't seen." He put his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her round. "See that?" he said, pointing to the door at the far end of the cabin, which was constructed in the same way as the walls.

"The design on the door?"

"Yes."

"Does it remind you of anything?"

She walked toward it. Galilee followed, his hands still laid on her shoulders. "I'll give you a clue," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "The gra.s.s looks very comfortable..."

"The gra.s.s?"

She stopped a yard or so from the door, and looked at the patterns in the wood. There were arrangements of dark shapes towards the top of the door; and a sliver of pale wood running horizontally, broken in places, and some more forms she could make no sense of arbitrarily laid here and there. But where was the gra.s.s? And why was it so comfortable?

"I'm not getting it," she said.

"Just look for the virgin," Galilee said.

"The virgin?" she said. "What virgin?" He drew breath to give her another clue, but before he could speak she said: "You mean Jerusha?"

He put his smiling lips against the nape of her neck and kept his silence.

She kept looking, and piece by piece the picture began to emerge. The gra.s.s-that comfortable bed on which Jerusha had lain down-was there in the middle of the door, a patch of lightly speckled wood. Above it were those dark, ma.s.sy shapes she'd first puzzled over: the heavy summer foliage of ancient trees. And that bright'horizontal sliver running across the door? It was the river, glimpsed from a distance.

Now it was she who smiled, as the mystery came clear in front of her. She had only one question: "Where are the people?""You have to put those in for yourself," he said. "Unless..." He stepped past her and put his finger on a narrow, almost spindly shape in the grain of one of the pieces of wood. "Could this be the riverman?"

"No. He was better looking than that."

Galilee laughed. "So maybe it isn't Jerusha's forest after all," he said. "I'll have to invent a new story."

"You like telling stories?"

"I like what it does to people," he said, smiling a little guiltily. "It makes them feel safe."

"Going to your country? Where the rich were kind and the poor had G.o.d-"

"I suppose that is my country- I hadn't thought about it that way before." The notion seemed to trouble him somewhat. He grew pensive for a moment; just a moment. Then he looked up from his thoughts and said: "Are you hungry?"

"Yes, I am a little."

"Good. Then I'll cook," he said. "It'll take a couple of hours. Can you wait that long?"

"A couple of hours?" she said, "What are you going to cook?"

"Oh it's not the cooking that takes the time," he said. "It's the catching."

ii There was no trace of the day remaining when The Samarkand left the jetty; nor was there a moon. Only the stars, in brilliant array. Rachel sat on deck while the boat glided away from the island. The heavens got brighter the further they sailed, or such was her impression. She'd never seen so many stars, nor seen the Milky Way so clearly; a wide, irregular band of studded sky.

"What are you thinking about?" Galilee asked her.

"I used to work in a jewelry store in Boston," she said. "And we had this necklace that was called the Milky Way. It was supposed to look like that." She pointed to the sky. "I think it was eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. You never saw so many diamonds."

"Did you want to steal it?" Galilee said.

"I'm not a thief."

"But did you?"She grinned sheepishly. "I did try it on when n.o.body was looking. And it was very pretty. But the real thing's prettier."

"I would have stolen it for you," Galilee said. "No problem. All you needed to say was-I want that-and it would have been yours."

"Suppose you'd got caught?"

"I never get caught."

"So what have you stolen?"

"Oh my Lord..." he said. "Where do I start?"

"Is that a joke?"

"No. I take theft very seriously."

"It is a joke."

"I stole this boat."

"You did not."

"How else was I going to get it?"

"Buy it?"

"You know how much vessels like this cost?" he said reasonably. She still wasn't sure whether he was joking or not. "I either stole the money to buy the boat, or stole the boat itself. It seemed simpler to steal the boat. That cut out the middle man." Rachel laughed. "Besides, the guy who had the boat didn't care about her. He left her tied up most of the time. I took her out, showed her the world."

"You make it sound like you married her."

"I'm not that crazy," Galilee replied. "I like sailing, but I like f.u.c.king better." An expression of surprise must have crossed her face, because he hurriedly said: "Sorry. That was crude. I mean-"

"No, if that's what you meant you should say it."

He looked sideways at her, his eyes gleaming by the light of the lamp. Despite his claim not to be crazy, that was exactly how he looked at that moment: sublimely, exquisitely crazy.

"You realize what you're inviting?" he said."No."

"Giving me permission to say what I mean? That's a dangerous invitation."

"I'll take the risk."

"All right," he said with a shrug. "But you remember..."

"... I invited it."

He kept looking at her: that same gleaming gaze.

"I brought you on this boat because I want to make love to you."

"Make love is it now?"

"No, f.u.c.k. I want to f.u.c.k you."

"Is that your usual method?" she asked him. "Get the girl out to the sea where she hasn't got any choice?"

"You could swim," he said. He wasn't smiling.

"I suppose I could."

"But as they say on the islands: Utiuli kai holo ka mono."

"Which means what?"

"Where the sea is dark, sharks swim."

"Oh that's very rea.s.suring," she said, glancing down at the waters slopping against the hull of The Samarkand. They were indeed dark.

"So that may not be the wisest option. You're safer here. With me. Getting what you want."

"I haven't said-"

"You don't need to tell me. You just need to be near me. I can smell what you want."

If Mitch.e.l.l had ever said anything like that as a s.e.xual overture he would have killed his chances stone dead. But she'd invited this man to say what was in his head. It was too late to play the Puritan. Besides, coming from him, right now, the idea was curiously beguiling. He could smell her. Her breath, her sweat; G.o.d knows what else. She was near him and he could smell her; she was wasting his time and hers protesting and denying...So she said: "I thought we were going to fish?"

He grinned at her. "You want a lover who keeps his promises, huh?"

"Absolutely."

"I'll get a fish," he said, and standing up he stripped off his T-shirt, unbuckled his belt and stepped out of his pants; all this so swiftly she didn't comprehend what he was intending to do until he threw himself overboard. It wasn't an elegant dive, it was a ragged plunge, and the splash soaked her. But that wasn't what got her up and shouting at him. It was what he'd said about sharks and dark water.

"Don't do this!" she yelled. She could barely see him. "Come out of there!"

"I'm not going to be long."

"Galilee. You said there were sharks."

"And the longer I talk to you the more likely they'll come and eat my a.s.s, so can I please go fish?"

"I'm not hungry any more."

"You will be," he said. She could hear the smile in his voice, then saw him throw his arms above his head and dive out of sight.

"You sonofab.i.t.c.h," she said to herself, her mind filling with unwelcome questions. How long could he hold his breath for? When should she start to be concerned for his safety? And what if she saw a shark: what was she to do then? Lean over the side and beat on the hull of the boat to divert its attention? Not a very pleasant idea, with the water so concealing. The thing would be on her before she knew it; taking off her hand, her arm, dragging her overboard.

There was no doubt in her mind: when he got back on board she was going to tell him to take her straight back to the jetty; the sonofab.i.t.c.h, the sonofab.i.t.c.h, leaving her here staring down into the darkness with her heart in her mouth- She heard a splashing sound on the other side of the boat.

"Is that you?" she called out. There was no reply. She crossed the deck, stumbling over something in the dark. "Galilee, d.a.m.n you! Answer me!"

The splashing came again. She scanned the water, looking for some sign of life. Praying it was a man not a fin.

"Oh G.o.d, don't let anything happen to him," she found herself saying, "Please G.o.d, please, don't hurt him.""You sound like a native."

She looked in the direction of the voice. There was something that looked like a black ball bobbing in the water. And around it, fish were leaping, their backs silvery in the starlight.

"Okay," she said, determined not to sound concerned for fear she encouraged his cavortings.

"You got the fish? That's great."