"Yes?" He turns up the wick of the kerosene lamp.

"I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to tell me-about your memory of-about Germany."

"What is there to understand?"

"Are you trying to tell me that the Nazis were not to blame?"

"No. They were to blame. Everything you've ever heard about them is true. I saw Dachau."

"Are you suggesting that it was the psychiatrists who were the villains?"

"No. Only that they taught the Nazis a thing or two."

"Scientists in general?"

"No."

"Then is it the Germans? Are you saying that there is a fatal flaw peculiar to the Germans, something demonic?"

"Demonic?" The priest laughs. "I think you're pulling my leg, Tom." He looks at me slyly, then narrows his eyes as if he is sizing me up. "Could I ask you a question, Tom?"

"Sure."

"Do you think we're different from the Germans?"

"I couldn't say. I hope so."

"Do you think present-day Soviet psychiatrists are any different from Dr. Jager and that crowd?"

"I couldn't say. But what is the point, Father?"

Again the priest's eyes seem to glitter. Is it malice or a secret hilarity? "Of my little deja vu? Just a tale. Perhaps a hallucination, as you suggest. I thought you would be interested from a professional point of view. It was such a vivid experience, my remembering it in every detail, even the florist-shop smell of geraniums-much more vivid than a dream. Some psychological phenomenon, I'm sure."

I look at him. There is a sly expression in his yes. Is he being ironic? "No doubt." I rise. "I'm going to pick up Claude. Come in tomorrow for a CORTscan. If you don't feel well, call me or have Milton call me. I'll come for you."

We shake hands. Something occurs to me. "May I ask you a somewhat personal question?" His last question about the Germans irritated me enough that I feel free to ask him.

"Sure."

"Why did you become a priest?"

"Why did I become a priest." The priest at first seems surprised. Then he ruminates.

"Yes."

"What else?"

"What else what?"

"That's all."

He shrugs, appearing to lose interest. "In the end one must choose-given the chance."

"Choose what?"

"Life or death. What else?"

What else. I'm thinking of the smell of geraniums and of the temporal lobe where smells are registered and, in some cases of epilepsy or brain tumor, replay, come back with all the haunting force of memory. And play one false too. I don't recall geraniums having a smell.

17. THE IRON GATE at Belle Ame is closed. I get out to open it, hoping it is not locked. It unlocks and opens even as I reach for it. In the same instant headlights come on beyond the gate not ten feet away. They are double lights, on high beam but close enough and low enough not to blind me.

It is the Ranger four-door parked, waiting.

"Okay, Doctor. You can hold it right there. That's fine."

It's the driver, the one dressed in the business suit. The other man is getting out of the Ranger. He is wearing a business jacket over the bib overalls.

"Please park your car over there, Doctor," says number one, opening the gate and pointing past the Ranger. He's Boston or Rhode Island, the park is almost pak, the car almost but not quite ca. Not as broad as Boston. Probably Providence. Otherwise he's Midwest Purvis, old-style FBI, hair: crewcut; suit: Michigan State collegiate.

Why?"

"We have a federal warrant, Doctor."

"For what? What's the charge?"

"We don't need a charge." He reaches for something under his jacket, behind him-cuffs?-but flips open a little pocket book, showing a badge. "ATFA, Doctor. Please park your car there."

"Take it easy, Mel," says number two. "The doctor's not going anywhere, are you, Doc?" He's upcountry Louisiana, strong-bellied, heavy-faced, not ill-natured, but sure, sheriff-sure. He could have been one of Huey Long's bodyguards. He's wearing a suit jacket over his overalls. Why bib overalls? Because he's too fat for jeans? "Doc, we got orders to hold you for parole violation. I'll park your car for you." He says pak, ca. They are not unfriendly.

"Where're we going?"

"Angola, right up the road."

"That's a state facility."

"We have very good liaison with state and county officers, Doctor," says Providence Purvis, picking up some Louisiana good manners. "I'm sure we can clear it up in no time. Don't worry. You're not going to the prison farm. We have a holding facility there, quite a decent place actually-for political detainees and suchlike."

"He's talking about parish, Doc," says Louisiana Fats, pronouncing it pa-ish. "I'm out of the sheriff's office in East Feliciana, on loan to the ATFA. It's the feds have the holding facility."

"Let's go, Dr. More," says Purvis.

"I want to pick up a patient here, one of the boys. It's an urgent medical matter."

"No way," says Purvis, turning Yankee again. "Move it."

18. THE FEDERAL HOLDING FACILITY is under the levee, outside the main gate, and not really part of the Angola Prison Farm. It is a nondescript, two-story frame building which in fact I remember. It used to be a residence for junior correction officers. It looks like a crewboat washed up from the Mississippi, which flows just beyond the levee and all but encircles Angola like a turbulent moat.

It is not yet midnight. But the place is brightly lit by a bank of stadium lights. There are two tiers of rooms and a boatlike rail running around both decks. A couple of men, not dressed like prisoners, are lounging at the upper rail like sailors marooned in a bad port.

It turns out I know the jailer. He's a Jenkins, Elmo Jenkins, one of several hundred Jenkinses from upper St. Tammany Parish, sitting behind not even a desk but a folding metal picnic table in a passageway amidships which looks like the rec room of an oil rig with its old non-stereo TV, plastic couches, a card table, and a stack of old Playboys.

Officer Jenkins is uniformed but shirt-sleeved. When I knew him he was a deputy sheriff in Bogalusa. He is older than I and heavy. His thick gray hair, gone yellow, is creased into a shelf by his hatband.

He looks at me for a while. "How you doing, Doc," says Elmo mournfully, holding out his hand and not looking at me. He is embarrassed. He's expecting me. "What can I do for you fellows?" he asks the two federal officers in a different voice. He doesn't have much use for them.

"Just sign this, Officer," says Providence Purvis, taking a paper from his pocket, "and the doctor will be out of our jurisdiction and into yours."

"He was never in yours," says Elmo, an old states'-righter. He is speaking to Louisiana Fats, for whom he seems to have a special dislike.

"I beg your pardon, Officer," says Purvis crisply, pronouncing it perrdon. Midwest after all? "If you will consult the federal statute for ATFA detainees, I think you will find you're in error." Errr.

"Come back tomorrow and see the warden," says Elmo, not looking at either one of them.

"But-" begins Louisiana Fats.

"Let's go," says Purvis.

They leave.

"Doc," says Elmo, "what in hail you doing here?"

"I don't rightly know. I'm tired. What time is it?"

"You look like you been rid hard and put up wet."

"You got a room, Elmo? I'm tired."

"I got the V.I.P. room for you, Doc. The one we keep for political refugees. The last occupant was the ex-President of Guatemala. You think I'll ever forget what you did for my auntee, Miss Maude from Enon? You cured her after the best doctors in New Orleans tried and couldn't."

I remember old Miss Maude Jenkins. She had shingles. I often get patients after medical doctors and chiropractors strike out. She was over the worst of the shingles but still had pain which, with shingles, can be pain indeed. I perceived that she was the sort of decent and credulous woman who believes what doctors tell her. The other doctors had not bothered to tell her anything. I did what I seldom do, used hypnosis and a placebo, gave her a sugar pill and told her that the pain would soon get better. It did. It might have, anyway.

"Here's what is going to happen, Doc," says Elmo. "It seems you're being held for some sort of parole violation. Tomorrow morning a Dr. Comeaux and a Dr. Gottlieb will come to see you and you'll be taken care of one way or another. That's about all I know. You going back to Fort Pelham?"

"I don't know. Could I go to bed?"

"Sho now." He takes me upstairs.

My cell could be a dorm room at L.S.U., except for the steel door and barred window. There's even a student-size desk with a phone on it.

"Can I use the phone?"

"Sho you can. I've authorized it. Just dial direct. If it's long distance, call me and I'll fix it up. There's some pajamas under the pillow. Left by the President of Guatemala. Silk. How about that?"

"That's fine."

"He jumped ship in Baton Rouge. Before him we had six Haitians. They were as nice as they could be. Highest-class niggers I ever saw. Three of them spoke better English than you or me. All spoke French."

"Thanks, Elmo."

"If you need anything, call me. Here's my number downstairs."

"I'm fine. Thanks, Elmo."

After Elmo leaves, I call Lucy "My God, where are you?"

"At Angola."

"My God, I thought so."

"Don't worry. It's not bad. Are the children all right?"

"They're fine."

"Lucy, did you get Claude out of Belle Ame?"

"No. I tried. They're not answering the phone and the gate is locked."

"I see."

"My God, where have you been all night?"

"Making a house call."

"Bob Comeaux has been looking for you."

"I know."

"He's been calling all evening. He wants to see you tomorrow. Before the wedding."

"He knows where I am now. What wedding?"

"At Kenilworth next door. You know. That fellow from Las Vegas bought it-Romero? Romeo? He had in mind an English manor house, but it looks like Caesar's Palace. His daughter is getting married at noon. But Comeaux is mighty anxious to see you. He'll be there first thing."

"I know."

"What are they going to do with you?"

"Probably send me back to Alabama."

"They can't do that!"

"They can."

A pause. "You sound funny. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

"I want you over here by me."