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ice-cold hand had been placed on one of my bare shoulders.
    Then an ice-cold hand was placed on one of my shoulders.
    I found myself surrounded by three men. They had come out of nowhere. A guy in his fifties with a grizzled half-shaven face, three teeth, wild eyes. A plump kid—he couldn’t have been more than eighteen—wearing a T-shirt that failed to cover his hairy stomach, his face oleaginous, his eyes darting up and down my body, a goofy smile on his lips. The hand belonged to a hunched young man, sallow-skinned, his countenance glassy, disturbed. The touch of his fingers made me jump. I shrugged him off, spun around, saw him gazing at me with loonlike eyes, the plump kid then whispering, “ Bonjour, madame ,” the grizzled old guy puffing on a stub of a cigarette, a half-smile on his face. Immediately the hand reattached itself to my shoulder. Immediately I shrugged it off.
    â€œLeave me alone,” I hissed.
    â€œNo problem, no problem,” the plump kid said, his face even more greasy as he came right up to me. “We’re friends.”
    I tried to move forward, but the hunched guy had his bony fingers around my arm. Not in a restraining way. More as if he just wanted to touch me. My mind was racing. I figured the plump kid would make a grab for me, though at the moment he was simply hovering behind me, laughing a low laugh. And the old guy, though now in close, was just watching, clearly enjoying my fear.
    â€œWe like you,” the plump kid said with another unnerving laugh. The hunched guy’s hand was tightening around my right forearm. I took a deep steadying breath. I quickly sized up that I was close enough to catch him squarely, cripplingly, in the groin. I began to count to myself: one, two . . .
    Then all hell broke loose. A man came running toward us, a stick in his hand, shouting one word over and over again:
    â€œ Imshee, imshee, imshee ! ”
    It was the night man from the hotel, now brandishing the cane over his head, ready to lash out. All three men scattered down dark alleyways, leaving me there, alone, frozen to the spot, terrified.
    As soon as he reached me, the night man took me by the arm the way a father would reach for a child who had gotten herself into deep trouble, pulling me along the narrow alley and out of danger.
    When we reached the hotel, he all but pushed me inside. He had to sit down for a moment and compose himself. I too slumped in a chair, shocked, and feeling beyond stupid.
    The night man reached for his cigarettes, his hands shaking as he lit one. After taking a steadying drag, he spoke two words: “ Jamais plus .”
    Never again.

SIX

    JAMAIS PLUS. JAMAIS plus. Jamais plus .
    I sat on the balcony of our room, watching light break through the night sky, still reeling from that incident in the alleyway.
    Jamais plus. Jamais plus. Jamais plus .
    But my “never again” exhortations had less to do with the behavior of those men and were focused more on my arrogance and inanity. What was I thinking? Why did I even dream of following the loudspeaker voice out into the shadows? The accountant in me was trying to separate the menace and dread of the scene from the hard cold facts of what I’d walked into. Would they have actually attacked me, tried to rape me? Or was I just an object of curiosity for them?
    My hero from the front desk served me mint tea, deftly entering the room and placing it on the balcony table without managing to wake up Paul. He was still collapsed flat out in the bed, oblivious to all that had just transpired. Sitting there, looking out at constellations diminishing with the emerging dawn, I came to the conclusion that, though deeply creepy and offensive, there was no serious sexual threat behind this encounter. But there was, without question, some sort of recklessness on my part that had sent me out into the shadows. And I wouldn’t forgive myself for such impetuousness until I understood