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respect.
    Otherwise I shall lose all respect for you.
    – M USTAPHA S HARIF

Chapter 8

    At first puzzled, then becoming annoyed, Hans advanced along the high-ceilinged room into which the skelter allegedly belonging to Chaim Aleuker had delivered him. Its privateer was off, which fitted with the notion of a party open to all comers. The room, however, didn’t. At the far end there were long tables over which were draped lumpy white cloths, concealing perhaps plates of food and glasses and bottles of liquor; on the walls were fine pictures, of the sort one might imagine Aleuker buying; but there was no sound, not even music, nothing otherwise to suggest a festive celebration.
    Was it just that by some miracle he had arrived ahead of everybody else? Or was the whole affair a cruel hoax after all? One had heard that in the rarefied atmosphere of vast wealth and privilege people developed a distorted sense of humor …
    Then a door opened suddenly and a pair of servants emerged: a footman and a maid in identical uniforms of green trimmed with white braid. Both of them were braced, of course; no one with free access to the skelter system had reason to accept menial employment. The girl had a very ugly face, and a scar ran down from her left temple tovanish under the high collar of her jacket. Nonetheless her figure was excellent: full-bosomed, small-waisted, broad-hipped. Hans wondered briefly why she had been so stupid as to get braced when she could have had her pick of a thousand eager men.
    They wished him a good evening – yes, of course, here it must indeed be early evening – and the footman requested a sight of the card which had brought him here. Having studied it, he asked Hans’s name, repeated it under his breath, then beckoned the newcomer toward the windows that had been curtained until a second ago when the maid drew the drapes aside.
    Revealed was a magnificent patio framed by greenery, with the sea beyond, where men and women in incredibly elegant clothing were gazing toward him with an air of expectancy.
    Hans’s mouth grew instantly dry. He had left home in such haste, he had not bothered to change out of his regular clothes: a short-sleeved shirt and crumpled pants of cotton drill, light enough to be tucked inside a climatized suit, the pockets of both bulging with uncounted oddments. Moreover he was unshaven and his hair was in a bird’s-nest tangle.
    ‘This way, sir,’ the footman urged. ‘My employer is eager to make your acquaintance.’
    It was too late to back down. Besides, he had already recognized the famous Aleuker, and he was indeed beaming with what seemed to be unfeigned pleasure. The maid slid aside a section of the floor-to-ceiling window, and in the footman’s wake Hans passed through to confront his host.
    Neither of them made any move to shake hands. The habit had been mislaid; there had been too many fatal contagious diseases. On the other hand, close friends kissed in public far more often than had been customary in the old Western culture: a gesture that converted mere liking into willingness to share risks. Very strange. Hans cursed his head for being crowded with irrelevant data. All these faces, some white, some brown, some yellow …
    ‘A great pleasure!’ Aleuker was saying warmly. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch your name when my man repeated it…?’
    ‘Hans Dykstra,’ he heard himself mutter. ‘I’m a recuperator, from – uh … ’
    He hesitated. Mentioning his profession was all right; it was respectable and respected, provided the practitioner was good at it. What he didn’t know was whether it was correct form to refer to one’s place of residence in a circle as exclusive as this one. Respect for privacy these days notoriously escalated in proportion to the square of one’s wealth.
    But Aleuker was looking expectant, so he completed the statement. ‘From Malta. Valletta, to be exact.’
    ‘Ah-hah? Haven’t been there for ages,’ Aleuker said,