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An uneventful flight, a smooth landing at Toulouse, a quick passage through French customs, and Sister Angeline and I were at the curb outside the arrivals lobby, where another limousine awaited us, this one larger and more luxurious than the one in Zurich. A driver, also
a priest, greeted me cheerily and rushed to take charge of my luggage. In short order, Sister Angeline and I were sharing the spacious backseat nested in a cloud bank of velour and gliding noiselessly away into the mountain country north of the city. The limo seemed to float over the roads. I soon found myself nodding off, a sleepless night and a backlog of jet lag catching up with me. I shook myself awake and glanced across at Sister Angeline. Poor girl, I thought as I studied her. Young, pretty, bright … probably she knew nothing of life beyond the narrow precinct of her church. Taken in as an orphan, she'd been raised since infancy on the cheerless teachings of the Cathars. Did her own experience give her any reason to believe that the world she lived in was hell, that she was born to be an innocent, lifelong victim of the persecuting Dark Lord? And then before I realized it, she'd turned; her eyes met mine. The look was neither shy nor innocent. Her stiff little smile was gone, replaced by a cool, clinical stare.

Reaching into my overnight case, I took out the sallyrand Dr. Byx had given me. “Have you ever used one of these?” I asked, just to make conversation.

“Yes, when I was at school,” she said.

“Did you study filmmaking?” I asked.

“No. I prepared for the religious faculty.”

After we'd driven a few minutes more, I said, “Last night at the orphanage there was some singing in the chapel. What was it?”

“Compline,” she answered. “The midnight service.”

“I'm not sure … I thought I heard a song. It went something like …” and I whistled a fragment of the melody I remembered.

“Oh yes. One of our hymns.”

“Does it have a name?”

“Vale Avis Tenebrica.”

“And that means …?”

She hesitated, frowning over her answer.” ‘Farewell, Bird of the Night,' I suppose. It is symbolic.”

It was the tune I'd heard Angelotti humming that night at Clare's.

Something like carsickness began to uncoil inside me. But it wasn't carsickness. It wasn't fear either. It was disgust arising from a realization of my total, lethal stupidity. I was the man who, after seeing
Psycho,
checks in at the Bates Motel … and rings for room service.

“How long a trip is it?” I asked.

“Less than two hours,” she answered. “Would you care for some coffee?” I said I would. She tapped the driver on the shoulder and he passed back a large silver thermos and two mugs. Sister Angeline unfolded a small table from the armrest between us and poured out the coffee. It was a strong, bitter brew and very hot. I nursed it along, taking small sips.

“Is there a telephone at the abbey?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” Sister Angeline replied.

“Good,” I said. And I put my mind to work trying to think of someone to call when I had the chance. But with Clare out of reach, who else was there? Someone in my department at UCLA. At least to tell them that there was a copy of my Max Castle manuscript and of my complete, fully critical article on Simon Dunkle locked away in my desk. Someone besides Angelotti should know about my writing just in case.

In case of what? I turned to Sister Angeline and coughed up a little giggle. “I guess there's no chance of being lost at sea around here.”

She looked back at me pleasantly, though of course she had no idea what I meant. “No, you need have no fear of that.” Her eyes had grown more penetrating still.

“Good,” I said. “That's very good.”

“As you see, you are a long way from the ocean.” She gestured out the window toward a magnificent vista of jagged and precipitous cliffs on all sides.

“Good,” I said again, feeling strangely comforted by her reassurance. I realized that there was a great silly smile on my face. It shouldn't be there. But it would be such an effort to remove it. So I let it stay. My mouth was talking again. I wondered what it would say this time. It said, “No chance of being carried off by the big bird either.” I thought that deserved a good laugh, so I laughed, spluttering some of my coffee on the cushions.

“No chance of that,” Sister Angeline agreed.

“Good,” I said. “Soon I'll be in the inner sanctum, won't I?”

“Oh yes,” she answered. “You will be very safe, very well taken care of.”

“Good,” I said still again. Because it was good to be safe and well taken care of. And it was very good coffee. It was making me feel warm and tingly. But very sleepy. Nicely sleepy. Well, there was nothing wrong with that. I needed the rest.

Sister Angeline must have known that. She was taking the mug out of my hand so it wouldn't spill. That was good too, because my hand was so tired, it could hardly move.

“Here,” she said, “you can lean on me if you wish.”

I wished. But I asked, “Is it all right?” Because she was a nun, and that meant she was a virgin. A beautiful, friendly, comforting virgin.

“Perfectly all right,” she said as she propped me against her shoulder just to make sure I wouldn't fall.

I really should thank her, I thought. But that would take so much work to do. I managed to glance up and move my lips, saying something, I didn't know what. But Sister Angeline understood. She smiled down and drew me closer.

“Will you sing … that song?” I asked, not at all sure she understood me. I seemed to be mumbling under my breath. But she knew what I wanted. Above me, she began to croon the sad little song about lovelessness and hard luck and the dark, dark night. I decided that Angeline was exactly the right name for her. She looked like an angel, hovering over me, protecting me. Her eyes were bright and pretty, pretty and bright. And, yes, right behind them, just as everything grew dark and then darker, I could see it. Opening its doors to take me in.

The inner sanctum.

I was there.

Now I could rest

for a long, long time… .

Again and again—over the weeks that seem like months, the months that seem like years—I run it past my mind's eye like a movie. Something I watch on an imagined screen still in rough cut, happening
to somebody else, not me. Seeing it that way keeps the truth at a merciful distance.

How do I cast myself, the astonished protagonist in this farce
noir?
I try to imagine a nice guy. A really nice guy. Personable, well-intentioned, trusting. Too trusting. All right—dumb. But charmingly so. Like that affable boob Joseph Gotten plays in
The Third Man.
A total innocent fallen among rascals. It's the best face I can put on things.

(The casting makes me reflect … in the mental motion picture I've been producing for the last thirty-seven years—
The Jonathan Gates Story
—I seem to have gone from naive youth to naive middle age with remarkably little character development along the way. I begin to think this film needs a script doctor.)

So then …

Our hero awakes to find himself alone in a strange bed, in a strange room, in a strange land. He is still weak and dazzled, head pounding, cramps in every joint. How long has he been unconscious? Hours? Days?

What's the last thing he remembers?

Ah yes. The beautiful eyes of a woman gazing down at him, sending him gently on his way to oblivion. Sweet Sister Angeline. The treacherous bitch! Slipped him a Mickey on the road to Albi.

But why?

And where is he now?

Could
this
be the abbey?

He lifts his thundering head and looks around. A room made of rough timbers and bamboo, a low thatched roof overhead, a single window covered with mesh, a few sticks of furniture. Through an open door he sees bright sunlight streaming in. He rises unsteadily to find his clothing drenched with sweat. An oppressive warmth fills the room. He stumbles to the door. Outside it is no better. Sweltering humidity, blinding sun. And nothing in sight but palm trees, fern groves. Beyond that, unbroken ocean, smooth and blue as far as the eye can see. The little cabin where he woke is the only habitation in view.

One thing for sure. This is no abbey, and this isn't Albi.

He walks this way, that way, around the cabin, which perches atop a hill. There is open sea on all sides. He is on an island in a tropic climate. Alone.

Back inside the cabin, exploring, he finds a tiny alcove meant to
serve as a kitchen. There is a small sink with a primitive pump attached. He tries the pump; it has been kept lubricated. After several thrusts, water flows, rusty at first, then clear. Beside the sink he finds a grimy hot plate resting atop a miniature refrigerator. Electricity? Yes. Both appliances work. Where does the juice come from, he wonders. He puts the question on hold. Just now, he is more interested in the food he finds. Fruit, chocolate, nuts, some tinned fish. Suddenly thirst and hunger report their presence. Famished, he wolfs down enough to blunt his appetite, but stops when his belly starts to gripe. Against one wall, he finds a water cooler with extra bottles. He drinks. Drinks lots. And then becomes aware of more urgent needs.

Behind a narrow door off the kitchen he finds a closet-sized lavatory. Here too there is a pump—a formidable contraption rising out of the floor, connecting to a high cistern that services a sink, shower, toilet. He rushes to use the toilet. It flushes. Running water. He uses the sink to splash his blazing face and chest. Cold! But there is a propane water heater that can be lit with a match. There are matches. In the mirror above the sink he sees his face for the first time since waking. His eyes are red and glazed, the pupils as small as pinholes. He estimates the growth of beard on his cheeks is at least two days' worth. He looks a sight. He sinks down at the toilet. His belly convulses, He cries like a baby.

So he has been shanghaied. Duped, doped, and shanghaied. The road to Albi has led him to a tropic Alcatraz. At this point, ‘our make-believe movie might use a brief flashback to explain the protagonist's outrageous predicament. But how far back would we need to go? To his first meeting with Dr. Byx? His first visit to St. James School? When did the orphans begin to take a secret hand in his life? At the very least, we would have to go back to Angelotti, that weasel! Devilishly clever, getting at our hero through Clare. Or is it possible the orphans had Clare staked out all along, wondering if she would ever open up on them? Was there always an Angelotti somewhere, tracking her, watching for any threatening move? He feels sick. Not with hunger or fatigue, but with pure disgust, ashamed of his own wraparound gullibility. Walked right into it, eyes wide open.

And now what?

For the next few hours our hero sits depressed and bedraggled on his small stone veranda, drinking an exotic juice, surveying his imprisoning domain. He estimates the island is a few miles wide by
more than a few miles long, trailing off toward a high promontory in the long direction. But for the overgrowth, he might be able to circle the place in a few hours at a moderate jog. The only work of man he can see besides his cabin is a rugged stone breakwater at one end of the island and something that could be a jetty running out from a yellow sandbar several yards into the ocean. He notices that the wires feeding electricity to his cabin run off in that direction. When his strength returns, he decides to explore his territory, beginning with where the wires go.

The hill he is on proves to be higher than he realized—and steeper. There is a dirt path that cuts through the dense foliage, but it is precarious, studded with loose rocks. He stumbles often, slides, must leap and skip. The descent exhausts him, leaving his clothing again sopping with sweat. At last he is again in sight of the jetty. Under the trees at the water's edge, he sees another cabin much like his own—and in front of it a person! A swarthy, youngish woman with bushy black hair, bare to the waist, wearing a ragged skirt. Her dark, narrow eyes are already on him, impassive, not friendly.

Assuming his most winning Joseph Cotten persona, he approaches his female Friday, offers his most winsome “hello,” begins to ask all the obvious questions. The woman stares back, unspeaking, then shuffles into the house. Inside, he hears her voice, a language he does not know. He hears another sound from inside. A low mechanical chugging and rasping. The sound of a generator? He notices the wires run to a small shed at the rear; near it, there is a coal pile. The source of the electricity. He notices something more. Above the house, there is a tall metal rod that widens into a kitelike shape. An antenna. There must be a radio inside, a link to the world beyond.

The woman returns, behind her a man who is nearly a foot taller than our hero and easily twice as wide. He is wearing a sort of abbreviated diaper, nothing more. Like the woman, he is dark-skinned, with a shaggy mane of black hair. He looks no friendlier than she does.

“Do you understand English?” our hero asks.
“Français? Deutsch?”
No answer, no answer. Instead, the man steps forward, takes him by the hand and leads him away, not forcibly but firmly, as if he were a naughty child.

“Where are you taking me?” our worried hero cries. But that is already apparent. He is being led back up the path to his cabin. Should he resist? The man towers over him. For that matter, the
woman looks robust enough to be intimidating. Our hero follows where he is taken, continuing to jabber questions that elicit no answer.

Is it really possible that these people speak no English? Everybody in the world speaks English. He shouts, demanding an answer, still receives none. The man pulls him over the steep parts of the path and at last deposits him on his veranda with a commanding grunt. No translation needed.
Stay put!

“You can't do this!” our hero calls after the man until he vanishes away down the hill. “Who's in charge here?” he shouts. By this time, his voice is quavering with enraged humiliation. He is once again weeping.