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Woodrow, she would have landed a decent two-one in politics and philosophy. However, in the years between, marriage and motherhood and the inconstancies of diplomatic life had replaced whatever ambitions she might have had. Sometimes, to Woodrow's private sadness, she appeared to have deliberately put her intellect to sleep in order to fulfill her wifely role. But he was also grateful to her for this sacrifice, and for the restful way in which she failed to read his inner thoughts, yet pliantly shaped herself to fit his aspirations. “When I want a life of my own, I'll let you know,” she would assure him when, seized by one of his bouts of guilt or boredom, he pressed her to take a higher degree, read law, read medicine—or at least read something, for God's sake. “If you don't like me as I am, that's different,” she would reply, deftly shifting his complaint from the particular to the general. “Oh but I do, I do, I love you as you are!” he would protest, earnestly embracing her. And more or less he believed himself.
    Justin became the secret prisoner of the lower ground on the evening of the same black Monday on which the news of Tessa's death had been brought to him, at the hour when limousines in ambassadorial driveways were starting to champ and stir inside their iron gates before processing toward the evening's mystically elected watering hole. Is it Lumumba Day? Merdeka Day? Bastille Day? Never mind: the national flag will be flying in the garden, the sprinklers will be turned off, the red carpet will be laid out, black servants in white gloves will be hovering, just as they did in the colonial times we all piously disavow. And the appropriate patriotic music will be issuing from the host's marquee.
    Woodrow rode with Justin in the black Volkswagen van. From the hospital morgue, Woodrow had escorted him to police headquarters and watched him compose, in his immaculate academic hand, a statement identifying his wife's corpse. From headquarters Woodrow had called ahead to inform Gloria that, traffic permitting, he would be arriving in fifteen minutes with their special guest—“and he'll be keeping his head down, darling, and we've got to make sure it stays that way”—though this did not prevent Gloria from putting through a crash call to Elena, dialing repeatedly till she got her, to discuss menus for dinner—did poor Justin love fish or hate it? she forgot, but she had a feeling he was faddish—and God, El, what on earth do I talk to him about while Sandy's off manning the fort and I'm stuck with the poor man alone for hours on end? I mean all the real subjects are off limits.
    “You'll think of something, don't worry, darling,” Elena assured her, not altogether kindly.
    But Gloria still found time to give Elena a rundown of the absolutely harrowing phone calls she'd taken from the press, and others she'd refused to take, preferring to have Juma, her Wakamba houseboy, say that Mr. or Mrs. Woodrow are not available to come to the telephone at present—except that there was this frightfully well-spoken young man from the Telegraph whom she would have adored to talk to, but Sandy had said no on pain of death.
    “Perhaps he'll write, darling,” said Elena consolingly.
    The Volkswagen van with tinted windows pulled up in the Woodrow driveway, Woodrow sprang out to check for journalists and immediately afterwards Gloria was treated to her first sight of Justin the widower, the man who had lost his wife and baby son in the space of six months, Justin the deceived husband who would be deceived no longer, Justin of the tailored lightweight suit and soft gaze that were habitual to him, her secret fugitive to be hidden in the lower ground, removing his straw hat as he climbed out of the tailgate with his back to the audience, and thanking everybody—which meant Livingston the driver, and Jackson the guard, and Juma who was hovering uselessly as usual—with a distracted bow of his handsome dark head as he