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associated with criminals, who had already broken in to the villa in what he later called a “prank,” who had stolen from Gold herself. She was bewilderingly patient.
    “Be sympathetic, Varian,” Fry’s friend Serge had said. “You should have known me when I was twenty.”
    “Mary Jayne’s
nostalgie de la boue
is her business,” Fry had said. “But we can’t risk having him around.”
    Fry knew he must walk away from Parsons, but the young man muttered something and somehow Fry stayed put under that sky. Parsons looked avidly at the pamphlet Fry held. The right person might cross an ocean to buy art. Might even come to a war.
    “Did Peggy tell you about us?” said Fry.
    “Who’s Peggy?” said Parsons. “I want to talk to you about
her.
” He pointed to one name on the booklet’s cover.
    Fry followed his finger. “Ithell Colquhoun?”
    “Now
that
is not the kind of name you forget.”
    “I don’t know her, in fact,” Fry said. “Or anything about her. And I certainly don’t have any of her work to sell…”
    “See, I
do
know about her,” said Parsons. “And I was
not,
in a goddamn lifetime, expecting to see her name, any names I recognize, here. Which is why I want to talk to you.”
    Don’t discuss anything with those you don’t know. The Gestapo are watching, the Kundt Commission is in town.
But there was something in Parsons’s voice.
    —
    The Café Pelikan was crowded. Refugees, intellectuals, a smattering of Marseille scum.
    “What do you know about Surrealism?”
    Jack Parsons scratched his chin. “Art, right? Not much. Is that what she does? I know Colquhoun from kind of another context. Mr. Fry, listen.” He leaned forward. “I shouldn’t be here. I’m en route to Prague.”
    “You can’t get to Prague,” Fry said. “I still don’t know how you even made it here.”
    “I just…made my way. And I have to keep going. I have a job to do. This goddamn war. It’s like you said: in the right context you can make words do all kinds of things.”
    Did I say that?
“I’m just a clerk…” Fry said.
    “Come on. I know you run this committee. This Emergency Rescue Committee.” Fry looked quickly around them, but Parsons was unperturbed. “Everyone in the office was talking. I know you have some place in the suburbs,and you look after people, artists, try to get them out—”
    “Keep your voice down.”
    “I’m going to level with you.” Parsons was gabbling. “I want to go to Prague because if I get there, there are some words I think I can make do things they wouldn’t normally do. But now everyone’s saying I
can’t
get there. So there I am, wondering what to do, and I see you, and I see what you’re carrying. And
that
is why I came running after you. Because I do not believe in coincidence.”
    Fry smiled. “I have a friend who would agree,” he said. “ ‘Objective chance,’ he’d call it.”
    “Uh huh? See, that person in your magazine is connected to exactly the kind of thing I’m trying to do.
Ithell Colquhoun.
” He made it sound like a bell ringing. “What’s your connection?”
    “One of my friends knows her,” Fry said. “The one who shares your view on coincidence, in fact. She visited him last year, I believe, in Paris. It was he who made this pamphlet. I believe she’s a painter and a writer. I haven’t even read this yet.”
    “What’s your friend’s name?” said Parsons. “Who made that?”
    With an effort, Fry did not answer. “How do you know Colquhoun’s work?” he said instead.
    “A kind of mentor of mine knew her. Spoke real highly of her, too. That’s why you got me excited. Here’s whatI’m wondering. Like I said, there’s something I wanted to do in Prague. Now I’m stuck here. But what if that’s okay? This guy I got a lot of respect for, well, he has a lot of respect for Colquhoun. So if she’s one of these
Surrealists,
maybe they have the same kind of ideas he does. And I do. So maybe I want to talk