“No, no, carissima, that was a thousand and one coffees’ worth of entertainment!” says Orso, pulling on his loden coat and preemptively brushing past Shay as he plucks a five-euro note from his wallet and, with a flourish, hands it to the unsmiling Irish cashier. “Yes, quite a yarn,” he continues, as he gallantly holds open the brass-barred front

It was some time after midnight at New Year’s, when everybody on Naratrany seemed to be crowded into the billiard hall in Finoana village.

“From then on their life fell apart fast, the way white lives can in the tropics. People would find them crawling around on the floor, drunk on Dzama rum, high on whatever chemicals they’d ingested. Outlaw types camped out at their bungalow on Finoana Beach: drug dealers, burnt-out mercenaries, gunrunners working between South Africa and Eastern

Unlike most of the village women who embark on careers with foreign men, Noelline is educated, has completed two years at the lycée run by the sugar refinery at Ankazobe. She writes a fair hand in French orthography, can use a computer, and speaks good French and Italian. Besides her intelligence, her undeniable energy, and a reputed genius for

A few weeks later, when she hears that Maz has died, she thinks that she chose the wrong confidant in frivolous Orso, that she made the whole account—as Orso said—into an adventure tale. But was there anything else to do? Even Maz, for whom silence was an entire language, knew that words, however imprecise, are sometimes required to honor things

He is a white man, the kind that Shay defines with the Malagasy word vazaha, although the word simply means foreigner, and she herself can also be defined that way. But in her mind the word denotes the kind of tropic-bespoiled white man who hangs out in the Fleur des Îles café and, in Shay’s opinion, is far too often a guest at the Red House.

The thing is, I’ve always been drawn to men like Senna: a mixture of charismatic, bossy, passionate. The kind of man who makes a whole soap opera about his likes and dislikes. Very Italian. No matter what you think, Orso, you have to admit he keeps life interesting.

“We should report it!” exclaims Shay, knowing that what she says is absurd. The rudimentary forces of law on the island have no interest in the ravings of a crazy foreigner up on the remote north coast. Or in the fate of one maimed woman from a distant tribe. And, how much of the tale Franco recounted actually occurred? As sometimes happens on

Anyway, I touched off his creaky laugh by quoting him one of my favorite lines from King Solomon’s Mines: ‘Two things I have learned: you can’t keep a Zulu from battle, or a sailor from falling in love.’ ” Orso looks at Shay incredulously. “I can’t believe you, of all people, read that racist stuff.” “Orso, when I was a kid I was crazy about Rider