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 th

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.

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

On the one hand the scene was hilarious: the manager bullied by his staff; the priestly Pianon helplessly aroused by the loud, ribald female crowd around him. Shay has always amused herself by envisioning him as the arid scholar Casaubon from Middlemarch, transplanted to the tropics and engrossed not in the Key to All Mythologies, but in an endless

“Maybe it’s just fate,” says Shay. “It sounds strange but from the first time I met Maz, I felt in my bones that he was paying for something. Maybe for something he did as a soldier. Maybe not even for his own crime, but for the crimes of his family. Or his people. Here is a man who starts out with wealth, power, beauty, and ends up losing everythi

“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 Nara

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 sex

“Right away I understood that he was one of those very quiet men who, if pressed, can be very dangerous. That he was also the kind of man who picks one woman, and puts himself totally in her power.

“Come to think of it, you two had a lot in common,” continues Orso. “Both of you being, in a way, exiles. Both adrift in Madagascar for no real reason…”