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been to the White Horse Courtyard?
    â€œThe white what ?” I asked, clearly irritated.
    â€œLa cour du Cheval Blanc,” he answered seriously.
    I reflexively laughed at his French again, wondering why my body language wasn’t registering with him. Or was it just natural to pound a person with questions when first meeting them? As if discovering someone slowly was a luxury left for Greek villages, something gone extinct for the online, overeducated dicks in the Western world.
    When he brought up the treaty of Fontainebleau, I casually said: “Which one?” hoping to end our harlequin of exchange. But that didn’t work either. Erik asked me what sports I played, if I had a mountain bike, trekked, or climbed in some of the best rocks to do that.
    â€œAs a matter of fact,” he said, “these are the rocks that named it Fontaine-la-Montagne during the French Revolution.”
    I did not laugh. I thought of the frosted rock I had just climbed and wanted to ask him why and where on earth he’d homeworked that crap. Haussmannization? In a Southie accent? Something did not square here, but with my hangover kicking in I just drove. Dreading a smoking spiel, I cracked open my window and lit up fast.
    â€œWe’re about to get to Montmelian,” was all I said, and we drove the last couple of miles in silence.
    In the parking lot outside the hut, Erik beat me in getting his bag from the trunk. He paused at my Spartan sword and the butt plug that Paul had worn around his neck as a pacifier.
    â€œIt’s not what you think,” I said.
    â€œI don’t.”
    Our first legit exchange in the twenty minutes we’d known each other.
    Walking toward the hut, his steps tracing mine, I was disturbed and relieved all at once.
    DURING THE NEXT FORTY-EIGHT HOURS I only saw Erik in the background: jogging on the property, hanging out on the floor or by the fridge, drinking our French yogurts. Our interactions were logistical—where was this and what time was that—and brief.
    â€œAren’t you cold?” I asked him when I saw him shirtless on Alkis’s bed, reading a book and eating granola that he must have brought with him. You could have stored milk in the freaking room.
    Erik shook his head while crunching his cereal.
    â€œI have a class tomorrow at nine. Do you need a ride to campus?”
    He didn’t answer. He lifted his bowl and drank from it. As he cleaned his chin with his palm, an old scar on his upper arm became visible. “I was hoping to take Alkis’s mountain bike there,” he finally said.
    â€œWhat are you reading?” I asked.
    â€œMike Davis. Ecology of Fear .”
    â€œNonfiction, I take it?”
    â€œAlways.”
    I went to bed without my T-shirt. Half an hour later, I put it on.
    â€œERIK DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE,” I told Alkis the next day, walking into the campus bar.
    Alkis smiled. “Apparently not. Look.”
    Erik was doing shots at the bar, flanked by Paul and Muammar. Muammar was talking to Paul, Paul was talking to Erik, and Erik was looking at us.
    â€œA round.” Alkis elbowed me. “Come on, I’m driving to Paris tonight. One for the road.”
    There was something about Erik’s indifference, his casual confidence, that enervated me. Something I couldn’t pinpoint yet. I hesitated. “I got a deadline,” I swayed, but Paul spotted us, and we joined them in a round of bourbon shots.
    â€œ Malaka! You must read this.” Paul waved a piece of paper my way. “It’s a poll the Dubyas bounced by Erik before it hits our inboxes during the American week.”
    Paul and Muammar were fighting over the survey, grabbing it from each other’s hands, reading questions out loud. “Its title—” Paul laughed. “‘Why do they hate us so much?’”
    Erik looked at me and bowed slightly. Then he turned to chat with our school’s French