Along the road he found a blind girl. Four years old, maybe, smoke-blackened in a tattered and dirty blue dress, standing under a stunted oak.



He coaxed the little girl to come with him. She walked by his side, stumbling a little, clinging to the smoke-and-grease stained sleeve of his coat.



Sometimes over the next few days he carried her -- fording streams, for example, or hiking up steep stretches of the mountain roads. He put her on his…

Akiko parked the motorbike below the big red-lacquered temple with its roof of rounded clay tiles and age-smoothed stone steps.

She took off the helmet and shook out her hair.

It was late. A damp night. Owls were hoo-hooing in small, muted voices on the temple grounds. Bats darted and swept in the sky.

Tokyo. The outskirts anyway. But it might as well be deep in the countryside.

Except for the occasional hissing roar of a transcontinental flight, diving toward…

Two days later, he was in Mexico City.

Fumes. Traffic. Men sweeping the streets with brooms.

Ice cream pushcarts. Taco pushcarts.

Billboards. Women.

Donkey carts. Plush cars. Buses.

Hooting and roaring.

Sweat at the back of his shirt.

His scalp tingling.

His nostrils full of charcoal smoke, exhaust.

The stench of seared meat.

As soon as he hit Mexico city, he went to a dealership and sold the Jeep for a pittance.

Then he bought a small,…