Nana Author:Delacorta IT DID NOT RESEMBLE A TRIUMPH OF MODERN technology, but rather looked more like a child's toy left outside to rust. The depot seemed aban doned and a hobo jungle had taken root in a line of freight cars parked on a siding. A tin-roofed building slid slowly into view and the train wheels screeched to a stop, ungreased brakes squealing. Serge Goro... more »dish, the last passenger off the train, left the end car and walked the entire length of the platform toward the ugly cement station building. He was tall, his face almost Oriental in fearure, with eyes as black as tunnels and a faint scar on the dark amber skin just beneath his left eye. There was something avid about his mouth, which was held in a small, fixed smile, a clear warning that this man was dangerous when provoked. He moved gracefully, his gestures large and slow, as if he was used to giving things time to happen. Like his massive but delicate hands, the battered gray Sam sonite suitcase he carried had seen heavy use. It looked as if a tiger had sharpened his claws on it. Gorodish wore a suit of gray tweed flecked with black. It, tOO, had seen some use. Serge Gorodish pushed through the swinging glass doors and into a waiting room. It smelled of stale cigarette smoke, Gauloises, Royal Menthol and Pall Mall; and of sweat and the tang of radiatOr-warmed travel posters inviting tOurists to savor the beauty of the French provinces. The waiting room held a couple and a lone man seated on a bench. A dog sniffed at a trash can while a young blond girl, about thirteen years old, petted it. The man on the bench called out: "Alba, leave that dog alone and come sit down. " She turned and Gorodish saw her face. A con noisseur of the great masters of painting, he im mediately compared her to Botticelli's Venus stepping from a seashell. Then, after a few seconds, Gorodish forgot about Botticelli. Alba's blond beauty, her youth, her pale skin, overshadowed the remembered image. The fire in her eyes was enough to burn out the...« less