‘Brie has stage fright,’ the drama teacher, Madame Bruneau, whispered to the music teacher, Madame Latour, as though expecting her to do something about it. Behind her back even the teachers called Crie Brie. At least, they thought it was behind her back. They’d long since stopped worrying whether the strange and silent girl heard anything.

‘I can see that,’ Madame Latour snapped. The immense stress of putting on the Miss Edward’s Christmas pageant every year was finally getting to her.

But it wasn’t the stage that petrified Crie, nor was it the audience. It was what wasn’t there that had stopped her dead in her tracks.

Crie knew from long experience it was always the things you didn’t see that were the scariest.

And what Crie didn’t see broke her heart.

‘I remember my first guru, Ramen Das, saying to me,’ CC was now walking around the hotel room in her white robe, picking up stationery and soaps and recounting her favorite story, ‘CC Das, he said. Ramen Das called me that,’ CC said to the stationery. ‘It was rare for a woman to have such honor, especially in India at the time.’

Saul thought maybe Ramen Das didn’t realize CC was a woman.

‘This was twenty years ago. I was just a kid, innocent, but even then I was a seeker of the truth. I came upon Ramen Das in the mountains and we had an immediate spiritual connection.’

She put her hands together and Saul hoped she wasn’t about to say—

‘Namaste,’ said CC, bowing. ‘He taught me that. Very spiritual.’

She said ‘spiritual’ so often it had become meaningless to Saul.

‘He said, CC Das, you have a great spiritual gift. You must leave this place and share it with the world. You must tell people to be calm.’

As she spoke Saul mouthed the words, lip-synching to the familiar tune.

‘CC Das, he said, you above all others know that when the chakras are in alignment all is white. And when all is white, all is right.’

Saul wondered whether she was confusing an Indian mystic with a KKK member. Ironic, really, if she was.

‘You must go back into the world, he said. It would be wrong to keep you here any longer. You must start a company and call it Be Calm. So I did. And that’s also why I wrote the book. To spread the spiritual word. People need to know. They’ve got it all wrong with all those flaky sects just out to take advantage of them. I needed to tell them about Li Bien.’

‘Now, I get confused,’ Saul said, enjoying the flush of anger this always produced. CC was predictable in the extreme. She hated anyone suggesting her ideas were in any way muddled. ‘Was it Ramen Das who told you about Li Bien?’

‘No, you idiot. Ramen Das was in India. Li Bien is an ancient oriental philosophy, passed down through my family.’

‘Of ancient Chinese philosophers?’ If he wasn’t long for this relationship he might as well get his licks in. Besides, it would make a funny story to tell later. Ward off the insipient dullness of his conversation. He’d make CC a laughing stock.

She clicked her tongue and huffed. ‘You know my family’s from France. France has a long and noble history of colonialism in the East.’

‘Oh, yes. Vietnam.’

‘Exactly. Being diplomats my family brought back some of the ancient spiritual teachings, including Li Bien. I’ve told you all this. Weren’t you listening? Besides, it’s in the book. Haven’t you read it?’

She threw it at him and he ducked but not before he felt a sting on his arm as it bit him on the way by.

‘Of course I’ve read your fucking book. I’ve read it and read it.’ He used all his effort not to call it the load of crap he knew it to be. ‘I know this story. Your mother painted a Li Bien ball and now it’s the only thing you have left from her.’

‘Not just from her, you asshole. From my whole family.’ Now she was hissing. He’d wanted to anger her but he’d had no idea what he’d unleashed. He suddenly felt two feet tall, an infant cowering as she rose and blocked the sun, blocked all the light from him. He shrank and withered and hunched. Inside. On the outside the grown man stood stock-still, staring. And wondered what had produced such a monster.

CC wanted to rip his arms out. Wanted to pluck his bulging eyes from their sockets, wanted to tear the flesh from his bones. She felt a power growing and aching in her chest and radiating out like a sun gone nova. Her hands strained to feel his heart throbbing in the veins of his neck as she throttled him. And she could. Even though he was bigger and heavier, she could do it. When she felt like this she knew nothing could stop her.