LeatherINSTEAD OF TAKING HER USUAL CONNECTING FLIGHT TO ATHENS, Cora decides, on a whim, and also because she is tired of talking to her compatriots and hearing them talk about their jobs, to take the flight twelve hours later. Against her better judgement, she lines up at immigrations, presents her passport and her visa, and drops the name and number of an acquaintance who is housewife to a Frenchman. She follows a crowd of tourists out of the airport and boards the free commuter bus that will take them to the city.
Cora alights at the Avenue Champs-Elysee. The air is brisk, the sky large and low. The buildings are a dirty gray, running into each other in uninterrupted rows. She looks at the Arc, squatting like a tall, overdecorated cake at the end of the boulevard where the roads conver
