Cerutti recited history. “The Pré Catelan is named for a court minstrel, murdered here in the fourteenth century,” he said. “One pays in the end for making jokes about the king.” Now that the recruitment had been completed, there was no need for Christopher to be amused by his agent’s jokes. He walked on, looking for a quiet place to talk. Young mothers, speaking in the sweet tone that Frenchwomen use in public, scolded and warned their children. (Christopher, when he dreamt of this operation, dreamt of nursemaids and young mothers and prams: Patchen and Maria in the Luxembourg Gardens and Patchen at the zoo; Cerutti affixing his thumbprint to a receipt in the Parc Monceau; now Cerutti again among toddlers in the Bois de Boulogne.) They found an empty bench, and Christopher told Cerutti what he had to tell him. “This is not what we agreed.” “The agreement is being changed,” Christopher said. “There are excellent reasons.”
