Almost twenty-four hours had passed since Sister Catherine had dropped off Willem and Amelia. Sometimes, when a lot happened at once, time got compressed, or something, and then it had to relax to bring the universe back into balance. Willem had passed the remainder of yesterday doing nothing in particular, then failed to get to sleep until well past midnight, then slept until almost noon. Now he was stumbling around feeling like he’d missed the whole day, and these eager beaver geriatric badminton players just accentuated that. He blinked and looked at the guy who had just spoken to him. White sneakers, white socks, lime-green gym shorts, a loose sleeveless T-shirt providing an all too graphic view of a physique that, if it had ever seen better days, had not seen them in a long time. A floppy cloth hat to keep the sun off his head, big sunglasses. He was guzzling tea from a stainless-steel thermos. He sat apart from the other gaffers. An out of town visitor, perhaps, an invited guest but not one of the regulars.