clench of discomfort.
“I cannot say.”
“Is someone forcing you to do this?”
“There is no action without choice,” he says, the words spoken in a slightly modulated accent, as though quoting someone else’s answer to the same question.
“Are we safe here?”
The plaintive urgency of my question surprises me, though not the physician, who briefly shuts his eyes against some recollection of irreparable regret.
Then, with a sudden motion, he reaches for something on a table behind him, and the flashlight swings about in his other hand, showing we are on a landing with access to at least three closed doors. The space free of any art or decoration. Only the slight glitter of humidity on the white walls.
The physician shines the light on me again, focuses the beam on my chest. And what I see is him offering what looks to be a brand-new digital video camera.
“For you,” he says.
“I don’t want it.”
“For you .”
He drops the camera into my hand.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“I was not told what you are to do. Only to give it to you.”
“This wasn’t part of the deal.”
“There is no deal ,” he says, flinching as though in prevention of rude laughter. “What you do with it is for you to determine, Professor.”
The physician starts to move. At first, I assume he is going to accompany me inside one of the doors he will open, or perhaps guide me to a higher floor altogether. But then he steps by me—a whiff of sour body odor as he passes—and I see he is about to start back down the stairs.
“Where are you going?”
He pauses. Casts the light on the farthest door.
“ Per favore ,” he says.
“You will wait for me? Downstairs? You’ll be here if I need you, yes?”
“ Per favore ,” he repeats. He has the yellowish look of someone doing his best to hold on before he can make it to the closest toilet so he can be sick.
One minute .
This is all I’m thinking as I take a step toward the door.
One minute to make my observations, report them to this man or whoever awaits me downstairs, then leave. Take the free holiday and the money and run. Honor my promise .
The truth? I open the door and step inside not for the Thin Woman’s payment or to fulfill my end of the agreement I made with her. It’s simpler than that.
I want to see.
A MAN SITTING IN A CHAIR.
He appears to be asleep. His head slumped forward, chin touching his chest. While I can’t see his face, his position allows a good view of his thinning salt-and-pepper curls and the small pink patch of crown that is the badge of male middle age. He wears dress pants, a pinstripe business shirt, and leather loafers. A wedding band. His otherwise trim frame betrayed by the slightly rounded stomach of someone used to fine food, but still vain enough to fight its effects through obligatory exercise. Everything about him, in a first appraisal, suggests a man of good if unadventurous taste, a professional, a father. A man like myself.
But then, with a single step closer, other details reveal themselves, invisible a second earlier.
He is soaked through with sweat. His shirt clinging to his back, dark moons under his arms.
His breathing. A hoarse rattle so deep it seems to be drawing air to somewhere other than his lungs.
And then the chair: each leg screwed to the wooden floor with industrial bolts. Rough leather straps of the kind used to bridle horses wrapped around the man’s chest, holding him in place.
A kidnapping. They have taken this man and are keeping him for ransom.
Then why have they brought me here? No demand has been made of me other than my presence.
You are about to be imprisoned here, too. Or worse. They have given you the camera to record something terrible. Torture. Murder. Something they will do to the man.
But why bring a witness, if that’s what I am, all the way from New York?
They’re going to take you, too .
For what purpose? Not money. I don’t have enough of that to make it
“I cannot say.”
“Is someone forcing you to do this?”
“There is no action without choice,” he says, the words spoken in a slightly modulated accent, as though quoting someone else’s answer to the same question.
“Are we safe here?”
The plaintive urgency of my question surprises me, though not the physician, who briefly shuts his eyes against some recollection of irreparable regret.
Then, with a sudden motion, he reaches for something on a table behind him, and the flashlight swings about in his other hand, showing we are on a landing with access to at least three closed doors. The space free of any art or decoration. Only the slight glitter of humidity on the white walls.
The physician shines the light on me again, focuses the beam on my chest. And what I see is him offering what looks to be a brand-new digital video camera.
“For you,” he says.
“I don’t want it.”
“For you .”
He drops the camera into my hand.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“I was not told what you are to do. Only to give it to you.”
“This wasn’t part of the deal.”
“There is no deal ,” he says, flinching as though in prevention of rude laughter. “What you do with it is for you to determine, Professor.”
The physician starts to move. At first, I assume he is going to accompany me inside one of the doors he will open, or perhaps guide me to a higher floor altogether. But then he steps by me—a whiff of sour body odor as he passes—and I see he is about to start back down the stairs.
“Where are you going?”
He pauses. Casts the light on the farthest door.
“ Per favore ,” he says.
“You will wait for me? Downstairs? You’ll be here if I need you, yes?”
“ Per favore ,” he repeats. He has the yellowish look of someone doing his best to hold on before he can make it to the closest toilet so he can be sick.
One minute .
This is all I’m thinking as I take a step toward the door.
One minute to make my observations, report them to this man or whoever awaits me downstairs, then leave. Take the free holiday and the money and run. Honor my promise .
The truth? I open the door and step inside not for the Thin Woman’s payment or to fulfill my end of the agreement I made with her. It’s simpler than that.
I want to see.
A MAN SITTING IN A CHAIR.
He appears to be asleep. His head slumped forward, chin touching his chest. While I can’t see his face, his position allows a good view of his thinning salt-and-pepper curls and the small pink patch of crown that is the badge of male middle age. He wears dress pants, a pinstripe business shirt, and leather loafers. A wedding band. His otherwise trim frame betrayed by the slightly rounded stomach of someone used to fine food, but still vain enough to fight its effects through obligatory exercise. Everything about him, in a first appraisal, suggests a man of good if unadventurous taste, a professional, a father. A man like myself.
But then, with a single step closer, other details reveal themselves, invisible a second earlier.
He is soaked through with sweat. His shirt clinging to his back, dark moons under his arms.
His breathing. A hoarse rattle so deep it seems to be drawing air to somewhere other than his lungs.
And then the chair: each leg screwed to the wooden floor with industrial bolts. Rough leather straps of the kind used to bridle horses wrapped around the man’s chest, holding him in place.
A kidnapping. They have taken this man and are keeping him for ransom.
Then why have they brought me here? No demand has been made of me other than my presence.
You are about to be imprisoned here, too. Or worse. They have given you the camera to record something terrible. Torture. Murder. Something they will do to the man.
But why bring a witness, if that’s what I am, all the way from New York?
They’re going to take you, too .
For what purpose? Not money. I don’t have enough of that to make it
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