whom my secretary was probably at this very moment phoning, to cancel the appointments. I couldn’t think of them right now. They belonged to another life, a former existence. The mystery into which I’d been plunged, the Esterhazy case, that was what seemed real. I jerked my head around. All of a sudden I thought I’d caught a glimpse of the man in the fedora a few steps behind me. I’d have turned back and tried to catch him, if I hadn’t been practically borne forward by the tide of people moving along the platform. The downtown train was twisting its way along a curve, heading into the station, almost insect-like with its two beaming headlights. I was standing right at the edge now. Hands lightly pressed against my back. With the train only yards from me, they gave a violent shove. I fought it for a second or two, tried to keep my balance, grabbed at the passengers beside me. The train headlights dazzled me. The moment seemed to stretch out into eternity. The image in my mind was that of the café where Abby and I used to go, the one that was now something else. Everything had once been something else.
Then I let go, and swung off into the emptiness.
PART TWO
1
My eyes opened to a blazing whiteness. After a minute or two of accustoming myself to the light, I saw that I was staring up at a ceiling. Later, I realized that I was only seeing out of one eye. I experimentally moved a hand to the left side of my face and touched some material. With difficulty I turned my head, one way, then the other. I was wearing a pale green open gown; there was a drip in my other arm. The room was empty, other than the bed I was in, a bedside table with nothing on it, and the drip stand. I supposed that the drip contained some sort of sedative, since when I came to, I’d felt deadened, cotton-headed, unable to think clearly. It wasn’t necessarily an unpleasant feeling. At the same time, I was aware of something darker at my periphery. An anguish, which remained just out of reach.
The door opened. A nurse and a male orderly came in. I struggled to sit up, say something, but nothing would come out. The orderly stood by the door while the nurse expertly gave me a bed bath then eased me onto the bedpan. I had theimpression she’d done this to me before, many times even, only I’d been too drugged to notice. When it was all done, I tried to speak again. The nurse smiled, shook her head and said: “There’ll be plenty of time for that later.” She inspected the bandage on my head, wrote something on a clipboard, then went out again. Once she’d gone, I lay there replaying the whole sequence of events in my mind. I kept repeating to myself her sole utterance: “There’ll be plenty of time for that later.”
Over the next few days, the periods of consciousness became longer, my powers of reasoning sharper. A dull ache in my left temple was with me almost permanently. I’d had a head injury, that much was obvious. I assumed that they’d been keeping me in an induced coma, and were now letting me come out of it gradually, with the sedation increasingly lighter each day. In my bed, in this blank room, I felt almost fetal.
A week or so passed. By now, I was usually awake when the nurse came to wash and administer to me. She’d also started bringing some sort of broth, which she said I was to eat, although I rarely felt hungry. I was thin, far thinner than I’d been before my hospitalization. Sometimes I’d catch sight of my spindly legs or arms and feel a surprise and almost a disgust that they were mine. My powers of speech were returning; I could answer the nurse’s simple questions, formulate my own. But speaking had become something of an ordeal. Every time I started to say something, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was there beside me, throwing his voice, making it appear to come out of my own mouth, but in a way that was not quite synchronized. I’d hesitate after the first word or two, disorientated by
Then I let go, and swung off into the emptiness.
PART TWO
1
My eyes opened to a blazing whiteness. After a minute or two of accustoming myself to the light, I saw that I was staring up at a ceiling. Later, I realized that I was only seeing out of one eye. I experimentally moved a hand to the left side of my face and touched some material. With difficulty I turned my head, one way, then the other. I was wearing a pale green open gown; there was a drip in my other arm. The room was empty, other than the bed I was in, a bedside table with nothing on it, and the drip stand. I supposed that the drip contained some sort of sedative, since when I came to, I’d felt deadened, cotton-headed, unable to think clearly. It wasn’t necessarily an unpleasant feeling. At the same time, I was aware of something darker at my periphery. An anguish, which remained just out of reach.
The door opened. A nurse and a male orderly came in. I struggled to sit up, say something, but nothing would come out. The orderly stood by the door while the nurse expertly gave me a bed bath then eased me onto the bedpan. I had theimpression she’d done this to me before, many times even, only I’d been too drugged to notice. When it was all done, I tried to speak again. The nurse smiled, shook her head and said: “There’ll be plenty of time for that later.” She inspected the bandage on my head, wrote something on a clipboard, then went out again. Once she’d gone, I lay there replaying the whole sequence of events in my mind. I kept repeating to myself her sole utterance: “There’ll be plenty of time for that later.”
Over the next few days, the periods of consciousness became longer, my powers of reasoning sharper. A dull ache in my left temple was with me almost permanently. I’d had a head injury, that much was obvious. I assumed that they’d been keeping me in an induced coma, and were now letting me come out of it gradually, with the sedation increasingly lighter each day. In my bed, in this blank room, I felt almost fetal.
A week or so passed. By now, I was usually awake when the nurse came to wash and administer to me. She’d also started bringing some sort of broth, which she said I was to eat, although I rarely felt hungry. I was thin, far thinner than I’d been before my hospitalization. Sometimes I’d catch sight of my spindly legs or arms and feel a surprise and almost a disgust that they were mine. My powers of speech were returning; I could answer the nurse’s simple questions, formulate my own. But speaking had become something of an ordeal. Every time I started to say something, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was there beside me, throwing his voice, making it appear to come out of my own mouth, but in a way that was not quite synchronized. I’d hesitate after the first word or two, disorientated by
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