Michael Hoffman

Eighteenth segment

The thought that occurs to me as I enter the Henry F. Hall Building of Concordia University is, "How familiar it is, and yet how different!" All these people milling about, and not a single familiar face! The escalator is crowded. If anyone notices me at all – certainly no one is paying me any particular attention – they probably think I am a professor, a professor of some subject they aren't taking and wouldn't be interested in. I get off at the fourth floor and turn left. Here is the reading room. You had to come early if you wanted to get one of the desks along the walls; otherwise you were condemned to sit at one of the long tables in the middle of the room, where you sat practically on top of each other, so close that, in rare moments of quiet, when the engineering students weren't murmuring among themselves about torque and vectors and whatnot and the marketing types weren't having orgasms over their idiotic case studies, you could hear your neighbor's every breath, even feel it on your face. You, my boy, spent entire days here, poring over your Zarathustra. Your favorite chapter was "About the Flies in the Marketplace," and you'd read it smiling to yourself, casting furtive contemptuous glances at the rabble around you. You would not be one of them; you would be different; it was to you Nietzsche spoke when he said, "Flee, my friend, into your solitude!" Solitude, solitude – ah, how that word made your heart throb! It was to you what love is to others. I know. You imagined it, your solitude, as an immense, immense landscape with towering mountains, rushing rivers, foaming seas, its jungles inhabited by beasts and foliage that would wither and die in the thin air of the world we all share. It's all set out in the Red Notebook – now, alas, lost – lost! Each one of us, you said, lives simultaneously in two universes – the universe common to us all, and the universe with a maximum population of one. Most people as they grow older spend less and less time in the latter universe, finally abandoning it altogether, dismissing it as "illusion," "fantasy," "unreality." You knew better. With you it would be the reverse. Your life in the common universe would be a gradual preparation for leaving it altogether; you would "flee into your solitude." Nietzsche's Zarathustra and Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov were your heroes. You forgave Raskolnikov his grotesque murder; in fact, paid no attention to it; it was his solitude that you loved and admired; so what if he stumbled along the way and committed an indiscretion? It couldn't be helped. But with his hard-won wisdom guiding your path, you would sidestep the pitfalls; the useless, grasping old pawnbroker women of the world had nothing to fear from you, my boy, eh?

Astonishingly, though it is (I glance at my watch) nearly noon, one of the desks along the wall on my right as I enter is vacant. That almost never happened in my day. Of course, at noon, many students would have gone out for lunch, but they would have left their books on the desk to signify possession. You weren't supposed to do that, but everyone did, and everyone respected it. An old instinct of my student days kicks in, and I sit down, experiencing an odd, almost subversive excitement as I do. I look around. The room is by no means crowded. I see other vacant desks too. I'd forgotten – it's the summer session; fewer students are around than in winter. Would the bookstore be open? Is it still on the second floor? I could go down and check. If it's open, I could buy Zarathustra or Crime and Punishment, or both, and spend the rest of the day right at this desk, sipping coffee from one of the vending machines outside... what's the price of vending machine coffee nowadays?

But no. I am here, of course, to keep my appointment – or Jim Fukuyama's appointment, ha ha! – with Professor Moses Sorenberg. It was strange, coming into my house last night – strange because it was not strange at all, it was as if I'd never been away. I parked the BMW in the driveway, wished it goodnight, let myself in, went straight to bed and knew no more until quite late in the morning – ten o'clock. In the shower, one question preoccupied me above all others: "To shave or not to shave!" With my electric razor now at hand, the answer should be clear, but "the other hand" – as in, "on the other hand..." – deserves to be heard too: now that my beard has come this far, shouldn’t it be given a chance to express itself? You would have laughed, my son, to see the dreadful state of indecision this perfectly trivial question threw me into! I laugh myself, but it is not happy laughter. No, one thing is plain: I cannot live alone, I must have somebody by me to tell me what to do, or else... Once I read something about a man, a Frenchman I believe, who suffered a stroke of some sort that paralyzed his entire body except for one eyelid, with which he learned to speak in code and eventually, if I remember correctly, dictated an entire novel or memoir or something, one sentence of which, quoted in the article, was: "Flies roam my body with impunity." Well, I'll end up like him, flies will roam my body with impunity; it won't be from a stroke but from the paralysis that comes over me every time a decision has to be made. This is not my natural character. It is not. As a businessman I was decisive enough; it was on the strength of my decisions, after all, that the business prospered, flourished, expanded... Yes, but one decision I made too hastily, and it has landed me in my present impasse. That was the decision to retire. What prompted it? I no longer remember. I can no longer imagine; I can no longer recapture my state of mind at the time. It no longer makes sense to me. I know – I thought of reading, but I have read nothing; of travel, but I got no farther than North Bay. I am healthy, vigorous. I'm sixty-two – well? Is sixty-two old? Once it was, of course; my father at sixty-two was an old man; but today, when people are living to a hundred and thirty, sixty-two is not old. A hundred and thirty! My God! That gives me another seventy years!

Either take myself in hand, or else find a companion to take me in hand. A companion, I say, not a wife. But who wants to be a "companion" to a sixty-two-year-old man who is unable to look after himself? Who can't even reach a decision on whether to grow his beard or shave the damn thing off? Who departs on a journey to San Francisco and possibly beyond, only to double back at North Bay? Debi Asher? Helen Dahl? Linda?

Linda. Ah, Linda, Linda, I wish you could have seen me after my shower this morning, gazing at my face, scarcely visible in the foggy bathroom mirror, all steamed up from the shower, agonizing with myself: "To shave, or not to shave!" I wish you could have seen it! For the sake of your anthropological education, I mean. To hell with Moses Sorenberg; I'll go to the stationery store in the Mall and make Linda a proposition –a proposal, rather: If you're looking for somebody to sacrifice your life and happiness for, consider me! I'm not worthy, of course, far from it, but on the plus side I will never deceive myself into thinking I am, and my gratitude will no know bounds. I will be a puppet in your hands. Tell me to shave, and I'll shave. To drive to San Francisco, and I'll drive to San Francisco. To throw myself off a cliff, and I'll throw myself off a cliff. If I can't be a husband to you in the normal sense, I can be something else – and a puppet, you know, a real living puppet, is a rare thing, and by no means useless!

***

"Mr. Fukuyama?"

Somewhat timidly I push open the door to the offices of the Department of Philosophy – yes, it is still on the fifth floor, precisely where I remember it as having been; plus ca change, plus ca reste – and before I can get even a glimpse of my new surroundings I hear myself – well, not "myself" exactly – being addressed. I look up to meet the eyes of a lovely young woman, smiling up at me from her desk. How is it that all the women who cross my path lately are lovely? Have they changed, or have I? She is not beautiful, like the chambermaid at the Northland Hotel, but... well, "lovely" is the word I use, and it is well chosen. The chambermaid was not lovely, not even pretty; and this lovely woman is, as I said, not beautiful... I am in danger of losing the thread; is there any sense in what I'm saying, in what's going through my mind? - but the woman brings me back down to earth. "Professor Sorenberg is on the phone just now" – her eyes are blue, blue, like tiny patches of sky... "He won't be long. Have a seat. Can I get you some coffee?" I should have shaved. Really, I should have shaved. Maybe that's the definition of lovely: the sort of woman who makes a man feel ashamed of being grubby and slovenly; while a beautiful woman makes a man ashamed only of being unworthy – no; makes a man conscious of his irredeemable unworthiness. "Yes, please. No, thank you. No, really, I..." Can a professor of philosophy have a woman like this for a secretary and not be having an affair with her?

"Are you sure? It's no trouble."

"Thank you, no." My businessman self kicks in; my assurance returns. "Do you know, it's funny: you come back to a place like this after having been away for years, and you're surprised to find everything the same – but you'd be even more surprised to find anything different!"

"Well, what is this place – the same, or different?"

"You're being here makes it altogether different."

She laughs – pleasant, musical laughter, like the tinkling of piano keys. "Dare I believe you mean that as a compliment? If so, thank you!"

"Jim!"

Here is the professor, striding out of an inner room – I hadn't even heard the door open – his hand extended. "It's good to see you. How are you?"

I rise to meet him, and we shake hands. So this is Professor Moses Sorenberg, my double, my alter ego. Does he look like me? I had been expecting a mirror image, but no, nothing of the sort. How could Fukuyama have mistaken me for him? "Come into my office." Without so much as a glance at his lovely secretary he ushers me through the open door and shuts it behind us. "Well!"

We seat ourselves in facing armchairs. This "office" is more like a living room, or rather a den. Spacious though it is, it seems hardly large enough to contain all the books in it – they spill off the shelves onto the carpeted floor; the desk is buried under them, and it's not a small desk; even the chairs on which we sit had to be hastily cleared of books, which the professor somewhat unceremoniously dumped on the floor. The title of one of them, on the floor at my feet, catches my eye: Modernity on Endless Trial, by Leszek Kolakowski. It means nothing to me, of course, but the question occurs: why "endless" trial? Why not simply Modernity on Trial? It's a stupid, irrelevant, trivial question, and I would dismiss it from my mind if I could, but somehow... I can't. The professor sees what I am looking at, and smiles. He stoops and picks up the volume, which is somewhat tattered, and opens it. To my faint surprise – more accurately, confusion – he begins to read aloud. His voice is beautiful – deep, resonant, mellifluous; it is not so much the voice of a professor reading as of a cantor praying. I close my eyes, scarcely knowing what has come over me. "Can our civilization actually survive," he reads, "without the belief that the distinction between good and evil, between the prohibited and the mandatory, does not depend on our respective decisions and thus that it does not coincide with the distinction between the advantageous and the disadvantageous?" He pauses, but I am not at first aware of the silence – not aware, I mean to say, of the distinction between his voice and the silence, the one seeming to flow naturally into the other, so that when at last I open my eyes I have an odd sensation of having passed through a vast expanse of time without time itself having moved. I am expressing myself awkwardly. "In that one sentence," the professor is saying, "in that one sentence lies the germ of an idea on which a man may spend his entire life meditating and, on his deathbed, be sure that he has not lived in vain."

"Professor, I... I must tell you... you must have noticed..."

"What is at stake, you see, is the question of good and evil. Is there such a thing, as distinct from the merely advantageous and the disadvantageous, which vary according to circumstances? We touch here on much more than an academic philosophical problem. We touch here, as Kolakowski, and before him Kant, understood very acutely, on nothing less than the fate of mankind. A man can, as I say, spend a lifetime – "

"Professor!"

He seems momentarily startled – not so much at the interruption, but (this is surely my imagination) at finding himself not alone in the room.

"Professor, forgive me, forgive my rudeness, but I must... I must set you straight..." It is a dreadful choice of words – I am to set him, a thinker of thoughts as far beyond my grasp as heaven is from earth, straight!

But the urbane self-assurance with which he had greeted me in the outer office is now gone; his bewilderment seems at least as deep as my own; yes, he is noticing now for the first time that I am not the visitor he had been expecting; he seems to age before my eyes as he wonders to himself, "Who is this man? How did he get here?" – and even, in the way he seems to shrink from me in something very like terror, "What is he going to do to me?"

"Professor, let me explain. The circumstances behind our meeting like this are strange – fated, I am almost tempted to say. You must hear me out. Will you?" – for he seems on the brink of some action; what action I can't say – fainting, perhaps, or screaming for help, or springing up from his chair and fleeing the room, or perhaps throwing himself upon me and strangling me. "Will you hear me out? I mean no harm, no harm at all..." Judging by the expression on his face he might be confronting a man aiming a gun at his head who has just assured him he does not intend to pull the trigger. "Professor, my name is Steven Marcus. Years ago I was a student in this very department – but that is neither here nor there. Mine is the sort of life you can summarize in a sentence or two. I graduated from university, went into my father's ladies' wear business, over the years expanded it, finally sold it, and retired. I am retired now. With time hanging heavy on my hands, I made a little journey, and while passing through Ottawa I had a chance encounter with Mr. James Fukuyama, who stopped me in the street, convinced I was you. No matter how vigorously I assured him that I was not you but myself – which is to say, nobody in particular – he refused to believe me, so perfect, he said, was our resemblance; he seemed to think I – that is to say, you – he seemed to think you were pretending to be someone else in order to avoid him; he was quite hurt, in fact. A strange man, obviously very devoted to you. It was only with difficulty that I managed at last to shake him off. But my interest was stirred. I wanted to meet you – partly because of our supposed resemblance, partly also because, as I learned from Fukuyama, you lecture in Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, two authors of particular interest to me, dating back to when I was very young and dreamed of being a writer myself – in the mold of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, you see. You are too understanding a man, I'm sure, to laugh. It is so easy for the young to think of themselves as great – and so difficult, more difficult than anything, for them to think of themselves as average. Hm. Well, I got as far as North Bay, when I felt I just had to call you. I didn't mean to pose as Fukuyama – the thought hadn't occurred to me – but somehow, when your secretary asked who was calling, that was the name I came out with! I apologize for the deception – which as I say, was unintentional."

"Jim mistook you for me?"

The professor has recovered his composure; he is his former smiling, urbane self again; the bewilderment and fear that had momentarily possessed him to the point of distorting his features has been shaken off and, to all appearances, forgotten.

"He did! There was simply no talking him out of it! And yet... do you see it? The resemblance, I mean. Because I... frankly..."

"Well, but you know... I don't know if I would've noticed it without the subject having come up, but since it has come up... yes, I think there is a certain... a certain... call it a family resemblance. We might be distant cousins or something. Certainly no normal person would mistake one of us for the other, but to a man like Jim, with his heightened powers of observation – or to put it another way, his tendency to exaggerate the most trivial thing out of all proportion..."

We both laughed, and in this shared, gentle laughter at Jim Fukuyama's expense, the ice was broken, we found ourselves friends. I am not, of course, of a sociable disposition, and yet every now and then, at rare intervals, I encounter a man with whom I feel perfectly at ease; in a matter of minutes I feel we're old friends; my reserve, my self-consciousness, melt away as I feel his do likewise.

"We were going to have lunch, I believe." The professor rose to his feet; I did likewise. "There's a nice little Irish pub down the street. Let's stop off in the washroom first. I want to see us in the mirror. Do we look alike?" Chuckling genially to himself, he leads me out of the inner office into the outer office. "Just imagine, Rita," he says to the lovely young secretary. "This gentleman and I are long-lost brothers. Don't you think we look alike?"

"Yes, very much so," she smiles, evidently playing along with what she takes to be a joke.

 

Nineteenth segment

efore either of us knows it, the afternoon is almost gone. We have been sitting at a little table in an obscure corner of the Fife and Drum, drinking Guinness after Guinness. "You have no classes today?" I ask him after the third or fourth round.

"No. During the summer I only teach on Fridays. I came to work on my book. But it's going well; I can afford to give myself a day off. High time I did." Boyish laughter in a man his age can be grating, but in his case it is not; on the contrary, it is pleasant and infectious, because perfectly sincere and unaffected. I hope he would say the same about my laughter as I join him.

"You're writing a book."

"Oh, yes, I'm always writing something – an article, a book. As a professor, one is supposed to have wisdom to impart to the ages. Frank!" He is on a first-name basis with the waiter, who comes striding over, evidently delighted to be of service. "Another round, if you please. Why is it so quiet this afternoon? Where is everybody?"

"Outside enjoying the sunshine, I guess."

"Frank, I'd like you to meet my long-lost brother. Just imagine, we met by chance, and recognized each other immediately. Look at our faces, now. Imagine his without the beard. Would you be able to tell us apart?"

"Now that you mention it, I'm not sure I would."

"How about a round on the house, in honor of the occasion?"

"I'll have to ask the boss."

"Please do. Where was I? Oh yes, my book. It's something of a milestone for me. All my other books are primarily analyses of other philosophers, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky prominent among them. Dostoevsky, of course, is properly speaking a novelist rather than a philosopher, but as a philosophical novelist he falls within my purview. But in this current book I dare to step forward as a philosopher in my own right, as opposed to a teacher of philosophy. Would you like to hear my thesis? I can summarize it very briefly. It is that there is no reality underlying appearance. There is only appearance. Appearance, and what man makes of it. Ah, Frank, your appearance is most timely."

"The boss says it's his pleasure - he too has a long-lost brother he hopes to find some day. Cheers, gentlemen."

"The best waiter in the entire city, if not the country," says the professor, Frank having set down our beers, bowed slightly, and taken his leave. "Knows exactly when to appear, and exactly when to disappear. He's wasting his talents here. He'd be a credit to any five-star restaurant."

"Why don't you tell him?"

"Oh, I have. He laughs it off as a joke. 'Seriously, Frank,' I say. 'Very funny, professor,' he grins. You'd think, given my lifelong study of some of the grimmest minds in the history of our species, some of their gravitas would have rubbed off on me, but... well, I guess not."

"No appearance underlying reality."

"No reality underlying appearance. All cultures, without exception, are haunted by the question of reality. It's the question with which culture begins. Without it, there is no culture. Perhaps there is no humanity either. We all know what we see, hear, touch and taste, and we all doubt its 'reality.' Religion and philosophy were born of that doubt. Sensory information is adequate for daily life; for survival in primitive environments, for earning a living in ours – but sensory information is not real, or at least – at the very least – not real enough. The quest for the ultimate reality beneath the veil of appearance is universal. I can't stress this strongly enough. It is common to advanced culture and primitive culture, to eastern culture and western culture, to the educated and the uneducated. Now for my part, I quite accept that appearance is not reality. It's obvious. If appearance were reality, we'd all see, hear, taste and touch the identical reality; we'd all agree; there'd be no disagreement, no disputation, no war. No civilization either, of course. We'd be like Homer's Lotus Eaters. Yes. Like Homer's Lotus Eaters."

I'm not sure who Homer's Lotus Eaters are exactly, but mention of them seems to rob the professor of some of his energy. He pauses, sips his beer, sinks a little lower into his chair, closes his eyes, seems for a moment to forget my presence altogether. Looking around, I observe that the place is a lot more crowded than it was before; a lot noisier, too – so much so, indeed, that my failure to notice it until now somewhat puzzles me. Maybe it proves the professor's point. What point? is my next thought. What is he getting at? How does the noise in the bar prove it? I smile to myself at my confusion. One beer too many, I suppose.

"To Einstein!"

Next to us is a party that seems rather too large for the little table it is seated round. I'm not sure how many people there are, but it seems a very mixed group – men and women, young and not so young, black, white and Asian. One of their number has proposed a toast to Einstein, at which someone else shouts, "To strawberry quarks!"

"To dark matter!"

"Stem cells!"

"George W. Bush!"

"Margaret Thatcher!"

"Milton Friedman!"

"Elizabeth Barret Browning!"

"Who?"

"Philistine! The poet! 'But the young, young children, O my brothers...'"

"To the young young children!"

"To the Philistines!"

"So granted," the professor resumes suddenly, "appearance is not reality. Appearance is appearance. And that – appearance – is all there is! There is no underlying reality!"

"To Professor Sorenberg!"

"To underlying reality!"

"Didn't he say there is none?"

"How are you, professor? How's it going? Swimming against the current, as usual? Have one on us. Frank! A beer for the professor and his friend."

"Are you a professor too?" one of them asks me.

"Eh? No, I – "

"Good for you," smiles the woman who toasted Elizabeth Barret Browning. "The company we keep makes us forget sometimes that not everyone in the world is either a professor or a student. Well, Moses? Are you making any progress?"

"Yes, I think so. In my own blundering fashion."

"You in yours, me in mine. All right, come on, class, drink up! It's time for us to be getting back."

"Ah, teacher, please? One more round!"

"C'mon, teacher, be a sport!"

"My treat!"

"No, I said. We have important work to do. Beer is excellent as a lubricant, but it's a means to an end, not the end in itself. Isn't that true, Moses? Philosophically speaking?"

"No philosopher ever said it better."

"There, you see? Confusion of means and ends is the root of all evil. Say goodbye to Professor Sorenberg, and let's be on our way."

"Goodbye Professor Sorenberg!" chorus the students, like kindergarten children.

"Goodbye," mumbles the professor, a little foolishly.

"Who are they?" I ask when, rather to my relief, they are gone at last and the confusion begins to settle.

"Hilda Thorn and her retinue. She's a social scientist, they're her graduate students."

"Hm."

"We've had some lively disputations, she and I. I maintain social science is an oxymoron. The study of man is not, and cannot be, a scientific concern. Science can study anything you like, from subatomic particles to the cosmos; it can study cells, organs, even the brain – but it can not study man. Man is beyond the reach of science. Man is... well, here's the crux of the matter: man is free. He is the only being in the universe, absolutely the only one, of which that can be said. Man is free, and science, being deterministic, misses the whole point of man – and, by extension, of human societies. Social science ignores utterly the awful, awful fact of man's freedom."

"Awful, awful," I mumble meaninglessly. Yes, I have had one beer too many, or maybe two – but here's Frank, with the round the student had ordered for us. "Gentlemen," he says, laying the jugs on the table and sweeping up the empties.

The professor talks on, but I have ceased to follow. I am aware of his fluency, and marvel at it, given the befogged state of my own consciousness – he is evidently a much sturdier drinker than I am - but his words have lost all sense. Still, it is not unpleasant, sitting there like that, listening to his flow of words that might almost be music, so mellifluous is his voice... It reminds me of something, something long, long forgotten; the incongruity makes me blush, but... my mother singing to me. This is not childhood, this is infancy. That song she used to sing... a French song:

"Dites-moi/ pourquoi/ la vie est belle,

"Dites-moi/ pourquoi/ la vie est gaie..."

Yes, I'd forgotten; how could I have?... she used to sing me to sleep with that song... Is it the professor's voice that's bringing it back, or the sunbeam lighting up a little patch of our table? Or both? Or neither? The tiny dust motes dancing in the sunbeam, maybe. Tomorrow, tomorrow for sure, I will visit her, spend the day with her, hold her hand... I'll sing to her; maybe she'll hear the song and recover her senses!

"You're not drinking."

I open my half-closed eyes to find the professor smiling across the table at me. He has already downed his beer, and the thought occurs to me that, for a man who has just been talking about "awful freedom" or something of the sort, he seems remarkably at peace with the world.

"I can't keep up with you," I say, smiling in turn. "I'm afraid I'm already in no condition to drive home."

"Have dinner at my place," he says. "We'll order in some pizzas, and wash them down with Senor Carlo Rossi. Don't worry about staying sober. I've plenty of room, you can sleep at my place."

"Oh, I wouldn't – "

"Dream of imposing? On whom? I'm all alone, there's nobody to impose on."

"You're alone?"

"I'm a widower. My wife died five years ago."

***

"My wife comes to me in dreams. I dream of her every night. It is her presence in my dreams that gives me the strength to carry on. Otherwise I would have destroyed myself years ago. You smile, my friend." I don't think I was smiling. "But you would be surprised how frayed our attachment to life becomes under certain circumstances. My wife... wait, let me..." From a little cupboard under the sink he draws two candles in their holders and places them on the table between us. "Do you mind?" He lights the candles, using a lighter that was lying on the table practically in front of me without my noticing it, and switches off the ceiling light. Instantly the room is transformed, and I find myself gazing about me in astonishment, as though I had never seen candlelight before. Certainly I haven't seen it in a long time. The professor's apartment – I'm afraid I failed to conceal my surprise at the first sight of it – is little better, maybe no better at all, than a slum. It is big enough – three cavernous rooms and a narrow but immensely long hallway – but the sort of dive you might expect a student with no family support to reside in, not a distinguished professor at Professor Sorenberg's time of life. It is not conspicuously unclean, but a rat scuttling across the wooden floor would not seem out of place – or cockroaches. If the professor noticed my surprise he made no comment, and neither did I, so how he came to make his home here, and why, I have no idea. But by candlelight, it takes on a strange beauty; it is hard to describe, especially for me; I have no gift at all for describing things. The dancing shadows on the pock-marked walls with their peeling colorless paint... I don't know why, but suddenly they make me happy. A strange happiness, an unfamiliar happiness...

"What was I saying? Oh yes! My wife. We were infants together. Neighbors. My first memories are of her. We were boyfriend and girlfriend at age five. We played house together, and kissed under the backyard veranda of her house. Never, never, did we grow apart. Never. At ten we were secretly engaged – with such solemnity, and such terror lest our parents find out! Oh, it was just child's play, of course, and anything could have happened, and according to the laws of probability no doubt should have happened, to cause us to go our separate ways. But nothing did. We stayed together through high school, college... We majored in philosophy together at McGill, did graduate work together at the U of T, and when I went on to Cornell for my doctorate, she, having decided she'd had enough of academe, came with me, working part-time in the neighborhood supermarket."

"I too had a girlfriend at age five. We too played house under the veranda, and kissed... Hm."

"And?"

"And? And nothing." I feel myself blushing. Stupid of me to interrupt. Now he'll want to hear all about it. But no. He senses that I don't want to talk, smiles to show his understanding – what a marvelous teacher this man must be! – and goes on with his own story.

"She comes to me in dreams – sometimes as a child, sometimes as a young woman, sometimes as the old woman she never lived to be. We talk the whole night through, we hold hands, we kiss... I wake up in the morning with the taste of her lips on mine, and I am happy. There are people who would call it an illusory happiness, and pity me for falling for it, or for settling for it when I could have real happiness – ie, I could remarry – eg, Hilda Thorn, for instance. Hilda Thorn. What they don't understand, Hilda Thorn and all of them, is that everything is an illusion – this conversation no less so than my dreams. Banish all thoughts of 'reality' from your mind. There is no such thing. No such thing. But what a host I am. I mentioned Senor Carlo Rossi, and failed to produce him. Excuse me."

The professor vanishes somewhere and I am left alone. I don't know who Hilda Thorn is, or who Senor Carlo Rossi is, and am mildly surprised and quite delighted to find I have no curiosity at all about them; nor am I curious to know where the professor has gone to. If ever a moment has been given to me that I would want to live in for eternity, this is it: me sitting alone in this cavelike candlelit slum waiting for the professor to return from somewhere. Never, it seems to me, have I been so at peace, or understood things so clearly. What is it I understand? That there is nothing to understand. It's as the professor said: there is no reality. But if there is no reality, there is no illusion either, for what is illusion if not the opposite of reality? Remove reality, and there is nothing for illusion to be the opposite of. Ah, how good, how good everything is!

"Here we are." The professor is back, with two wine glasses and what looks like a jug or something. He fills the glasses from the jug and resumes his seat. "To Senor Carlo Rossi. L'chaim!"

"L'chaim!" We clink glasses. "Ah, professor," I hear myself say, "I'm so glad I met you!"

"And I you. Our pizza will be here in a few minutes. I ordered a large, all-dressed – it'll just do for the two of us."

"What was your wife's name?"

"Laura."

"And how did she die?"

"She was hit by a car. On her way to the supermarket. Two blocks from where we lived. The light was changing. She started across before the light turned green, just as the guy that hit her was speeding up to beat the red. It all happened in a matter of seconds. She died instantly. Thankfully. There was no suffering. I said before that there is no reality. That is not quite true. Not quite. Suffering. Suffering, my friend. That alone is real."

 

Twentieth segment

I'm not sure what happened next. Did I pass out? Fall asleep? I wake up with no idea where I am. It is pitch black; I can see nothing; and the silence is as thick as the darkness; not a sound reaches me, except... what is that? The sea? Where is the professor? I have to pee; where is the bathroom? There is the taste of wine in my mouth, and my head aches. Ah – "Senor Carlo Rossi." I remember now – a lively little soiree. The pizza came, the professor put on some jazz... He showed me his record collection – records; LPs, not CDs. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong... "Where are we?" I asked him at one point, because it suddenly occurred to me, a propos of I don't know what, that I didn't know. He answered me without surprise. "Rue Berger. Do you speak French?" "Yes." "Then you know berger means shepherd." "Yes, I know berger means shepherd. So?" "So, we are on Shepherd Street. As a professor, a teacher of the young, I permit myself the fancy that I am a kind of shepherd. It is fitting, therefore, that I have a flat on Shepherd Street." "Is that why you chose this place? Because of the name of the street?" "Yes, strange as it may seem."

Shepherd Street, Rue Berger – where is it? I have lived in this city all my life, but Rue Berger I don't know. We walked here from the Fife and Drum – what route did we take? I didn't notice at the time. Well, the urgent question now is not where I am in terms of the city, but where I am in terms of the nearest toilet. Really, I'd better find it fast. Am I hung over? Can I stand? The effort to do so makes my head pound a bit, but it is nothing serious – no nausea, no dizziness. It is not a bed I was lying on but a mattress spread on the floor – a futon, I believe it's called. How is it my eyes aren't growing accustomed to the darkness? You'd think I'd be able to make something out, however dimly – but no. Have I gone blind? Like Oedipus? The professor was talking about Oedipus. What was he saying? Why would the subject of Oedipus come up? Well, why not? So many strange subjects came up. What a mind the professor has! Yes, drinking with a man like that is an experience. Suddenly, a surge of panic: Where is the BMW? Where did I leave it? Where? What a fool I was to come back, after having driven all the way to North Bay! If I'd kept on going, I could be at the coast by now, or at least at the Rockies. The Rockies. I haven't seen them since... well, since you saw them. Remember? I could be there now, enthralled, enraptured by their majestic forms, my soul expanding and contracting at the same time – ha ha! That's what you wrote in the Red Notebook; I remember: "My soul expands and contracts at the same time." What was the next sentence? To think... to think I'll never know! How utterly stupid... worse than stupid; criminal! It was criminal of me to have lost it, criminal. Is it really impossible it's in the glove compartment? Not likely, I admit, but I'll check, as soon as I... ah, here's the door. Finally! I was beginning to think... God knows what I was beginning to think! That I was in some kind of prison or something, and would never again see the light of day. What tricks the mind plays on us. What was that Louis Armstrong record... Potato Head Blues! How did it go? I forget. Never mind. What's that light? A light shows under a door at the end of the corridor. It must be the professor's study. He's probably writing, or reading. A mind like his, restless, ravenous, has no time for sleep, and apparently no need for it either, though he matched me drink for drink and then some. The bathroom, the bathroom, where's the bathroom? I'll have an accident if I don't... What the hell? These pajamas... How is it I'm wearing pajamas? I don't remember... where are my clothes? Strange, strange! Ah, here. Not without difficulty I find the light switch, and blink furiously in a light that seems dazzling after the darkness. The room is all white – everything in it is white: sink, bathtub, toilet... white, and none too clean. None too clean at all. I am not unduly fastidious, I don't think, but... how can the professor live like this? Does he actually bathe in that tub? Is he indifferent to his surroundings to that extent? I understand, his mind is engaged in deep thoughts, and to such a mind the order and cleanliness of one's living arrangements are matters of secondary concern... still... What time would it be? I really should be getting home. That is, I want to go home, to get out of these strange pajamas, out of this... this dive on Rue Shepherd, the sight of whose bathtub makes me feel filthy, makes me long for a real bath, the sort of bath that will last the rest of my life...

I'll just knock on the professor's door, thank him for his hospitality, and take my leave. The wood floor is cold, and creaks under the weight of my feet. He will know I'm up. He'll have heard the toilet flush, and he'll hear the creaking, growing louder as I approach. The thought makes me pause, I'm not sure why. I'm aware that my thinking is a bit addled, what with drink and lack of sleep... What was that he said? "Suffering – suffering alone is real." He was talking about Oedipus... No, about himself. His wife. Laura. Killed. Hit by a car. I tap gently on the door. "Professor? May I come in?"

"Yes, of course." Cordial, as always.

It's a large, large room, vast, bigger by far than the rest of the house. The professor sits in the middle of it – reclines, rather, in an armchair, his feet resting on a most imposing desk, his smiling face wreathed in clouds of tobacco smoke. The hand which he extends in a kind of vague greeting holds a pipe – I didn't know he was a smoker – which, from the quantities of smoke issuing from it, might almost be on fire. "Up already?" he asks.

"What time is it?"

He glances at his wrist. "Twenty to three."

"I feel like I slept for... I don't know. Days."

"Well, time is what we feel it to be. It has no existence independent of our feelings. I can say that by my watch you slept barely two hours, but why is my watch truer than your feelings? It's absurd, the way science has warped our view of the world."

"Where do these pajamas come from?"

"Don't you remember? I lent them to you."

"Did you? No, I... Hm! How much did I drink last night?"

"Enough to put you firmly on the path to Enlightenment, I'd say. No, I'm joking. How much? Well, between us we polished off the better part of a one-and-a-half-liter bottle, so..."

"Bottle of what?"

"Of what? Of Carlo Rossi."

"Ah. I remember. You laughed at me for thinking it was Italian."

"It was rude of me to laugh."

"Not at all. Innocence is comic, it can't be helped."

"I have another bottle, if you'd like – "

"Oh no! No, thank you, really, I think I... The fact is, I... I really should be getting home..."

"Home! Now? Why?"

How stupid of me not to have prepared some excuse, some pretext. "Because I desperately want a bath, that's why, and the thought of bathing in your tub makes me ill." That's the truth, but the truth can't always be spoken. "Well, home, you know, is one's natural place... One doesn't need a reason to be home; one rather needs a reason to be away from home, wouldn't you say, professor?"

"Oh, please, don't call me professor! Bad enough my students have to call me that!"

I can't help smiling. "What shall I call you, then? Shepherd?"

He laughs.

"Seriously," I say, somehow encouraged by his laughter, "it's time I was on my way. I have imposed on you – "

"Imposed on me! My dear man, what on earth are you talking about? You don't know how I've enjoyed your company! In fact, shall I tell you what I was thinking? That we move in together! I know this will seem rather sudden, and in fact I wasn't planning on blurting it out quite so soon, but you talk of leaving, and..." He swings his legs down from the desk and swivels round in the chair so that he is directly facing me across it, and for a fleeting instant I have the awful feeling that I have reverted to childhood and been summoned to the principal's office for a stern talking-to... There actually was such an incident, once upon a time, utterly forgotten until this very instant... "See here," he says. "Why shouldn't we live together? You yourself said that our meeting was fated, given the way it came about. Beyond that, we're two lonely, aging, solitary men... We can be good for each other, you and I."

"Live together? Here?"

"Here, or... where you like. I'll quit my job, we can move to a tropical island. There are islands, you know, where it costs next to nothing to live. You and I, we're the sort of people... well, the sort of people who belong on islands. We don't fit in on the mainland."

"Professor, I really have to be going."

"Nonsense. I won't let you go. Have I finally found you, after searching for you all these years, all these decades, only to let you slip through my fingers? Yes, I realized it the moment I set eyes on you – you, you are the one I've been searching for, you and nobody else!"

His words are hysterical, or seem so to me, but his manner is perfectly calm, perfectly friendly, even slightly ironical, as though he's inviting me to take part in a little fun he's concocted at my expense. Well, all right then. "You talk of letting me slip through your fingers – why? I'll go home, see to a few things I have to see to, get some sleep in my own bed – because the truth is, though I'm a little ashamed of it, I'm one of those homebodies who can only sleep properly in his own bed – and I'll call you tomorrow afternoon, we can have dinner together."

"Well, if you insist. Are you sure you're fit to drive? Let me call you a cab."

"By no means. I'm fine, really. Never felt better. Besides, one of the things I have to 'see to' is my car; I'm not sure which parking lot I left it in."

"Was it near the university?"

"Yes, very near."

"It must've been the lot on Bishop and de Maisonneuve."

"Probably it is."

"Well, I'll call you a cab. It's quite a long walk from here."

"All right. Thank you."

"Are you sure you wouldn't like some more wine?"

"Quite sure."

"Well, go get dressed then. I'll call your cab. It should be here by the time you're ready."

Is he disappointed in me? Something in his tone suggests it. Perhaps he takes my hasty departure in the dead of night as an insult. I hope not, I certainly don't mean it that way, but... my God, what am I doing here? The long narrow corridor is as dark as ever; even darker than it was before, if that's possible. Where is my room? I grope along the wall, feeling for a door handle, and when at last I find one I hesitate to open it for fear of what I'll blunder into. Madness must be a state very like this... But as long as there is a voice in me, however small, which says, "This is madness, you mustn't behave this way," then I guess I have the means of keeping madness at bay. Or do all madmen tell themselves that? I push open the door. No sooner have I done so than the professor is at my elbow. "Not there, where are you going?" Almost roughly – no, it must be my imagination – he takes my arm and leads me a little farther down the hallway. "Here." He opens a door and switches on a light. There is the mattress, and there, on the floor beside it, are my clothes, in some disorder. "Get dressed. Your taxi'll be here in a minute." He seems as anxious to get rid of me now as he was to detain me before. Well, I daresay I am being a nuisance. The taxi's horn sounds as I am struggling into my pants – struggling because one leg is inside out.

"You'll call me this afternoon?" the professor says.

"Yes, if you want me to."

"If I want you to! Here is my card. Use the cell phone number."

"All right. Thank you. Say around five."

"I'll be waiting."

"Thank you, professor. Thank you for everything."

"There's nothing to thank me for, nothing at all. And please" – laughing – "don't call me professor."

***

Outside, to my astonishment, it is already morning. Of course, there is nothing to be astonished at. It's June, it gets light early; still, I'd stepped out of the house expecting pitch darkness, and the morning light only increases my disorientation. The taxi is at the curb, the rear door open to receive me. I get in and close my eyes. I woke up feeling well rested, was surprised when the professor told me I'd only slept two hours, but now my eyes burn with fatigue, my thoughts are chaotic, I long above all for oblivion, uninterrupted oblivion. "Where to?" asks the driver. Of course, I'd forgotten. He's a taxi driver; he needs to be told where to go. "Bishop and de Maisonneuve," I hear myself mumble. The car rolls into motion. "Listen," he says to me, "you want oblivion? You can have it. Here's how it works. I'll shoot you if you like. It's entirely up to you. Oblivion is yours for the asking. Just say the word." That's not him speaking, of course, it's me imagining him speaking. I realize that quite well – foggily, but beyond doubt. Still, I have my answer ready: "Shoot." Yes, through the fog, this much is as clear as anything has ever been in my life: Given the choice, I would say, "Shoot." I doze, and am aware of dozing. I hear a snore, and know it's mine. The next thing I am aware of is the driver saying, "Seventeen fifty." I open my eyes. Seventeen fifty? That seems awfully high. But I say nothing. It's been years since I've taken a cab; maybe that's what fares are nowadays. With much fumbling I take my wallet from my pants pocket and hand him a twenty dollar bill. "Keep the change," I murmur. If he says thank you I don't hear it. I get out of the car, not altogether sure where I am. What if I were to lose my memory altogether? I read a story about a man that happened to. It was shortly before I cancelled my subscription to the Gazette. He left his house to go for a walk, and suddenly he no longer knew who or where he was. He wandered about for weeks; his family was frantic; finally he happened to run into someone he knew, who hailed him by name, and it all came back to him. What strange stunts the human brain is capable of pulling. Is that what the professor meant when he said there's no reality, only appearance? We know nothing, can conceive nothing, beyond what our capricious, whimsical, flawed brain puts it into our head, so to speak, to know or conceive. Even when it's functioning normally, its limitations are plain. A dog must think it knows everything there is to know – but is that any more comical than humans thinking they know, or can know, everything? Bishop and de Maisonneuve – I remember now. There's the Hall Building, and here is the parking lot – what? Closed! There's the BMW – safe, thank God! – one of four cars left by owners, it may be, in circumstances similar to mine. There's nothing blocking it, nothing to stop me from driving away, except that I don't have the key; the key is in the shed, which is locked. What time does the place open? I scan the towering yellow sign – six. Six a.m. to two a.m. Why bother closing at all, if it's just for four hours? Well, that gives me, I suppose, two hours to kill. Annoying, but what can you do? There must be an all-night coffee shop around somewhere. A hot cup of coffee, maybe a bite of breakfast – that'll bring me back to life.

This is my city; I've lived here all my life; why does it seem so strange, so unfamiliar? I walk aimlessly, shuffling along like a tramp. No sooner does that thought occur than I see a man, hairy and ragged and prematurely aged, lying on the sidewalk, in the fetal position, sound asleep. Maybe it was the sight of him that made me think of a tramp. As tired as I am, I could never fall asleep like that, right out in the open. Maybe he's more tired still, or maybe he's used to it. Maybe he's dead. Should I investigate? No. I am not an investigator. It is no concern of mine. Here's a Gazette vending machine. The banner headline is visible through the glass: "India Train Bomb Kills Hundreds." I imagine my mother reading that and muttering through clenched lips, "The world's gone mad!"

That was a favorite expression of hers. It was different when she was a child, I suppose. Then the world was sane, orderly; but at one point or another – when would it have been? – it went off the rails, and now the things that once upon a time occurred only in nightmares, nightmares that dissolved instantly upon waking, are suddenly the stuff of headlines, demanding that you take them for reality.

"Got any spare change?"

No bomb could have startled me more. What a figure I must cut. He's probably thinking to himself, "Why am I asking? Why am I begging? Why don't I just jump him? He's obviously got no resistance in him." I quicken my stride. What time is it? The sun is getting brighter, as bright as a winter noon. Maybe it's six. Where am I? Peel and de Maisonneuve. Really? This is Peel and de Maisonneuve?

"Steve! Is that you?"

Linda! It's Linda! "Linda! Save me!" I cry.

The next thing I know I am in her arms, my head buried in the hollow of her shoulder, sobbing, sobbing uncontrollably. She pats my head, strokes my hair, whispers "Sh, sh" – just as a mother would to a small child waking up from a nightmare he hasn't the vocabulary to describe. "Oh, Linda," I murmur through my sobs, "you don't know, you can't possibly know..."

"Come with me," she says; "come." Without disengaging herself from my embrace she somehow manages to lead me away. Where we're going I don't know; it no more occurs to me to wonder than it would occur to an infant in his mother's arms. "Oh, Linda, if you only knew how I love you."

"But of course I know," she says. "If I didn't know, would I be here?"

"You know?"

"I know."

"And you don't... you don't despise me?"

"Despise you! Why should I despise you?"

"Why... for my... for this shameful weakness..."

"We all have moments of weakness. I'll strengthen you in yours, you'll strengthen me in mine."

"Yes, yes, Linda, we'll strengthen each other! Yes!"

"Here's the parking lot."

I open my eyes. Yes, here's the parking lot, but Linda is gone. I am not surprised, only desolate, drained, empty. At the shed is a man – he seems to be opening up. It must be six, then, or very near it. I approach; he turns to me with a smile of welcome. "Good morning!" His bearded face is wreathed in wrinkles, and he's missing an upper front tooth. What sort of life, I wonder, would have carved such a face?

"That's my car over there," I murmur, indicating the BMW with a faint movement of my head.

"Ah. Say, are you all right?"

"Yes, why?"

"Oh..." He shrugs. We settle the bill, he hands me my key, and I see no more of him.

The BMW is damp with morning dew. I start the engine and, as so often in the past, I feel myself come to life along with it. Such gentle and yet such vast power this machine contains! My fatigue is gone – like the moisture on the windshield, swept aside by one flick of the wipers. Is there any need for me to go home? Suppose I take to the highway again – for good, this time. No turning back. I'll go as far as Ottawa now, put up at that same Holiday Inn, get some sleep, spend the next night at the Northland in North Bay, and then... then... Is the Red Notebook in the glove compartment after all? Impossible – and yet, opening it and rummaging among the CDs, I am as disappointed at not finding it as only the most hopeful expectations can make you. I am ready to weep again. My fatigue returns, with redoubled force. No, I must go home, must get to bed, to bed, to bed... What's that song, that hateful, idiotic song... "Must get home, must get to bed..." Get out, damn you! Get out of my head! I hate you! The more furiously I resist it, of course, the more playfully it teases me. Yoga. Maybe I'll take yoga lessons. I know very little about it, but doesn't yoga train you to control your thoughts? There's a yoga class at the mall, I remember seeing a sign. I'll make inquiries.

 

Twenty-first segment

I park the BMW in the driveway and let myself into the house. A faint odor hovers in the hall, an indefinable musty odor, as if the house is reproaching me for having been away so long. This is strange, for no such odor greeted me on my return from North Bay – why now, when I was only away one night? I'd better open some windows. I begin with the one over the kitchen sink, which looks out on the garden from which that eerie, haunting noise came, the noise that drove me out. I'd forgotten all about it. Is it still there? I strain my ears... No. Yes! There it is. No, nonsense, I'm imagining it. If I have to strain to hear it, there's nothing to hear, because the noise in question was not exactly borderline inaudible. I stand still, listening, listening... No. There is no noise. That's settled. Okay, good. What next? A shower, a hot shower. I feel scummy with filth, and cold too; I'm shivering. Do I have a fever? Where's the thermometer? I don't know where the thermometer is. "No school for you today," says my mother. "Straight to bed with you – march!" Yes, mother. Yes, mom. First a shower, then to bed. What time is it? Ten past seven. AM or PM? Who knows? Who cares?

The shower is marvelous. Why couldn't life have evolved into an endless hot shower? Maybe it will yet; evolution isn't over; maybe it's barely begun. Only the thought of bed gives me the strength to turn off the water. I have no memory of drying myself or of getting into my pajamas – but I am dry, and wearing pajamas, and in bed, under the covers, so all is well, all is as it should be. As a child, drifting off to sleep, I would imagine a kind of spinning presence, a UFO, but an immaterial UFO, and the space aliens who emerged saying "We've come to take you with us" were similarly immaterial, not at all frightening; I went with them willingly, and they took me to their immaterial world, where they entertained me so splendidly, showing me such wonderful visions, feeding me such good things to eat, that I wanted only to stay with them, but at a certain point they always said, "It's time for you to go home now" – were they tired of me? "Let me stay!" I'd beg, but they said no, your parents will worry, imagine you're a father and you wake up to find your little boy gone, vanished, not a trace, not a clue to his whereabouts, how would you feel? You'd call the police, but the police need clues, they can't function without clues, and we, of course, leave no clues; you understand, don't you? And they were so persuasive that yes, I did understand, in my own childish fashion. My poor father, my poor mother! What if the aliens had been less kindly, less considerate? They'd whisk me into their dimension and no power on earth or in heaven could ever unite us again, not even the doorbell... The doorbell? I am awake now, straining my ears, but there is nothing to hear – and yet something jolted me awake! There it is! Someone is at the door! What time is it? Who could it be? I close my eyes, hold my breath, no one is home, go away! But of course, the BMW is in the driveway; they won't be fooled so easily. But I'm not dressed. Am I to go to the door in my pajamas? I lie motionless, no corpse ever lay more so, and suddenly in my head I hear soft, rhythmic chanting: "Mayim, mayim, mayim lisason!" What on earth is it? Meaningless syllables... "Mayim, mayim..." Who's chanting? One person, or many? Is it a prayer? It sounds vaguely like one. Probably some scrap I retained from the few scraps of Hebrew education I acquired as a child, at my father's insistence. Having grown up indifferent to Judaism, having married a Christian woman, he had at one point a kind of religious awakening – I know very little about it except that, under its spell, he was determined to implant in me what he called "an awareness of my Jewish identity." This led to my being sent to after-school Hebrew classes three times a week, against which, for reasons no longer clear to me, I revolted as I had never (placid little fellow that I was, for the most part) revolted against anything before – or have ever since. I hated those lessons, hated them – the grim old-maid teacher, the damp, gloomy classroom, with its mysterious rattling noise coming from somewhere in the ceiling, the forced memorizing of words that meant nothing to me... Whether because of this furious revolt of mine, or because my father's religious enthusiasm was short-lived, or for some other reason, my religious instruction soon ended. But why am I suddenly recalling all this now? "Mayim, mayim, mayim lisason!" Are those real words? Whoever has come for me has given up on the doorbell and is knocking at the door instead. Let him knock... But good God! That is not mere knocking; it's pounding! What is going on? Is the world coming to an end? An idiotic thought occurs, truly idiotic: It's Death come for me, and Death is annoyed because he can't get in the door! Ha ha ha! Does Death ring doorbells and politely request admission? Resorting to rough stuff only if balked? Yes, that must be it.

All right, no rough stuff, I'll come quietly. Just let me put on a bathrobe or something... What am I talking about, I don't have a bathrobe. Pants, then. What time is it? I grope for the clock on the night table: 12:14. 12:14. Noon or midnight? Noon, obviously, since the room is not pitch dark; daylight is seeping in through the blind. So I've slept what... five hours? Seventeen? Twenty-nine? Six months, maybe... or a hundred years.

Only after I get my pants on over my pajamas do I realize the knocking has stopped. So it was my imagination after all? I dreamed it? Slowly, on tiptoe, careful not to make a sound, starting at every faint creak in the flooring, knowing all the while how utterly, utterly absurd this is, and yet... Doesn't mayim mean water? A faint twinge of memory suggests that it might. Or it might not. My mind is wandering, I know. I feel delightfully light-headed, as after, say, my third sip of scotch. Scotch. I'll just check the door, and if, as now seems likely, no one is there, that's what I'll do – pour myself a drink and sit quietly, composing my thoughts...

There is, of course, no one there. I say "of course," but... how am I supposed to feel? Relieved? Yes, certainly, for the sounds I was hearing boded no good, and better horror should turn out to be a figment of my imagination than real. Still, what is happening to my imagination? It has always known its place. As a teenager, I suppose, I could have been described as imaginative – hence my ambition to be a great writer; but nothing ever came of that, and my imagination, so to speak, accepted defeat gracefully, maybe even with relief – it would not after all be taxed beyond its capacity. It ceased to trouble me. It went its way, and let me go mine. It was an amicable parting. We'd cross paths every so often, say hello, chat over old times... "I'm a realist now," I'd say. "Yes, a bourgeois realist," it would smile, ironically but not bitterly – it didn't want a fight any more than I did. "What can you do?" I'd say. "You grow up, you have to live in the world as it is. And it's a bourgeois world."

I am halfway through my second scotch when the phone rings. A measure of how the scotch has mellowed me is the fact that I don't jump, don't gasp, don't ask myself in a state bordering on panic who it might be... no, I simply place the glass on the coffee table, rise unhurriedly from the sofa on which I've been sitting, and go into the hall, where the phone is. This is better, I think to myself. I pick up the receiver. "Hello?"

There is no answer, and after a couple of seconds the line goes dead. The thought strikes me that the house is haunted, and this is followed immediately by a second thought: "If not for the scotch, that thought would frighten me." As it is, though, there is no fear, only mild amusement and a notion that I'd better refill my glass: "To keep my courage up, ha ha!" I notice as I do so that there is very little left in the bottle. Quite enough for now; still, it blunts a little the sense of infinite contentment that comes from thinking that I could sit here forever, sipping my scotch, perfectly indifferent to the world outside... What? The phone again? All right, calm... I'll answer it, and if it's a prank call like before, I'll disconnect it and that'll be that. Once again I go into the hall, noticing when I'm halfway there that I still have my glass in my hand. No problem. In fact, all to the good. I sip, and pick up the receiver. "Hello?"

"Hello... Mr. Marcus?" Man's voice, unfamiliar.

"Yes."

"This is the Northland Hotel in North Bay, Ontario. We've found your notebooks."

"My..." My notebooks? What notebooks? Ah! The Northland Hotel! The Red Notebook!

"We'll put them in the mail to you immediately."

"No! Don't put them in the mail! I'll come for them in person. Tomorrow or... if not tomorrow, the day after."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. Just hold them for me."

"Very well, sir. Would you like to reserve a room?"

I hang up without answering. The Red Notebook, found! Where would it have been? I didn't ask; I should have. Well, I will when I get there. Although... what difference does it make? The thought of the journey ahead fills me with excitement – much more so, strangely enough, than was the case before my first departure. Well, that was just practice - a dress rehearsal, so to speak. This is the real thing – and this time, I am ready. Mentally ready, I mean. On the practical plane, there are steps to be taken, arrangements to be made. First, I must sober up. I know, I don't feel drunk, not at all, but I know how much I've had to drink, and never, never will I get behind the wheel of the BMW in an impaired condition. Never. Meanwhile... what time is it? The wall clock in the kitchen indicates exactly one minute to two. The room is not dark – ergo, it's afternoon. Good. I am now anchored in space – Montreal – and in time – two p.m. What next? Packing. Last time I didn't pack, and sallied forth into the world quite unarmed. One result is this beard of mine, which somehow I feel conscious of even when not seeing it or touching it. That consciousness, that vague discomfort, suggests I should shave. Some men are meant to be bearded, some not; I'm apparently not. All right then – to the bathroom for a shave. But, studying my face in the mirror, I am unable to make up my mind. It's a rugged, handsome face that stares back at me – studying me in turn? Rugged, handsome – two words I'd never dreamed of applying to myself before. If it's not the beard, black but flecked generously with gray, that's done this to me, what has? To what else can my transformation be attributed? To nothing. Ergo... hm! The beard stays. Settled, settled! But... even if it's uncomfortable? Oh, comfort and discomfort are entirely in the mind. You'll get over that. Settled, I say! Come, there's packing to do. A matter of throwing some things into a suitcase. Which things? What suitcase? Do I have a suitcase? Oh, damn – a bloody shopping bag will do!

I must phone Debi. Debi Asher, my first and only love, whom I was going to meet in San Francisco. I'd forgotten all about her – not entirely, but to all intents and purposes. She'll be expecting me – with impatience? Probably not. But probably she will be wondering what's keeping me. I did phone and say I was coming. Having imposed myself on her like that, the least I can do - I mean, this is conventional social usage, isn't it? – the least I can do is not keep her waiting, with no word as to my progress. But her phone number is in one of the notebooks at the Northland. So I'll phone her from North Bay. Or else, go to the mall, to the library, and look up the number in the phone book. And while I'm there, maybe I can drop into the stationery store and say a final goodbye to Linda. If she's there. Goodbye, Linda, goodbye – in another time, in different circumstances, perhaps... but what's the use of that kind of talk? Goodbye, goodbye, forgive me.

Is my mind wandering now? I don't think it is. It was before, but not now. Sorenberg. I promised I'd call Sorenberg. At five. He gave me his card and told me to use the cell phone number. Well, I will. Where did I put the card? In my wallet, no doubt. I don't specifically remember, but that's where I would have put it, instinctively, as it were. And my wallet? Where would it be? Either on the kitchen table or on the bureau in the bedroom. It's not on the kitchen table, ergo... Here it is. You see, my reasoning power is intact, I can be as reasonable as anyone when I want to be, it's only when I don't want to be that I lapse into a kind of... a kind of... limbo, I guess you'd call it. And sure enough, here is the professor's card. What time is it? Where's my wristwatch, by the way? One thing I must take with me, without fail, is a wristwatch. There must be one in the house somewhere, but the truth is that since my retirement I have been careless with it... which is not hard to understand; retired, a man gets careless, not only with wristwatches but with time itself... In the meantime... ha ha!... yes... in the meantime it'll be about two thirty, and I said I'd call the professor at five, but it doesn't have to be five; I can call him now if it suits my convenience. I'll say goodbye to him too... but... what if he says he wants to come with me? The thought occurs that he might, and it seems altogether plausible – didn't he say something yesterday about the two of us living together on an island somewhere, a tropical island? Well, we were both a little crazy, what with that... what was the name of that crazy wine? Don Carlos or something. If he wants to come with me, let him come! We'll talk philosophy along the way. Or rather, he'll talk and I'll listen. Though, truth to tell, I'd rather listen to Beethoven's Sixth. Supposing I leave without calling the professor? Just... leave! Vanish! Yes... Five o'clock will come around, he'll grow anxious at not hearing from me... But I didn't give him my card, as he gave me his (I don't have cards any more), and... hm. Would he look up my number in the phone book? Supposing he does, The phone will ring and ring, proclaiming my absence. What will he think? That I've met with foul play? Will he call the police? Not immediately, of course, but as the hours pass and my absence expands... Does absence expand? What a heady philosophical question we've stumbled on!

No, I'll call. I'm not ready to leave yet (if it was any other car, I'd pronounce myself as sober as I feel and be on my way – but it is not any other car...), and besides, it wouldn't be right. It wouldn't feel right. He'd haunt me. Long before I get to North Bay – in Alfred, or some place like that – I'd suddenly visualize the professor, pacing the floor of that dive on Rue Berger, nervously glancing at his watch and wondering what on earth has become of me... and it would torment me; it would cause me to waver in my purpose... which is? What is my purpose? There – I'm wavering already! My purpose is to have no purpose! But is that purpose consistent with sobriety? Should I have another drink? If so, I'd better go to the liquor store...

The professor answers on the third ring: "Sorenberg... Ah, it's you!" He is pleased, pleasantly surprised – he hadn't been expecting me so soon. "I was just thumbing through Monk's biography of Wittgenstein, who said, 'Philosophers are often like small children who scribble random marks on paper and then ask an adult, 'What is this?' Ha ha! He studied under Bertrand Russell, you know. Russell said of him, 'I asked him to admit that there was not a rhinoceros in the room, but he wouldn't.' Well, nor will I, in that case. Come on over. I was afraid you wouldn't call."

"Why?"

"Because I love you, and love is always accompanied by the fear of loss."

"Is it? I wouldn't know about that. I assume you are joking."

"Where is the boundary between joking and being serious? Does one ever really know what side of the line one is on? Einstein, you know, was joking when he dreamed up relativity – but it turned out to be true!"

"Einstein was joking?"

"I shouldn't have said 'but'. He was joking and it turned out to be true. Come over, I'll be waiting for you. Together we can look for the rhinoceros in the room."

"Yes, all right," I say, laughing. "I'll be over soon."

"Wait! Don't hang up."

I waited, but the professor didn't speak. "What is it?" I said at last.

"I've been thinking about death. Socrates, you know, said that philosophy is learning to die. A lifetime spent pondering what he meant by that would not be a lifetime spent in vain. Ah, Steve, in the minds and hearts of some men... some women too, of course... is such depth, such... " He broke off. What was this all about?

"Well, we'll talk about it when I get there," I murmured – somewhat lamely, I dare say, but... well, say what you like about silence face to face; it can be awkward or it can be, as the saying is, "pregnant," but silence over the telephone is simply ridiculous.

"Yes, we'll talk about it when you get here. But think a moment. We'll die, and afterwards... afterwards... there will be wars, revolutions, political breakthroughs, scientific breakthroughs, heaven knows what... centuries will pass, millennia, eons... new ways of life will emerge, new forms of life... we'll colonize other planets, maybe penetrate other universes... and... and all this will happen... without us! Do you know... I've spent forty years of my life studying the thoughts of the greatest minds of the greatest civilizations, and yet that elementary fact, known to every five-year-old child, is simply too much for me! I can't grasp it!"

"No, of course not, the human mind – "

"Where will I be while all this is going on? What will I be doing? The conventional answer is, 'Nothing. You'll be dead.' But what is this dead I? I, I, Moses Sorenberg... am talking nonsense. Forgive me. Come on over, we'll drink and... penetrate other universes! Ha ha."

He hung up in mid-chuckle.

 

Twenty-second segment

I'm not sure when a certain change began to take place in the workings of my mind. I've been aware of it for some time, since before my retirement even, but only now do I feel able to put it into words. (Whether my words will be understood or not, whether they make sense or not, is another matter!) Maybe it was the professor's talk about appearance and reality, dimly though I understood it, that brought it into focus. There's an irony there, a quite unintentional irony – for precisely what it brought into focus is lack of focus! Lack of focus, lack of clarity... What I am getting at, what I am trying to express, is a certain lack of certainty... "a certain lack of certainty" – "Well put!" you laugh – "well put, Mr. writer turned ladies' clothing executive!" To which I reply, "That's enough of your facile sarcasm, Mr. author of the Red Notebook turned critic! Shut up and listen. I may not be the master of self-expression that you were, but on the other hand I've lived longer, and that counts for something." Lack of certainty. Any number of times I have experienced it. I do something, perform some action, remember it perfectly clearly afterwards, and yet, even as I remember it, I am not certain the action took place – not perfectly certain. I'll give you an example. During a time some years ago when the rising crime rate was in the news a lot, I got into the habit, before going to bed, of checking to see that the door was locked. And then, no sooner would I get comfortable under the covers than I would doubt that I really had checked the lock. Even while remembering that I had done so, I doubted it, and even though I knew perfectly well that my doubts were idiotic, irrational, insane if you like, still, they were strong enough to drive me out of bed, however snug and comfortable I was, and go back to the door and check it again. I could have ignored them, those doubts; I could have fought them with my reason, which was unimpaired, but the doubts, unsupported by reason, would have won – they would have kept me awake all night.

That's just one example – there are any number of others. Suffice it to say, though, that this is precisely how I feel getting off the phone with the professor. Did that conversation really taken place? I recall every word he said, I hear his voice, with its mellifluous tones, its melancholy, its suppressed excitement... and yet no sooner have I hung up than I seriously wonder: Did I imagine it? Dream it? Am I asleep now, and dreaming this?

I think of calling him back and asking, just to make sure – but what will I say? "Professor, did we speak just now?" No, wait, a better idea... I dial his number. He answers immediately – he hasn't even put the phone down: "Yo."

"Professor?"

"Moses."

"Moses. What's the address? I've forgotten the address."

"It's right there on the card."

"Ah. So it is. Stupid of me. 261 Berger."

"See you in a bit."

"Right."

So that's that. I dare say one day my condition will deteriorate to the point where I would be doubting that second conversation took place too – and after all, why not? Why should the second one be any more certain, or less doubtful, than the first? Well, I'll ask the professor, see what he says. Suddenly I am eager to be off, eager to see him. I'm like a kid going to a friend's house, to Howie Levine's, with the prospect of a few hours of irresponsible play before I have to do my homework. What was that he said about loving me? Well, good, let him. Do I love him in turn? I, who have never loved anyone? Who knows? Maybe I do. But is there really such a thing as love? Now there's a philosophical question I'm not ready to tackle just now! A more immediate concern: Am I really unfit to drive? True, I had three glasses of scotch, but I feel... I feel great, buoyant... still; better not. With a car like the BMW you don't take chances. Besides, I hardly know where Berger Street is. No, what I'll do is, I'll start walking and hail the first taxi I see. First, though, I'll change clothes. I'm in a jeans-and-T-shirt sort of mood. Jeans and T-shirt - attire, once upon a time, symbolizing youth, defiance of convention, membership in a club dedicated to... hm; the phrase "mass individuality" comes to mind. We didn't see back then – did we? – that replacing one convention with another does not make you unconventional. What airs we gave ourselves – you. I'm speaking of you, my lad. Wouldn't it be good if we could meet face to face? What a fine talk we'd have! What are the young people wearing nowadays, I wonder? There was a whole crowd of them at the... what was the name of that pub?... the Fife and Drum. What were they wearing? I didn't notice. I really should train myself to be more observant.

It's a beautiful day, a little on the warm side... Strange, how few children you see nowadays. This neighborhood used to be crawling with kids, of whom I was one. Now... when was the last time I saw a child? Those children in Arnprior, or wherever it was, playing hopscotch. Suddenly a thought comes to me: Why don't I adopt a child? It takes my breath away. Why not? A taxi cruises slowly towards me; I raise my hand like a child in school; the taxi edges towards the curb and rolls to a stop. "261 Rue Berger," I say, settling into the back seat. He nods, and quickly effects a U-turn.

"Do you have any children?" I ask him.

"Yes sir, three," he says.

His accent is Haitian. Switching to French, I murmur, "I've been thinking of adopting a child."

I don't know why I say this, or what sort of response I expect. The one I get is cheerful but inconsequential: "The youngest turned two yesterday. My wife baked a cake."

"Boy or girl?"

"Girl. Only girls. Three daughters."

"You see so few children on the street these days."

"My girls never go in the street."

"Why?"

"Dangerous."

"Dangerous? Why? What do you mean?"

"Dangerous! Crime, rape, kidnapping."

"It happens, of course," I say, "but very rarely – surely not so often you can't let a child go out to play in the daytime?"

"Very often, it happens."

"In Haiti, maybe."

He is silent, and I bite my tongue. It was the wrong thing to say. What do I know about Haiti? Anxious to repair the damage, I make small talk. How long has he been here? Seven years. Does he like it? No. Too cold in winter. But not just the weather. Haitian French is difficult if you're not used to it, and I have to guess at a lot of what he says, but the upshot is that no matter how bad conditions are in Port-au-Prince, Port-au-Prince is home, and no matter how good conditions are in Montreal, Montreal is not home, and never will be. "So why don't you go back to Port-au-Prince?" I ask. "For the children," he replies without a moment's hesitation, as though he'd been expecting precisely that question.

We are silent the rest of the way – me because I don't know what to say, him, I suspect, because he doesn't consider me worth talking to. Meanwhile, I marvel at the twists and turns of his driving. Where on earth are we? He doesn't like this city and doesn't feel at home in it, and yet he knows it cold, whereas I, born, raised and more or less comfortable here, am forced to admit that if he suddenly stopped the car and ordered me out I wouldn't have a clue which way to turn. Not a clue.

"261 Rue Berger," he says, stopping the car. "$24.65."

"What? We're here? Already?"

I put my hand into the right pocket of my jeans, and a kind of despair comes over me. The pocket is flat. I've forgotten my wallet. What now? "I don't seem to..." I hardly know what I'm saying. What kind of man leaves home without his wallet? But this has happened to me before... where was it? Ottawa? Yes, when I went out to buy a book, and then I ran into that Fukuyama fellow and was unable to prove to him that I wasn't his beloved Professor Sorenberg... "Wait here," I say. "Keep the meter running, the professor, my friend who lives here, will lend me the money... just wait here, I'll be right back..." Mumbling God knows what, I ease myself out of the car and proceed up the walk of the house marked 261 – but is this really the place? It looks not at all familiar... As ugly and slummy as I remember it, but still, not the same. I retrace my footsteps, and through the driver's open window ask, "Are you sure this is Rue Berger?" He is not a young man; I'd thought he was, but no, he must be at least fifty. But that's neither here nor there. Yes, of course he's sure. All right then. "I'll be right back. Really, I'm sorry..."

Another cab pulls up right behind mine, and a woman emerges who looks vaguely familiar. Why should anyone getting out of a cab on Rue Berger look familiar? She recognizes me too, and smiles. "Hello," she says. "Are you here to see Moses? So am I." Of course – she's the teacher – the sociologist, or whatever – who was at the pub with her retinue of students. "I won't stay long, I just... is something wrong?"

"I've forgotten my wallet – I can't pay the taxi. I must throw myself on the professor's mercy."

"Oh dear!" She laughs. "What a predicament!"

We go up the stairs together, and into the hallway. There's an odor here, an unpleasant, clinging odor, compounded of mothballs, boiled cabbage, rotting trash, urine – the odor of the slums.

"Why Moses chooses to squirrel himself away in a place like this is more than I can say," she says, her heels clicking on the stairs as I follow her up. Which flat is the professor's? It's lucky I ran into her, I'm thinking, because I have no idea. I don't even know what floor he's on.

She turns left into the second floor corridor and raps decisively on the second door. Is this really where I was last night? There's no reason to doubt it, except – again – that nothing looks at all familiar. She calls out: "Moses? Open up, you have visitors... Strange," she says, when no one stirs within. "He's usually home at this time."

"I spoke to him on the phone before I left the house," I say. "He's expecting me."

She knocks again, more loudly this time. "Moses! Let us in already, it's freezing out here!"

We exchange looks. "He could have gone out for a walk, I suppose. He's a great walker. He can walk for hours. But you say he was expecting you... Moses!" The door across the corridor from his opens a crack, and a dark face peeps out. My companion turns, and asks, "Do you happen to know if Professor Sorenberg is at home?" No answer. The door neither opens wider, nor shuts. All I can make out of the face is two dark, somewhat frightened eyes. Whether they belong to a man or a woman, to an old person or a young, I can't make out. The impression is oddly unnerving. "Don't you speak English?" my companion asks. When this draws no more response than her first question, she turns to me. "Let's go outside first of all and pay your taxi. It's not right to keep him waiting. Sorry to've disturbed you," she says, with a slight bow, to the person in the doorway. I follow her outside, feeling as helpless as a child, and as grateful as a helpless child might for the presence of someone evidently capable of taking an awkward situation in hand. I follow her down the stairs as I had followed her up them, and outside into the sunshine, which after the gloom of the corridor seems unnaturally bright, just as the air seems unnaturally fresh. I stand humbly aside as she settles with the driver. "Mayim, mayim..." The Hebrew, or pseudo-Hebrew, syllables come back to me. "Mayim lissason." "There's a nice little coffee shop just down the block," she says. "Supposing we go there and plan our next move." "Thank you," I now remember to say – "you really rescued me." How would the scene have ended if she hadn't turned up? "I'll pay you back..."

The coffee shop is rather nice. A little bell tinkles as she pushes open the door. Inside, everything is made of wood – dark, fragrant wood, so that one seems almost to be inhaling forest air. The air-conditioning is unobtrusively cool, as is the music – soft piano jazz. A middle-aged black woman in a white apron appears, flashing lustrous white teeth. "Hilda!" Hilda – that's her name. Hilda Thorn. She and the black woman exchange small talk. They seem to have known each other a long time. "Have you seen Moses lately?" Hilda asks. "No," says the black woman, "not in ages." "Well," says Hilda, "he's working on his book, you know, and... well, you know how it is, when you're writing a book." "No, as a matter of fact I don't," laughs the black woman – "never having written one." "You should," says Hilda – "with all the experiences you've had!" "Experiences!" ripostes the black woman; "what experiences? I serve coffee to this person, coffee to that person... What would you like?" "Well," says Hilda, "now that you mention it, coffee." She looks at me and I nod. The black woman, still smiling her luminous smile, nods too, and walks away.

"Like wind in the trees, that music," says Hilda, rummaging in her handbag. "Have you and Moses known each other a long time?"

"Oh, no! No, in fact..." Pleased to have something to talk about, I tell her the strange story of how we chanced to meet. She lights a cigarette, and listens with interest. As I'm talking the black woman returns with our coffee, which she sets gently before us on the tiny table, withdrawing without a word.

"Do you really look so much alike?" Hilda asks, studying my face with a slightly bewildered look. "I wouldn't have thought so, although... well yes, maybe... No! Do you mean to say he actually thought you were Moses? Actually took you for him? And persisted in thinking so even after you denied it? That seems fantastic."

"It does to me too – and frankly the man himself, Fukuyama, struck me as slightly mad... well, not mad exactly... Do you know him?"

"No. And you say he was so enamored of Moses...?"

"He seemed to be."

"Well, Moses is a... how shall I say this, now? A compelling personality. His students adore him. As a philosopher he may not get the respect he is convinced he deserves – and may very well deserve, for all I know – but as a teacher no one disputes that he is one of the best."

"He is not respected as a philosopher?"

"He has his followers, no doubt, but... well... the general concensus seems to be that his ideas are somewhat lightweight. Not being a philosopher myself, and frankly not having much use for philosophy, I don't pretend to judge, but if you read the reviews of his books – "

"You don't have much use for philosophy?"

"I'm talking too much. Three sips of coffee and I'm high. Wait'll you see me after six sips. I'm joking. Science and philosophy basically parted company two hundred years ago. As a scientist, the notion that you can understand the world simply by thinking about it makes no sense to me. No doubt my view of philosophy is ignorant and simplistic, just as Moses' view of science seems simplistic to me. But there are people even within Moses' profession who consider him something of a crackpot. That doesn't mean he is one, of course. Maybe he's just ahead of his time. Does the smoke bother you?" This in response to a slight cough. Before I can reply one way or the other she has stubbed out her cigarette. "Maybe in a hundred years, or five hundred, the philosophy of Moses Sorenberg will be celebrated as a seminal breakthrough in the history of thought. For now, though, I'm afraid... and the odd thing is, he's not quite philosophical enough – maybe no one would be – not quite philosophical enough not to be wounded by his critics. It would probably be asking too much of human nature to expect him to be. As for me, I love him whatever his flaws."

"You love him?"

"He didn't tell you?"

"No."

"How I throw myself at his feet? I'm a widow, Mr... By the way... this is awkward! What is your name?"

"Steve."

"Steve. And I'm Hilda. Pleased to meet you. I'm a widow, and Moses too is alone, and... yes, I make no secret of wanting to, so to speak, merge our separate loneliness... what a way of putting it! Merge our separate loneliness into something less lonely. What's wrong with that?"

She seems to mean the question seriously, and to be waiting for an answer. "Nothing," I murmur. The black woman – the waitress, or manager, or owner, whatever she is – comes by with the coffeepot and refills our cups.

"You're very young to be a widow," I say.

"My, aren't you the flatterer. I'm forty-five, and have been told, by no less an authority than my daughter, that I could easily pass for fifty, which I don't doubt. But yes, my husband did die young. He died by his own hand."

"Suicide?"

"He hanged himself from a tree deep in a forest we loved to go hiking in. I had no inkling until I found his note, in which he explained what was on his mind. He was happy, had been happy all his life, he loved me, loved Alicia – that's our daughter – and knew we loved him... He was healthy, successful, prosperous – and wanted to make sure he died that way. He wanted to die, he said, at the height of his happiness. He couldn't believe it would continue. Sooner or later would come 'payback time.' That's how he put it. 'Payback time.' Even as it was he had had more than his share of happiness and good fortune. He was 'unschooled in the art of suffering,' and suffering is what he saw lying ahead – old age, illness, penny-pinching retirement... Wasn't it tempting fate to live on? And so..."

Why is she telling me this? I feel inclined to remind her that I am a total stranger, after all, and... But something in my demeanor – am I squirming in my discomfort? – seems to have impressed itself upon her, for she breaks off suddenly, flushes somewhat, smiles a little sheepishly, and says, "I'm sorry."

"No, why?" I protest – falsely but, I hope, convincingly. There is an awkward silence, which she finds an excellent way to break. She plunges her hand into her handbag, draws out a cell phone, and says, "I'll just dial Moses' number. Maybe he's back from his walk."

She dials, and holds the device to her ear, but soon shakes her head and tosses the phone back into her bag. "Guess not."

"If he went for a walk, wouldn't he have taken his cell phone with him?"

"Well... He has these moods, you see. When he's in his gregarious phase, there's no one on earth more sociable, more friendly, than he is. But when he's in his solitary phase there's simply no reaching him. He'll switch off his phone for days, take the battery out of his doorbell, ignore your knocking... I've never met anyone who can so completely tune out the outside world."

"What is it – depression?"

"That, or simply a desire – or a need – to concentrate on his work."

"He lost his wife too, didn't he? In a car accident."

"No, his wife didn't die. She left him."

"Left him? But I'm sure I remember him telling me – am I mistaken? - of her being hit by a car on the way to... to the supermarket, or somewhere like that."

"Well, he tells different stories to different people. No, she left him. That's the truth of the matter."

***

Twenty-third segment

Did you know her?"

"Very well."

"Oh?"

"She's my sister."

"Your sister!"

She smiles, showing large, slightly discolored teeth that, while they are in view, actually make her look like an altogether different person. "What's so surprising? That I have a sister? That she was married to Moses? Well, surprising or not, it's true. She's twelve years older than I am, and when I was eighteen I actually lived with them for a year. Moses was like a father to me. A very strict father. When I went out on a date and wasn't home by midnight there was hell to pay."

"Wait a minute. Moses... the professor... said he and his wife had been childhood playmates. I remember his very words; they struck me at the time: 'We were boyfriend and girlfriend at age five.'"

"No, that's not true," she says, but without the faintest show of surprise. "They met at college."

"At McGill?"

"U of T. He was a grad student and a TA."

"What's a TA?"

"Teaching assistant. He taught an undergrad seminar. Olive was his student."

"His student! But..."
"But?"

"Well... why would he lie to me?"

"As to that, people lie for any number of reasons, and often for no reason, but in his case I wouldn't call it lying exactly."

"No? What would you call it, exactly?"

"Lying is a conscious attempt to deceive, but if I know Moses, and I think I do to some extent – only to some extent, mind you - as he was speaking to you there was no such intent. On the contrary, he probably believed every word he was saying."

"Forgive my obtuseness, I... I'm not sure I understand."

"Moses, so far as I know, has never written a novel, but maybe that's what he should have been doing. As a philosopher I don't think he amounts to much – that's Olive's opinion too, by the way, and she does amount to something as a philosopher; her reputation stands far higher than his. She's at McGill. She became a full professor at forty – Moses even now is only an associate professor; not that that really matters... And the three books she's written are superb. It's not everyone who can write books of philosophy that become bestsellers and win academic respect. She's done it. Anyway, Moses may not be a philosopher of the first-rank – although he may be; as I say, maybe a hundred years from now... – but almost certainly he would have made a first-rate novelist. His imagination is rich, rich... And it works full-time. Overtime. He spins plots in his head... or rather, better to say that plots spin themselves in his head, to the point where he's not always clear where reality ends and his imaginings begin, or vice versa. Such a man cannot really be accused of lying."

"I... I see..." I didn't, of course.

"Let me try him one more time."

Again she takes her cell phone from her handbag and dials the number.

"No answer. Well, obviously he's in one of his moods, and there's not much we can do about it. We may as well admit defeat."

"But... really, this is incredible. I called him just before I left the house; he was friendly, insisted that I come over, seemed very eager to see me."

"Oh? For any particular reason?"

"No. We had a good talk last night, over wine, and I suppose he looked forward to continuing the conversation."

"What did you talk about?"

"Oh, I don't know, nothing specific... well, about his wife, for one thing, and his philosophy, most of which was too deep for me, but the gist of it, as best I understood it, was that there is no reality, only appearance."

"Yes, that's the theme of the book he's working on. You can see that it fits his life to a T. Well..." She glances at her watch. "I'd better be on my way, I have a class to teach at five." She pushes her chair back and gets to her feet. I seem to notice for the first time how heavy-set she is.

"There was one other thing..."

"Yes?"

I stand up too. I'm embarrassed to mention it, but when will I have another chance to clear up something about the professor that has been nagging me? "He said... I'm not quite sure in what spirit... that he loves me."

"He loves you?"

"Yes. On the phone. Last night he suggested we live together, talked of us going to a tropical island... and then today on the phone he said he loves me. He said he was afraid I wouldn't call, because love, he said, 'is always accompanied by the fear of loss.'" Hearing the professor's words coming out of my own mouth, they sound more alarming than they did coming out of his, I'm not sure why. At the time it sounded like wild, fanciful, inconsequential, talk, chaff designed to shock the unwary or the innocent for the amusement of the speaker, and you laugh it off to show you are not duped. Now, suddenly... I don't know; the word "sinister" comes to mind. Hilda said something about plots being spun. Is one being spun now – around me?

The expression on her face, as I look up at her – she is taller than I – seems to darken. She seems struck by what I have told her, even a little disturbed. I think she likes to give the impression – while denying it, of course – that what she doesn't know about Moses Sorenberg isn't worth knowing, but this – what I have just told her – seems to have taken her by surprise.

"Are you doing anything this evening?" she suddenly asks.

"This evening?"

"I suppose your wife'll be expecting you."

"My wife? I have no wife."

"Oh?"

"I am quite alone in the world."

"I see. Well... why don't you drop over for dinner?"

"Drop over for dinner?"

"Have I said something extraordinary? I didn't mean to. Yes, for dinner. I'm a good cook, and cooking for one is awkward."

"Your daughter...?"

"Is in Europe for the summer. My class finishes at seven. My apartment is an easy walk from the university. If you have nothing better to do, that is. Otherwise" – she smiles – "you are excused, and no hard feelings."

"I think... really, I'd better be getting home..." This is transparently false, since she knows I was planning to spend the evening with the professor. I feel myself flush. But she, tactfully, does not insist.

"Very well, then. We'll take a taxi, I'll get out at the university and you go on home. Here..." She draws a wallet from her handbag, and I suddenly remember, having unaccountably forgotten, that I have not a cent on me and in fact already owe her money.

"Let me have your address, I'll send you a cheque."

"Oh, please, we're talking small change! Don't give it another thought."

"No, really, I..."

She says something I don't catch, and the reason I don't catch it is that I suddenly have a kind of vision – I can only call it that, though I know it sounds pretentious and absurd - especially coming from me, whose imaginative powers, such as they once were, deserted me with the onset of adulthood – a vision of me parting company from Hilda, going back to the professor's flat, knocking on his door as if nothing had happened, and having the door opened to me by the professor, who, quite his usual self, ushers me inside, eager to ply me – his "long-lost brother" - with wine and conversation.

"I think if you don't mind..." My voice trails off – the black woman has appeared behind the cash, and Hilda is paying for our coffee

"If I don't mind what?" she says to me as we exit the restaurant. Once again, my eyes painfully dazzled, I am struck by my new – I think it is new – sensitivity to sunlight. Is it a sign of age, or what?

"Nothing..." No reasonable pretext presents itself for sending her on without me, leaving me free to revisit the professor in accordance with my "vision."

"Isn't that someone coming out of Moses' building?" Hilda says.

The building is still some distance away, but yes, there is someone on the stairs. But since any number of people live there, it hardly seems noteworthy. So I think, but Hilda obviously thinks otherwise, for she quickens her pace, and suddenly it's all I can do to keep up with her.

"It's her!" she says. "Olive!" she calls out, waving her hand and breaking into a run. The figure on the stairs pauses, then answers the wave. Her features are utterly indistinguishable to me at this distance; Hilda's eyesight must be better than mine, though I had thought mine adequate.

This is a good chance for me to break away – the two sisters will be busy with each other and will forget my existence altogether if I abruptly turn around and duck into a side street. I will go home, grab a bite to eat, start up my car and begin the journey back to North Bay – which is to say, I will get on with my life; it's high time I did. What have I to do with professors, and philosophy, and "plots" spinning in people's heads? Should I stop in Hawkesbury? Of course Isaiah is still alive; my impression that he was dead was simply a momentary panic, and to think –

"Steve!"

Hilda is calling me. She and her sister are together, and she is evidently eager to introduce me. "Steve, this is Olive, Moses' wife and my rival for his affection. Olive – "

"This is Steve," says Olive, smilingly completing the introduction. "How do you do? Hilda has told me so much about you."

"Right," laughs Hilda, "I told you everything I knew about him, absolutely everything, and given that I only learned of his existence yesterday, I don't suppose I bored you very much with my effusions."

Olive extends her hand, which I shake, hoping my fingers are not cold, as they sometimes are even in the hottest weather.

So this is Professor Sorenberg's wife, I muse to myself. She is as thin as Hilda is stout, and not nearly so tall. I don't really know what to say about her – a pleasant, grandmotherly sort, nice-looking in a grandmotherly sort of way... not that she looks old exactly... Anyway, she's hardly the sort of woman you'd notice unless you had business with her, and it's hard to associate her with the passion the professor evinced in speaking of his wife. But... Olive... The professor mentioned his wife's name... it wasn't Olive. I don't remember what it was... Laura? Anyway, certainly not Olive. But if the professor had been spinning fictions, as Hilda said, there's nothing so surprising about a fictitious name.

"I really do have to be going," says Hilda. "Do you have your car here?" she asks her sister.

"No, I walked."

"In that case I'm going to dash to de Maisonneuve and grab a taxi."

"You're better off taking the subway, no?"

"Maybe. Come over for dinner?"
"Okay. What time?"

"Seven-thirty, eight."

"All right, I'll see you then."

"Steve, the invitation still stands, if you change your mind. Olive, do bring him. He's a little shy. Put him at ease; you're good at that. Ah! There's a cab! Taxi!" Waving both hands in the air, she becomes a somewhat grotesque parody of a large woman in a desperate hurry. The taxi approaches slowly, as though the driver is not sure what to make of her. It pulls over, she gets in the back, and I have a strange feeling as if I'm watching her vanish forever from my life.

She has vanished, but without leaving me to the solitude I crave, for now my companion is Olive, who says, in fine ice-breaking fashion, "Hilda tells me you're a friend of Moses'."

Am I to go through the history of our peculiar relationship one more time? The thought wearies me; I don't want to; I want to go home, pour myself a Scotch, collect my thoughts... "Yes," I murmur. The very slight headache I am starting to feel gives me an idea. "I'm afraid," I say, "I don't feel terribly well. I am subject to migraines, you see, and I feel one coming on. I really better be getting home. Will you excuse me, and apologize to your sister for me?"

"Yes, of course."

She must know, or suspect, that I am lying – I am not a good liar; I know that myself – but what does she care? If I want to go, she will let me go; it's nothing to her. And so we part, muttering that we are pleased to have met. As I walk towards de Maisonneuve, where the subway station is, I make a conscious effort to restrain the briskness of my walk. In case Olive is watching, I want to look as though each step is an effort. This is childish, of course, and I do feel a bit like a small boy guiltily acting a part in front of a disdainful but indulgent teacher. The face of such a teacher actually comes to mind – Mrs. Camberwell, grade three. There is in fact – it strikes me now – a certain facial resemblance between Olive and Mrs. Camberwell... Am I coming down with a fever? Maybe I really am sick. I don't feel sick, but on the other hand, I don't feel quite well either...

Hilda has given me two twenty-dollar bills – more than enough for a taxi home, but I prefer the anonymity of the subway, even though the subway will only take me part way and I'll have to transfer to a bus. Suddenly a thought comes to me: Have I forgotten my house key too? Good God – yes, I have. What is the matter with me? You have to lock the front door from outside, so I haven't locked myself out – but on the other hand the door is unlocked – wide open, for all I know! Not that there's anything there worth stealing... Except of course the BMW. Maybe at this very moment someone is walking into the house and helping himself to the keys... Or maybe helped himself to them hours ago, and is now happily behind the wheel, on some highway somewhere...

***

The relief I feel as I approach the house and see the BMW at rest in the driveway is indescribable. The sight of it quite restores me; I feel myself again. Even before I pass through the door into the house I make up my mind: I will fix myself a bite of dinner, anything will do, and then be off to North Bay. What time is it? Probably around six, maybe a little after. I can be on the road by seven, seven-thirty, and in North Bay by midnight... No, impossible, what am I saying? It's at least four hundred kilometers, we're talking a six-hour drive at the very least. Well, two a.m. then. But who wants to arrive in North Bay at two in the morning? On the other hand, why not? The Northland will be open. Two in the morning, two in the afternoon – makes no difference to them. To me either. But... hm... I said something about stopping in Hawkesbury. Yes, maybe I'll spend the night in Hawkesbury, cure myself once and for all of the stupid, clinging image of Isaiah lying dead on the sofa, and me somehow responsible...

Dinner. The kitchen clock shows ten minutes to six. Really? Is it that early? Well, well. So much the better. There's nothing much in the refrigerator; I haven't been shopping in a while. It doesn't matter, I'm not hungry, Corn Flakes and milk will do just fine. Yogurt and a Peak Frean for dessert, a cup of coffee for the road and I'm off! No stopping to pick up hitchhikers this time. No, just me and the BMW and Beethoven's Sixth as we head west into the setting sun... Mechanically I switch on the radio on top of the fridge. Some pop song I don't recognize and don't like, but I don't switch it off. The news will be on at six. What's happened in the world since I last heard the news? Lots of things, no doubt. The song ends, and is followed by a weather report. The warm sunny weather of the past few days will continue, as a high pressure zone... etc. A beep signifies that it is now precisely six o'clock. I glance at the clock and see it is a minute fast. What impels a person to act as he does? What impels me, at such a moment, when nothing could possibly be of less significance to me, to get up from the table, where my Corn Flakes swimming in milk are not after all going to stay crisp forever, climb up on a chair and set the clock back a minute? Well, it doesn't matter, there's nothing lost, but it is strange... and comical; yes, comical... What's the newscaster saying? A murder... a suspected murder. Interesting – the announcer is a woman. Nothing new in that; still, it lends a different cast to the news. News, back when my father used to listen to it, was always somehow masculine... "The dead man has been identified as Moses Sorenberg, an associate professor of philosophy at..." I'm not sure how much time passes between the report and my reaction to it; I only know that I did not react at once, but went on calmly spooning Corn Flakes into my mouth, with one ear on what the newscaster was saying, until suddenly it hit: Moses Sorenberg! Murdered! By then she had already moved on - to an AIDS epidemic in Africa, a suicide bombing in Afghanistan, the white slave traffic in Europe... "We'll be right back," she declares brightly, "after this word from our sponsor."

I switch off the radio. Moses Sorenberg, murdered? Is it possible? What does one do, in a situation like this? Do I go on eating my Corn Flakes, mindful that they are getting soggy, persuading myself that I misheard, that I must have misheard? Why, though, must I have? Because Montreal is not a cr