A plane’s overhead. He looks out the window. The plane passes but not in the part of the sky he’s able to see. Jill has a lover now. She’s in love. They’ll probably get married. That’s what she’s said. He’s met him. Seems like a decent fellow. And tall, handsome, rugged, smart. Esther likes him too. Loves him in a little girl’s way, Jill’s said. He’s wonderful and attentive and devoted to both of them, Jill’s said, and when the three of them are together they get along exceptionally well. Go outside. Take that walk. Exhaust yourself walking so you’ll sleep eight to ten hours straight. Have an exotic coffee outside, have brandies and beer, have a good dinner outside and then buy a book, or buy it before you have dinner, you never would have bought for yourself before and come home. He gets up to go. He hears a shade snapped up. Bathroom’s? He looks at his ceiling, floor, slowly turns around to look at that woman’s bathroom. It’s the shaded room’s shade that’s up. It must have snapped up by accident. No one seems to be in the room. It’s unlit. He goes up to his window and sees a mirror at the end of that room reflecting his building’s roof and the light from the sky above it. Someone goes over to the mirror and looks into it. From behind it looks like Gretta. That’s the way she looked from behind. He saw her walking away from him, from them, down her road, picking a blossom off a tree, berries off a bush, going into rooms, working in her kitchen, cooking there, putting away dishes there, putting seeds into the bird feeders around her house, snapping pictures, serving hors d’oeuvres, many times. Kind of short, round, hair like that. Shape like that. Way she’s fussing with her hair now like that. Then a man, both are fully dressed, comes into view and walks up behind her and hugs her while they both look into the mirror, the man looking over her shoulder. He can’t see their faces in the mirror. Their images are entirely blocked by their standing in front of the mirror. Then they turn around and come up to the window, the man with his hand on her shoulder. It’s Ike and Gretta. Ike raises his hand to pull the shade down and sees him looking at them. Ike points to him, they stare at him. Gretta seems shocked, Ike amused. He says “Gretta, Ike, oh God, this is too wonderful. Tell me what apartment you’re in and I’ll run right over. I’m so lonely. I was till I saw you. On and off, I mean, and sad — you can’t believe how much — on and off too. Jill and I are divorced. She’s going to remarry, while I love her as much as I ever did. That was a lot, remember? but that’s not news. Esther’s just great. A truly exemplary child. Intelligent, beautiful, generous, precious, good; a real dear. We missed you so. We were devastated by your deaths. The untrue news of them, rather, for here you are. We both loved you so. Love you so, love you, and I know I can still speak for Jill on this. Seeing you now is the best thing that’s happened to me in a year. In two, in three. Or come over here. I’m in number nine, apartment 5D. But I’ll run over to your place because I know I can get there faster than you could here. Or maybe, with this shade business of Ike’s — raising his hand to pull it down, it seemed like — and the look that was on both your faces, you had something else in mind and want me to wait here a half-hour or so. You can hear me through your closed window, can’t you?”
He didn’t go over to his window. He stood almost at the other end of his room, looking out his window from there. Shade on the window of the once shaded room did snap up, bathroom shade stayed down. He didn’t see a mirror in that room. If there is one, and in the place he said there was, then he imagined it before he saw it, for so far he’s been too far away from that room to see anything inside. The room’s unlit, though. That he can see from where he stands. He goes over to his window and looks inside that room. There’s a double bed, made, in there. A night table beside it. A lamp on the table. Ashtray next to the lamp. Radio beside the ashtray. Cup in a saucer on top of the radio. That’s all he can see in the room. Spoon in the saucer. Maybe a crack in the wall but nothing’s hanging on the part of the wall he can see. What will the tenant think when he or she, if there’s only one, sees the shade up? That it snapped up on its own? That a stranger was in the room and let it up? But how will she or he pull it down? Will he or she allow him- or herself to be seen from a window across from that building? It’s worth waiting for. Just to see the reaction of that person, if it can be seen, when she or he sees the shade up, and what kind of person lives there.
He moves the chair from the left side of his window to the right. He turns the chair around to the window and pushes it within inches of the window. He opens a bottle of wine, sits in the chair and drinks while he faces at an angle the now unshaded room. The day gets darker. He can see a big chunk of the sky from here. His phone hasn’t rung, when he’s been in his apartment, for almost two days. Stars come out. Two, three, then a few of them. The bathroom window shade stays down. The light in the bathroom goes on and off a few times in the next two hours. Twice it stayed on for only a few seconds, once for almost a half-hour. He finishes three-quarters of the bottle of wine, has to pee. It’s now night. Many stars are out. He can see the moon’s light but not the moon. The bathroom light hasn’t been turned on for about an hour. If the bathroom is part of the same apartment as the bedroom, he’s sure the woman who likes to shower would have walked into the bedroom by now. Or at least a door would have opened from the bathroom or some other part of the apartment — a hallway — into the bedroom and let some light into it by now. But no light’s come in. A little light from the moon perhaps. But now the bedroom’s almost black. He can’t see anything inside it. He finishes off the bottle. Now he really has to go to the bathroom or he’ll have to do it in his pants right here. Maybe into the bottle, but that would end up being a mess. He tries to hold it in. He doesn’t want to miss that person or persons, if there is more than one person living in that apartment containing that room, discovering the shade up and then pulling it down. And he’s certain it’ll be pulled down. But he can’t hold it in anymore and runs to the bathroom. He takes his watch off the dresser while he’s there. The shade’s still up and the bedroom’s still dark when he gets back. An hour later he has to go to the bathroom again. He runs to it, pees, runs to the kitchen and gets a beer out of the refrigerator, runs back to the chair. Nothing’s changed in that room. He opens the beer, sips, puts it down, wakes up in the chair and finds the shade down but the room still dark. He doesn’t know how long he’s been sleeping in the chair. He should take a walk. He looks at his watch. He can’t make out the luminescent numerals and hands. He squints. Still can’t make them out. He gets up and turns on the side table light. It’s past two. That’s hard to believe, he thinks. He should go to sleep. Maybe have a bite to eat from the food in the refrigerator and a slice of bread and then go to sleep. No, just take off your clothes, pull out the bed and go to sleep.