I thought about that, of course, as I sat beneath the handsome floor lamp or lay sleepless in the large bed. I thought about it as I walked the well-lit streets after dark or sat, in company as it were, among the old men on the benches in the gardens, and sometimes as I thought about it my hand, which often itched anyway, itched to be holding a gun. And yet all of that was over, long over. It’s best to make some effort to let these things go, I said to an old man sitting beside me on a bench. Hah! he said. Which pleased me greatly, but seemed also to preclude any sort of elaboration. And in fact when he continued it was in a completely different vein, so that after several minutes of regarding his unhealthy gums, I moved on. It occurred to me, following this interaction, to climb the narrow streets and consider the old women a little as they sat in their doorways or stood talking in small groups. Some of these conversations, I discovered, were quite interesting. One old woman, for example, was describing her recent efforts to have the asbestos removed from her son’s place of work, efforts, she said, that were being hampered both by her son and her son’s boss. At this, one of the old women, who stood almost completely wrapped in shadow, suggested that if removal of the asbestos was the first old woman’s primary concern, and her son and her son’s boss were interfering, then she might simply dispose of them. There was a silence. I leaned a little closer. Yes, I’d thought of that, the first old woman said. They began to discuss methods. One of them suggested cocktails and powdered glass. Another, arson — if you did it right it could look, she said, like spontaneous combustion. After this, the conversation grew unfocused and I walked off. Just as I’d entered a nearby path bordered by a double line of flowering bushes and had begun to think about the endlessly shifting arabesques and the variety of browns and greens of the small dark leaves and stems, which would certainly be more clearly determined in the daylight, someone came up beside me and took my arm. It’s a lovely night, I said. Yes, she said. I recognized the voice — it belonged to the woman who had intervened in the conversation a moment before. Should I be alarmed? I asked her. She laughed. She had a very pretty laugh, perhaps a little loud, but clear and rich in the warm evening air. I started to turn my head to look at her, but she told me to keep looking straight ahead. By now we were walking along a slightly wider path. Above us, beautifully illuminated, was the enormous eminence at the top of which stood, or in some cases barely stood, the ruins of temples or who knows what. You should take a tour, she said. I don’t get out during the daytime lately, I said. An evening tour could be arranged. That’s a thought. I’ve taken such a tour myself — the moon and starlight do wonders with polished stone. Why are you walking with me? My house is just over there. So? So that’s where we’re going. Is this it then? Is what it? Because I thought I had an agreement. What are you talking about? I started to look at her. She lifted her hand and placed it, firmly, against the side of my face. We walked a little farther. So this doesn’t have anything to do with anything? I said. I didn’t say that. What did you say? I didn’t say anything, she said, squeezing my arm. I started, I thought, to get the picture. Well then, yes, I’d like to take a tour, I said. I’ll arrange it. She did. A couple of nights later. No one was there but the gates were open and for several hours I wandered amidst the ruined structures. In the meantime, though, we entered a small house and then a small bedroom. I will just ask you to let me place this blindfold over your eyes. I think I’m too old for this. For what? Aren’t you going to tie me up? I hadn’t thought of it, do you want me to tie you up? Well, no, I guess not. Because if you want me to I will. No, that’s okay. She put the blindfold over my eyes. You look much better than you used to, she said. What do you mean? Just that. Who are you? Never mind. Well anyway, I don’t look better, I look terrible, I couldn’t look worse. Yes you could. I was about to reply to this, when she kissed me lightly and, none too gently, shoved me onto the bed.
I am not very much bothered by the dark, as such, and in fact, under normal circumstances, I am really quite comfortable in it. I have passed many pleasant moments in the dark during my life and, if stray lines of light are capable of stimulating certain memories, so are dark closets and dark eyes and bands of curved, dark shadow and couches set in the center of completely dark rooms. So it was that, far from being disturbed by the fact that the lock turned behind her when she left, and that the room was pitch black so that it made no significant difference whether or not I continued to wear the blindfold (after attempting to check my surroundings I did), I felt quite comfortable and after a time lay down on the bed with my legs slightly spread and my hands behind my head and thought of nights gone by and the latter part of my career and my undeniable skill at certain aspects of it and my undeniable weakness at others. Before long I fell asleep. Once or twice as I lay in the dark room, I woke and, instinctively, listened for other breathing, but heard none. Then I did. Or so it seemed. A small tremor shook my skin and for half a second the hair on the backs of my hands lifted slightly. But then, after applying considerable directed attention, and with a sense of mild embarrassment, I realized that I had been listening to myself breathing, a sound no doubt much distorted by memories and dreams. Neither of which, at that moment, could be called pleasant. The breathing — I continued to listen to it — could similarly not be called pleasant and in fact seemed somehow awful, like something to be dealt harshly with, and I wished I had a gun. A few moments later, however, my breathing had come to seem normal to me again and even, strangely, to seem quite sweet or pretty, or at any rate, kind of nice and certainly useful, and I found myself turning to thoughts of the not altogether unenjoyable interaction I had had with the woman and to otherwise diverting myself in the gloom.
It was still dark or dark again when finally I rose, took off the blindfold, tried the door, and found it open. The rest of the little house was brightly lit and completely empty and after using the facility I sat a moment in the kitchen and nibbled at some fruit. It was a good thing that I did so, as it was only after I had sat there a moment that I noticed the note taped to the window above the sink. It read:
Arrangements have been made — the night after tomorrow — your tour.
My tour. After all those years I was finally having one of my own. The view of the city from the battlements surrounding the eminence was very pleasing — a curiously nervous opalescence as far as the eye could see. I ran my fingers over the old stone and found that, far from smooth, it was coarse and pitted, which, if I remember correctly, was a consequence of several decades of pollution and acid rain. This put me in mind of the story about the individual who, for having stolen something, gets hammered to a rock. And as I thought of it, it was not so much the idea of the large birds that came each day to eat certain of his organs that bothered me, it was rather the thought of what the sun, wind, rain, etc., not to mention cellular decay, were doing — I ran my hands over the pitted stone — to his skin. Or to my skin. I touched it. This was depressing. But at any rate, for hours, I say, I wandered, climbing over rubble to weave in and out of columns and step through massive doorways into vaulted chambers or into chambers without roofs. Once or twice as I wandered into those starlit rooms, I thought of my recent blindfolded incarceration, if you could even call it that, you could call it that, it had been dark and the door was, at least for a while, locked, and because I didn’t understand yet, and had been given no further information on the matter, I found myself slightly annoyed. Perhaps not surprisingly, such thinking brought me to my fairly recent, and far less pleasant, interlude at the bottom of the well. My legs had been further injured by the fall — despite the mud and water at the bottom. Also there was the bullet wound. So there had been pain to go along with the discomfort and hunger. On her bed in the room in the dark there had been no pain, no discomfort, only the business about the breathing and the incomprehension. Up among the illuminated columns with the view of the city and the gentle breeze, however, I found myself close to experiencing a sense of peace. Close, I say. Because just when this feeling was beginning to assert itself — I was remembering, with a small smile, certain embellished incidents from my childhood — I suddenly registered that the investigation had begun. I became convinced of this when my eye was caught by something shining among the rocks — nothing special, just a bottlecap — which reminded me of the photograph I’d found the day before in the hallway outside my door. I had come home late and, as I was pushing the door open, saw something flat and shiny and picked it up. Actually, it wasn’t quite as easy as that. When I opened the door, or had partially opened it, I saw something shining a little in the light cast out into the hallway by the always illuminated handsome floor lamp and bent to pick it up, a process which took some time as I have lost a good deal of the feeling in the tips of my fingers and am far from nimble when it comes to bending over and doing things. Once or twice, I have put myself into such a position, perhaps to pick up a set of dropped keys, and have lost my balance and keeled over. On this occasion, I did not keel over, but it did take a certain amount of focus not to do so. In the end, having neither keeled over nor fainted, I picked up what I discovered was a photograph. But it wasn’t until I had gone inside and shut the door and sat down directly beneath the lamp that I saw what it was a photograph of.