For the next few hours then, I was very much occupied in some business, a tricky but rewarding transaction for which we acquired a trunk, a razor, and thirty feet of rope. And while it is certainly true that over the course of the evening my thoughts reverted to my client’s lovely bones and perfume and snug-fitting raincoat, I did not trouble myself, or rather had no time to trouble myself, with the residual time- and memory-related vagaries of the case, for which, after all, and this had to indicate an adequate measure of success, I had been quite handsomely paid.
Several days went by. I barely noticed them. In fact one or two of them I did not notice at all and what’s more, when they did come to my attention, a quick inventory revealed that I had nothing in my possession that could definitively account for them.
Incidentally, this has remained a problem. Here, for example, whole weeks slip by, entire months are simply sucked away from me, and I’m left lying in bed in the middle of what should have been.
At any rate, I soon found myself back in the office, back at my desk. Since I had last been there my secretary had made several improvements, including having an intercom system installed so that I would not have to move or shout in order to contact him. I found this arrangement highly satisfactory. We both did. In fact, I quickly took to conducting the larger part of my business with him through the intercom. This was in part to cut down on the number of times I was forced to gaze upon his teeth — so medieval in their aspect — in part because I liked the sound of his voice as it came through the small speaker, and, when we talked at mealtime, the sound he made while eating the moist, warm dishes he favored, his lips smacking lightly at the soft foods. Also I liked to click down on the “communicate” button. It was lovely to do so — to speak then hear a voice in return.
In this way I learned more about the red lake and about his mother and various other things. He in his turn, if he was listening, I could not always be sure that he was, learned various things about me; for example, that I, too, in my earlier years, had gone out in the early morning with a relative onto a lake, although the lake I had gone out onto had not been red, it had been a very murky green. Mostly I would fish, but occasionally my relative, at the time sadly moribund, would instruct me to pull up my line and let go of the oars so that we would “just drift.” Sometimes, as we drifted through the mist across the green lake, my relative would speak. More often, though, my relative remained silent, staring over the side of the boat or into the mist or at me.
At me was the least desirable direction.
There were cataracts involved.
My objection was not aesthetic.
My relative could barely see me: I was barely seen.
It was hard for me to remember that this condition was temporary; that my perceived half presence—“I can hardly see you — wave your arms or something”—would not extend beyond the bounds of the boat, once we had left the misty lake and returned to shore.
It wasn’t.
Temporary I mean.
Are you listening? I said.
There was a silence, quite a long one, and then my secretary said, Yes.
This was true, I thought — I could see him, quite clearly, leaning over the intercom, his chin in his hands, smiling sweetly, attentive, staring at the red light that, illuminated, indicated that the line was open. I should say that since the previous occasion, I had had no such convincing visual confirmation of my secretary’s or anyone else’s activities as they sat in rooms other than the one I sat in. Only once, in fact, during the days that had elapsed (although clearly I do not, here, include the days I could not account for), had anything at all “curious” in this regard happened. One evening, one or two nights previously, as I had lain in bed attempting to sleep — I could not — I had very clearly heard a lawn tractor, with the mower engaged, maybe two or three feet from my bed, and above the sound of the lawn tractor, the sound of my grandmother calling out my name.
I have still not decided whether this event was connected to the predicament I was in then, the predicament I came only quite slowly to recognize, and only lately to fully accept. The business about “seeing” my secretary helped to push this process along. Which is to say that, remembering that I had seen things incorrectly the last time, I stood, crossed the room — very quietly: my secretary, as part of his improvements, had had plush carpet installed — and jerked open the door to the front room.
Hello, I said.
Sitting in one of the two chairs reserved for waiting clients was a very small man wearing a raincoat. It was hard to make out his features, as he was wearing a hat with a wide brim. I could see the end of his nose (large) and his lips (moist, thin). His chin was square and his jaw unusually heavy.
I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, I said. Have you seen my secretary?
I asked him if he wouldn’t mind taking a walk down the hall, just for a few minutes, you understand.
I told him I did.
Then I asked him how long he had been sitting there.
Quite a while.
From where I stood, I could see that the intercom was still on.
Did you …?
Yes, everything.
About the cataracts?
It’s quite a nice story. Your relative lived a very handsome life.
Yes, I said.
Yes, he said. I liked the story about the war, and the military plane, sitting next to the prince and seeing the leaning tower from the air. Have you ever seen it?
No, I said.
I have, he said. It’s a nice tower, you stand on a green lawn and look at it, but it’s not as nice as it would be from the air — blue sky above and around, brown and yellow fields below. And then descending at dusk on the airfield lit by gas lamps to dine with the prince while bombs went off against a backdrop of thunder.
Those were different days, he said.
Yes.
He wasn’t lying, was he, your relative?
I don’t know.
Because they do lie, not always but sometimes.
He was looking at me. I could see his eyes now. They were a very pretty green.
You don’t recognize me, do you? he said.
No, I said.
I don’t mean to imply that you should. I just find it curious — a curious result.
Result of what?
My name is Green.
Mr. Green?
No it’s not, never mind, a little joke, don’t call me that.
We stood there a moment. That is to say that I stood there and he sat there.
Can I help you with something? I said.
Yes, you can.
I told him that perhaps, as it was a business call, we should go into my office, that that would be more appropriate. I could sit behind my desk and he could sit in the client’s chair. I could take notes on what he had to say. I had a notepad and a very nice pen.
All right, he said. He smiled as he said this and his smile, like his eyes, was very pretty, despite his lips, which were not pretty; I could not understand how they could participate in something as pretty as the smile they helped to compose.
I didn’t recognize him at all.
We began to walk into my office. I motioned for him to precede me.
Please, I said. After you.
You are very polite. I am happy to be in the hands of an investigator with some manners.
He stepped ahead of me. We moved forward. And as we did so, strange to relate, it seemed to me that I passed through him, that he paused a moment and I continued and slipped straight through him, that, in fact, I continued to move, straight through what was to be his chair and through my desk and through my chair and the wall behind it and across the courtyard and out into the open air above the dark street where I stopped and floated for a time.