In the corner opposite the bed the TV was on, a brand-new, large-screen, remote-controlled, two-hundred-and-fifty channel SONY MODEL, with the sound turned down but the screen was alive, the images continually running on a loop, the charming smiling man and the woman, and as the diamond show moved toward its conclusion the set darkened then flickered into life again, back to the beginning once more, the screen fading then brightening so that the room too began to pulse and twitch with the neurotic light, while the interpreter lay fast asleep, his legs spread out, with the woman beside him, turned away from him toward the window, on her side and still wearing her blue terry cloth bathrobe, having kept it on because she was cold, the interpreter having dragged all the covers off her this first night, so that she remained wide awake, unable to sleep for the excitement, on her side, her knees drawn up to her stomach, her eyes open, hardly blinking, while using her right hand under the pillow to support her head and extending the other arm along her body, her fingers bent, clutching a small box, gripping it tightly and never letting go, gripping it in sheer joy, staring straight ahead in the neurotically pulsing blue light, looking straight ahead and hardly blinking.
VII TAKING NOTHING WITH HIM
He did not look back once he set off but walked along the icy pavement toward the Washington Avenue stop, never glancing back over his shoulder, not, he explained later, because he had resolved not to but because everything now was truly behind him and nothing in front of him, only the icy sidewalk, and nothing inside him either except of course the four figures he was dragging with him toward Washington Avenue, that is to say Kasser and his companions; and that was all he remembered of that first hour after leaving the house on 159th Street, except the early dawn when it was still dark, with hardly anyone on the street, and the effort of slowly absorbing all the events of the previous night as he proceeded down the first two hundred yards or so along the ice, the way his savior, Mr. Sárváry, eventually fell silent after the great celebration and the countless toasts to their eternal friendship, the moment when he was free to return to his room, close the door and flop down on his bed and decide that he would take nothing with him, and, having decided that, closed his eyes; but sleep did not come, and later when the door quietly opened and there stood Mr. Sárváry’s young lady, Korin’s faithful listener through all those long weeks, who padded over to the bed quietly so as not to wake him, for he pretended to be deeply asleep, not wanting to have to say goodbye, since what could he say about where he was going, there was nothing to say, but the young lady hovered by his bed for a very long time, no doubt watching him, trying to tell whether he was really asleep or not, then, because he gave no sign that he was not, she squatted down beside the bed and very gently stroked his hands, just once, so lightly she was hardly touching him, his right hand that is, said Korin, showing the hand to his companion, the hand with the scar, and that was all, having done which she left as silently as she had come, and there was nothing to do after that but wait with as much patience as he could for night to be over, though that, alas, was very difficult, and he clearly remembered constantly checking the clock — quarter past three, half past three, a quarter of five — then he rose, dressed, washed his face, went to the toilet to do what he had to do there, and then a thought had suddenly occurred to him and he stood up on the seat to sneak a look at the sachets, the story being, he explained, that he had earlier discovered a hiding place behind one of the tiles that was full of little sachets containing a fine white powder and had immediately guessed what it might be, and that now he wanted to take another peek at them though he had no idea why, perhaps it was only curiosity, so he took down the tile again and found — not the packets but a vast amount of money, so much that he quickly put the tile back, and scurried into the apartment so as not to be seen by anyone on the lower floors, specifically by the person who had been depositing things in the toilet, so, having sneaked back, he closed the front door quietly behind him, folded the bedclothes in his room, piled them tidily on the chair he had positioned by the bed, looked round for the last time, saw that everything was precisely where it had been, the laptop, the dictionary, the manuscript, the notebook as well as little things like his few shirts and some underwear which would not need washing again, then left taking nothing with him only his coat and five hundred dollars; in other words there were no great tearful farewells, said Korin shrugging, and why should there be, why should he upset the young lady when it was certain that it would hurt her to see him leaving because they had got so used to each other, so no, it wasn’t a good idea, he said to himself; he’d go the way he came, then he stepped out into the street and really there was absolutely nothing in his head except Kasser and the other three, and the sad thing was he had nowhere to take them.
He clicked on the file, titled it War and War, gave it a proper file name, saved it, checking first that the address was working, then pressed the last key, switched the machine off, closed it, and carefully put it down on the bed, and having done so was quickly out of the house, running down the sidewalk in a panic with no idea where he was going, but then stopped, turned and set off in the opposite direction, as fleet-footed as before and, being just as uncertain, stopping once more some two hundred yards down the road to massage his neck and swivel his head before looking first ahead and then behind him as if seeking someone he failed to find, for it was early and there was hardly anyone on the street, and those few he saw were far away, a couple of blocks off at least, around Washington Avenue, with only some homeless under a mound of garbage directly opposite him on the other side of the road and a very old blue Lincoln turning out of 159th Street getting into second or third gear and passing him on its way back — but where to go now, he wondered, at a complete loss, just standing there, and you could see that he knew the answer to the question but had forgotten it, so he fiddled with a paper handkerchief in a pocket of his coat, cleared his throat, and poked his toe at an empty pack of Orbitos lying on the hard snow, but since the paper had almost completely come to pieces, it was hard work shifting it: still, he persisted and eventually succeeded to the extent that the pack turned over, and while he was poking the thing, clearing his throat and fiddling with the paper handkerchief in his pocket, his eyes darting now this way, now that, it is possible that he remembered where he wanted to get to.