«Yes?»
«I do have a little sadness over not having, perhaps, been a little kinder. When he tried to take his shower by himself, in his condition—»
«Everyone tries to be responsible,» I said querulously. «Now, look, are you certain now that when you left there were no clothes scattered about the room?»
«I tell you,»—and her usual precision of language became even more pronounced—«that when I left he had his clothes on his body. Not one item had been removed.»
«All right. Now, then, when you left, was anyone in the corridor?»
«No.»
«Are you sure?»
«Quite sure. Look, Darius, I’ve made love, you understand, and with a certain reasonable variety of technique, too, but this was something quite new and repellent to me and it was advanced by someone whom I found completely uninteresting, sexually, and I felt shocked at the whole thing, even though I wouldn’t have thought anything sexual could shock me… Why are you looking like that at me, Darius? Did you think I was a virgin? I’m thirty-two years old and have a seven-year-old son.»
I spread out my hands. «Sorry. I hadn’t really thought of it at all. Except that your name fits your accent, so I thought you were unmarried. Of course, you could have married a fellow countryman, and your husband’s name—»
«Or I could be divorced and be working under my maiden name. Isn’t that possible, too?»
«Oh, is that it?»
«Does it matter? Are you interested?»
I didn’t really know what to say, so I settled for the truth.
«No, it doesn’t matter, but I guess I’m a little curious.»
«I’m divorced,» she said. «And your marital status?»
«I’m single,» I said quickly.
«Always.»
«Never been married, though I guess it won’t shock you if I tell you I’m not a virgin either.»
«I wouldn’t have believed you if you had said you were,» she said ironically. «But let me explain how I know the corridor was empty. When I left Devore’s room, I felt somehow dirtied and I had an intense desire for no one to see me leave the room. I felt that too much, perhaps everything, could have been guessed from my appearance.»
«Your clothes were mussed?»
«Don’t be foolish. It was a purely neurotic feeling. In any case, I didn’t want anyone to see me and I took special note of the fact that no one did. There was no one in the corridor.»
«No one at all?»
She hesitated. «Well, I did have the impression that there was a flash of movement in the direction of his room when I turned into the elevator-bank recess. It might have been a bit of fearful apprehension.»
«Anything more specific than just a flash of movement?»
«No. Since I didn’t want to be seen, or worse yet, be caught by Devore if he was following me, I slipped down the staircase to the floor below and took the elevator there.»
«Too bad,» I said. «Was there no impression of any kind other than the flash of movement? Could you tell whether whatever you saw was large or small, man or woman?»
«No. Nothing.»
«Too bad. If you did leave by eleven-twenty and if I found him dead two hours later, at which time he had been dead for some time, isn’t it possible that the flash of movement you saw was of the murderer coming up to see Giles?»
«Goodness!»
I sat there for a while, unable to think of any further questions to ask her. It was well after six.
I said, «Do you have to go home?»
«I usually do, eventually.»
«I mean, I suppose you have to get back to your son.»
«No, he’s with his grandmother, my ex-mother-in-law. They have rights in him, too, and the divorce was not an excessively unfriendly one. It wouldn’t be, since I asked for no alimony.»
«Oh. Well, then.» I grew suddenly animated. «Would you care to have dinner with me?»
«Will we be talking about Mr. Devore?»
I decided to be honest. «We might, a little, because that’s all I’ve been able to think of for about thirty hours now. But I promise I’ll make an honest effort to talk of other things.»
«In that case, all right. I accept your invitation, Darius.»
16 SARAH VOSKOVEK 6:20 P.M.
We both took time out to wash up, both literally and euphemistically, and then there was some discussion as to where we might eat. We decided on a small Armenian place I knew, one with booths and one that was not likely to be crowded on a Tuesday evening. And it was close enough to walk to, and somehow I felt like walking.
It was one of those pleasant evenings when you’re not aware of the atmosphere, it is so perfectly suited to human requirements. The air was neither too warm nor too cold, nor too damp nor too dry. It wasn’t so still that the layer next to the skin grew warm and moist, nor was it moving briskly enough to be annoying. There was even a fresh smell from the park that one could detect in the interstices left by the automobile exhaust.
The sun was on our backs as we walked, pleasantly warm, and lending the streets a brilliance. We didn’t even mind the traffic.
Sarah seemed in a good humor, almost lighthearted. If she had been wearing sensible shoes, she might have skipped. I think she was relieved to have told the details of that difficult morning and to have gotten rid of its fester.
As for me, I had a little less to be thankful for. I had now traced Giles from the moment I had left him on Sunday night to a time two hours before I had found him… And I had nothing.
There was nothing that would account for what must have happened in that two-hour hiatus. I couldn’t say who had murdered him or why. Worse yet, I had no idea at all as to what to do next.
Yes, I did—I was going to have dinner with Sarah Voskovek, something that I would have considered utterly unlikely as recently as lunchtime.
Our shadows stretched before us as we crossed the avenue, the lights permitting, in a leisurely stroll. For a moment they seemed strange, distorted, and unnatural to me—and then I realized why. My shadow was longer than hers.
For that matter, her arm resting in my elbow exerted the faintest pressure downward instead of upward. It was an odd feeling, and rather exciting.
«You know,» she said, when we were finally seated opposite each other over the wooden table in one of the alcoves to the rear of the restaurant, «I’m grateful to you for inviting me here and taking my mind off the ad campaign. I want you to know that. I’m so tired of it. Tomorrow we make the final decisions, no matter what, and then I take off for a week, and that will be a pleasure.»
«Where will you go?»
«I’m not sure. But then I might just stay at home and sleep all day every day, or watch television. Why do I have to go somewhere?»
«I suppose you don’t have to—but everyone does.»
«I know. It’s the mark of the mobile society,» she said. «We all go somewhere—in automobiles, or planes—or ships, maybe—with oil burning and with churning—churning. We go there and they come here.»
«Hotels couldn’t survive otherwise.»
«I know—and it bothers me sometimes. So many of us live at the expense of high-energy bustling. What happens when the energy for the bustle runs out?»
So we talked doomsday for a while. Then, over the stuffed grape leaves and salad, we talked natural foods. I’ve lost track of what we talked about except that the ball kept bouncing back and forth briskly, never went out of bounds, never hit the net, never got lost in the underbrush.
I found out about her early life. Her father was a government official in her homeland and he had fallen out of favor under conditions where such a fall meant prison or worse. Fortunately, he got out with her and they made it to the United States. That was ten years ago and he had died since. She had married soon after arriving here—too soon, and it hadn’t worked, except for producing a son.