Early the next morning, the screenwriter finds himself beginning again the old ritual of doing nothing except lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, and listening to the noises outside. He only vaguely recalls last night’s perambulation, the streets whose silence seemed to swallow the echoes of his cane, the candle beleaguered by vagrants, his tiredness, his finally falling into the bed and going asleep. Now, he wants to pick up the thread of the story. First, he wants to conjure, in his mind’s eye, an image of the girl, and where he thinks she’ll be that very moment, for in situating her, his feet find the ground on which he’ll have to slog until he reaches the end of his story. He sees her in the hotel, writing in her diary while looking at the balcony. The screenwriter wonders if she has breakfast with her father. They’re rarely in the same room together, but they must surely eat together on occasion, he thinks. He wonders what these two people, who can barely say more than a few words to one another other, would talk about if they had to sit together in the hotel café, or wherever else they might choose to go and eat, and endure each other’s company for longer than it takes to exhaust the available small talk about school or the weather. He stands with the help of his cane and takes a look out the window, as if he’s been entrusted with a mission to monitor his neighbor’s movements in the building opposite. She seems to be deliberately avoiding him. He then looks at the lingerie store, at the people walking past it, to see who goes in, then at the stores that are closed for the August vacation, and at the people waiting at the bus stop. He concludes the world’s still in its orbit. While shaving, he thinks of the girl’s father sitting on a café terrace in front of the Grand Central Station. The girl, sitting at his side, asks him about the terrorist who’s just been captured, and about whom all the newspapers are reporting. Her father would rather talk about the star of her favorite soccer team, a player who doesn’t seem to want to rejoin his teammates; or perhaps he’d like to ask her why she’s stopped practicing piano. But the girl is insistent, and she finally risks broaching the subject of Cousin Dedalus, a man who disappeared in the neighboring country’s capital years ago, and for whom the police are still looking. What will the press say when they capture him? she asks. Her father looks over his newspaper at her. That has nothing to do with the terrorist, he says, as he folds the newspaper and puts it to one side. He then takes a sip of his coffee and fixes his eyes on his daughter. The screenwriter cleans his razor under the running tap and leaves it dripping to air-dry next to the soap. He then dries his face with a towel and examines the results in the mirror. His face refuses to accord with the image he has of himself. Not that he despises the reflection staring back at him, but it’s not the face of the man he imagines himself to be. Alas, he’s gotten used to it at this stage of his life. Suddenly he remembers the producer: a man who seems to be avoiding him. But he’s running seriously short of funds, he thinks, so he decides once again to try calling him. Which he does, and yet again, there’s no answer. He must be on vacation, he thinks. There’s no other explanation. Either way, he’ll have to prepare some material to send him. He can’t ask for an advance without sending something. Where was I? the screenwriter wonders, sitting at the typewriter and scavenging through his papers. He left off at the station, where the girl and Cousin Dedalus/McGregor — he still doesn’t know which name to keep — are sitting in the same café. The girl had been starting to feel the same as her father and cousin do during their long vigils. No it wasn’t that, he thinks, recalling a more recent interaction. Before he called the producer, he happened on an interesting idea. He lights a cigarette. He knows he shouldn’t be smoking before breakfast, but he’s a little anxious, and the tobacco helps to calm him. He remembers exactly what it was, although he hasn’t written it down yet. He notes it down quickly before it recedes into his unconscious. The girl’s sitting on the terrace of a café in front of the Grand Central Station, having breakfast with her father. She’d like to know what the press will say when the police catch Cousin Dedalus. Her father says that has nothing to do with the terrorist, and takes a sip of coffee. Meanwhile, she’s looking past him, perhaps at the steps outside the station, and she hears him say he doesn’t want her interfering either with him or his associate while they’re working. The girl looks at her father again, intending to demur, but the face she meets warns her against any rejoinder, against any demand for further explanation. He cautions her not to interfere in any of his affairs. He simply won’t tolerate it. She nods reluctantly, again looking away, this time at the foyer she can see just inside the station. Affairs. . she thinks, repeating her father’s euphemism as she looks at the station’s frontage. Don’t even try interfering, he said. She tries to think what affairs he might mean: the vigils, the astrophysicist’s illness, making contact with aliens? Are these the things he won’t tolerate her interfering in?