I looked up; and just beyond the agent’s booth, I saw two men in conversation. One, fat, dark-haired, pale, wearing a rounded collar, tie, sweater, and jacket, and carrying a raincoat, faced in my direction. The other, sandy-haired, wearing a brown suit, also carrying a trenchcoat, faced the other way. I left, through the steel maze, and walked around the men. I began to imagine that the man who had his back to me was the one I had seen drinking in the bar. I went back to the bar to look. He was no longer there. The sandy-haired man, near the booth, had a beard, which I had not previously noticed, or had I? When I passed in the direction he was facing, it seemed to me he turned away. I went back to my seat. I thought, What was my crime so far; none that I could see, except traveling under an alias, which I had not yet done. I got up, and said to the British Airways ticket agent, or whatever he was, that I’d like to change the name on my ticket. To make it proper for my records. He said his was only the last-minute check-in. To change, I would have to go back to the downstairs ticket counter. And there wasn’t time for that. I said, In that case I’ll have to take Aer Lingus. He said, That’s up to you. Having established, now, my good intentions, and my what kind of fool do you take me for, regarding the false name, I looked at the two men, still engaged in conversation. The sandy-haired one had been joined now by a woman. I thought I’d wait to see whether they entered the area inside the chute. I could, after all, always leave at the last minute. They seemed, all three of them, to be staring at me now. When I sat in another place, to face the sandy-haired man, he and his girl turned. So did the dark, fat man, so that he again faced me, in his round collar, dark tie, maroon sweater, and the sandy-haired one again had his back to me. When I left again, through the steel maze, they exchanged words, then entered the area beside the chute and sat down. I thought, Will they board the plane and fly away if I do not board it. Not a chance. So we’ll have the same episode or sequence, if I change to the Aer Lingus flight. But what if I outwait them, they get on the flight, that is, and I don’t. They’d get off. So I thought, Might as well get it over with, but still I waited. Then they boarded all passengers bearing green boarding passes. That’s what I had, a green boarding pass. But I waited and waited. I could see two of their boarding passes were brown. Finally the dark, fat man got up. He had a green boarding pass, and used it. I used mine, and I followed him, but lurked, lingered in the boarding chute. I started back, thinking I might say I’d taken fright. But I wavered, havered, went back, looked at him to see if he had turned to look at me, then thought, What the hell, and got on. The couple, the sandy-haired, bearded man and the girl, got on. I was seated right behind the dark, fat man. They were seated in the smoking section, several rows behind me. I thought, Now would surely be the time to arrest me, if they were going to do it. Perhaps they could have done so, when my boarding pass was taken. Would they surround me, and walk me off the flight, then? But they did nothing. And, even in my state, I knew they could hardly arrest me in the air.
Quanta, Amy said to me, on the train, in that blizzard, in answer to my question. Not here, Diana said, to her lasting regret, to her own daughter, who approached her, crying, in front of all those people. Not here. But in London, don’t you see, the phone rang. In London, the phone calls began.
Well, I waited. I told no one. For the next few days, in any case, my voice was gone; it might have been a fever. I waited for them to find the car. I waited for them to find the ticket, me. But it was not until long afterward, when it was explained to me, that I understood that there was, after all, something else quite wrong in the course of these events, and that there really was something they were trying to frame me for, in the matter of the car. But I didn’t understand it then. Quanta. Not here.
You can see it from here; but just try to get to it.
But do you sometimes wish it was me? Always. Pause. It is you.
III. HOME
BUT IN London, don’t you see, the phone rang. The phone calls began. I was asleep. He said, You’ve left, I said, Well, no.
It is only a small house, though it is old, on an acre-and-a-half of land. It is screened from the road by a grey, weathered eight-foot fence and an uneven row of ragged pines. All the acres that surround the property are owned by a neurotic Lebanese, but the house, which is red with white trim, used to be a cider mill. It overlooks a waterfall, a brook, and two small ponds. The upper pond is shallow. The man from whom I bought the place said he used to skate, with his little granddaughter, on that pond, a distance, I think, of maybe thirty gliding steps around. The lower pond is deep, and he said he used to swim in there. Room for just a few strokes, virtually in place. The upper pond, which has a sudden, jagged bend on one side, is lined in summer with rushes, covered in the fall with leaves. The roof of the front porch of the house is covered, for some reason, with moss, and also, on one side, with wisteria, which gives the house a sort of raffish Veronica Lake look, a disheveled charm. In fact, the whole place is quaint, so quaint that it sometimes seems quite magical. Why, you could put an island with bridges in that little pond, the great professor, who advised governments from Lima to Baghdad on land use, said when he came to visit, and have something perfect, enchanted, Japanese. It’s a jewelry box, my Aunt Zabeth said, the first time she saw it. At other times, the quaintness can seem a little sick. There is also, oddly, an enormous flagpole, taller than the one in town on Main Street, which loomed high over the house, and which, together with the upper pond, somehow created the impression of a hazard near a golfing green. I could never remove a flagpole. I still have an American flag, with forty-eight stars, which was given to me by a Japanese boy called Junior, when we were in kindergarten. Soon after I moved in, I simply asked Paul, the neighborhood handyman, how much it would cost to move the flagpole, away from the house and the pond, toward some trees near the corner of the property. He said several hundred dollars. Then I asked how much it would take to change the shape of the upper pond, make it narrower and deeper, less like a golf hazard and more clear. Four thousand dollars, he said, at the very least. And there was always the danger that the house would be flooded, or even borne away, in spring.