She took the doll from him and held it, as would a child. It was an odd gesture, and one that did not exactly become a woman in her early thirties, as he presumed her to be. He chose to make light of her utterance about the doll possessing a strong will.
"She often wanders off then, does she?"
"Oh, yes," the woman replied. "She is full of mischief. I sometimes think she is not happy in our family."
To that, he had no response. The woman was obviously a little eccentric, and had carried too many traits — often endearing in a child — into her adult life that were best left behind or outgrown.
"You are most kind," she repeated. "Will you allow me to repay you for your kindness in some way?"
"I can assure you that's not necessary. It was nothing, really.'
"Then, perhaps," she said, "you would come to have a drink with me. I live at number nine. Not this evening, I'm afraid. I am busy this evening, for I have other guests, but shall we say tomorrow?"
He hesitated for a moment, and then something made him acquiesce.
"That would be very pleasant."
He held out his hand. She looked at it, and then turned. She still had the doll in her hand, dangling — though not limply — by her side.
"Come at eight-thirty," she said.
He watched her go, his hand still extended, feeling really rather foolish.
"What is your name?" he said.
But then there was nothing but an empty corridor.
The truth is that, throughout the afternoon of the following day, he seriously considered forgetting the whole thing. It would have appeared terribly impolite not to turn up having agreed to, but there had been something about the woman he had found a little disquieting. All that business with the doll had struck him as more than a bit peculiar: he could have quite done without it. And as for the evening dress, he assumed simply that she had been host to a soiree (she herself admitted that she was entertaining that evening.) But as he sat watching television a few hours after his encounter with her, it had occurred to him that number nine must have been one of the two flats — the other being number eight, by his reckoning — overlooked by his kitchen window. (The architecture of the apartment block was such that his flat formed an L-shape around one side of a central courtyard that only the ground floor flats had access to.) He had looked out of the kitchen window and observed that both flats — eight and nine — were in complete darkness. He thought no more about it at the time, but found it very difficult to get to sleep that night. Thoughts of the woman's skin, and its curious pellucid quality troubled him. He also thought a great deal about what would possess a woman to don an evening dress only to sit around in a darkened flat: and what manner of activity might become such a situation.
Upon leaving work he had all but made up his mind to stay in for the evening. That day was a Tuesday, and he was due to drive up to Manchester the following morning to attend a two-day conference. But something happened on the way home that made him change his mind. It was really rather strange. As he was driving down the Uxbridge Road just past the Shepherd's Bush roundabout he happened to pass an accident, or the aftermath of an accident, to be more precise. A car had mounted the pavement and ploughed straight into a lamppost. The bonnet was shaped like a concertina and steam was rising from the engine. There was a crowd of people gathered around the car, and an ambulance was approaching — its sirens flashing — from the opposite direction in which he himself was travelling. He made to pull over, and as he did so, the crowd around the car parted and he caught a glimpse of something — for he was now moving slow enough to do so — that gave him a bit of a start. It was a pair of bare feet, very pale, sticking out from the underside of the car. The soles of the feet were directly facing him as he looked, and the whole tableau reminded him of the early Renaissance painting with the battle, the fallen soldier and the skewed perspective. The crowd was milling around gesticulating, and a slightly plump ambulance man was approaching wearing a livid yellow visibility jacket.
He drove on, but found himself quite unable to forget what he had seen. It was not the first accident of its kind that he had been partial witness to: it was simply those feet. Why had the feet been bare? he kept asking himself. And to whom did they belong?
He was still thinking about it when he got home: and indeed, it was only after he had changed out of his work clothes and put on something more casual — having showered and shaved also — that he was able to occupy himself with any other thought. It was at that point that he found himself halfway out of the door, with a bottle of wine (purchased three days earlier, and unopened in the interim) in one hand and his front door key in the other.
He must have passed by the entrance to number nine countless times throughout his residence at the flats, but as he was now a visitor, it somehow afforded him a new perspective. There was no doormat, he observed, and the letterbox appeared to be slightly smaller than usual.
He rang the bell, and from very far away — almost at a distance that should have belied the size of the flat itself — he heard the sound of an electronic buzzer. He had for some reason almost expected the sound of a chime that would have befitted the stateliest of country residences — an entirely fanciful notion — and he could not help thinking that the sound the buzzer made was remarkably squalid.
After a few moments, the door opened, and the woman stood in the doorway. She was wearing a black silk shirt and very tight trousers that were almost riding breeches. Her eyelids looked very sleepy, and he noticed with some distaste that she had already been drinking. Her hair was tangled, and the colour was high in her cheeks.
"Mr David Harneck," she said.
The hallway behind her was completely dark, although he noticed that the wall to her immediate right had quite a considerable crack in it.
"David, please," he said.
"So good. I am glad you could come. Please."
She stood back and to one side a little. He entered the flat and was immediately struck with how very warm it was. He took a few steps forward and she closed the door behind him. He could smell her perfume: it was a strange smell, not entirely unpleasant, though altogether unfamiliar.
"Won't you come into the kitchen?"
He followed her into a room to the left. An overhead light was turned on: the bulb itself appeared to be of inordinately low wattage, given the circumstances.
"You've brought wine. How nice," she said. "Let me get you a glass."
"That would be nice. Thank you."
He looked around. The kitchen appeared filled with relatively modern looking fixtures and appliances. He could not help noticing, however, that there was a fairly substantial looking crack along the far wall. It occupied almost three-quarters of the length, and he thought, suddenly, of structural faults in the building, perhaps even lying dormant in his own property. Then she was there with a glass of wine in an outstretched hand.
"Thank you very much. But, well, I don't even know your name."
"My name is Kaaiija," she said.
He made an attempt to repeat the name, and she shook her head, smiling.
"Kay, ay, ay, eye, eye, jay, ay: Kaaiija," she repeated.
"That's an unusual name," he said.
"It is Estonian."
She raised the glass of wine to her lips. She was drinking red, although the bottle he had brought was white.
"Are you from Estonia?" he asked, he would have admitted, a little gormlessly. History had proven that he was fairly inept at small talk such as this.
"I am from a place called Valetada. It is an island. It is a very traditional place."
She placed particular emphasis on the word traditional, and he wondered if she was referring to some obscure idiom that was lost in translation.