the spire of McIntyre Tower. The pumpkin had to have weighed nearly seventy pounds, and how it materialized there was a mystery. It was a source of merriment among the students and consternation among the administrators: no maintenance worker would agree to risk his neck in order to bring it down, so the pumpkin was left to make its way down by itself. The next morning, a cluster of small jack-o'-lanterns appeared at the base of McIntyre Tower, positioned as if looking up at the big pumpkin overhead; some of them bore signs saying jump! The undergraduate glee only heightened the ill humor of the college officials. A few months before graduation, two years later, when the administration was no longer so exercised, the word finally went around that the class had Dylan Sutcliffe, an expert and well-equipped rock climber, to thank. Sutcliffe was a prankster but a prudent one; he never directly owned up to it and had always appreciated Ambler's discretion. For Ambler, having noticed something in Sutcliffe's face when the matter was discussed, was the first to guess that he was behind it, and though he let Sutcliffe know that he knew, he never told anyone else.
Ambler remembered the Charlie Brown-style shirts Sutcliffe favored, with their broad, colorful horizontal stripes, and his collection of clay pipes, seldom used, but more interesting than the usual undergraduate collection of beer bottles or Grateful Dead basement tapes. Ambler recalled attending his wedding just a year after graduation, knew that he had a good job at a Providence community bank, once independent, now part of a national chain.
"This is Dylan Sutcliffe," a voice now said. Ambler did not immediately recognize it, but he was overcome with warmth all the same.
"Dylan!" Ambler said. "It's Hal Ambler. Remember me?"
There was a long pause. "I'm sorry," the man said, sounding confused. "I'm not sure I caught your name."
"Hal Ambler. We were at Carlyle together two decades ago. You were in my suite, freshman year.
I was at your wedding.
Coming back now? Been a long time between drinks, huh?"
"Listen, I don't buy things from strangers over the phone," the man said curtly. "I suggest you try this on somebody else."
Could this be the wrong Dylan Sutcliffe? Nothing about him sounded likethe Sutcliffe he remembered. "Whoa," he said. "Maybe I got the wrong guy. You didn't go to Carlyle, then?"
"I did. It's just that nobody in my class was named Hal Ambler." There was a click as the man hung up on him.
Roiled by a mixture of anger and fear, he now called Carlyle College and got himself transferred to the registrar's office. To the young man who answered, Ambler explained that he was a human-resources officer for a major corporation, prospective employer of one Harrison Ambler. As a matter of corporate policy, they were verifying certain items on the applicant's resume. All he had to do was confirm that Harrison Ambler had indeed graduated from Carlyle College.
"Certainly, sir," the man from the registrar's office said. He asked for the spelling and entered the name; Ambler could hear quiet, swift clicking from a keyboard. "Sorry," the voice said. "Could you give me the spelling one more time?"
With a growing sense of apprehension, Ambler did so.
"I guess it's a good thing you called," said the voice on the phone.
"He didn't graduate?"
"Nobody by that name has ever matriculated here, let alone graduated."
"Is it possible that your database doesn't go back far enough?"
"Nope. We're a real small college, so that's one problem we don't have. Believe me, sir, if this guy was enrolled here at any time during the twentieth century, I'd know."
"Thank you," Ambler said, his voice hollow. "Thank you for your time." His hand was trembling as he pressed the off button on the cell phone.
It was madness!
His entire sense of who he was-could it be a phantasm? Was that possible? He shuttered his eyes briefly and allowed the countless memories of his four decades to surge and spill and swirl in his mind, yielding to a free and unstructured flood of association. There were memories beyond counting, and they were the memories of Hal Ambler, unless he truly was mad. The time, exploring his own backyard as a young child, that he stumbled on a subterranean nest of yellow jackets-how they spurted from the ground, like a black and yellow geyser!-and he wound up in the emergency room with thirty stings. The hot July in summer camp, learning to do the butterfly stroke in Lake Candaiga, and