life, for what could be nobler than dedicating it to the happiness and fulfillment of another? At a certain point the pianist was leaning back slightly, hands working opposite ends of the keyboard as though one had to be kept from popping up while the other was held down, and here Alice turned to look at Ezra, who was watching with his mouth open; beyond him the fermata girls sat frozen in their own poses of wonder and humility: whatever they could do, it wasn’t this, would never be this, or would only become this once a great many more hours had been sacrificed to the ambition. Meanwhile, their hourglasses were running down. Everyone’s hourglass was running down. Everyone’s but Beethoven’s. As soon as you are born the sand starts falling and only by demanding to be remembered do you stand a chance of it being upturned again and again. Alice took Ezra’s long cool fingers into her own hand and squeezed. This time, between movements, no one coughed.
• • •
The following afternoon, he drove her to the ferry himself. They were early, and while they sat in the car watching the barge turn ponderously into its berth, he said, without looking at her:
“Is this relationship a little bit heartbreaking?”
The glare off the harbor hurt her eyes. “I don’t think so. Maybe around the edges.”
From the top of the ferry ramp flowed a stream of people laughing, waving, hoisting duffel bags onto their shoulders and shielding their eyes from the sun. A young male couple held hands, while in his free arm the taller man cradled a beribboned houseplant.
“And do you ever worry about the consequences?”
“What consequences?”
Now he looked at her sternly.
“Are you worried?” asked Alice.
“No. But that’s because I’m at the end of my life, and you . . .”—he laughed softly, at the neatness of it—“you’re at the beginning of yours.”
• • •
Shave and a haircut, two bits.
“Oh, hello dear. Have you got any toilet paper?”
“But Anna, you’re holding a roll in your hand!”
Stumped, the old woman turned back to the hall.
“Is something wrong, Anna?”
Turning around again eagerly: “No dear. Nothing’s wrong. Why?”
“Do you need something?”
“I don’t think so. Tell me dear. Do you have a boyfriend?”
• • •
Shave and a haircut, two bits.
“Dear . . . What’s your—?”
“Alice.”
“Alice. Can you tell me what time it is?”
“Almost four.”
“Four what?”
“Four nothing. It’s almost four, five minutes before four. Anna, why are you carrying that roll of toilet paper around?”
• • •
Shave and a haircut—
It had been fewer than ten minutes since their last conversation, but when Alice opened the door again Anna clutched her bosom and recoiled, as if she hadn’t expected to find anyone at home. “Oh! Dear. Hello. I wonder whether . . . Could you help me . . . change a . . .”
“. . . bulb?”
It was in the kitchen, where Alice had not yet been, a room easily accommodating of a large rust-mottled table and six vinyl-padded chairs. A weak, cloudy-afternoon light struggled through the filth-glazed windows, the lower panes of which had been papered over with yellowing pages from the Times. REAGAN NOSTALGIC FOR G.O.P. SENATE. RIFKA ROSENWEIN WED TO BARRY LICHTENBERG. IRMGARD SEEFRIED IS DEAD AT 69. The defunct bulb hung spiderlike from a wire over the stove, whose burners had been unaccountably patched up in places with aluminum foil. Alice pulled a chair out from under the table and stepped onto its seat. When she’d unscrewed the dead bulb and went to step down again for its replacement, she put a hand on the cooktop to steady herself and reflexively snatched it back.
“Oh! Anna, your stove is hot!”
“Is it?”
“Yes! Are you cooking something?”
“I don’t think so, dear.”
“But were you just using it? Did you cook something today?”
“I don’t know, dear. I don’t know.”
Back in her own apartment Alice dialed the number on her rent slip and paced impatiently waiting for the recorded menu to end. She pressed zero. Then she pressed zero again. “. . . At the tone, please say your name and the number of your unit. Beep.”
“Mary-Alice Dodge, Two-Oh-Nine West Eighty-Fifth Street, Five-C.”
“. . . Yeah?”
“Hi, this is Alice, in Two-Oh-Nine Five-C, and I’m calling because Anna, down the hall, keeps knocking on my door, and she’s been doing it for a while, and I really don’t mind helping her out every now and again, or even keeping her company, because she’s a nice woman and I think sometimes she knocks just because she’s lonely, but today