Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman Page 0,137

to miss any detail. I concentrated so hard I barely blinked. Every event leaves traces behind, and my job was to tease these out. The problem was that the staircase had been thoroughly scrubbed. There wasn’t a scrap of litter to be found. Not a single stain or dent, no butts in the ashtray. Nothing.

Going up and down the steps without a break had tired me out, so I rested for a minute on the sofa. It was covered in vinyl, and was not what you’d call high quality. But you had to admire the building management for having had the foresight to put a sofa there, where probably few people were likely ever to use it. Across from the sofa was the mirror. Its surface was spotless, and it was set at the perfect angle for the light shining in the window. I sat there for a time, gazing at my own reflection. Maybe on that Sunday that woman’s husband, the stockbroker, had taken a break here, too, and looked at his own reflection. At his own unshaven face.

I had shaved, of course, but my hair was getting a bit long. The hair behind my ears curled up like the fur of a long-haired hunting dog that had just paddled his way across a river. I made a mental note to go to a barber. I noticed that the color of my trousers didn’t match my shoes. I’d had no luck in coming up with a pair of socks that matched my outfit, either. Nobody would think it strange if I finally got my act together and did a little laundry. Otherwise, though, my reflection was just that—the same old me. A forty-five-year-old bachelor who couldn’t care less about stocks or Buddhism.

Come to think of it, Paul Gauguin had been a stockbroker, too. But he wanted to devote himself to painting, so one day he left his wife and kids for Tahiti. Wait a sec…I thought for a minute. No, Gauguin couldn’t have left his wallet behind, and if they’d had American Express cards back then I bet he would have taken one along. He was going all the way to Tahiti, after all. I can’t picture him saying to his wife, “Hey, honey, I’ll be back in a minute—make sure the pancakes are ready,” before he vanished. If you’re planning to disappear, you have to go about it in a systematic way.

I stood up from the sofa, and as I made my way up the stairs again I started to mull over the notion of freshly made pancakes. I concentrated as fiercely as I could and tried to picture the scene: you’re a forty-year-old stockbroker, it’s Sunday morning, raining hard outside, and you’re on your way home to a stack of piping hot pancakes. The more I thought about it, the more it whetted my appetite. I’d had only one small apple since morning.

Maybe I should zip over to Denny’s and dig into some pancakes, I thought. I’d passed a sign for Denny’s on the drive here. It was probably even close enough to walk. Not that Denny’s made great pancakes—the butter and the syrup weren’t up to my standards—but they would do. Truth be told, I’m a huge pancake fan. Saliva began to well up in my mouth. But I shook my head and tried to banish all pancake thoughts for the time being. I blew away all the clouds of illusion. Save the pancakes for later, I cautioned myself. You’ve still got work to do.

“I should have asked her if her husband had any hobbies,” I said to myself. “Maybe he actually was into painting.”

But that didn’t make sense—any guy who was so into painting he’d abandon his family wouldn’t be the type to play golf every Sunday. Can you imagine Gauguin or van Gogh or Picasso decked out in golf shoes, kneeling down on the tenth green, trying to read the putt? I couldn’t.

I sat down on the sofa again and looked at my watch. It was one thirty-two. I shut my eyes and focused on a spot in my head. My mind a total blank, I gave myself up to the sands of time and let the flow take me wherever it wanted. Then I opened my eyes and looked at my watch. It was one fifty-seven. Twenty-five minutes had vanished somewhere. Not bad, I told myself. A pointless way of whittling away time. Not bad at all.

I looked at the mirror again and