a historic four-story nineteenth-century house in the Colonial Revival style, designed by Stanford White. She was buzzed through a wood-framed beveled-glass door. Beyond was a wainscoted hallway that ran straight through the center of the building, ending in a rear glass-and-wood-framed door that looked out onto a narrow, minimally landscaped area between buildings used as a private parking lot.
She stopped at the bank of mailboxes, her fingertips running over the vertically hinged brass door with 401: MARTIN LINDROS stenciled on it.
On the fourth landing, in front of the cream-colored door, she paused, one hand on the thick wood. It seemed to her that she could feel a subtle vibration, as if the apartment, so long vacant, was humming with newfound life. Her Lover's body, warm and electric, inhabited the rooms beyond the door, flooding them with energy and a magnified heat, like sunlight through glass.
Into her mind came the moment of their last parting. It carried with it the same pain, sharp as an indrawn breath on a freezing night that shot between her ribs, inflicting another wound to her heart. And yet this time the pain had also been different, because she'd been certain not to see him for a minimum of nine months. In fact, today would make it just shy of eleven. Yet it wasn't only the matter of time-bad enough-but also the knowledge of the changes that would be effected.
Of course she had put that fear away in a cupboard in the far recesses of her mind, but now, here in front of the apartment door, she understood that it was a weight she had been carrying like an unwanted child for all these months.
She leaned forward, pressing her forehead against the painted wood, remembering their parting.
"You look so troubled," he had said. "I've told you not to worry."
"How can I not?" she'd replied. "It's never been done before."
"I've always thought of myself as something of a pioneer." He smiled encouragement. Then, seeing that fail, he enfolded her in his arms. "Extreme times require extreme measures. Who better than you to understand this."
"Yes, yes. Of course." She had shuddered. "Still, I can't help but wonder what will happen to us on... the other side."
"Why should anything change?"
She had pushed away from him just enough so that she could look into his eyes. "You know why," she had whispered.
"No, I don't. I will be the same, just the same inside. You must trust me, Anne."
Now here she was-here they both were-on the other side. This was the moment of truth, when she would discover what changes had been wrought in him by those eleven months. She did trust him, she did. Yet the fear she'd been living with now unleashed itself, slithered in her lower belly. She was about to enter the great unknown. There was no precedent, and she was genuinely frightened that she would find him so altered, he would no longer be her Lover.
With a low growl of self-disgust, she turned the brass knob of the door and pushed it open. He'd left it unlatched for her. Walking into the entryway, she felt like a Hindu, as if her path had been set for her long ago and she lived in the grip of a destiny that outstripped her, that outstripped even him. How far she was from the privileged upbringing her parents had foisted upon her. She had her Lover to thank for that. She had come partway, it was true, but her rebelliousness had been reckless. He had tamed that, turned it into a focused beam of light. She had nothing to fear.
She was about to call out when she heard his voice, the ululating song she had come to know so well floating to her as if on a personal current of air. She found him in the master bedroom on one of Lindros's carpets because of course he could not carry one of his own.
He was on his knees, feet bare, head covered with a white skullcap, his torso bent over so that his forehead pressed against the low nap of the carpet. He was facing toward Mecca, praying.
She stood very still, as if any movement would disturb him, and let the Arabic flow over her like a gentle rain. She was fluent in the language-in a number of the many dialects, a fact that had intrigued him when they'd first met.
At length, the prayer came to an end. He rose and, seeing her, smiled with Martin Lindros's face.
"I know