The Man in the Tree (9 page)
Read The Man in the Tree Online
Authors: Damon Knight
He bought a book about sex and discovered that masturbation, or
"self-abuse," would weaken your system or even drive you insane; but he
kept on doing it anyhow.
One afternoon Madame Porgorny stopped him in the hall. "You are thin,"
she said critically, holding him at arm's length. "You do not eat
enough. Come to my house for dinner, tomorrow at eight o'clock." She
took a pad from the pocket of her smock, scrawled an address.
Gene was alarmed .by this invitation but dared not refuse. After school
the next day, he washed and put on clean clothes. The address she had
given him was an apartment house on Nob Hill. By the time he got there
he was already very hungry; ordinarily he would have eaten dinner an
hour ago. In the lobby he found her name ornately lettered on a card,
with another name under it:
Mine. Evgenia Porgorny
Mlle. Vasilisa Tershchova
Above, the door was opened by a heavy gray-haired woman in an apron;
her face was very wide, her eyes narrow and shrewd. She smiled when she
saw him. "Come in." Her accent was even thicker than Madame Porgorny's.
She urged him through a narrow hall cluttered with dark furniture into a
living room where Madame Porgorny sat in a blue dress, her hair done up
tidily for once. "Ah, Stephen," she said. "Sit down. This is Vasilisa,
she does not speak English very well."
"No English," the woman agreed, with a broad smile. "Welcome. Sit down."
"I'm glad to know you," Gene said.
"Welcome," she repeated. "Good." She patted him once on the shoulder,
then turned and left the room.
"You are hungry?" Madame Porgorny demanded.
"Yes, a little."
"Good. Dinner will be very soon. Do you like our apartment?"
Gene looked around him politely. All the furniture was heavy, dark,
and old; there were many pictures in gold frames, lamps with tasseled
shades, china figurines. "It's very nice. Have you lived here long?"
"Sixteen years. We came from Paris in nineteen thirty-nine. Now any
longer you could not find such an apartment." She picked up a fluted
glass and drank the last few drops of something pale as water, then
called through the doorway. The other woman's voice answered.
"Come," said Madame Porgorny, "now you will see how Russians eat." She
led him into a dining room where a table was set for three. Vasilisa
came in carrying a soup tureen; when she lifted the domed cover, fragrant
steam came out. She ladled the soup into their bowls; it was dark red,
almost the color of blood, with things floating in it.
"What kind of soup is this?" Gene asked. "It's very good," he added,
although it tasted like beets.
"It is 'borshch,' made from beets and other things," She exchanged a few
rapid words with Vasilisa. "This kind is from the Ukraine. It is with
vegetables and 'kolbasa' --that is the sausage. I myself know nothing
about it," she added. "My mother would never let me enter the kitchen,
but Vasilisa knows all. Everything."
The other woman beamed. "You like?"
"It's very good." And, in fact, he thought he was getting used to it.
Vasilisa took away the bowls and brought in a huge pastry, then three
other dishes. The pastry turned out to be filled with salmon and
mushrooms; it was meltingly delicious. With it they ate little carrot
patties covered with a pale sauce; golden poppy-seed rolls; and some
green vegetable cooked so thoroughly that it was like a pudding. Gene
had a tall glass of milk, but the other two drank wine. For dessert they
had triangular pastries filled with fruit and nuts.
"Now we will have coffee in the living room," Madame Porgorny
announced. Gene's coffee was in a cup, but Madame Porgorny had hers in
a glass. "So, did you have enough to eat?" she asked him. Gene smiled;
he was stuffed so full that he felt he could barely move. "Good. You are
still growing; you must eat, eat, to grow strong. Come into the light."
She led him to a little table and sat down opposite him.
"You are a very strange young man," she said, and took his arm. "See here,
not a blemish. For everyone is something, a mole, freckle, but for you,
nothing. Show me your teeth." Feeling like a fool, Gene opened his mouth
wide. "So," she said, peering in. "Perfect. Even if I looked at you all
over, I believe I would find nothing. Don't worry, I am not going to do
it. Sit down."
She took a worn deck of cards out of the drawer in the table and began to
shuffle them in her swollen fingers. The cards had designs Gene had never
seen before: men and women in antique costumes, castles, lions, flowers.
"Have you ever had your fortune told? No?" She spread the cards, picked
out one and laid it by itself on the table. "This is you." It was a
young man in tights with a feather in his cap. She shuffled the cards
again, handed them to him. "Cut. No, with your left hand, toward me,
in three piles."
She took the cards back, dealt one on top of the other. "This is what
covers you." Another, crosswise, on top of the first two. "This,
what crosses you." She dealt four more in a cross-shape around the
center. "This is behind you -- your past. This below, this above, this
ahead of you."
She dealt four more cards in a vertical row to the right of the center.
"Here are three major trumps. That is very unusual in reading for a young
person. Their cards are always wishy-washy, not this, not that. For you,
the cards are not wishy-washy. Also, here are many swords, covering you,
crossing you, behind you. You have left a home where you were safe and
protected, is that not so?"
"Yes," said Gene. His throat was dry. He stared with fascination at the
cards, the woman's face, her swollen fingers.
"There was a struggle with an older man. It is not over yet. Ahead of
you -- the Sun. That is wealth; you will be very rich. Do you think
that will make you happy?."
"Yes." Gene smiled.
"No, it will not. Now here again, this is you -- the Hermit. Wealth will
not be enough for you, you will also seek wisdom. The next card is
your life now: you are satisfied, but you will not be for long. Next,
this is what you wish for yourself. It is very little, You will discover
that you want more. And this is your future -- the third major trump. It
is Justice."
"I don't understand what that means."
"Later you will." She gathered the cards, tapped them straight, put them
back into the deck.
"Could you read the cards again, Madame Porgorny? About the older man
you said was against me?"
"Yes, if you wish, and then no more. It is not good to read them too
often." This time she found the knight of swords and put it down, then
shuffled and dealt as before. He recognized two of the cards besides the
first one -- the young man with the feather in his cap, and the man with
the row of cups.
"He wants to settle something that is unfinished. It has to do with you --
here is your card, do you see? He cannot settle it because of money --
either he has not enough or you have too much. Here he is beginning to
plan something, and here" -- she tapped the lowest card -- "this is the
Moon, the card of deception. That is how he will do it. Here before him
is the Fool, he will not succeed." She studied the row of four cards on
the right. "This is the man himself, he has suffered a terrible loss.
He is strong, he has everything on his side. Here is his wish, it is
for dominion, for mastery. And -- this I do not understand -- he will
achieve wholeness."
Chapter Seven
Cooley was disappointed in Los Angeles; he spent a week there, going
to art schools and asking questions, but found no trace of the boy. He
drove north to San Francisco, checked into a hotel. The next morning,
he got a city map at the desk, then went to a phone booth and tore out
the page of the directory that listed "Schools -- Private." Seventeen
of the listings seemed to have something to do with art. In his room,
he called them one by one, found out their hours, and divided them into
districts with the aid of the map.
That afternoon he visited the Academy of Fine and Useful Arts, the Adams
Free Expression Art School, the Beacon Hill Art Centre, and the Co-op
Art School. His procedure was always the same. He told the registrar, "My
name is Andrew McDonnel, the painter -- maybe you've seen my work? Well,
it don't matter. Now I'm looking for a particlar kind of model, very
particlar -- the model agencies, they don't have what I want."
"What kind of a model, Mr. McDonnel?"
"Has to be a young boy, not more than, say, fifteen or sixteen, but he
has to be tall. Now I thought maybe one of your students wouldn't mind
earning a little extra money -- ?"
Then the registrar would open her record book and frown, and say something
like, "No, we don't have anybody that young, I'm afraid. Here's a girl,
but she's seventeen." And Cooley would thank her and say good-bye.
On the second day, af the Devonshire Gallery and Art School, the woman
at the desk told him they had a student, Bob Young, who was sixteen, and
she thought he was tall, although she really couldn't remember. Cooley
asked when he could see the boy.
"Well, he's down here for Oil Painting on Thursday evenings at eight
o'clock -- that's tomorrow. You could come and talk to him then."
Cooley said, "That's funny. I used to know a Young. Wonder if it's the
same one. Does he live on Lincoln Way, by any chance?"
"No, Eleventh Avenue -- four twenty-five Eleventh."
Cooley looked up Youngs in the telephone book, and there was one at
that address. The kid couldn't have been here long enough to get in the
phone book, but there was just a chance that he had got himself adopted
by somebody, or maybe he was living with a family and using their name
at school.
He was across the street having his shoes shined at a quarter to eight the
next day. He watched the students go in, first one, then three together,
then a bunch. About half were college-age kids, the other half middle-aged
women. There was one younger boy -- tall, sallow, black-haired. Cooley
crossed the school off his list.
On Saturday, at the second place he tried, the woman said, "Why, yes,
we do have a boy that age. Let's see, he's fifteen. Stephen Miller,
and he is quite tall."
"Funny, I have an old friend named Miller -- wonder if it's the same one.
Does he live on Lincoln Way?"
"What is it?" asked a loud voice behind him. He turned; it was a tall
woman with an imposing bust and a black ribbon for her glasses; she was
staring at him as if he were a burglar. "We don't give out addresses
of our students," she said in a strong accent. "Why are you asking
such questions?"
Cooley started his set speech all over again, but she interrupted
him. "McDonnel? I have never heard of you. Go away, or I will call the
police." Her voice carried very well; as he left, Cooley could hear her
saying, "Miss Olney, we must be on our guard against perverts of all
descriptions,
constantly
on our guard."
He got into the Buick and thought it over. The kid would lie about his
age, naturally, and fifteen would be about the most he could get away
with. The first class was at one; he had found out that much on the phone,
and it was a quarter after twelve now. He lit a cigar and settled himself
to wait.
After about ten minutes a cab pulled up in front of the school; the driver
went inside. In a moment he was back with a woman, the same one -- the
dragon who had caught him at the desk. She had her coat on, and a funny
hat perched on top of her hair. Cooley's first thought was that he was
in luck -- he could go in and talk to the registrar again and maybe find
out something. Then he thought: where is she going, half an hour before
school starts?
"There you are, ma'am," the driver said.
Madame Porgorny peered out. "This? You are sure?" It was a corner house,
two stories, painted blue, with a porch and a fanlight.
"Twenty-one eighteen," the driver said. "Right there over the door."
Madame Porgorny paid him and walked up the porch steps. Through the glass
pane of the door she could see a little foyer and four mailboxes. She
stepped inside and read the cards. One of them, in careful ballpoint
lettering, said "Stephen Miller, 2A."
She climbed the stairs and knocked. The door opened; the boy stood
there with his shirt half buttoned. "Madame Porgorny," he said. He
looked startled.
"Let me come in, please."
He said awkwardly, "Oh, sure," and stood aside. "I was just getting
ready to come to school. Is something the matter?" Books and magazines
were everywhere, on the couch, two of the three chairs, on the floor.
She turned to face him. "Stephen, the man you spoke of, the one who
wants to do you harm, is he a short man, strong, with a red face?"
The boy had gone pale. "Did you see him?"
"He was at the school, looking for you."
"Oh." He sat down.
"Now you must tell me, Stephen, what does that man want?"
"I think he wants to kill me," the boy muttered.
"The police, would they protect you from him?"
"No. He -- he is the police." He looked at her. "I did something bad,
Madame Porgorny, but I didn't mean to."
"And your parents?"
"They couldn't help me."
"So. Well, then," she said, "I will ask you no more questions, but you
must go away. And you must not go to art school any more, because that
is how he found you." She opened her purse. "Do you have money?"
"Yes."
"Take this anyway, you may need more." She held out fifty dollars. When he
shook his head, she pressed the money into his hand. "Do not be foolish."
"Well -- I'll send it back to you."
"No, you must not. You must not tell me where you are going, and you
must not write to me, or to anyone. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
She looked at him: so tall, but so terribly young. She wanted to hold him
for a moment, kiss him on the forehead, but she knew how much he would
hate that, and then she would have to wipe off the lipstick. "Good-bye
then, Stephen. Be very careful."
"Good-bye, Madame Porgorny."
She went down the stairs more slowly than she had gone up. How could it
happen that a child so young should be hunted like a criminal? And what
would happen to him now, without friends, alone?
As she turned away from the house she saw a big car parked across the
street, and in it a red-faced man. Her heart trembled, and she stopped,
afraid to look again. In God's name, what was she to do? If she went back
into the house he would know, and if she kept walking-- She opened her
purse blindly, fumbled in it to gain time, and the ghost of a plan came
to her. She closed the purse, turned back with her mouth set angrily.
She did not look across the street. He must believe I have left something
behind, she told herself. Let him believe it.
"self-abuse," would weaken your system or even drive you insane; but he
kept on doing it anyhow.
One afternoon Madame Porgorny stopped him in the hall. "You are thin,"
she said critically, holding him at arm's length. "You do not eat
enough. Come to my house for dinner, tomorrow at eight o'clock." She
took a pad from the pocket of her smock, scrawled an address.
Gene was alarmed .by this invitation but dared not refuse. After school
the next day, he washed and put on clean clothes. The address she had
given him was an apartment house on Nob Hill. By the time he got there
he was already very hungry; ordinarily he would have eaten dinner an
hour ago. In the lobby he found her name ornately lettered on a card,
with another name under it:
Mine. Evgenia Porgorny
Mlle. Vasilisa Tershchova
Above, the door was opened by a heavy gray-haired woman in an apron;
her face was very wide, her eyes narrow and shrewd. She smiled when she
saw him. "Come in." Her accent was even thicker than Madame Porgorny's.
She urged him through a narrow hall cluttered with dark furniture into a
living room where Madame Porgorny sat in a blue dress, her hair done up
tidily for once. "Ah, Stephen," she said. "Sit down. This is Vasilisa,
she does not speak English very well."
"No English," the woman agreed, with a broad smile. "Welcome. Sit down."
"I'm glad to know you," Gene said.
"Welcome," she repeated. "Good." She patted him once on the shoulder,
then turned and left the room.
"You are hungry?" Madame Porgorny demanded.
"Yes, a little."
"Good. Dinner will be very soon. Do you like our apartment?"
Gene looked around him politely. All the furniture was heavy, dark,
and old; there were many pictures in gold frames, lamps with tasseled
shades, china figurines. "It's very nice. Have you lived here long?"
"Sixteen years. We came from Paris in nineteen thirty-nine. Now any
longer you could not find such an apartment." She picked up a fluted
glass and drank the last few drops of something pale as water, then
called through the doorway. The other woman's voice answered.
"Come," said Madame Porgorny, "now you will see how Russians eat." She
led him into a dining room where a table was set for three. Vasilisa
came in carrying a soup tureen; when she lifted the domed cover, fragrant
steam came out. She ladled the soup into their bowls; it was dark red,
almost the color of blood, with things floating in it.
"What kind of soup is this?" Gene asked. "It's very good," he added,
although it tasted like beets.
"It is 'borshch,' made from beets and other things," She exchanged a few
rapid words with Vasilisa. "This kind is from the Ukraine. It is with
vegetables and 'kolbasa' --that is the sausage. I myself know nothing
about it," she added. "My mother would never let me enter the kitchen,
but Vasilisa knows all. Everything."
The other woman beamed. "You like?"
"It's very good." And, in fact, he thought he was getting used to it.
Vasilisa took away the bowls and brought in a huge pastry, then three
other dishes. The pastry turned out to be filled with salmon and
mushrooms; it was meltingly delicious. With it they ate little carrot
patties covered with a pale sauce; golden poppy-seed rolls; and some
green vegetable cooked so thoroughly that it was like a pudding. Gene
had a tall glass of milk, but the other two drank wine. For dessert they
had triangular pastries filled with fruit and nuts.
"Now we will have coffee in the living room," Madame Porgorny
announced. Gene's coffee was in a cup, but Madame Porgorny had hers in
a glass. "So, did you have enough to eat?" she asked him. Gene smiled;
he was stuffed so full that he felt he could barely move. "Good. You are
still growing; you must eat, eat, to grow strong. Come into the light."
She led him to a little table and sat down opposite him.
"You are a very strange young man," she said, and took his arm. "See here,
not a blemish. For everyone is something, a mole, freckle, but for you,
nothing. Show me your teeth." Feeling like a fool, Gene opened his mouth
wide. "So," she said, peering in. "Perfect. Even if I looked at you all
over, I believe I would find nothing. Don't worry, I am not going to do
it. Sit down."
She took a worn deck of cards out of the drawer in the table and began to
shuffle them in her swollen fingers. The cards had designs Gene had never
seen before: men and women in antique costumes, castles, lions, flowers.
"Have you ever had your fortune told? No?" She spread the cards, picked
out one and laid it by itself on the table. "This is you." It was a
young man in tights with a feather in his cap. She shuffled the cards
again, handed them to him. "Cut. No, with your left hand, toward me,
in three piles."
She took the cards back, dealt one on top of the other. "This is what
covers you." Another, crosswise, on top of the first two. "This,
what crosses you." She dealt four more in a cross-shape around the
center. "This is behind you -- your past. This below, this above, this
ahead of you."
She dealt four more cards in a vertical row to the right of the center.
"Here are three major trumps. That is very unusual in reading for a young
person. Their cards are always wishy-washy, not this, not that. For you,
the cards are not wishy-washy. Also, here are many swords, covering you,
crossing you, behind you. You have left a home where you were safe and
protected, is that not so?"
"Yes," said Gene. His throat was dry. He stared with fascination at the
cards, the woman's face, her swollen fingers.
"There was a struggle with an older man. It is not over yet. Ahead of
you -- the Sun. That is wealth; you will be very rich. Do you think
that will make you happy?."
"Yes." Gene smiled.
"No, it will not. Now here again, this is you -- the Hermit. Wealth will
not be enough for you, you will also seek wisdom. The next card is
your life now: you are satisfied, but you will not be for long. Next,
this is what you wish for yourself. It is very little, You will discover
that you want more. And this is your future -- the third major trump. It
is Justice."
"I don't understand what that means."
"Later you will." She gathered the cards, tapped them straight, put them
back into the deck.
"Could you read the cards again, Madame Porgorny? About the older man
you said was against me?"
"Yes, if you wish, and then no more. It is not good to read them too
often." This time she found the knight of swords and put it down, then
shuffled and dealt as before. He recognized two of the cards besides the
first one -- the young man with the feather in his cap, and the man with
the row of cups.
"He wants to settle something that is unfinished. It has to do with you --
here is your card, do you see? He cannot settle it because of money --
either he has not enough or you have too much. Here he is beginning to
plan something, and here" -- she tapped the lowest card -- "this is the
Moon, the card of deception. That is how he will do it. Here before him
is the Fool, he will not succeed." She studied the row of four cards on
the right. "This is the man himself, he has suffered a terrible loss.
He is strong, he has everything on his side. Here is his wish, it is
for dominion, for mastery. And -- this I do not understand -- he will
achieve wholeness."
Chapter Seven
Cooley was disappointed in Los Angeles; he spent a week there, going
to art schools and asking questions, but found no trace of the boy. He
drove north to San Francisco, checked into a hotel. The next morning,
he got a city map at the desk, then went to a phone booth and tore out
the page of the directory that listed "Schools -- Private." Seventeen
of the listings seemed to have something to do with art. In his room,
he called them one by one, found out their hours, and divided them into
districts with the aid of the map.
That afternoon he visited the Academy of Fine and Useful Arts, the Adams
Free Expression Art School, the Beacon Hill Art Centre, and the Co-op
Art School. His procedure was always the same. He told the registrar, "My
name is Andrew McDonnel, the painter -- maybe you've seen my work? Well,
it don't matter. Now I'm looking for a particlar kind of model, very
particlar -- the model agencies, they don't have what I want."
"What kind of a model, Mr. McDonnel?"
"Has to be a young boy, not more than, say, fifteen or sixteen, but he
has to be tall. Now I thought maybe one of your students wouldn't mind
earning a little extra money -- ?"
Then the registrar would open her record book and frown, and say something
like, "No, we don't have anybody that young, I'm afraid. Here's a girl,
but she's seventeen." And Cooley would thank her and say good-bye.
On the second day, af the Devonshire Gallery and Art School, the woman
at the desk told him they had a student, Bob Young, who was sixteen, and
she thought he was tall, although she really couldn't remember. Cooley
asked when he could see the boy.
"Well, he's down here for Oil Painting on Thursday evenings at eight
o'clock -- that's tomorrow. You could come and talk to him then."
Cooley said, "That's funny. I used to know a Young. Wonder if it's the
same one. Does he live on Lincoln Way, by any chance?"
"No, Eleventh Avenue -- four twenty-five Eleventh."
Cooley looked up Youngs in the telephone book, and there was one at
that address. The kid couldn't have been here long enough to get in the
phone book, but there was just a chance that he had got himself adopted
by somebody, or maybe he was living with a family and using their name
at school.
He was across the street having his shoes shined at a quarter to eight the
next day. He watched the students go in, first one, then three together,
then a bunch. About half were college-age kids, the other half middle-aged
women. There was one younger boy -- tall, sallow, black-haired. Cooley
crossed the school off his list.
On Saturday, at the second place he tried, the woman said, "Why, yes,
we do have a boy that age. Let's see, he's fifteen. Stephen Miller,
and he is quite tall."
"Funny, I have an old friend named Miller -- wonder if it's the same one.
Does he live on Lincoln Way?"
"What is it?" asked a loud voice behind him. He turned; it was a tall
woman with an imposing bust and a black ribbon for her glasses; she was
staring at him as if he were a burglar. "We don't give out addresses
of our students," she said in a strong accent. "Why are you asking
such questions?"
Cooley started his set speech all over again, but she interrupted
him. "McDonnel? I have never heard of you. Go away, or I will call the
police." Her voice carried very well; as he left, Cooley could hear her
saying, "Miss Olney, we must be on our guard against perverts of all
descriptions,
constantly
on our guard."
He got into the Buick and thought it over. The kid would lie about his
age, naturally, and fifteen would be about the most he could get away
with. The first class was at one; he had found out that much on the phone,
and it was a quarter after twelve now. He lit a cigar and settled himself
to wait.
After about ten minutes a cab pulled up in front of the school; the driver
went inside. In a moment he was back with a woman, the same one -- the
dragon who had caught him at the desk. She had her coat on, and a funny
hat perched on top of her hair. Cooley's first thought was that he was
in luck -- he could go in and talk to the registrar again and maybe find
out something. Then he thought: where is she going, half an hour before
school starts?
"There you are, ma'am," the driver said.
Madame Porgorny peered out. "This? You are sure?" It was a corner house,
two stories, painted blue, with a porch and a fanlight.
"Twenty-one eighteen," the driver said. "Right there over the door."
Madame Porgorny paid him and walked up the porch steps. Through the glass
pane of the door she could see a little foyer and four mailboxes. She
stepped inside and read the cards. One of them, in careful ballpoint
lettering, said "Stephen Miller, 2A."
She climbed the stairs and knocked. The door opened; the boy stood
there with his shirt half buttoned. "Madame Porgorny," he said. He
looked startled.
"Let me come in, please."
He said awkwardly, "Oh, sure," and stood aside. "I was just getting
ready to come to school. Is something the matter?" Books and magazines
were everywhere, on the couch, two of the three chairs, on the floor.
She turned to face him. "Stephen, the man you spoke of, the one who
wants to do you harm, is he a short man, strong, with a red face?"
The boy had gone pale. "Did you see him?"
"He was at the school, looking for you."
"Oh." He sat down.
"Now you must tell me, Stephen, what does that man want?"
"I think he wants to kill me," the boy muttered.
"The police, would they protect you from him?"
"No. He -- he is the police." He looked at her. "I did something bad,
Madame Porgorny, but I didn't mean to."
"And your parents?"
"They couldn't help me."
"So. Well, then," she said, "I will ask you no more questions, but you
must go away. And you must not go to art school any more, because that
is how he found you." She opened her purse. "Do you have money?"
"Yes."
"Take this anyway, you may need more." She held out fifty dollars. When he
shook his head, she pressed the money into his hand. "Do not be foolish."
"Well -- I'll send it back to you."
"No, you must not. You must not tell me where you are going, and you
must not write to me, or to anyone. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
She looked at him: so tall, but so terribly young. She wanted to hold him
for a moment, kiss him on the forehead, but she knew how much he would
hate that, and then she would have to wipe off the lipstick. "Good-bye
then, Stephen. Be very careful."
"Good-bye, Madame Porgorny."
She went down the stairs more slowly than she had gone up. How could it
happen that a child so young should be hunted like a criminal? And what
would happen to him now, without friends, alone?
As she turned away from the house she saw a big car parked across the
street, and in it a red-faced man. Her heart trembled, and she stopped,
afraid to look again. In God's name, what was she to do? If she went back
into the house he would know, and if she kept walking-- She opened her
purse blindly, fumbled in it to gain time, and the ghost of a plan came
to her. She closed the purse, turned back with her mouth set angrily.
She did not look across the street. He must believe I have left something
behind, she told herself. Let him believe it.
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