Room 19

He turned toward Theo, who after a stunned moment sank down on the hard chair, his head in his hands.
   "Where is she?"
   "Here." The word has barely stopped resounding before Theo is on his feet. Theo is barely on his feet before Tibor gives him a short but sharp push backwards.
   "But I have to—"
   "You have to let her sleep. She almost never does. I hear her pacing at all hours of the night. She leaves her shoes off, because she is kind, but she walks. ..."
   Theo is incredulous. "You've talked to her. You've seen her. You've—" raising his arm before he's completed the thought. But Tibor is quick. Takes his wrist.
   "I have done nothing. We walked today. Talked tonight. She went to sleep just a while ago."
   "She was here? I have to see her." He moves toward the door. Again Tibor prevents him.
   He shakes his head. "Let her sleep. You have done enough I think. I will tell her where you are. You will see her tomorrow." Theo nods like a weary, obedient child. Tibor looks into his eyes. "You will see her tomorrow."
   Theo nods again. Then he sees the two glasses on the nightstand and sinks back onto the chair. "I don't deserve her. I don't deserve anything," he says. He wants to sleep on the floor in the cold hallway outside her door. To prove to her—to give her an example of the agonies he's been through. That he too has paced. Has wandered the continent as if possessed, chased. Has not slept.
   But Tibor is showing him out, taking him to the stairs, walking back, strangely proud that he did not push him down.

   Theo goes back to his room, on a gray diagonal side street. Past crystal shops and travel agencies. He tries to sleep, wants to dream of her. Instead he is troubled by visions of her crying, her eyes rimmed with a red so red it looks like makeup, like stage blood. He sees her walking, until her feet are bleeding. She is wearing something white; the hem of it is dragging on the ground. Every time he closes his eyes he sees her looking at him. Not accusing, but tired, sad. Empty.
   Theo gets up and puts his coat back on and goes out into the last hours of the chill bright night.
   In the courtyard of Saint Mary's, he kneels on the stones until morning.

   Tibor rinsed out the glasses, finished the last of the small bottle and slept the dreamless sleep that one would expect of the solitary and just.

   Isabel dreamed that night of walking on blisters shaped like capital Es, and afterwards woke up hungry.

from The Book of the Living