Mr. Apology

ONE

1.

Harrison looked at the red light that glowed on his answering machine. Without taking off his wet coat, he sat down on the edge of the bed and, as if hypnotized, gazed at it. The light meant there had been an incoming message, maybe more than one. So soon, he thought. He glanced at Madeleine, who was shaking her damp hair from side to side, drying the strands in the corners of a towel. He wondered why he felt so suddenly nervous, so apprehensive. A message on an answering machine from some anonymous voice out there—wasn’t that what he wanted to hear in any case? Wasn’t that precisely what the whole thing was about? He rubbed his hands together. Then he raised one hand and let it hover above the PLAYBACK button.

Well? Madeleine said. She came and sat alongside him on the bed, curling her legs up under her body. The damp towel lay in her lap. She took his hand and squeezed it, as if for encouragement. Aren’t you going to listen, Harry?

He smiled. It’s weird, he said. It’s like when you want to start a new canvas, a new painting, and you hold the brush in the air for a long time because you’re not certain you’re going to get it right; you’re conscious of all the things that are going to go wrong—

Stage fright, she said.

Something like that. He touched the PLAYBACK button without pressing it. He stared along the floor, looking at the little pile of posters, the ones they hadn’t had time to put up anywhere yet. He remembered going around the streets with Madeleine only a few hours ago, walking in the rain, moving like fugitives through the darkness, sticking the posters up wherever they could. The windows of stores, phone booths, lampposts, the bus terminal, Grand Central Station—anywhere people might find them and read them. He had enjoyed the surreptitiousness of it all, making sure nobody saw them: Secrecy was the most important aspect of everything. Anonymity was the core of it all. On Lexington Avenue he thought somebody had spotted him—a little guy in a store doorway—but then he’d realized the guy was a drunk sleeping off his alcoholic intake. Another time, near Times Square, he was sure a passing patrol car had caught him, but the cops didn’t even stop to ask questions. Now he reached down and picked up one of the posters, which was damp against his fingertips. He looked at the words:

ATTENTION

CRIMINALS

BLUE COLLAR, WHITE COLLAR

YOU HAVE WRONGED PEOPLE. IT IS TO THE PEOPLE YOU MUST APOLOGIZE. NOT TO THE STATE. NOT TO GOD. GET YOUR MISDEEDS OFF YOUR CHEST!

CALL MR. APOLOGY (212)555-2748

THE IDEA OF APOLOGY IS TO PROVIDE A WAY FOR PEOPLE TO APOLOGIZE FOR THEIR WRONGS AGAINST PEOPLE WITHOUT JEOPARDIZING THEMSELVES. MR. APOLOGY WILL AUTOMATICALLY TAPE-RECORD YOUR ANONYMOUS PHONE CALL. DO NOT IDENTIFY YOURSELF. CALL FROM A PAY PHONE TO PREVENT TRACING. DESCRIBE IN DETAIL WHAT YOU HAVE DONE AND HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT IT. WHEN ENOUGH STATEMENTS HAVE BEEN COLLECTED THEY WILL BE PLAYED TO THE PUBLIC AT A TIME AND PLACE TO BE ADVERTISED. THIS IS A PRIVATE EXPERIMENT. ITS SOLE PURPOSE IS TO PROVIDE A NEW AVENUE OF COMMUNICATION. IT IS NOT ASSOCIATED IN ANY WAY WITH ANY POLICE, GOVERNMENTAL, RELIGIOUS, OR OTHER ORGANIZATION.

WHEN YOU CALL YOU WILL BE ALONE WITH A TAPE RECORDER.

Harry let the handbill slide from his fingers.

I played my part in this too, Madeleine said. Speaking as your partner, I’d like to listen to what’s on that tape. I didn’t exactly scurry around the city for nothing. If you won’t press the button, I will. My curiosity is killing me.

Harrison turned his face to look at her. Nerves, he thought. Simple uncomplicated nerves, like the kind you always felt on a project when you weren’t sure if you’d considered everything, if you’d taken everything into account. You get so wrapped up in the central focus of things you’re not certain you’ve had time to look around the edges. He reached out and touched her wrist. How did she manage to look so good with her hair streaked and wet? Okay, he said. Here goes. And he pushed the PLAYBACK button.

Nothing.

There was a short silence, then the click of a receiver being put down and the long sound of a dial tone. Nothing else. No voice, no apology.

Madeleine smiled. I guess somebody out there got cold feet, Harry.

You’ve got to expect that kind of thing, he said. A little disappointment, an unsettled moment. He tried to imagine somebody inside a phone booth, dialing the Apology number, then becoming hesitant and confused and hanging up. Embarrassed, maybe.

Madeleine said, I wonder what I’d do if I came across your poster and I had something on my mind. I wonder if I’d like the idea of calling a certain number and talking into a tape recorder. I think I’d get the strange feeling that there was really somebody listening to me, somebody sitting there and looking smug.…

The dial tone stopped. There was another click.

And then:

HI, I SAW YOUR NUMBER SO I THOUGHT I’D CALL.… I GOT SOMETHING THAT BOTHERS ME.… IT’S NO BIG DEAL, YOU UNDERSTAND, IT’S JUST THAT I’VE BEEN STEALING BREAD FROM MY MOTHER AND SHE DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT IT, BUT WHAT REALLY BUGS ME IS THAT SHE KEEPS GIVING ME MONEY. I MEAN SHE’S REALLY GENEROUS, SHE’S KIND, AND SHE THINKS THE WORLD REVOLVES AROUND ME.… I GET GUILTY AS HELL ABOUT IT. I’M SUPPOSED TO BE GOING TO SCHOOL BUT I KEEP CUTTING CLASSES AND SHE HASN’T FOUND OUT ABOUT IT YET AND I GET GUILTY AS HELL ABOUT THAT TOO. THAT’S IT. THANKS FOR LISTENING.

The message ended.

Harrison pressed the STOP button and looked at Madeleine. He had the weird feeling of having eavesdropped on a stranger’s life; it was as if he had stood with his ear pressed to a door and listened to the mumble of voices from the room beyond. Faceless voices. Thanks for listening. He watched Madeleine get up from the bed and walk to the window. Dawn was already in the sky, faint grey lines running like spidery cracks through the dark.

The first Apology message, he thought. A kid who’s cheating on his mother. A kid adored by his mother and who’s feeling bad because he’s a walking disappointment. He stood up and went towards Madeleine, slipping his arm around her waist. He looked at the sky a moment, the makings of a watery morning. Faint rainslicks slid down the pane. The first Apology message—the realization excited him suddenly. The idea that his handbill had inspired somebody to call the number and talk with his answering machine pleased him. Connections, tiny threads: A kid feels depressed, guilty, wants to get something off his chest, comes across the poster, goes inside a phone booth, dials the number, talks.

I feel a little relieved, Madeleine said.

Like how?

The message. She shrugged. It’s like I expected to hear the voice of a mass murderer or something. Something awful. I don’t really know. And what we get is a poor kid who’s ripping off his mother.

He needed to talk to somebody, Harrison said. "Which is the reason behind Apology. The poor kid needed somebody. Something."

Are you going to see if there are any other messages? she asked.

Sure. He turned away from the window and reached out to the answering machine. He pushed the PLAYBACK button again and waited.

I SAW YOUR POSTER.… I WAS OVER IN GRAND CENTRAL AND I JUST HAPPENED TO SEE IT THERE.… I THINK IT’S A TERRIFIC IDEA.… I JUST LEFT HOME. I WALKED OUT. I JUST WALKED OUT ON MY WIFE AND DAUGHTER. I DIDN’T GIVE THEM ANY WARNING OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT; I JUST WOKE UP AND I WAS SICK TO MY HEART WITH EVERYTHING SO I TOOK SOME CASH OUT OF MY SAVINGS ACCOUNT AND I CAUGHT A TRAIN.… I DIDN’T TELL THEM WHERE I WAS GOING. I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHY I’M IN NEW YORK.… I’M SORRY.…

The message ended.

Madeleine said, Jesus, that’s sad.

Harrison nodded. He was trying to imagine—not the face of the caller, not the emotions of the man—but the sudden emptiness of the lives of his wife and daughter, how they’d wake up and find the guy gone, how they’d wonder where he was; if he didn’t go back home, if he didn’t contact them, he’d become a statistic in the ledger of Missing Persons, a casualty of the human accounting system. Yeah, it is sad, he said.

Madeleine sat down on the edge of the bed again. Did you expect to get that kind of call, Harry? I mean, what did you really expect?

Harrison shrugged. He pressed the STOP button; the machine came to a halt. What did you expect, Harry? What kind of voices, what kind of messages? I’m not sure, he told her. I didn’t really figure on domestic crises, I guess. I imagined the callers would be more inclined to criminal acts—and I don’t really count stealing from your mother’s purse a criminal act. I don’t count walking out on your family either. It’s pretty damn sad, but it’s not criminal.

Madeleine laid her head against his shoulder. For a moment Harrison stared through the open bedroom door across the dark space of the loft; he could see the window that faced the street. A slight dawn wind had sprung up, carrying rain, knocking against the panes of glass.

She said, It’s like being a fisherman, Harry. I imagine you trawling with this big net and you’re catching all kinds of things inside it and you’re bound to land your criminal types sooner or later.

Harrison glanced at the answering machine. He was longing to turn it back on again, and at the same time, like some miser counting pennies, he wanted to dole the messages out sparingly to himself. A kid who steals his mother’s money, a guy who just walks away from his family. Other lives, the misdemeanors of strangers, the tiny acts of betrayal and theft that constitute human behavior. He shut his eyes a moment. What he remembered was the vague origins of the Apology Project, the small perceptions that had led to the installation of an answering machine and the printing of handbills. What he remembered was discussing it all with Madeleine weeks and weeks ago, trying to assuage her puzzlement, settle her bewilderment, win her over to the point where she understood what it was he was trying to do.

I know it sounds pretty strange, Maddy, but it begins with graffiti, graffiti I saw one time on the side of these boxcars. Then I saw the same kind of things in the subway or written in the yard of the school where I teach. And the main impression I got was of all this pent-up violence, if that makes sense. So I wondered about that. It was the same kind of criminal violence I felt when I saw a group of bums standing around just savagely kicking this other bum who was bleeding all over the sidewalk. I wondered about that too. Then one day I was walking down near Battery Park and I saw this derelict guy stroking a bird, a pigeon maybe, and he was touching it lovingly like he really cared about it when all of a sudden he bit its goddamn head off. Just like that. Wham. Out of nowhere. All these acts of violence. Then this kid in my class was caught trying to rape a seven-year-old girl and I had him pegged as an okay kind of kid, pretty studious, decent, and he said something to the cops I’ve never quite forgotten—he said, I wished I’d had somebody who’d listened to me. And somehow these things came together in my mind, if you can understand that. It was just like all these tiny connections fused together in one bright explosion and I came up with the idea of Mr. Apology. There’s so much shit going on out there and there’s nobody prepared to listen to the people who are doing all this shit, so I thought about Apology, I thought about a kind of confession line where people could call in and get stuff off their minds without having to be afraid of reprisals.

Madeleine had looked at him for a long time after that before she’d asked: Where does it connect with art, Harry? Where does it connect with your art?

He remembered suddenly that they’d been lying in bed during this conversation; they had just made love and she’d had her head cradled against his shoulder and the palm of one hand spread out across his chest. He’d said: It connects at the point where the tapes are made public, Maddy. Don’t you see it? I put the voices together after I’ve edited them and I play them in some public place—

Harry, I need to hear it a little clearer—

Okay, imagine the human voice as art. You’re too stuck on pictures and statues and things like that. Why couldn’t the sounds of people confessing to their crimes be considered art? Music is art; so is drama. Why can’t my assembled confessions be thought of in the same way?

She had shrugged then and rolled over on her side, propping herself up on an elbow and smiling at him. Let me get it straight, Harry. One, you’re offering a kind of human service. You might say it’s a social service of a kind, right? Two, you see this as a kind of art form. Am I on the right beam, Spock?

You’re close enough.

Why criminals?

Why not? It was the idea of violence that sparked the project. It doesn’t have to stop at physical violence, does it? It can go the whole spectrum of crime. Embezzlers, say. Burglars. Confidence tricksters. Anybody with something lying heavy on his mind.

Maybe she’d been convinced. Maybe not. But at least she’d been pleased enough to help him in preparing the handbills and stalking the dark streets to paste them up. At least she was on his side. If she didn’t exactly share his enthusiasm, at least she wasn’t skeptical, scornful, critical of the whole notion. Now, as he looked at her, he was conscious of some distance in her eyes, as if she were still trying to work something out inside.

What’s on your mind? he asked.

I was just thinking. This whole thing’s so different from what you’ve done in the past, that’s all. She lay flat across the bed. Her hair was beginning to dry, curling as it did so. It’s pretty far removed from the canvases.

She was referring to the pile of unfinished canvases that lay stacked against the walls of the loft. His yellow phase. Everything had been yellow back then—skies, suns, oceans, tides, even the whites of the human eye. It had given the world a jaundiced appearance. Who could explain that now? Who could explain why one color had dominated everything else in the past? The answer was lost to him. Old works didn’t interest him in any case—they might have been the creations of a stranger. They might have been done by someone who’d trespassed in the loft more than a year ago and painted all those canvases while Harrison was out teaching high school art history to pay the rent. You couldn’t identify any longer. Besides, the Apology Project was what captivated him now.

He reached out to the answering machine, touching the PLAYBACK button. He gazed at Madeleine’s face as he listened; she had closed her eyes. The eyelids were glossy, frail; under the skin you could see the thinnest network of veins. He lightly touched the lids: Sometimes you had to marvel at the frailty of other lives, the way they appeared, in certain kinds of light, as insubstantial and yet rich.

WHO THE FUCK YOU THINK YOU ARE, ANYHOW? HUH? I MEAN, JUST WHO THE FUCK YOU IMAGINE YOU ARE, MAN? HEY, YOU LISTENING TO ME? YOU LISTENING TO ME RIGHT NOW? I GOT GOD ON MY SIDE. YOU UNNERSTAND ME? I’M ONE OF GODS VIGILANTES. I SAY YOU GOTTA BE IN LEAGUE WITH FUCKING SATAN, MAN.

The voice stopped. The message was over.

Madeleine said, "Now that’s what I call really sad, Harry. That’s worse than the guy walking out on his family."

Harrison didn’t say anything for a time. One of God’s vigilantes. The sound of the deranged. It was bound to happen. You were sure to drag in some of the crazies in that trawling net Maddy had mentioned. It was unavoidable. He tried to imagine the mind of this caller, the curious disjointed perceptions, the way he must walk the streets with the umbrella of God perched over his shoulders. He would see satanic flames issue from the doorways of bars and poolhalls and movie houses. What the hell, it was out there, it was out there in its endless varieties and intricate patterns. Dark figures in doorways and frightened faces in desolate subways and the incoherent mutterings of panhandlers that suggested private worlds of sheer insanity. And Madeleine had said it was really sad. He pushed the STOP button.

Madeleine said, When I hear somebody like that, somebody demented, I’m glad there’s no way anybody can associate you with that telephone number, Harry.

Harrison nodded. It was true, a necessary precaution he’d thought about from the very beginning. The telephone number on the Apology handbill wasn’t listed in any directory. Nobody could trace his name from the number. It gave him a certain immunity, a distance from the callers—Madeleine had once called it a safety factor, but he was more inclined to think of it as a preservation of the idea of anonymity. If he didn’t know the names of the callers, why should they know his identity? It was important to the whole project. He looked at the answering machine for a second. Briefly, it appeared to have a life of its own—an electronic life suggested by the red CALL button and the green READY button, which might have been two small unblinking eyes. He reached out and touched the machine, a squat oblong box with artificial walnut veneer and metal trim. Then he turned towards Madeleine and stroked her hair, which was slightly damp even now. She was still lying with her eyes closed, a faint smile on her lips.

Did I ever stop to thank you? he said.

Thank me?

For your help with this project. Your support.

Harry, she said. It comes easily.

Easily? I lay some off-the-wall idea on you and you don’t have any doubts?

She turned over on her side, facing him. I didn’t say I didn’t have any doubts exactly. She paused a moment. I have times of what you might call quiet misgivings. Little butterflies.

Like what?

Oh, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s the way I was raised, Harry. Something to do with the commandment thou shalt not eavesdrop.

You don’t really think about it that way, do you? I mean, it’s more than just some kinky intrigue about other people’s deep secrets—

She touched the side of his face. Her hand was warm against his skin. I know it is. I know it is. And I know you care about what you’re doing here.…

He rose from the bed. He’d forgotten to take off his wet overcoat. Now he slipped it over the back of a chair, then went to the stereo that was beneath the window and put a record on the turntable. Harry closed his eyes a moment, waiting for the music to touch him. Unashamedly romantic, a Schumann piano quintet. He liked the structure of the piece, the organization, even the lingering sentimentality. Once, he’d thought about playing this music behind the sound of his recorded greeting on the answering machine.

HELLO, THIS IS MR. APOLOGY. APOLOGY IS NOT ASSOCIATED WITH THE POLICE OR WITH ANY OTHER ORGANIZATION. RATHER, IT’S A WAY TO TELL PEOPLE WHAT YOU’VE DONE WRONG AND HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT IT. ALL STATEMENTS RECEIVED BY APOLOGY MAY BE PLAYED BACK TO THE PUBLIC, SO DO NOT IDENTIFY YOURSELF. TALK FOR AS LONG AS YOU WANT. THANK YOU.

In the end he’d decided against the music: If you had just held up a liquor store and shot the proprietor by accident, if you’d just had sex with your own daughter or whatever, did you really need to hear, the music of Schumann or anybody else for that matter?

He went back across the room to the machine, pressed the PLAYBACK button, sat down on the bed again. There was another voice, a monotone rumbling out of the electronic circuits of the device. A wheezy, asthmatic rattle.

SOMETIMES I GET THIS URGE TO GO INSIDE ONE OF THEM BARS WHERE NIGGERS SIT AROUND … AND I WANNA TAKE OUT A MOTHERFUCKIN’ GRENADE, AND I WANNA TOSS IT RIGHT IN THE CENTER OF THIS BAR AND JUST WATCH … WATCH THEM BIG FUCKIN’ BLACK FACES GO UP IN SMOKE … HA HA HA.… I’LL DO IT ONE DAY, FOR SURE. I’LL REALLY DO IT … AND I AIN’T GONNA APOLOGIZE FOR IT NEITHER.

The message ended. Harry pressed the STOP button and looked at Madeleine. Heavy, he said.

Somebody in need of treatment, Harry, Madeleine said. Somebody in need of a cushioned room.

Your average bigot. He shrugged.

You don’t think that guy might be capable of doing what he says he wants to do?

If he wanted to do it, would he tell me about it?

On the principle that the guy who intends to commit suicide doesn’t sit around calling his pals to tell them about it?

The same thing, sure.

I don’t know, she said. Something in that voice gave me the creeps, Harry. The wheeze. The way the guy seemed to be sucking air. Like he was extremely angry—

Or extremely emphysematic.

Madeleine sat up, her back against the wall. She stared at her fingernails a moment. There’s a flaw in Apology. Right there. You never have any way of knowing if somebody’s lying to you.

I don’t think it matters. The imagined act of violence is just as interesting as the realized. I don’t really see any difference—

I do. It’s the difference between a bunch of black guys sitting around peacefully drinking their beer and that same bunch lying around with broken heads.

Harrison put his arm around her shoulder. He tried to imagine the face of the last caller, tried to visualize some brutal face inside a phone booth, shoulders hunched, skin pale, the mouth slack, the eyes mindless. He could see the dim light of a phone booth at the end of some drab street shining grimly in the rain. Maybe a guy like that only flirted around the edges of violence; maybe Apology provided him with an outlet, a source of release, something necessary that prevented him from following through on his threat. He could talk his violence away; he could go home and fall asleep, perhaps pleased he’d managed to tell somebody—even a recording device—about the hatred he felt. True or false? Harry still wasn’t sure if it mattered whether the caller was on the level or otherwise; from the very outset he’d been aware of the fact that he was going to get a high percentage of liars, bluffers, big talkers on the tapes. Maybe it was enough just to hear the inherent violence in the voice. He lay back alongside Madeleine, closing his eyes. He was tired now; he felt cold. He was aware of Madeleine shifting around and he opened his eyes a little way to look at her. She was touching the answering machine, pressing the PLAYBACK button.

Let’s just check and see if there are any more, she said.

She’s into this, he thought. She’s getting into this project the way I am. He closed his eyes again, listened to the hum of the tape, waited. He was aware of the Schumann filling the small room. Rising, falling, the hammering of fingers on the keys of a piano. An intricate, lyrical moment: It seemed to reach out and ensnare him. A strange juxtaposition to the threat of violence.

APOLOGY … I’M A COP.… YOU THINK IT’S STRANGE. A COP CALLING YOU LIKE THIS? I DON’T HAVE A WHOLE LOT ON MY MIND EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT I’VE BEEN TAKING MONEY FOR THE LAST FEW MONTHS FROM THESE GUYS THAT OPERATE A NUMBERS GAME.… IT’S THE SAME OLD STORY, I GUESS. I GOT DEBTS. I GOT VARIOUS THINGS I NEED. I CAN’T MAKE THE ENDS MEET.… THIS JUST SEEMED LIKE AN EASY WAY TO MAKE SOME EXTRA BREAD … ONLY I DON’T SLEEP NIGHTS, APOLOGY.… I JUST WANTED TO TELL SOMEBODY.… NOW I FEEL GODDAMN EMBARRASSED.…

The line went dead. Madeleine stopped the tape.

It figures, she said.

What does?

Cops.

Harrison smiled. You don’t like cops, do you?

I can’t put them high on my list of favorite civil servants. They always spend too much time dealing out traffic tickets and not enough time doing the real things. Like catching muggers. Rapists. Killers. I always get the impression that they’re writing tickets with one hand and hauling in crumpled bills with the other.

A cop, he thought. He opened his eyes. You know what pleases me, Maddy? It’s got nothing to do with the last message in itself. What pleases me is the whole response so far. The Apology thing is really touching people. People are reading the handbills. They’re reacting to them. And I think we’re going to get a broad spectrum of callers before we’re through. He felt suddenly elated. He slapped the palms of his hands against his knees. It was going to be a success, it was going to work, it was going to work better than he’d ever imagined—the next step was to convince the people on the grants committee that this was a project worth funding. His elation dissolved a little when he thought of going to the interview and selling Apology to a committee of hardassed professors. He’d never exactly been at ease with academic types. It always seemed to him that they occupied a different world, breathed a distilled kind of oxygen.

He said, The day after tomorrow.

What about it?

Professor Hutchinson and his gang.

I haven’t uncrossed my fingers in days, Harry.

He looked at her. I don’t know what I feel about it. Somewhere between optimism and pessimism.

You’ll get lucky. You just go in there thinking positive.

Pass me my Dale Carnegie.

Seriously. She nudged his shoulder. "Positive thinking is the answer to a bunch of things. Just go in there and pretend you’re not really begging, just tell yourself that you’re doing them a favor by asking for their money."

I’ll try. I promise I’ll try.

Smile a lot. Look them straight in the eye. Works wonders.

Yes, coach. Sure, coach.

She laughed at him. She lay with her face across his chest, her hands pressed to his sides. He tried to dismiss the idea of the grants committee; you could lose yourself quite easily in Madeleine, he thought, in making love to her. You could slide down into that cool uncomplicated world where you didn’t have to worry about voices on a tape or professors holding pursestrings or teaching high school to make the rent payments on a loft or entertain concerns about where, from the viewpoint of thirty-five, your future was headed. He shut his eyes and buried his face in her hair, placed his hands against the base of her spine, feeling for that strange spot in her back where a single touch upon some sensitive grouping of nerves and muscles made her shiver and laugh. He found it and she moaned, trying at the same time to twist away from him. I can’t explain it, Harry. It’s something like a ticklish feeling and something like a huge turn-on, she’d told him once. The mysterious quality of her body. The delicate smoothness of her skin. The moisture that lay faintly on her lips. She kissed him, then drew her face away. There was a light in her eyes; it was like a certain light he’d seen once underwater when a spike of sun had pierced the surface and illuminated the tiles of the pool in the manner of a revelation. He touched her breasts, moving his fingers slowly between the buttons of her blouse, undoing them, trying not to be clumsy. The breasts were warm, small, tight. He moved the palm of his hand gently against a nipple. And then he could feel her hand move across his stomach; he could hear the faint rattle of his belt buckle as she worked it open. The room was silent now; the music had stopped. She made a strange sound as he entered her—a sound both detached and intimate, as if she had come to exist in a world where opposites might dissolve. Detached, intimate. He moved inside her, knowing he couldn’t hold on, knowing that her excitement was carrying him along, feeling the sensation of orgasm begin somewhere at the base of his spine and flow like a hot tributary to his groin. She held him tightly against her, arching her back upwards in one sudden thrust. He shut his eyes very tight. It wasn’t between his legs now; it hadn’t anything to do with his body—the sensation was rooted in the dark center of his brain, a burning, fiery, tantalizing feeling that rose the way a firework might. And then he was silent, his face pressed to the side of her neck. This silence, this mutual quiet—as if a tent had been erected over them, a soundproofed cocoon—always filled him with a sense of wonder. Was this love? He wasn’t altogether certain how you defined love. What it was you were supposed to feel. Sometimes it seemed to him that love was a boundary you crossed, a frontier you negotiated, then you were lost in strange, imposing vistas. Sometimes, too, it seemed love was learned behavior, a fact of your life you grew to accept as soon as you understood it.

He had gone through his thirty-five years without a special commitment to any one woman. There had been several, of course, but they had come and gone, each one playing a mournful second fiddle to his work. Each of these women had shared one common attribute: He had been able to forget them when it came time to doing his work; he had been able to relegate them from his mind to the point where it always surprised him to find that they still lingered in the loft. He looked at Madeleine now and wondered if this one might turn out to be different: Was she going to slip into his life to the point of necessity? He also wondered why he didn’t find this question laughable. She had qualities he liked—she was truthful, loyal, and yet at the same time she could be critical. She enjoyed being involved in his work—unlike some of the past entries who had obviously resented what he did.

He rolled away from her, one leg still stretched across her body. He ran his index finger down her side, the nail lightly touching her skin. Then he turned over on his back and gazed at the ceiling. There was the sudden sound of the telephone ringing. Once, twice—then the answering machine kicked in. He could hear his own recorded message, then the beep, after which there was a period of quiet.

The Apology line never closes, Madeleine said.

I SAW YOUR POSTER DOWN AT THE PORT AUTHORITY BUS TERMINAL, YOU KNOW? WELL, I DON’T KNOW WHY I’M CALLING.… REALLY I SHOULD BE CALLING MY PARENTS.… I JUST RAN AWAY FROM HOME.… HELLO HELLO HELLO. IS ANYBODY THERE?… I JUST WISH MY PARENTS HAD LOVED ME A BIT BETTER.… GOODBYE.

A young girl’s voice. Hard to guess the age. Thirteen, fourteen maybe. Something in the sound of the voice touched Harrison—the desolation, the loneliness. I just wish my parents had loved me a bit better.

I feel sorry for her, he said.

Me too. The poor kid. It makes you wish you could’ve just picked up the telephone and talked to her, doesn’t it?

Then it wouldn’t be the Apology line, Harrison said.

I guess. Madeleine took his hand, pressing it between her own. Then she lay back and pulled a sheet up over her body. Harrison took off the rest of his clothes and settled down beside her. Fatigue was a monster. Something black circling his brain. He covered a yawn with his hand.

Tired? she asked.

Pretty beat, he said. Beat and satisfied; delighted by the fact that the handbills had already prompted a number of calls.

It’s damned hard to go to sleep when you know you’ve got to get up in a few hours to go to work, Madeleine said. She looked at her wristwatch and then unstrapped it. It’s almost time to get up now.

She put her arms around him. He watched her face; with her eyes shut there was something peaceful, something timeless, in her expression. He reached out and turned the volume control of the answering machine low. He was too tired now to listen to any more incoming calls. He would check the tape again when he woke.

2.

The man in the grey homburg hat and black overcoat passed under the sign carrying his name and stepped inside the gallery. The little bell that rang above the door had a somehow satisfying sound to it—it was like the discreet note of a muted cash register. As he undid the buttons of his coat he gazed at the midmorning traffic stuttering along 57th Street; it was a damp dog of a Manhattan morning, clouds so heavy and low they appeared to engulf the tops of skyscrapers. He rubbed his cold hands together and turned towards his small office at the rear of the gallery. Ah, the obstacle course—if he could make it back there without having to see any of the paintings that hung on the walls it would indeed be a small victory. They made him bilious; they churned his stomach. For a moment he didn’t even want to bring the socalled artist’s name to mind. Something Japanese. Each vast canvas echoed the last one, predicted the next. Each depicted a rainbow—not the kind of rainbow one might encounter in the natural world, but great arcs of somber colors, browns and blacks and purples, joyless things at the end of which you would expect to find a pot, not of gold, but lead. He stepped inside his office. The girl was already there, straightening papers on his desk. He hung his hat and coat on the hat rack and smiled at her. She reminded him of Ingres’s Comtesse d’Hausonville—the same slightly rounded face, the wide eyes, the hair center-parted