Man Walks Into a Room by Nicole Krauss

against disaster. Samson remembered a boy he once knew, a friend of his, who had a brother with no immune system. He had to wear a plastic suit, like a bubble, all the time so that no germs could reach him. They kept him in a hospital in San Francisco and once he went with his friend to see the brother, called Duke. The mother drove them and during the car ride they crouched in the backseat and shot at passing cars with empty water guns. When they got to the hospital Duke was waiting. He had been told they were coming, and he had a huge, bucktooth grin on his face behind the plastic helmet. His mother hugged him through the heavy synthetic fabric. Duke just closed his eyes. Samson couldn’t tell if this kid liked it or not, if maybe he was so used to not being touched in the bubble that even the mother’s hug was awkward and a little threatening, like the affection of a huge dog. She brought him a few presents and after he ripped them open they all played together. Whenever anyone bumped into him there was the rustle of synthetic material or the strange, inhuman knock of something hitting hard plastic. When it was time to leave, Duke stood in the hallway waving to them with a grin and sad eyes, watching them walk away.
    When he looked up, Ray was watching him curiously. A telephone rang somewhere in the house, and when Ray switched on a lamp the bulb made a faint pop and flared. He walked down the hallway, andSamson heard him pick up the receiver and talk quietly. He felt the strangeness of being there in Los Angeles, in Ray’s house, on the other end of the phone calls he’d received over the past month. Macrobiotic: eat simple grain-based food and you experience a reversal of health deterioration. He’d read about it in a health magazine. In the macrobiotic view, disease starts as fatigue and ends as cancer or mental illness. Grains, the one universal fact all our ancestors shared. Not all seeds are grains.
    Ray came back into the room. “So what do you say we talk in the morning? Like I said, no strings attached as far as the plane ticket is concerned. If nothing else you can turn it into a sun-and-sea vacation. Fuck, take the convertible. Go to the beach.” The occasional curse that flecked Ray’s speech was like the last surviving vice of a reformed man; a vague hint of immorality that made him seem less holy, more human.
    “I don’t know if I know how to drive.”
    “Right, of course. Well, we can call a cab.”
    Samson followed Ray up the wide, flat stairs suspended from the ceiling by steel rods. The guest room was at the end of the hall and looked out over the side of the house, onto a swimming pool with dead leaves floating on the surface.
    “Here’s the bathroom,” Ray was saying. “There should be towels.” He flipped on the light.
    Samson nodded and smiled. He felt a little rush of tenderness for Ray Malcolm and had to suppress the urge to grasp him in a hug.
    “Thanks.”
    “I’m glad to have you here, Samson. You sleep well and I’ll see you at breakfast. Wake you at eight?”
    “Okay.”
    “Good then. Good night.” Ray began to shut the door.
    “Ray?”
    “Yes?”
    “I was wondering, that first night you called me? After the football game, remember?”
    “Sure.”
    “Did you call me from here?”
    “I think I did, yes.”
    “Someone came over, remember? Was it someone else who lost his memory?”
    “No. Actually it was a guy who has a memory that interests me. Something pretty extraordinary.”
    “Oh.”
    “Get some sleep. Don’t worry, we’ll talk.”
    Samson took a shower and air-dusted himself with the talcum powder he found in the medicine cabinet. He towel-dried his hair—it was longish by now, falling in his eyes so that he often had to wing it back. He felt along his scalp for the scar.
    He read
Rolling Stone
cover-to-cover and then turned off the light. He didn’t exactly know what he was doing here, in this strange house overlooking Los Angeles. Perhaps he