article about the ankh. On the floor there were magazines with other pictures, photographs of women with their legs spread, and a jumble of clothes, cups, and glasses.
The room was
ein chazzershtal
, a real pigsty, and Don was just about to let the door swing shut when his gaze fell on something that didn’t really fit in.
On the nightstand, behind a bottle of gin, a sepia-toned photograph was leaning against the wall. It depicted some sort of … church?
He took a step into the mess, snatched the photograph, and took it with him out into the light of the living room.
Out here, he could see that it wasn’t a church in the photograph; it was more like a cathedral. The building had three naves, with crosses on the very tops of their facades. A rose window, which was flanked by two tall spires, formed an arch above the closed side doors.
One side of the picture was somewhat faded, and three blurry figures, one of them the size of a child, stood on the cobblestone square in front of the cathedral. They must have happened to pass by just as the photograph was taken, which must have been a long time ago.
Don carefully bent the paper, which was remarkably rigid. And when he turned it over, he realized that it was actually a postcard.There was no stamp or address on the dotted lines, but printed in the upper left-hand corner was
La Cathédrale Saint Martin d’Ypres
Where there should have been a closing, there was a print of a red mouth, as though someone had given the postcard a kiss with painted lips. And above the kiss, written with blue ink in neat handwriting:
la bouche de mon amour Camille Malraux
le 22 avril
l’homme vindicatif
l’immensité de son désir
les suprêmes adieux
1913
Don turned the card over and looked at the picture again. The cathedral in Ypres, a few years before World War I. And a few isolated lines in French. The twenty-second of April 1913, written to a beloved woman—it reminded him of a poem.
Something rustled suddenly over by the hall and the sunporch, and Don thought it must be the diver coming home, but then the first of twelve strokes sounded from the clock.
He tapped the postcard lightly against his palm, waited for the sound to stop, and then declared that the time was up. When he turned the light off in the living room, he could once again see the starry sky outside the row of windows. Over by the fence there was a clothesline with a few bath towels hanging on it, and down below that, there seemed to be a slope of tall trees.
There was something about these pills that didn’t feel very good, and Don would have preferred to sit in a chair inside the cottage to rest. But out in the car would be better, and perhaps not as obtrusive if the diver were to end up coming home very late.
W hen Don had left the sunporch behind him and was walking back along the gravel path to the gate, he realized that he was still holding the postcard in his hand.
He absentmindedly put it into the torn inner pocket of his jacket, where it slipped all the way down and landed against the bottom seam of the jacket lining. At first he cursed, but then he thought it could just stay there until he met Erik Hall.
In the car, he lowered the back of the seat as far as it would go, and he lay there with his eyes closed and thought about the postcard, but the clonazepam had really made him start to feel thoroughly rotten.
He opened his eyes again and saw that the steering wheel in front of him had been stretched out into a strangely oval shape, and despite the short distance, it was difficult to find the car door so he could let in some air.
His fingers were soft as dough when they finally found the door handle, and he had to throw his whole body against the door to be able to get out. At first he just lay doubled over in the warm air, panting. Then it felt as if his legs began to fill with carbon dioxide, and he had to move somehow. Don forced himself to stand up and found that he had suddenly started to
The room was
ein chazzershtal
, a real pigsty, and Don was just about to let the door swing shut when his gaze fell on something that didn’t really fit in.
On the nightstand, behind a bottle of gin, a sepia-toned photograph was leaning against the wall. It depicted some sort of … church?
He took a step into the mess, snatched the photograph, and took it with him out into the light of the living room.
Out here, he could see that it wasn’t a church in the photograph; it was more like a cathedral. The building had three naves, with crosses on the very tops of their facades. A rose window, which was flanked by two tall spires, formed an arch above the closed side doors.
One side of the picture was somewhat faded, and three blurry figures, one of them the size of a child, stood on the cobblestone square in front of the cathedral. They must have happened to pass by just as the photograph was taken, which must have been a long time ago.
Don carefully bent the paper, which was remarkably rigid. And when he turned it over, he realized that it was actually a postcard.There was no stamp or address on the dotted lines, but printed in the upper left-hand corner was
La Cathédrale Saint Martin d’Ypres
Where there should have been a closing, there was a print of a red mouth, as though someone had given the postcard a kiss with painted lips. And above the kiss, written with blue ink in neat handwriting:
la bouche de mon amour Camille Malraux
le 22 avril
l’homme vindicatif
l’immensité de son désir
les suprêmes adieux
1913
Don turned the card over and looked at the picture again. The cathedral in Ypres, a few years before World War I. And a few isolated lines in French. The twenty-second of April 1913, written to a beloved woman—it reminded him of a poem.
Something rustled suddenly over by the hall and the sunporch, and Don thought it must be the diver coming home, but then the first of twelve strokes sounded from the clock.
He tapped the postcard lightly against his palm, waited for the sound to stop, and then declared that the time was up. When he turned the light off in the living room, he could once again see the starry sky outside the row of windows. Over by the fence there was a clothesline with a few bath towels hanging on it, and down below that, there seemed to be a slope of tall trees.
There was something about these pills that didn’t feel very good, and Don would have preferred to sit in a chair inside the cottage to rest. But out in the car would be better, and perhaps not as obtrusive if the diver were to end up coming home very late.
W hen Don had left the sunporch behind him and was walking back along the gravel path to the gate, he realized that he was still holding the postcard in his hand.
He absentmindedly put it into the torn inner pocket of his jacket, where it slipped all the way down and landed against the bottom seam of the jacket lining. At first he cursed, but then he thought it could just stay there until he met Erik Hall.
In the car, he lowered the back of the seat as far as it would go, and he lay there with his eyes closed and thought about the postcard, but the clonazepam had really made him start to feel thoroughly rotten.
He opened his eyes again and saw that the steering wheel in front of him had been stretched out into a strangely oval shape, and despite the short distance, it was difficult to find the car door so he could let in some air.
His fingers were soft as dough when they finally found the door handle, and he had to throw his whole body against the door to be able to get out. At first he just lay doubled over in the warm air, panting. Then it felt as if his legs began to fill with carbon dioxide, and he had to move somehow. Don forced himself to stand up and found that he had suddenly started to
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