On the sidewalk opposite, over the ghetto street on Witherspoon, you could see the cemetery, the graves nearly on the sidewalk, headstones from the Civil War era and others from earlier and even earlier still. Where have they gone, Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom, and Charley, he of weak will, he of strong arm, the clown, the drunkard, the fighter? That was what the headstones said, along with their dates (x–2–1798) and their photographs or engravings or daguerreotypes or drawings in cameos and little glass urns. Young faces, expressions of surprise, frozen smiles in white ovals behind glass and golden frames, alongside metal vases holding fresh flowers. Where have they gone, Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie, and Edith, she of tender heart, she of simple soul, the lively one, the proud one, the happy one? A tall man of serene bearing, wearing overalls and rubber boots, was sweeping away the snow and clearing off the graves with a round-toothed rake. I moved away like a specter in the muddy light that came down from the trees. Where has he gone, the violinist, Jones, who gambled with life at the age of ninety, his chest bared, defying the frost? (x–7–1912).
The clock with Roman numerals at the jewelers on the corner of Nassau and Witherspoon showed 4 p.m. on the dot. Students were walking along the streets, and the feeling of normalcy horrified me, as if I were the only person in the entire town who was upset. I couldn’t close my eyes for fear of what I might see. I obsessed over the empty hotel room where we would have met that night. She was dead, yet all the same… sexual desire breaks into life and invades it regardless of the situation. I’d never felt such intensity with anyone else. Was that it? I had lost her. And the hotel room that night? The illuminated mass of the Hyatt in the middle of the empty road.
It was night when I reached home, and the darkness felt like a somber cloth draped over the windows. I turned on the TV. They were auctioning off jewelry; only their hands and the trinkets were visible. People called in over the phone and made offers. At six thirty, the local news started. The screen showed Harrison Street and Ida’s house. A traffic accident caused the death of a distinguished professor… and just at that moment I sensed that someone was knocking on the glass. It was Nina, my Russian neighbor. She didn’t have TV and wanted to know what was going on with that young woman who died. She hadn’t spent much time with Ida but did know her. We watched the national news for a while. The reconstruction was more extensive there, and they were discussing the unknown elements of the investigation. The police were interrogating Professor Brown’s acquaintances. The preliminary conclusion was that it had been an accident, that the car was leaking gas and a spark had caused an explosion. However, some viewers were drawing a connection between this death and the strange attacks that had taken the lives of several scholars and academics in various parts of the country. The police weren’t ruling out any theory. I turned off the TV and got up to offer Nina a glass of wine.
“The police came to ask me about you. They’re only doing it because they want you to know they’re putting pressure on you. You didn’t kill her, did you, dear?” Nina said, smiling to relieve the tension.
I told her that I had a feeling I was in danger.
“Danger? What kind of danger?”
“If we could define it, there wouldn’t be any danger.”
She started to laugh, and suddenly, as if inspired by her calm and happiness, I told her the truth.
“I had an affair with her in New York, but we kept it secret. And I think the police know about it.”
“Someone saw you together, maybe on the train, and told them about it… They aren’t going to take you prisoner just because you slept with her. Maybe they were monitoring the phones, it wouldn’t have been difficult for them to trace your calls. The cops know everything about everyone, and they want you to know that they know everything.” She started to laugh animatedly. She was used to the strange reasoning that the police might use to explain away things that no one understood. She was born in Moscow in 1920 and left Russia at the end of 1938, shortly before her father was arrested. Because he was a great admirer of Asian art, he’d been sent by Stalin to a concentration camp, accused of being a spy for Japan.
Nina thought it might have been an attack that was made to seem like an accident. The KGB killed exiles and dissidents living abroad but fixed it so they would look like accidents. But who would want to kill her? At the Institute of Experimental Studies, a few different accounts about a series of assassinations
