unsettling immediacy), of ravaged graves. Locks dangled by a screw, or were missing completely. He passed along them, stopping to look at one or another defaced nameplate, bearing the remains of
On the top row, three from the end, a single box had either been repaired, or never prised:
He came out from the other side of the wall, hurried across the lobby.
One elevator door was half-open on an empty shaft, from which drifted hissing wind. The door was coated to look like wood, but a dent at knee level showed it was black metal. While he squatted, fingering the edge of the depression, something clicked: a second elevator door beside him rolled open.
He stood up, stepped back.
There were no lights in the other car.
Then the door on the empty shaft, as if in sympathy, also finished opening.
Holding his breath and his notebook tight, he stepped into the car.
'17' lit his fingertip orange. The door closed. The number was the only light. He rose. He wasn't exactly afraid; all emotion was in super solution. But anything, he understood over his shallow breath, might set it in fantastic shapes.
'17' went out: the door opened on dimness.
At one end of the beige hall, an apartment door stood wide; grey light smoked through. At the other, in the ceiling-globe, at least one bulb worked.
He passed 17-B, 17-C, 17-D, nearing the globe.
After the third ring, (and practically a minute between) he decided to leave: And walk down the steps, because the pitch dark elevator was too spooky.
'Hello…? Who is it…?'
'Madame — Mrs Brown sent me.'
'Oh.' Things rattled. The door rasped on two inches of chain. A woman perhaps just shy of fifty, with shadowed hair and pale eyes, looked at him above the links. 'You're the young man she said she'd send to help?'
'Yeah.'
'Oh,' she repeated. 'Oh,' closed the door and opened it again without the chain. 'Oh.'
He stepped in on green carpet. She stepped back to look at him; he began to feel uncomfortable, and dirty, and nervous.
'Edna told you what we wanted?'
'Cleaning,' he said. 'You've got some junk to move?'
'And moving—'
Two thuds, and two men's loud laughing was joined by a woman's.
They both looked down at the Acrolan.
'— to an apartment higher up in the building,' she said. 'The floors, the walls of these buildings are so thin.
Everything goes through. Everything.' When she looked up, he thought: Why is she so uncomfortable… am I making her uncomfortable? She said, 'We want you to help clear out the place upstairs. It's on the nineteenth floor, at the other end of the hall. It has a balcony. We thought that would be nice. We don't have a balcony in this apartment.'
'Hey, Momma, is—'
He recognized her when she was half into the hall.
'Yes, June?'
'Oh…' which wasn't recognition, though she held the wall and blinked at him. Her yellow hair swung to hit her shoulders. She frowned by the green wall, just paler than the carpet. 'Is Bobby here?'
'I sent him down for some bread.'
'Oh,' again, and into her room.
'I'm,' pausing till he looked back at her, 'Mrs Richards. My husband, Arthur, will be here very soon now. But come in, and I'll explain just what we want done.'
The living room was all picture windows. Beyond half-raised Venetian blinds, a hill of patchy grass rolled between several brick high-rises.
'Why don't you sit—' her finger fell from her chin to point—'there.'
'I didn't get a chance to wash too well, this morning, and I'm pretty messy,' then realized that was just the reason she'd picked that particular chair. 'No thanks.'
'You're living…?'
'In the park.'
'Sit down,' she said. 'Please. Please sit down.'
He sat, and tried not to pull his bare foot behind his sandal.
She balanced at the edge of the L-shaped couch. '19-A where we want to move is, well frankly, a mess. The apartment itself is in good condition, the walls, the windows — so many windows got broken. We wrote to Management. But I wouldn't be surprised if they've lost the letter. Everything's so inefficient. So many people have left.'
A rattling, with thumps, moved outside in the hall: Then, someone punched the door!
While he tried to fix his surprise, tattered whispers outside raveled with laughter.
Mrs Richards sat straight, eyes closed, small knuckles against her stomach, her other hand mashing the couch. The loose flesh between the ligaments over her collar pulsed either with slow heart beats or quick breathing.
'Ma'am…?'
She swallowed, stood up.
They punched again: he could see the chain shake.
'Go away!' Her hands were claws now. 'Go away! I said go away!'
Footsteps — three or four pair, one, high heels — chattered to echo.
'Mother…?' June rushed in.
Mrs Richards opened her eyes, her mouth, and took a breath. 'They've done that—' turning to him—'twice today. Twice. They only did it once yesterday.'
June kept raising her knuckle to her mouth. Behind her the wall was covered with rough green paper, shelves of plants in brass pots, unwaterably high.
'We're going to move into another apartment.' Mrs Richards took another breath and sat. 'We wrote to Management. We haven't got an answer, but we're going to anyway.'
He put his notebook on the table beside the chair and looked at the door. 'Who are they?'
'I don't know. I don't know; I don't care. But they're about—' she paused to pull herself together—'about to drive me mad. I think they're… children. They've gotten into the apartment downstairs. So many people have left. We're going to move upstairs.'
June kept looking over her shoulder. Her mother said: 'It must be very difficult for you, living in the park.'
He nodded.
'You've known Mrs Brown a while? It's nice of her to send somebody to help. She goes out, meets people. Myself, I just don't feel safe walking around the city.'
'Mother hardly ever goes out,' June said, very fast, yet still with the hesitancy he remembered from last night.
'It isn't safe, and I don't see any reason for a woman to take that sort of chance. Perhaps if I were someone else I wouldn't feel that way.' She smiled. Her hair was salted brown, recently and simply done. 'How long can you work?'
'As long as you want, I guess.'
'I mean how many hours? Today?'
'The rest of the day, if you want. It's pretty late now. But I'll come earlier tomorrow.'
