“It looks as if someone was here looking for your heroin stash.”
“I’m just messy. Sorry.”
“No you’re not. You’re not sorry at al .”
“I am. I wish I were neater. I try, but somehow I can never manage it.”
“Dana, do you want me to ask our cleaning woman to pay you a visit? Mercedes, she’s real y good.”
“Okay. We had someone when Daniel was here, but I let her go after he vanished because I was broke for a while. Then I started making money, but I never rehired her. It isn’t dusty, at least.”
“How can you possibly tel ?” Rafi laughed.
He began inspecting the flat, like a cat snif ing a new place.
He started with the living room, then moved to the kitchen, stared at the wal painting of the two train windows.
“Who did this?”
“Someone from Daniel’s firm—I never met her, she did it while I was at work.”
He kept staring at the painting. “The let ers of his name are hidden everywhere,” he said.
“Whose name?”
“Daniel’s.”
“Real y?”
“Yes, look. The legs of the cows, and here, on the barn door, and al over the window curtains. And the grass.”
“I never noticed! And neither did Daniel …maybe she had a crush on him.”
“That would explain al the lit le hearts.”
“Hearts? Where?”
“Here, among the flowers.”
“Maybe that’s just the way she paints flowers.”
“This flower is broken,” Rafi said. “That must be her broken heart.”
“You might be reading too much into this. But I guess it’s possible. Lots of women liked Daniel, I think. Funny that we never noticed!”
“At least you didn’t.”
“At least you didn’t.”
“Daniel didn’t either.”
Rafi didn’t say anything. Instead, he moved to the next stop on his inspection tour, the bedroom.
“I spend most of my time here,” I said. “We used to watch television in the living room but now I watch in bed.”
“Don’t you find it claustrophobic, al these leaves?”
“I guess it’s get ing a bit out of hand, but they’re al tangled up, I don’t know what to do.”
“Just take a scissors and snip some of the stalks. They can be replanted, if they’re put in water rst. I’m sure you’d nd takers … What’s this?” he asked, noticing my dream notebook with its conspicuous Madonna and the Fish cover.
“I write down my dreams. I like to remember them.”
“Even the bad ones?”
“I rarely have bad dreams.”
“That’s unusual.”
“Or maybe I don’t think of them as bad dreams because they interest me. What’s the story with you and Graciela?” I asked. “Are you fighting?”
“No, what made you think that?”
“You didn’t speak to each other.”
“We don’t speak much.”
“Why?”
“Graciela isn’t talkative.”
“That’s a stupid answer.”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“You must talk sometimes. You told her about me.”
“No, she saw you before the demonstration, when she dropped me o at the park. And she recognized you, she
